I've got a love/hate relationship with "angry" romantic comedies, and I'm betting some of you do to. Am I right?
Here's what I'm talking about: I love when a movie embraces a bitter, cynical or even at least "slapstick" take on the subject of all things romantic. What I hate is that, in such movies, you know that the fun will only be short-lived. No rom-com wants to be angry all the way through, so enjoyment of such fare is always bittersweet; you know going in that by the 3rd act all the fun will be over and the film will quickly turn into a "love conquers all" indictment of it's own premise. It happened to "Wedding Crashers," it happened to the lesser Farelly Brothers movies, and it happens to "Just Friends."
The premise is killer: Ryan Reynolds (who seems made for the part) is Chris Brander, who back in 1995 lived the nightmare life of a chubby nerd who was the best friend of the hottest girl in High School. Years of watching her ignore him sexually in favor of a succession of dumb jocks drove him to the point of insanity, and when his graduation night attempt to confess his love went about as disasterously wrong as it could have he fled town and never looked back.
Ten years later, Chris has transformed himself into a super-rich, super-handsome LA music exec who's through the model/singer/actress population with a womanizing cruelty which we're to understand as vengeance on the entire female species for what best-friend Jamie did (or rather didn't do) to him in High School. Assigned to escort mentally-unstable pop princess Samantha (Anna Faris) to Paris, the pair find themselves unexpectedly stranded in Chris' old hometown, where a renunion with Jamie sets his gears spinning: He'll coldly seduce her just to prove that he can, and for final vindication he'll do it as a "jerk" just like all the guys she originally overlooked him for.
So you see, immediately we know where this is going: Chris will try and hillariously fail, over and over, to implement his evil scheme. It'll be fun following the exploits of this despicable (but not wholly without justification) cad, right up until the 3rd act when he'll discover he really does still love Jamie and that he has to do the right thing. We know, by instinct, that even if the film did have the requisite cojones to have Chris "win," riding triumphant back to LA singing a sonet to the fallacy of romance with Samantha as his prize and the ruins of New Jersey in his rear-view mirror, that most wouldn't want it to.
But oh well, it's fun while it lasts. Reynolds remains a gifted comic leading man in search of a great role, and he turns whats really a pretty shallow script into something workable and frequently hillarious. I'm inclined to sympahtize with Chris to begin with, (long story) sure, but Reynolds timing and sharp wit is what makes this character worth following around for most of a movie.
Amy Smart is slightly less enthralling as Jamie, only partially because the film doesn't give her much of a role to work with. The audience never quite falls as hard for her as Chris does, and thats a problem.
Running away with the movie and securing her reign as current Hollywood's sexiest comedy dynamo is Anna Faris. Samantha exists as the probable offspring of the frequently-dreamt-of-by-me coupling of Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilera, and she's the funniest thing in the movie at any given time that she's in the movie. Faris is making a name for herself by being hysterical, which is impressive considering she's good-looking enough to have made a name with much less effort.
It's too bad that it doesn't last, but the plain fact is that "Just Friends" stops working the moment Chris decides he needs to change his evil ways. Reynolds plays the role so well as an understandably-tweaked self-made-man on a mission that the audience isn't given enough reason to support his change of heart. It's as though the movie wants to follow all the way through to the cynical end but lacks the will to go for it, and just half-asses a "hooray for people!" ending instead.
But while it lasts, it's funny. It's not enough, but thats what it is.
FINAL RATING: 6/10
Sunday, 27 November 2005
Thursday, 24 November 2005
Tuesday, 22 November 2005
Mel Gibson battles the Religious "Right." No, seriously.
My feelings on the subject of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ" have been pretty well stated in the past, so let's not dwell on them. Straight to the point: Mad Mel and his Jesus movie are back in the news, and back stirring up the so-called "religious right." But this time it's different.
Here's the deal: There's this nutball in Utah named Ray Lines. Ray Lines operates an outfit called "Cleanflicks." Here's their website:
http://www.cleanflicks.com/
Basically, "Cleanflicks" creates unauthorized "christian family-friendly" edits of popular movies and sells/rents them to people. As you may expect, Mr. Lines sees himself as an activist on behalf of God fearing American families. As you may also expect, the people who own the copyrights on the films he's editing are unhappy with him. In fact, the DGA has been suing him for three years.
Here's why it's hard to shut this guy down: While he's technically violating copyright law, he's not actually making any money doing this because he purchases a copy for every copy he edits. U.S. laws protecting the right of artists to control how their work is presented to the public are vastly less rigid than elsewhere in the world, which means that Cleanflicks can use this gray-area loophole to render prosecution murky... so far.
It hasn't helped matters that the DGA is constrained by a (comparitively) limited amount of member-contributed funds and by the edict to keep things like this quiet and low-key. Litigating a philosophical and political opponent into submission over legal nuance can make you look like a bully, even when you're in the right like the DGA certainly is. THIS, in other words, is a job for another sort of plaintiff. Y'know, like an obsessive self-financed millionaire/maverick/nut-bunny/zealot. One of those would do GREAT...
...enter you-know-who.
Mel's "Passion," you might recall, is a pretty damn violent movie. The christian-right critics, you might recall, put their usual disdain for Hollywood bloodletting on hold for the film because they valued it's potential as a recruiting vehicle. Gibson, you might recall, made some pretty friendly gestures in their direction, and they in his.
And then Ray Lines and Cleanflicks performed one of the dissections on "Passion." And Mel Gibson found out. And he wasn't happy. How unhappy?
http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_321191056.html
He's SUING THEM. To make them stop cutting his movie and infringing on his copyright. And if he's successful, it's judgement-day for Cleanflicks. Remember: If Mel stops Cleanflicks from cutting HIS movie, anyone else can run with the same suit from the same angle, it's called precedent.
I have three things to say about this.
1.) My review of "Passion" still stands. I still find it to be anti-semetic, homoerotic torture porn, and not a well made equivalent thereof to boot. I also still find Gibson to be getting progressively creepier. BUT he's still otherwise a good filmmaker and actor who's made a number of movies I've liked, and in this issue he's RIGHT.
2.) The one thing you can say about Gibson and Ray Lines is that both are, at least, men of their word. Unlike the other religious critics, Lines isn't flipping on "Passion" just because it's a Jesus movie, he's treating it with the same rusty chainsaw he treats every other film with. And Gibson isn't going soft on Cleanflicks just because they share lots of buddies in the christian extremist camp.
3.) This begs the question: Who will Brent Bozell, James Dobson, etc. support? They can't be on both sides of this, their going to have to pick one or the other. Do they back up the filmmaker who made the Jesus movie they adored, or the film editor who takes the knife to the GOOD movies they hated? So far they aren't talking.
THIS will be one to watch.
