Kill List

It's pretty obvious that co-writer/director Ben Wheatley wants to create a hybrid form of crime cinema that's part David Lynch and part Quentin Tarantino. That the filmmaker fails with such a resounding thud with his second film, is notable mainly for the about of undeserving praise "Kill List" has garnered from critics who should know better. To make its point "Kill List" combines unsupported leaps of narrative logic with outrageous moments of shocking violence smuggled in that dog-worn sub genre of the hit-man-crime-thriller.

Domestic arguments fly between husband-and-wife-duo British thug Jay (Neil Maskell) and his dishy Swedish wife Shel (MyAnna Buring). In their domestic suburban home, complete with child, the couple are suffering financial troubles since Gal committed some mysterious career-halting misstep some months back. Yes, wifey knows she's married to a hired killer. Shel has a background in the Swedish National Military. A dinner party for Gal (Michael Smiley), Jay's former partner-in-blood-letting, and Gal's goth-princess girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer), gives Jay an excuse to show the kind of rough party popper he can be.

Cut to Jay and Gal taking fresh marching orders from a local kingpin to take out a couple of ostensible baddies who fall under screen-filling graphic titles like, "THE PRIEST" of "THE LIBRARIAN." The third, and last, name on the list brings the movie to the kind of hokey climax you'd expect from some obscure '60s era European horror flick.

The plot-holes in "Kill List" are so big you could fit a whole different movie inside them, which leads me to advise that you accomplish the necessary result by substituting "Kill List" with any other art house option available.

Not Rated. 95 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

Henry V - Classic Film Pick

In 1989 Kenneth Branagh burst into the public consciousness with a refreshing adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Henry the Fifth." Branagh welcomed audiences with open arms into the thorny realm of the Bard with a consciously populist indoctrination. The widely acclaimed film commenced Branagh's Shakespeare-dedicated career campaign of delivering Shakespeare into the mainstream. At the time of this writing he has directed a total five of Shakespeare's works including "Much Ado About Nothing," "Hamlet," "Love's Labour's Lost," and "As You Like It."

"Henry V" is no trifling affair to inaugurate such a lofty goal. The centerpiece of the story involves an enormous combat scene (the Battle of Agincourt) between King Henry's ragtag army and 10,000 French troops.

Branagh brings to bear his thorough understanding of Shakespeare's notoriously unwieldy verse, which he mastered while studying at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It certainly didn't hurt that at 23, the Belfast-born Branagh became the youngest actor in the history of the Royal Shakespeare Company to play King Henry. It only took the ambitious writer/actor another six years to successfully reinterpret Shakespeare for 20th century moviegoers.

Playing freely with tone, Branagh announces his stylistic intentions during the film's enticing prologue that takes place on an unpopulated film soundstage cluttered with chairs and light stands to represent the “cockpit” which will hold the “vasty fields of France.” The introductory dialogue is impeccably delivered by the one-man chorus of Derek Jacobi who Branagh has credited as being a primary inspiration for his decision to become an actor. Playing purposefully with the line between the presentational purpose of the chorus and the representational qualities of the story, Jacobi’s chorus returns with intermittent currency throughout the action to break the forth wall, albeit as a supporting actor in the play.

Toward “turning many years into an hourglass,” Branagh the screenwriter condenses “King Henry the Fifth,” while adding in elements from the first and second parts of “King Henry the Fourth.” The effect is seamless. Using flashbacks as cinematic shortcuts, the filmmaker energizes Shakespeare’s massive narrative form to give the audience a sense of Henry’s background as a much-loved salt of the earth character in touch with the concerns of the common man. If Branagh’s cunning portrayal at times seems patronizing, it is an affect earned through the bold example the character sets through his actions.

Audiences come away from the film with Henry’s powerful “Saint Crispen’s Day” speech ringing in their ears. Patrick Doyle’s soaring musical score creates a kind of aural staircase that Branagh climbs on toward a galvanizing plateau of united determination. “Henry V” is a joyous celebration of dynamic rhetoric in the capable voice of a natural-born leader. It is a role Kenneth Branagh was born to play.