Here's the deal: There's this nutball in Utah named Ray Lines. Ray Lines operates an outfit called "Cleanflicks." Here's their website:
http://www.cleanflicks.com/
Basically, "Cleanflicks" creates unauthorized "christian family-friendly" edits of popular movies and sells/rents them to people. As you may expect, Mr. Lines sees himself as an activist on behalf of God fearing American families. As you may also expect, the people who own the copyrights on the films he's editing are unhappy with him. In fact, the DGA has been suing him for three years.
Here's why it's hard to shut this guy down: While he's technically violating copyright law, he's not actually making any money doing this because he purchases a copy for every copy he edits. U.S. laws protecting the right of artists to control how their work is presented to the public are vastly less rigid than elsewhere in the world, which means that Cleanflicks can use this gray-area loophole to render prosecution murky... so far.
It hasn't helped matters that the DGA is constrained by a (comparitively) limited amount of member-contributed funds and by the edict to keep things like this quiet and low-key. Litigating a philosophical and political opponent into submission over legal nuance can make you look like a bully, even when you're in the right like the DGA certainly is. THIS, in other words, is a job for another sort of plaintiff. Y'know, like an obsessive self-financed millionaire/maverick/nut-bunny/zealot. One of those would do GREAT...
...enter you-know-who.
Mel's "Passion," you might recall, is a pretty damn violent movie. The christian-right critics, you might recall, put their usual disdain for Hollywood bloodletting on hold for the film because they valued it's potential as a recruiting vehicle. Gibson, you might recall, made some pretty friendly gestures in their direction, and they in his.
And then Ray Lines and Cleanflicks performed one of the dissections on "Passion." And Mel Gibson found out. And he wasn't happy. How unhappy?
http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_321191056.html
He's SUING THEM. To make them stop cutting his movie and infringing on his copyright. And if he's successful, it's judgement-day for Cleanflicks. Remember: If Mel stops Cleanflicks from cutting HIS movie, anyone else can run with the same suit from the same angle, it's called precedent.
I have three things to say about this.
1.) My review of "Passion" still stands. I still find it to be anti-semetic, homoerotic torture porn, and not a well made equivalent thereof to boot. I also still find Gibson to be getting progressively creepier. BUT he's still otherwise a good filmmaker and actor who's made a number of movies I've liked, and in this issue he's RIGHT.
2.) The one thing you can say about Gibson and Ray Lines is that both are, at least, men of their word. Unlike the other religious critics, Lines isn't flipping on "Passion" just because it's a Jesus movie, he's treating it with the same rusty chainsaw he treats every other film with. And Gibson isn't going soft on Cleanflicks just because they share lots of buddies in the christian extremist camp.
3.) This begs the question: Who will Brent Bozell, James Dobson, etc. support? They can't be on both sides of this, their going to have to pick one or the other. Do they back up the filmmaker who made the Jesus movie they adored, or the film editor who takes the knife to the GOOD movies they hated? So far they aren't talking.
THIS will be one to watch.
Monday, 21 November 2005
REVIEW: Walk The Line
Somewhere out there, in the annals of recent musical history, there has to be a megastar singer with a different life story than this. Someone who's music is just as legendary as Johnny Cash, who's circumstances were just as unusual as Ray Charles... and yet who's life didn't follow this same rigid, mythic arc of "rotten childhood, meteoric rise, drug-addiction, rescue-by-love-of-one-true-love." The question is, do we really WANT to hear it?
What I mean is, isn't the reason we keep telling THIS true story, over and over with new real-life people, that it's the story we WANT to hear? It's reassuring, I think, to hear that those posessed of a creative genius that most of us could only dream of having will have to suffer psychologically in order to maintain it... that true love and family are ultimately more worthy and fulfilling than the artistic fulfillment they had sought before. Isn't this the same appeal that celebrity-glamour-stripping reality TV has? Isn't this what Ayn Rand was talking about... the instinctive need for the average-and-below masses to see their above average "superiors" (of intellect, of art, of athletics, of whatever...) dragged down to their level rather than working to make themselves among the superior?
Or it could also be that the story keeps working. It worked in "Ray" and it certainly works here. In telling the story of Johnny Cash's rise, fall and rise, "Walk The Line" does more or less play as "The Redneck 'Ray", but that doesn't make it an unworthy movie.
As I said above, the story you already know: Johnny Cash (Joaquin Pheonix) grows up dirt-poor with a hard-drinkin' daddy and a superhumanly loving mama. He's got a beloved brother who's early death haunts and traumatizes him, just like Elvis and Ray. He forges a new sound in the early days of rock, meets his childhood dream girl in June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), wrecks his own marriage, pushes too far, gets into drugs, falls all the way down and then gets dragged back to life. In between this, he performs famous songs and meets famous people, (Elvis, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and others pop up in cameo) and the movie-proper caps off with Cash's famous live performance at Folsom prison.
Yes, originality was Cash's strong suit... not so much so this movie's. The actors are in charge of carrying it, and they prove up to the task. Pheonix and Witherspoon strike a proper chemistry, and that they do their own singing is an impressive feat. Their turns are the kind that tend to (and should, really) dominate the film, but they get backup in a big way from Robert Patrick as Cash's dissaproving father.
In a way, Patrick's performance grounds the film in a kind of greater reality than it would otherwise have. The dad-who-doesn't-understand is a mandatory trope of the rise-of-a-genius movie, but "Walk" takes a different approach than normal: It's important that, while Cash's father is indeed abusive, he's not evil and also not without a certain perspective. His biting, laconic critiques of his son are harsh-as-intended, but he's seldom actually "wrong." Late in the film, when he returns one of Johnny's assaults on his drinking days, he rightly points out that he gave alcohol up while Johnny is still a drug addict. By the end, it can be inferred that the two men have come to undestand eachother, instead of the expected "you were right, son."
It helps to be a fan of Cash's music to get into the film full-bore, but beyond that it works as more than just another rock biopic. I'm reccomeding it.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
What I mean is, isn't the reason we keep telling THIS true story, over and over with new real-life people, that it's the story we WANT to hear? It's reassuring, I think, to hear that those posessed of a creative genius that most of us could only dream of having will have to suffer psychologically in order to maintain it... that true love and family are ultimately more worthy and fulfilling than the artistic fulfillment they had sought before. Isn't this the same appeal that celebrity-glamour-stripping reality TV has? Isn't this what Ayn Rand was talking about... the instinctive need for the average-and-below masses to see their above average "superiors" (of intellect, of art, of athletics, of whatever...) dragged down to their level rather than working to make themselves among the superior?
Or it could also be that the story keeps working. It worked in "Ray" and it certainly works here. In telling the story of Johnny Cash's rise, fall and rise, "Walk The Line" does more or less play as "The Redneck 'Ray", but that doesn't make it an unworthy movie.
As I said above, the story you already know: Johnny Cash (Joaquin Pheonix) grows up dirt-poor with a hard-drinkin' daddy and a superhumanly loving mama. He's got a beloved brother who's early death haunts and traumatizes him, just like Elvis and Ray. He forges a new sound in the early days of rock, meets his childhood dream girl in June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), wrecks his own marriage, pushes too far, gets into drugs, falls all the way down and then gets dragged back to life. In between this, he performs famous songs and meets famous people, (Elvis, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and others pop up in cameo) and the movie-proper caps off with Cash's famous live performance at Folsom prison.
Yes, originality was Cash's strong suit... not so much so this movie's. The actors are in charge of carrying it, and they prove up to the task. Pheonix and Witherspoon strike a proper chemistry, and that they do their own singing is an impressive feat. Their turns are the kind that tend to (and should, really) dominate the film, but they get backup in a big way from Robert Patrick as Cash's dissaproving father.
In a way, Patrick's performance grounds the film in a kind of greater reality than it would otherwise have. The dad-who-doesn't-understand is a mandatory trope of the rise-of-a-genius movie, but "Walk" takes a different approach than normal: It's important that, while Cash's father is indeed abusive, he's not evil and also not without a certain perspective. His biting, laconic critiques of his son are harsh-as-intended, but he's seldom actually "wrong." Late in the film, when he returns one of Johnny's assaults on his drinking days, he rightly points out that he gave alcohol up while Johnny is still a drug addict. By the end, it can be inferred that the two men have come to undestand eachother, instead of the expected "you were right, son."
It helps to be a fan of Cash's music to get into the film full-bore, but beyond that it works as more than just another rock biopic. I'm reccomeding it.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
Friday, 18 November 2005
REVIEW: Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire
I like the "Harry Potter" movies.
I liked this "Harry Potter" movie.
But I need to be a pill for just a minute and pose a bit of a geek-question about the whole thing, okay? Okay...
Thus far, every "Potter" film has broken down as follows: Harry comes to Hogwarts amid some kind of brewing unseemliness. The adult cast is fully aware that said unseemliness has everything to do with him, but allows him to blunder through it on his own anyway. Eventually, mysteries are solved, re-emerging peices of the evil entity to which Harry owes his fame are revealed, and Harry learns a new scrap of his own backstory... which apparently the entire adult cast is fully aware of but remains a traumatizing mystery to him.
So here's my question: After four years of this now, is it too much to ask for someone at Hogwarts to sit this poor kid down and just tell him everything and everyone he might need to know about in regards to Voldemort, his parents and everything else? So that maybe he DOESN'T have to nearly get himself killed the next time some new face with important connections to him shows up and starts to stir things up? Or at least let him Lexis-Nexis search "voldemort" on the crystal ball? Just asking.
But whatever. Here we go again, having now reached the midpoint of what's beginning to feel like the theatrical equivalent of a comfortably-entrenched TV show. This year's A-plot: Hogwarts is playing host to the Triwizard Tournament, a spellcasting olympics, and Harry finds himself drafted without having signed up to play. This year's B-plot: The kids are growing up, Harry's stealing glances at girls, Hermoine is suddenly intimidating her male pals in an entirely new way and Ron Weasley is becoming aware of how Jimmy Olsen must feel. This year's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson,) a half-bionic, half-mad hardcase. This year's continuation of the Big Arc: Voldemort is back in flesh-and-blood, played by Ralph Feinnes and looking like a "Close Encounters" alien in a black robe.
Dropped in among the usual action scenes, wacky background magic and spellcasting is a bulky middle third that mines to amusing effect the juxtaposition of Hogwart's fantasy realm with the teenaged romance themes of John Hughes-style comedies. Racing dragons and fighting Voldemort is easy... compared to asking a girl to the dance! Har har har. You can see where this is all going, which is part of the point of doing these gags, but they work because the cast sells it and, yes, after four films worth of character building the series has earned the right to go to the "it's cut because so-and-so is dancing with such-and-such" well.
With so much attention on teen angst this go-around, the series' reliable cast of British character-acting giants gets largely pushed to the margins, but they're still having their fun: Gary Oldman's Sirius Black gets only a cameo, but in circumstances that render it singularly odd even among Gary Oldman cameos. And Alan Rickman's Professor Snape, previously best used for acid-tongued rebuking of the younger cast, has less to say but stars in a standout scene of physical comedy.
The bottom line is, the series still works, and it may even still be getting better. You like "Harry Potter," you're going to like this.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
I liked this "Harry Potter" movie.
But I need to be a pill for just a minute and pose a bit of a geek-question about the whole thing, okay? Okay...
Thus far, every "Potter" film has broken down as follows: Harry comes to Hogwarts amid some kind of brewing unseemliness. The adult cast is fully aware that said unseemliness has everything to do with him, but allows him to blunder through it on his own anyway. Eventually, mysteries are solved, re-emerging peices of the evil entity to which Harry owes his fame are revealed, and Harry learns a new scrap of his own backstory... which apparently the entire adult cast is fully aware of but remains a traumatizing mystery to him.
So here's my question: After four years of this now, is it too much to ask for someone at Hogwarts to sit this poor kid down and just tell him everything and everyone he might need to know about in regards to Voldemort, his parents and everything else? So that maybe he DOESN'T have to nearly get himself killed the next time some new face with important connections to him shows up and starts to stir things up? Or at least let him Lexis-Nexis search "voldemort" on the crystal ball? Just asking.
But whatever. Here we go again, having now reached the midpoint of what's beginning to feel like the theatrical equivalent of a comfortably-entrenched TV show. This year's A-plot: Hogwarts is playing host to the Triwizard Tournament, a spellcasting olympics, and Harry finds himself drafted without having signed up to play. This year's B-plot: The kids are growing up, Harry's stealing glances at girls, Hermoine is suddenly intimidating her male pals in an entirely new way and Ron Weasley is becoming aware of how Jimmy Olsen must feel. This year's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson,) a half-bionic, half-mad hardcase. This year's continuation of the Big Arc: Voldemort is back in flesh-and-blood, played by Ralph Feinnes and looking like a "Close Encounters" alien in a black robe.
Dropped in among the usual action scenes, wacky background magic and spellcasting is a bulky middle third that mines to amusing effect the juxtaposition of Hogwart's fantasy realm with the teenaged romance themes of John Hughes-style comedies. Racing dragons and fighting Voldemort is easy... compared to asking a girl to the dance! Har har har. You can see where this is all going, which is part of the point of doing these gags, but they work because the cast sells it and, yes, after four films worth of character building the series has earned the right to go to the "it's cut because so-and-so is dancing with such-and-such" well.