The Grey

Chaotic Nature
Joe Carnahan Explores the Minds of the Walking Wounded
By Cole Smithey

A strand of “Moby Dick” runs through director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s wild and wooly tale of survival in the Alaskan wilderness. Like “Moby Dick” this amorphous story is an anti-narrative made up of dark encounters with nature at her cruelest. The alpha male leader of a pack of hungry wolves becomes the focal point for a group of plane-crash survivors trying to walk out of a vast snow-covered trap. John Ottway (Liam Neeson) is an emotionally broken sharpshooter hired by an Alaskan oil company to protect its workers from bears and wolves, which attack without a moment’s notice. The ever-watchable Neeson easily fills the demands of his troubled character’s wolf-like place as the alpha to a group of flawed human males—whose number steadily diminishes.

Joe Carnahan (known for his uncompromising crime drama “Narc”) puts his audience through an episode of pure terror early in the film. After briefly contemplating suicide outside a rowdy oil refinery bar, John Ottway treasures memories of his eloigned wife while riding a private airplane carrying oil workers. Jolts of vomit-inducing turbulence rattle the passengers’ quickly fraying nerves. Just as Ottway falls asleep the plane goes into a fuselage-ripping plunge. Gravity and velocity become monsters of colossal fury. Luggage and bodies are suspended in midair in one of the most spectacular plane crash scenes ever filmed. The effect is truly terrifying. Don’t look for “The Grey” to be shown as an in-flight movie. The cinematic experience is as close to the reality of enduring an actual plane crash as you’d ever want to get. Miraculously there are survivors amid the strewn luggage, twisted bits of metal, and bloody body parts which corrupt an otherwise peaceful expanse of snow-covered ground. Awakening from one nightmare into another, eight shocked men begin to pick up items of clothing and supplies they desperately need to go on living. Ottway thinks to collect the wallets of the corpses, to return to their family members should the opportunity arise.

The assembly of blue-collar roughnecks runs the gambit. Diaz (Frank Grillo) is a tattooed ex-con whose personal insecurities threaten to undermine Ottway’s obvious status as the group leader. Ottway’s uses his thorough knowledge of wolf pack mentality and behavior to counsel the group to quickly abandon the crash site in favor of shelter above the area’s distant tree line. The wolves, Ottway believes, are more interested in protecting their territory than hunting down the men as food. Stormy whiteout conditions threaten to bury the men in a 40-below-zero grave of snow.

Violent encounters between the wolves and their human prey allows Carnahan to dig deep into his bag of action tricks. Blood flies through the air like freezing mists of tempered humidity. The confident helmer displays a greater kinship to Sam Peckinpah’s muscular approach to cinema than any other filmmaker working today. Every gutsy action scene is crafted with gritty detail and a muscular unpredictability that dares the audience to guess where it will end up. Punch-drunk suspense sets in as the film’s subtext of thematic discourse about subjects ranging from self-deception to religious belief to what it takes to be a man get bandied about. Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (“Warrior”) lends his keen eye for magnificent compositions to expertly contextualize the men’s excruciating journey of inexorable attrition.

“The Grey” is an old-fashioned survival movie in the vein of John Huston’s 1956 version of the Melville classic. The glory of the adventure comes from what lies buried deep within the psyches of its personalities, and branded in their facial expressions. John Ottway remembers the only poem his stoic father ever wrote as it hung framed on a wall in his dad’s study.

“Once more into the fray. Into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day. Live and die on this day.”

Watch this movie to discern the poem’s meaning for the wealth of import Carnahan and his filmmaking cohorts intend.

Rated R. 117 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

 

Declaration of War

A new twist on the docudrama genre, “Declaration of War” is an affecting autobiographical story about a young French couple faced with caring for their 18-month son Adam after he’s diagnosed with a brain tumor. Director/co-writer/actress Valerie Donzelli plays out her real-life personage as her pseudonymous character Juliette, a young Parisian hipster. Juliette meets her mate-to-be, with the likely name of Romeo, at a house party. Like Donzelli, co-writer Jeremie Elkaim plays his real-life role as Adam’s father and committed partner to Donzelli’s character. An opening scene divulges Adam’s survival from the potentially life threatening disease so as not to hold the audience hostage with unnecessary suspense. This benevolent narrative movement allows the story to breathe with the kind of naturalism the filmmakers intend. Although the movie periodically stumbles during a few off-putting moments of commentary from indistinct narrators, the heartfelt chronicle percolates with a heightened sense of authenticity. Donzelli liberates the film’s potentially cloistering hospital atmosphere in which non-actors fulfill their roles. She does so with stylized elegiac sequences that communicate the couple’s romantic connection and practical methods for working through the terrible pressures that transform their daily lives. The filmmaker’s fluid camera work and brilliant use of music, adds a level of excitement to the drama without overpowering the film as you might experience in a typical Hollywood disease movie. There are no cheap flashes of sentimentality on display. The couple’s “declaration of war” against their son’s cancer comes with heavy personal costs that are transcended during the film’s joyful closing scene.