With so much attention on teen angst this go-around, the series' reliable cast of British character-acting giants gets largely pushed to the margins, but they're still having their fun: Gary Oldman's Sirius Black gets only a cameo, but in circumstances that render it singularly odd even among Gary Oldman cameos. And Alan Rickman's Professor Snape, previously best used for acid-tongued rebuking of the younger cast, has less to say but stars in a standout scene of physical comedy.
The bottom line is, the series still works, and it may even still be getting better. You like "Harry Potter," you're going to like this.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
Wednesday, 16 November 2005
REVIEW: Zathura
This past weekend, Americans (that would be most of you, though Sitemeter helpfully informs me that a good deal of my visitors are from Europe and Asia, nifty!) largely overlooked to mega-hyped 50 Cent epic "Get Rich or Die Tryin", allowing it to open pathetically in 4th place. An explanation has not been found for this, but from where I sit it suggests a dangerous dip in our national surplus of suburban white teens looking to tee off mom and dad. Making a surprising STRONG showing, despite a (relatively) smaller advertising campaign, was "Zathura," a vibrantly clever and joyfully geeked-out family/scifi adventure.
Well done, guys.
"Zathura" has been touted as a followup (more like thematic cousin, really) to "Jumanji," a functional but unremarkable FX showcase starring Robin Williams you might remember from a few years back. Both were based on Chris Van Allsburg books, and they share the same basic setup: Children discover an enchanted (cursed?) board game which, when played, causes it's "imaginary" perils to manifest into reality. "Jumanji," you'll recall, conjured up the animal-and-otherwise threats of a 30s-style jungle adventure serial; while "Zathura" throws it's players into a circa-1950s pulp-scifi space quest. "Zathura" is the superior film.
The heroes here are a pair of kids, one older, bitter and sports-obsessed; the other younger, energetic and imaginative. They don't get along in the usual fightin-brothers way, and the older boy can just barely conceal the fact that he blames everything wrong with his life on the existence of his brother... including the divorce of their parents. Home alone save for a snoozing older sister, the littler bro finds "Zathura" and harraunges big bro into a game. Apparently too young to have seen "Jumanji," both are surprised when the house blasts off for deep space and they are assaulted by meteors, black holes, robots and, yes, a race of man-eating alien lizards. There's also a rescued astronaut and some ultra Star Trek-ish business about "time sphincters."
I live for this stuff.
The film just works, nose-to-toes, as a series of good decisions adding up to a whole: The WHOLE story plays out from the perspective (and usually the eye-level as well) of it's young leads, capable actors who REALLY seem to be the age they're playing. There's no winking pop-cultural nods, no inside jokes or "older" humor dropped in for the grownups. The FX, while up to snuff, are used to achieve a gorgeously archaic representation of "the future" as imagined pre-NASA. The bad guys, including the killer robot and space-pirate reptilian "Zorgons," are GREAT looking monsters and come off as a real menace... especially for a pair of kids.
It doesn't FORCE it's message of brotherly love, in fact it doesn't force much of anything at all. It just goes about it's way at the leisurely-rapid pace of a Disneyland roller coaster, supremely confident in the knowledge that as long as there are little boys there will always be a need for slimey aliens, jet-packs and deadly (but not TOO deadly) meteor showers.
There can now be very little doubt that Jon Favreau is the real deal as a director. He's currently getting a good going-over under the geek culture microscope as the latest would-be director of the Mars-based "John Carter" adaptation, a job which "Zathura" seems to emminently qualify him for.
Get out there, see this movie and take the kids.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
Well done, guys.
"Zathura" has been touted as a followup (more like thematic cousin, really) to "Jumanji," a functional but unremarkable FX showcase starring Robin Williams you might remember from a few years back. Both were based on Chris Van Allsburg books, and they share the same basic setup: Children discover an enchanted (cursed?) board game which, when played, causes it's "imaginary" perils to manifest into reality. "Jumanji," you'll recall, conjured up the animal-and-otherwise threats of a 30s-style jungle adventure serial; while "Zathura" throws it's players into a circa-1950s pulp-scifi space quest. "Zathura" is the superior film.
The heroes here are a pair of kids, one older, bitter and sports-obsessed; the other younger, energetic and imaginative. They don't get along in the usual fightin-brothers way, and the older boy can just barely conceal the fact that he blames everything wrong with his life on the existence of his brother... including the divorce of their parents. Home alone save for a snoozing older sister, the littler bro finds "Zathura" and harraunges big bro into a game. Apparently too young to have seen "Jumanji," both are surprised when the house blasts off for deep space and they are assaulted by meteors, black holes, robots and, yes, a race of man-eating alien lizards. There's also a rescued astronaut and some ultra Star Trek-ish business about "time sphincters."
I live for this stuff.
The film just works, nose-to-toes, as a series of good decisions adding up to a whole: The WHOLE story plays out from the perspective (and usually the eye-level as well) of it's young leads, capable actors who REALLY seem to be the age they're playing. There's no winking pop-cultural nods, no inside jokes or "older" humor dropped in for the grownups. The FX, while up to snuff, are used to achieve a gorgeously archaic representation of "the future" as imagined pre-NASA. The bad guys, including the killer robot and space-pirate reptilian "Zorgons," are GREAT looking monsters and come off as a real menace... especially for a pair of kids.
It doesn't FORCE it's message of brotherly love, in fact it doesn't force much of anything at all. It just goes about it's way at the leisurely-rapid pace of a Disneyland roller coaster, supremely confident in the knowledge that as long as there are little boys there will always be a need for slimey aliens, jet-packs and deadly (but not TOO deadly) meteor showers.
There can now be very little doubt that Jon Favreau is the real deal as a director. He's currently getting a good going-over under the geek culture microscope as the latest would-be director of the Mars-based "John Carter" adaptation, a job which "Zathura" seems to emminently qualify him for.
Get out there, see this movie and take the kids.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
Monday, 14 November 2005
REVIEW: Chicken Little (2005)
The most interesting thing about "Chicken Little" are the circumstances of it's release and inception. When an animated children's film not only features a full-scale alien invasion, a baseball game and the inspired vocal-casting of Don Knotts as a turkey politician, that the Variety B-stories about the dealmaking of it's producers are of greater interest is a sign of serious malfunction.
In any case, the backstory here has been the how and the why of this property's journey from odd, jokey little project to Disney's megahyped and ballyhooed attempt to "prove" their ability to survive if and when the Pixar animation company strikes out on it's own. Now that the film can be seen, the results are indeed of some intrigue: Disney's solution to the problem of "how do we equal Pixar?" turns out to be... "we don't. Instead, we aim a little lower and just try to be "Shrek."
Honestly, aping Dreamworks Animation's VH1-ready cash-cow is more the Mouse House's speed at this point. The richness of story and character that Pixar is fueled by is an abstract, whereas "name-actor voicecast, top-40 pop tunes, winking jokes for the grownups" is something they can quantify numerically. Trouble is, for all their little irritations (reality TV humor, Ricky Martin tracks, etc.) the "Shrek" cycle so far has had a real humanity and sense of depth to it and Disney's films, for years now, have not. "Chicken Little" is no exception.
Storywise, the film is an almost surgically-precise gutting and reversing of the fable for which it's named. You'll recall that the story of Chicken Little involves a titular character who whips his animal friends into a frenzy in the belief that "the sky is falling," which leads to disaster. The moral is one of temperance and reason, a warning to it's young audience to be both wary of overreager doomsayers and careful not to become one themselves. There's not much room in there, of course, for Disney's mandatory slapstick and PC message-mongering, of course, so it had to go...
The movie's story goes like this: Chicken Little turns his town of Oakey Oaks upside down with his emergency warning that the sky is falling, but when no evidence is found to support him he becomes a ridiculed outcast. The hook (initially not a bad one at that) is that CL might be able to deal with this status, as we're told he was among the "nerd" set at school to begin with, but the fact that his father Buck Cluck did not rise in his support has crippled the poor kid's confidence and filled him with zeal to win back his father's affection. Complicating matters is that CL's mother has recently passed away, and the two men have been unable to fill the emotional gap a wife and mother's absence has left them. CL's pal Abby "Ugly Duckling" Mallard, a devotee of pop-psychobabble, "knows" that all will be solved if Buck and CL just open up to one another but... y'know, their men.
"You need to get closure" is hardly a quest to hang a movie on, granted, but this is at least character-oriented storytelling, so it'll do for a start. CL opts for the quick-fix of impressing his father, a former baseball champ, by joining the team himself. This works, in that it gets the two men talking... about baseball, yes, but at least talking. But then... another peice of the sky falls, and it looks like it's got friends. Thus begins a "surprise third act twist" thats been spoiled for you by all the trailers: The sky is falling, and it's the precursor to an alien invasion. Would this, I wonder, be the sort of circumstances that could... oh, I dunno... finally get CL and Buck to get "closure?" Cuz that would be sumthin'...
It's not a full loss. Some of the comedy works, and CL's troupe of friends in Abby, Runt and Fish-Out-Of-Water (read: geeky girl, fat kid, foreign kid, get it?) have their moments and theres cute touches going on in the art design (Buck and CL live in a two-story house... with a chicken-wire fence and sheet-metal roof) but theres not much to hold your interest. The gags aren't THAT funny, the character aren't very fleshed out... all the usual Disney issues of late. I wound up concentrating on the little things, like the novelty of the film's nominal non-alien baddie, a bully named Foxy Loxy, being a girl; or the sweet-natured evolution of Abby's romantic designs on CL (which he is, of course, oblivious to... or is he?)
But taken as a whole, it doesn't add up. This is a collection is sketches, vignettes and half-formed ideas, not a movie.
FINAL RATING: 4/10
In any case, the backstory here has been the how and the why of this property's journey from odd, jokey little project to Disney's megahyped and ballyhooed attempt to "prove" their ability to survive if and when the Pixar animation company strikes out on it's own. Now that the film can be seen, the results are indeed of some intrigue: Disney's solution to the problem of "how do we equal Pixar?" turns out to be... "we don't. Instead, we aim a little lower and just try to be "Shrek."
Honestly, aping Dreamworks Animation's VH1-ready cash-cow is more the Mouse House's speed at this point. The richness of story and character that Pixar is fueled by is an abstract, whereas "name-actor voicecast, top-40 pop tunes, winking jokes for the grownups" is something they can quantify numerically. Trouble is, for all their little irritations (reality TV humor, Ricky Martin tracks, etc.) the "Shrek" cycle so far has had a real humanity and sense of depth to it and Disney's films, for years now, have not. "Chicken Little" is no exception.
Storywise, the film is an almost surgically-precise gutting and reversing of the fable for which it's named. You'll recall that the story of Chicken Little involves a titular character who whips his animal friends into a frenzy in the belief that "the sky is falling," which leads to disaster. The moral is one of temperance and reason, a warning to it's young audience to be both wary of overreager doomsayers and careful not to become one themselves. There's not much room in there, of course, for Disney's mandatory slapstick and PC message-mongering, of course, so it had to go...
The movie's story goes like this: Chicken Little turns his town of Oakey Oaks upside down with his emergency warning that the sky is falling, but when no evidence is found to support him he becomes a ridiculed outcast. The hook (initially not a bad one at that) is that CL might be able to deal with this status, as we're told he was among the "nerd" set at school to begin with, but the fact that his father Buck Cluck did not rise in his support has crippled the poor kid's confidence and filled him with zeal to win back his father's affection. Complicating matters is that CL's mother has recently passed away, and the two men have been unable to fill the emotional gap a wife and mother's absence has left them. CL's pal Abby "Ugly Duckling" Mallard, a devotee of pop-psychobabble, "knows" that all will be solved if Buck and CL just open up to one another but... y'know, their men.
"You need to get closure" is hardly a quest to hang a movie on, granted, but this is at least character-oriented storytelling, so it'll do for a start. CL opts for the quick-fix of impressing his father, a former baseball champ, by joining the team himself. This works, in that it gets the two men talking... about baseball, yes, but at least talking. But then... another peice of the sky falls, and it looks like it's got friends. Thus begins a "surprise third act twist" thats been spoiled for you by all the trailers: The sky is falling, and it's the precursor to an alien invasion. Would this, I wonder, be the sort of circumstances that could... oh, I dunno... finally get CL and Buck to get "closure?" Cuz that would be sumthin'...
It's not a full loss. Some of the comedy works, and CL's troupe of friends in Abby, Runt and Fish-Out-Of-Water (read: geeky girl, fat kid, foreign kid, get it?) have their moments and theres cute touches going on in the art design (Buck and CL live in a two-story house... with a chicken-wire fence and sheet-metal roof) but theres not much to hold your interest. The gags aren't THAT funny, the character aren't very fleshed out... all the usual Disney issues of late. I wound up concentrating on the little things, like the novelty of the film's nominal non-alien baddie, a bully named Foxy Loxy, being a girl; or the sweet-natured evolution of Abby's romantic designs on CL (which he is, of course, oblivious to... or is he?)
But taken as a whole, it doesn't add up. This is a collection is sketches, vignettes and half-formed ideas, not a movie.
FINAL RATING: 4/10
Thursday, 10 November 2005
Wednesday, 9 November 2005
REVIEW: Get Rich or Die Tryin'
This marks 2005's second big attempt, following "Hustle & Flow," to try and turn the thugs-to-riches creation mythology of gangsta rap into compelling cinema. It fails FAR more spectacularly than "Hustle" did, but for much the same reason: The hip-hop creation mythology is, at this point, played out to the extreme.