Not Rated. 100 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World - Classic Film Pick

Stanley Kramer's 1963 screwball comedy sent the genre into an orbit of epic proportions. Using a treasure-hunt plot that allowed his gigantic cast of character actor comedians to run with the ball, Kramer didn't just capture lightening in a bottle; he caught a volcano's worth of comic fireworks.

Written by the husband-and-wife writing team of William and Tania Rose, the movie kicks into gear on a two-lane highway in the Mojave Desert where aging criminal "Smiler" Grogan (Jimmy Durante) goes off a cliff trying to outrun a couple of plainclothes detectives. Smiler has been on the run for 15 years since stealing $350,000 from a tuna factory heist. Four vehicles' worth of witnesses stop to check on Smiler's dubious condition at the bottom of the cliff he ejected from. Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, and Milton Berle leave the women (Edia Adams, Ethal Merman and Dororty Provine) with the cars to climb down the embankment where Smiler miraculously has enough life left in him to describe his stash of loot buried beneath "a big W" in Santa Rosita State Park near the Mexican border before he kicks the bucket--quite literally.

Naturally, the men rush back to their respective automobiles to head for the border like bats out of hell. A brief roadside attempt at concocting a civilized method for splitting up the cash, should it be found, is broken up by Ethel Merman's unforgettable domineering shrew Mrs. Marcus, the mother-in-law to Milton Berle's character and his wife Emeline (Provine). It's each man, or woman, for him or herself.

Little does the group of treasure-hunters know that a police captain named Culpepper (wonderfully played by Spencer Tracy) is surveying their progress with bated breath. Captain Culpepper has been waiting 15 years to be led to Smiler's fortune so he can drop the cop act and go on a permanent vacation with his wife.

Apart from a plethora of perfectly pitched comic cameos by the likes of Jerry Lewis, Jim Backus, Norman Fell, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, and even the Three Stooges, the movie is remarkable for its comic action set pieces that go gleefully over the top. Jonathan Winters’s truck driver Lennie Pike single-handedly razes an entire gas station with sidesplitting fury to the ground. Watching Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett crash land a twin-engine airplane into an airport cafeteria is a classic image that informed Arthur Hiller’s great 1976 comedy “Silver Streak.”

When the unpredictable slapstick hits its uncontrolled fire-truck-ladder climax of body-tossing insanity the film achieves a deeply satisfying kind of comic catharsis you just won’t find in any other film.

Beauty and the Beast 3D

Disney’s gorgeous 1991 animated version of the classic fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” gets the same 3D treatment that was recently given to “The Lion King.” The effect is extraneous to an already impressive use of animation, but that’s hardly the point of Disney’s excuse to rerelease the film. Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara) offers to take the place of her imprisoned father in a giant mysterious castle occupied by a princely Beast (voiced by Robby Benson) living under a terrible curse that only Belle’s love can reverse. His unusual staff of servants includes a talking candleholder and a mother-and-son teapot set. “The most beautiful love story ever told” is about how true beauty comes from the inside. The Beast might be a big and hairy ogre with a temper but he is a gentleman at heart. Wooing Belle provides some important lessons. The musical story is told in memorable songs that range from orchestral to pop rock music.

Rated G. 84 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

If.... - Classic Film Pick

If “no” is the most powerful word in the English language then “if” runs a close second for its power to provoke action. “Crusaders” was the original title screenwriters David Sherwin and John Howlett gave their widely rejected script before director Lindsay Anderson took it over to stamp the film with his own experiences as a schoolboy growing up in the English boarding school system. Jean Vigo’s autobiographical 1933 film of youthful rebellion “Zero for Conduct” provided inspiration for the tone of the groundbreaking narrative that swings into gradually wider surrealistic realms. Anderson’s arbitrary switch between color and black-and-white sequences keeps the viewer questioning the cinematic form as the episodic narrative accelerates haltingly toward a shocking climax of violent youthful revolt. 