The film basically exists as a 2 hour and 14 minute infomercial for the music of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. His fans are known to refer to him as "Fiddy," which is kind of remarkable in that it manages to celebrate idiocy on two levels: The idiocy of refering to a grown man by his teenaged street-thug nickname and the idiocy of intentionally mispronouncing common words in order to "keep it real."
Just for the record here: Yes, I'm a 25 year-old white man. Yes, I was among that generation of suburban white kids who helped make gangsta rap such a phenomenon back in the early 90s during it's brief initial brush with actually feeling like the "poetry of the streets" it can now only pretend to be. Yes, I like hip-hop. I'm NOT, however, a fan of Mr. Cent's work. I've found his vocals flat, the beats derrivative and his lyrics trite... how many times can you hear one man praise himself in verse, honestly?
Mr. Cent appears here as Marcus, who leads a life more or less identical to the outline of the ballyhooed 50 Cent origin story. Sing along if you know the words: His mother was a murdered coke dealer. He became a crack dealer and went to jail. He got out and wanted to rap. He rapped about how much tougher he was than other rappers in his circle. He got shot nine times. He got better. He parlayed "I got shot nine times!" into the ultimate badge of street-cred "real"ness and became a star, despite his act never really improving.
"Fiddy" is, putting it mildly, a terrible actor. He mumbles his lines in monotone, has nothing in the way of facial expression and mainly just glowers at the camera. He has no distinct onscreen personality, and if not for providing the film's narration he would be swallowed up entirely by his own movie.
But the script is a bigger problem. This character (and, apparently by extension, the man playing him) hasn't really learned anything or gone through any great arc. In a way, "Fiddy's" success stands more as the ultimate indictment of the rap genre as largely bankrupt, not as a triumph. But "Fiddy" seems convinced that his story is heroic, and so the film turns out scene after scene where the imagery is ordering us to be awed by this man's journey while I'M stuck wondering why I'm supposed to care.
It's also stuck with some utterly laughable dialogue. At one point, a drug gang kingpin has a hillariously awful speech about violence begetting more violence, not more money. And later, after Marcus complains that his gunshot wounds have changed his voice, his girlfriend sagely intones: "It's better... there's more pain in it." Give me a break already.
The film jumps the shark full-bore for it's final act, in which Marcus "beef" with another rapper escalates into a shooting war among the drug gangs he left behind. Villians are revealed and "twists" we've seen coming fully unfold, and at one point (I kid you not) we see a scene where the impending performance by Marcus at a concert inspires ghetto children to take to the streets in a candlelight march against crack. Seriously.
Most of the blame for this mess can be laid at the studio and "Fiddy's" corporate masters, for churning out yet another bad commercial for what boils down to simply the latest "piss off your parents" overhyped music sensation. And some belongs to "Fiddy" himself, for reasons outlined above.
But sadly, a great deal of blame must be laid of Jim Sheridan, the excellent Irish filmmaker who for some reason thought directing this muck would be a good career move. Mr. Sheridan, we know you're prior movies were good and we hope you're next ones are again. But sir... you've made one hell of a bad movie here, and only SOME of it can be blamed on you're leading man being unable to ennunciate in English.
FINAL RATING: 1/10
The film basically exists as a 2 hour and 14 minute infomercial for the music of Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. His fans are known to refer to him as "Fiddy," which is kind of remarkable in that it manages to celebrate idiocy on two levels: The idiocy of refering to a grown man by his teenaged street-thug nickname and the idiocy of intentionally mispronouncing common words in order to "keep it real."
Just for the record here: Yes, I'm a 25 year-old white man. Yes, I was among that generation of suburban white kids who helped make gangsta rap such a phenomenon back in the early 90s during it's brief initial brush with actually feeling like the "poetry of the streets" it can now only pretend to be. Yes, I like hip-hop. I'm NOT, however, a fan of Mr. Cent's work. I've found his vocals flat, the beats derrivative and his lyrics trite... how many times can you hear one man praise himself in verse, honestly?
Mr. Cent appears here as Marcus, who leads a life more or less identical to the outline of the ballyhooed 50 Cent origin story. Sing along if you know the words: His mother was a murdered coke dealer. He became a crack dealer and went to jail. He got out and wanted to rap. He rapped about how much tougher he was than other rappers in his circle. He got shot nine times. He got better. He parlayed "I got shot nine times!" into the ultimate badge of street-cred "real"ness and became a star, despite his act never really improving.
"Fiddy" is, putting it mildly, a terrible actor. He mumbles his lines in monotone, has nothing in the way of facial expression and mainly just glowers at the camera. He has no distinct onscreen personality, and if not for providing the film's narration he would be swallowed up entirely by his own movie.
But the script is a bigger problem. This character (and, apparently by extension, the man playing him) hasn't really learned anything or gone through any great arc. In a way, "Fiddy's" success stands more as the ultimate indictment of the rap genre as largely bankrupt, not as a triumph. But "Fiddy" seems convinced that his story is heroic, and so the film turns out scene after scene where the imagery is ordering us to be awed by this man's journey while I'M stuck wondering why I'm supposed to care.
It's also stuck with some utterly laughable dialogue. At one point, a drug gang kingpin has a hillariously awful speech about violence begetting more violence, not more money. And later, after Marcus complains that his gunshot wounds have changed his voice, his girlfriend sagely intones: "It's better... there's more pain in it." Give me a break already.
The film jumps the shark full-bore for it's final act, in which Marcus "beef" with another rapper escalates into a shooting war among the drug gangs he left behind. Villians are revealed and "twists" we've seen coming fully unfold, and at one point (I kid you not) we see a scene where the impending performance by Marcus at a concert inspires ghetto children to take to the streets in a candlelight march against crack. Seriously.
Most of the blame for this mess can be laid at the studio and "Fiddy's" corporate masters, for churning out yet another bad commercial for what boils down to simply the latest "piss off your parents" overhyped music sensation. And some belongs to "Fiddy" himself, for reasons outlined above.
But sadly, a great deal of blame must be laid of Jim Sheridan, the excellent Irish filmmaker who for some reason thought directing this muck would be a good career move. Mr. Sheridan, we know you're prior movies were good and we hope you're next ones are again. But sir... you've made one hell of a bad movie here, and only SOME of it can be blamed on you're leading man being unable to ennunciate in English.
FINAL RATING: 1/10
Tuesday, 8 November 2005
REVIEW: The Weather Man
"The Weather Man" is catching a good deal of flack from audiences and critics for not being what they expected. Or, more accurately, what they felt it was marketed as. They aren't entirely without a point.
While it would be an exaggeration to say that "The Weather Man" is using completely misleading advertisements, one can certainly be forgiven for expecting a different film. The trailers, through use of clever editing and music, have been selling the film as a "quirky" comedy about a loser putting his life back together. If you've seen said trailer, you're doubtlessly pretty sure that you know the basic idea: Sad-sack local weather man David Spritz (Nicholas Cage) is losing his family and his sanity, but with some hard work, determination and a few pearls of sage wisdom from his wise father (Michael Caine) he'll be able to set his life comedically back in order. It'll be an offbeat Fall-style remix about growing up and achieving your dreams.
Yes, thats what most people are probably thinking when they buy tickets for "The Weather Man," and so I suppose it's within reason that they be dissapointed when the find it to be something else entirely. But it's also within reason that others are glad about it, finding it to be something a bit more interesting than they had anticipated. You may gather that I fall into the later camp.
The film is not a quirky comedy about achieving your dreams, but David Spritz seems to think that it is... and thats the problem. He can't get his act together, he can't finish anything he starts, he's the sort of local celebrity who has to frequently weigh whether or not the professional perk of bedding Oktoberfest dancing girls is worth the professional hardship of having fast food thrown at him from moving vehicles, etc.
Also, his famous-author father pities him, he's divorced and his kids are heading down bad paths... but David is sure that if he shows some gumption, lands that big network job in New York, makes grand territorial gestures against his ex-wife's new boyfriend and "figures it all out" he can win is family back, his father's respect and the life he's always wanted.
If Spritz was writing the movie, he'd probably cast Robin Williams or Jim Carrey as him before Nicholas Cage: He likely sees himself as quirky, but he's actually closer to just plain pathetic. It's easy to see why his wife left him, why his children don't look up to him and why his father doesn't respect him; he's a dense and insensitive prick for the most part, he's unreliable and doesn't even really respect himself. So there's you're movie: It's not about Spritz achieving all his goals, it's about his slow realization that his striving for clearly unrealistic aims is hurting him and those around him. The eventual moral isn't about reaching for the dream, but learning to accept that some dreams just can't be reached... that life can be worth living even if it's not turning out exactly the way you want it to. In that respect, the film plays like a much more even, mature variation on "Jersey Girl" from a few years back.
Which isn't to say that the film is a total downer. On the way to his semi-epiphany are chances for him to set right some of the (relatively few) things wrong in his life that aren't really his fault: Like turning his not-exactly-slender daughter on to the joys of non-form-fitting clothing, and intervening when his son's guidance counselor turns out to be a sexual predator. To say that David aquits himself wonderfully in each situation would be pushing it... but he at least shows he's getting the right idea.
This isn't the movie I thought it was going to be. I happen to think I got a better one than I expected, you may feel differently. But I'd say it's worth a look, just to see where you fall.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
While it would be an exaggeration to say that "The Weather Man" is using completely misleading advertisements, one can certainly be forgiven for expecting a different film. The trailers, through use of clever editing and music, have been selling the film as a "quirky" comedy about a loser putting his life back together. If you've seen said trailer, you're doubtlessly pretty sure that you know the basic idea: Sad-sack local weather man David Spritz (Nicholas Cage) is losing his family and his sanity, but with some hard work, determination and a few pearls of sage wisdom from his wise father (Michael Caine) he'll be able to set his life comedically back in order. It'll be an offbeat Fall-style remix about growing up and achieving your dreams.
Yes, thats what most people are probably thinking when they buy tickets for "The Weather Man," and so I suppose it's within reason that they be dissapointed when the find it to be something else entirely. But it's also within reason that others are glad about it, finding it to be something a bit more interesting than they had anticipated. You may gather that I fall into the later camp.
The film is not a quirky comedy about achieving your dreams, but David Spritz seems to think that it is... and thats the problem. He can't get his act together, he can't finish anything he starts, he's the sort of local celebrity who has to frequently weigh whether or not the professional perk of bedding Oktoberfest dancing girls is worth the professional hardship of having fast food thrown at him from moving vehicles, etc.
Also, his famous-author father pities him, he's divorced and his kids are heading down bad paths... but David is sure that if he shows some gumption, lands that big network job in New York, makes grand territorial gestures against his ex-wife's new boyfriend and "figures it all out" he can win is family back, his father's respect and the life he's always wanted.
If Spritz was writing the movie, he'd probably cast Robin Williams or Jim Carrey as him before Nicholas Cage: He likely sees himself as quirky, but he's actually closer to just plain pathetic. It's easy to see why his wife left him, why his children don't look up to him and why his father doesn't respect him; he's a dense and insensitive prick for the most part, he's unreliable and doesn't even really respect himself. So there's you're movie: It's not about Spritz achieving all his goals, it's about his slow realization that his striving for clearly unrealistic aims is hurting him and those around him. The eventual moral isn't about reaching for the dream, but learning to accept that some dreams just can't be reached... that life can be worth living even if it's not turning out exactly the way you want it to. In that respect, the film plays like a much more even, mature variation on "Jersey Girl" from a few years back.
Which isn't to say that the film is a total downer. On the way to his semi-epiphany are chances for him to set right some of the (relatively few) things wrong in his life that aren't really his fault: Like turning his not-exactly-slender daughter on to the joys of non-form-fitting clothing, and intervening when his son's guidance counselor turns out to be a sexual predator. To say that David aquits himself wonderfully in each situation would be pushing it... but he at least shows he's getting the right idea.
This isn't the movie I thought it was going to be. I happen to think I got a better one than I expected, you may feel differently. But I'd say it's worth a look, just to see where you fall.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
Sunday, 6 November 2005
REVIEW: Jarhead
I'm going to retreat into humility for a moment and remind myself that this blog is still waaaaaay down on everyone's list of go-to review sites, and thus begin by presuming that most of you reading are already familiar with that reliable old film school trope that movie violence is usually serving as some kind of sexual metaphor. Jason Vorhees' machete penetrates flesh of coital teens, thus standing in for the un-filmmable penetration of genitals? Jedi lightsabers buzzing out to their full length at the start of action scenes standing in for phallic erections at the start of "action" of an entirely different sort? Remember? "violence= sex" is one of the "everybody knows" nuggets of film theory, second in frequency only to "Citizen Kane just wanted his lost childhood back."
Given this, it's become a standard-issue parlor trick of film buff's to divine the "sexuality" of action films: "Top Gun," "Thelma & Louise" and "The Fast and the Furious" are "gay." "Conan" and "Braveheart" are celebrations of the dominant power of the confident sword/penis. The collective action-filmography of Mel Gibson is, well... masochistic, to put it mildly. "Jarhead" strikes a unique position in this realm by removing all but the barest vestiges of actual copulation from the action/sex metaphor and focusing solely on erection and ejaculation... or lack thereof. It takes awhile, but eventually you come to the realization that what we have here is essentially a long meditation on jerking off, with Gulf War I standing in for the actual act (though we see our share of it anyway.)
The film has been criticized by many for it's percieved lack of politics, which in most cases has meant it's unwillingness to blossom into an antiwar parable for the new Gulf War. To my mind, this is an especially silly note of critique... The film, the subject matter nor the memoir by Desert Storm vet Anthony Swofford are in no way "inherently" anti-war/anti-current-war sources at their core, and to offer a nay-vote on this film for a lack of Bush-bashing makes about as much sense as if I were to give it a poor review based on it's noticeable lack of irradiated giant dinosaurs.
In other words, what I suspect is causing so much consternation among some of my fellow reviewers is that they'd made up their minds that this was going to be one more anti-war parable for the reference pile, and have instead recieved a film that is aggressively hostile to politics and, in fact, approaches with 100% sympathy the "plight" of soldiers robbed of the chance to kill the enemy.
Jake Gyllenhall is Swofford, who heads to the Marines for reasons he outright refuses to share with us and finds himself promoted to the coveted rank of Scout Sniper. Paired with Marine-ethos-incarnate spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard, stealing yet another movie's worth of scenes) under the command of a tough Sergeant (Jamie Foxx,) Swofford and his unit are deployed to the desert as part of Operation Desert Shield's first wave. They've already gone through the "Full Metal Jacket" ride at boot camp, they're tough, they're excited, they're ready and eager for their chance to kill the Iraqi enemy... and then nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
It was the push-button war, remember? The Jarheads are all ready and raring to fight, but they arrive into a war thats being fought by digital targeting systems and precision air strikes. Here, thusly, is why the film seems to be so problematic for some: "Jarhead" isn't interested in waxing the philosophical about the futility of war, or having the lack of action lead it's soldiers into realizations on the value of pacifism. It's grounded completely in the perspective of the Marines themselves, and that perspective is one of impotent rage.
They came to Iraq for the joy and the rush of using their hard-earned skills to blow the brains out of the Iraqis, and that joy... that release is being denied them. There's no attacks on the army for "making them this way," or any serious question as to whether or not turning a man into an eager killer is morally right or wrong, or even a single attempt to "humanize" the Iraqi enemy. As far as the characters are concerned, the Iraqi soldiers represent nothing more than targets which should be theirs for the killing but are instead being shelled by the air force... and the film, as it stands, does not seem to find fault in this viewpoint.
And so, while they wait for their hoped-for chance at combat action, Swofford and the others do what all of us do when we're all fired up and have nowhere to go: They start to go crazy. To describe the manner in which much of it occurs would be to spoil some great surprises and little moments. Take my word for it that, while you'll find very little "war" in this particular war-movie; action, intesity and scenes of great darkness manage to abound anyway. And just wait until you see the visual knockout of the film's entire final act, set in the surreal landscape of a desert turned black by the hellfire of burning oil wells on the horizon... and oil actually raining from the sky.
And there it is; a blunt, unashamedly phallicentric metaphor for sexual frustration doing double duty as a straight-faced lament for the soldier who's not permitted to soldier. It may not be the war movie you were expecting, and it's definately not the anti-war movie you might have been hoping for, but right now it's the one you need to see.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
Given this, it's become a standard-issue parlor trick of film buff's to divine the "sexuality" of action films: "Top Gun," "Thelma & Louise" and "The Fast and the Furious" are "gay." "Conan" and "Braveheart" are celebrations of the dominant power of the confident sword/penis. The collective action-filmography of Mel Gibson is, well... masochistic, to put it mildly. "Jarhead" strikes a unique position in this realm by removing all but the barest vestiges of actual copulation from the action/sex metaphor and focusing solely on erection and ejaculation... or lack thereof. It takes awhile, but eventually you come to the realization that what we have here is essentially a long meditation on jerking off, with Gulf War I standing in for the actual act (though we see our share of it anyway.)
The film has been criticized by many for it's percieved lack of politics, which in most cases has meant it's unwillingness to blossom into an antiwar parable for the new Gulf War. To my mind, this is an especially silly note of critique... The film, the subject matter nor the memoir by Desert Storm vet Anthony Swofford are in no way "inherently" anti-war/anti-current-war sources at their core, and to offer a nay-vote on this film for a lack of Bush-bashing makes about as much sense as if I were to give it a poor review based on it's noticeable lack of irradiated giant dinosaurs.
In other words, what I suspect is causing so much consternation among some of my fellow reviewers is that they'd made up their minds that this was going to be one more anti-war parable for the reference pile, and have instead recieved a film that is aggressively hostile to politics and, in fact, approaches with 100% sympathy the "plight" of soldiers robbed of the chance to kill the enemy.
Jake Gyllenhall is Swofford, who heads to the Marines for reasons he outright refuses to share with us and finds himself promoted to the coveted rank of Scout Sniper. Paired with Marine-ethos-incarnate spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard, stealing yet another movie's worth of scenes) under the command of a tough Sergeant (Jamie Foxx,) Swofford and his unit are deployed to the desert as part of Operation Desert Shield's first wave. They've already gone through the "Full Metal Jacket" ride at boot camp, they're tough, they're excited, they're ready and eager for their chance to kill the Iraqi enemy... and then nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
It was the push-button war, remember? The Jarheads are all ready and raring to fight, but they arrive into a war thats being fought by digital targeting systems and precision air strikes. Here, thusly, is why the film seems to be so problematic for some: "Jarhead" isn't interested in waxing the philosophical about the futility of war, or having the lack of action lead it's soldiers into realizations on the value of pacifism. It's grounded completely in the perspective of the Marines themselves, and that perspective is one of impotent rage.
They came to Iraq for the joy and the rush of using their hard-earned skills to blow the brains out of the Iraqis, and that joy... that release is being denied them. There's no attacks on the army for "making them this way," or any serious question as to whether or not turning a man into an eager killer is morally right or wrong, or even a single attempt to "humanize" the Iraqi enemy. As far as the characters are concerned, the Iraqi soldiers represent nothing more than targets which should be theirs for the killing but are instead being shelled by the air force... and the film, as it stands, does not seem to find fault in this viewpoint.
And so, while they wait for their hoped-for chance at combat action, Swofford and the others do what all of us do when we're all fired up and have nowhere to go: They start to go crazy. To describe the manner in which much of it occurs would be to spoil some great surprises and little moments. Take my word for it that, while you'll find very little "war" in this particular war-movie; action, intesity and scenes of great darkness manage to abound anyway. And just wait until you see the visual knockout of the film's entire final act, set in the surreal landscape of a desert turned black by the hellfire of burning oil wells on the horizon... and oil actually raining from the sky.
And there it is; a blunt, unashamedly phallicentric metaphor for sexual frustration doing double duty as a straight-faced lament for the soldier who's not permitted to soldier. It may not be the war movie you were expecting, and it's definately not the anti-war movie you might have been hoping for, but right now it's the one you need to see.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
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