Malcolm McDowell makes an auspicious film debut as Mick Travis, a non-conformist schoolboy condescendingly referred to as Guy Fawkes by one of the school’s bullying “Whips” who lord over their junior students--aged 11 to 18. Dressed in a black hat and overcoat, with a scarf masking his convention-defying but temporary mustache, McDowell’s confrontational character makes an immediate impression. His portrayal in “If…” caused Stanley Kubrick to cast McDowell as Alex, the futuristic anti-hero in “A Clockwork Orange” two years later.

Mick settles into school life in the company of his two best friends with whom he carries on political discussions. During one such conversation Mick categorically states, "There's no such thing as a wrong war. Violence and revolution are the only pure acts."

Mick decorates the walls of his room with a collage of topical magazine images that inform the audience as to his restless inner monologue. Mick wants to live a life of unbridled freedom, but doesn’t know where or when it will begin. His caustic “attitude” is a problem that head Whip Rowntree (Robert Swann) mistakenly attempts to cure with a 10-stroke caning session that only serves to put Mick in an even more radical state of mind.

In a nutshell, “If…” is a bold commentary on the adverse effects of abusive regimented indoctrination techniques used by British boarding schools and military outfits alike. The film is a rebel yell in the face of such intimidation tactics to express the seething liberation of freethinkers who must surely turn on their captors with a vengeance when opportunity permits. That the film’s release coincided with the 1968 student revolt in Paris speaks to the era’s zeitgeist that Anderson captures with audacious yet economical precision. The film won the Grand International Prize at Cannes in 1969.

Haywire

Slap Happy
Soderbergh Knocks Off Tarantino
By Cole Smithey

Proof positive that Steven Soderbergh can make a shamelessly fluffy action thriller, "Haywire’s” trump card is the estimable abilities of mixed-martial-arts-fighter-turned-actress Gina Carano. Though the movie is nothing more than a flashy debut showcase for the charismatic Carano to show she can act and kick butt, that's sufficient for much popcorn to be consumed.

Carano plays professional assassin Mallory Kane, on the run from a group of power brokers who set her up for a fall that doesn’t pan out. Told mainly in globetrotting flashbacks, the narrative traces Mallory’s problematic assignment to rescue a Chinese journalist being held in Barcelona. Fast-moving chase sequences mesh with flying bullets and plenty of hand-to-hand fighting between Mallory and various attackers who tend to underestimate Mallory’s killer instinct. Soderbergh’s camera drinks up stylish scenery in glossy action set pieces. The visual flare makes you want the movie to kick into a missing gear of Tarantino-inflected dialogue; sadly screenwriter Lem Dobbs simply isn’t capable of producing such delights. Still, there’s plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor inherent in the bone-breaking fights that transpire. A roll call of witty supporting turns from the likes of Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, and Michael Fassbender spice up the flavor of the action. “Haywire” is a chamber piece action movie in which the athletic violence on display comes with kisses. If you don’t expect too much, you’ll be more than satisfied.

There’s a tendency to overestimate Steven Soderbergh’s abilities as a director. Since making an enormous independent splash in 1989 with “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” Soderbergh’s films have swung wildly between peaking hills and sea-level valleys. Stable Hollywood fare (see “Erin Brockovich” and the “Ocean’s” franchise), offbeat personal projects (witness the disaster of “Full Frontal” and the underachieving “Girlfriend Experience”), topical epics (see “Traffic” and “Che”), a daring remake (“Solaris”), and retro Hollywood (his best film “The Good German”) map out a consistently inconsistent career. Steven Soderbergh has a tendency toward making films that have a compartmentalized and brittle feeling about them. “Contagion” and “The Informant!” are prime examples. While the Atlanta-born filmmaker has threatened to retire from directing in recent years, he maintains a prolific output that puts lesser filmmakers like Alexander Payne to shame. His upcoming films include “Behind the Candelabra,” a Liberace biopic and “Magic Mike,” a comedy about an upstart male stripper played by Channing Tatum.

As the latest addition to Soderbergh’s challenging oeuvre “Haywire” is a minor addition that does little to dispel the sense that the filmmaker suffers from a crisis of commitment. You don’t get the feeling that he made the movie out of any deep-seeded artistic urgency. Rather, “Haywire” seems a flashy little one-off on the way to something else. If the movie serves its most apparent purpose, to turn the muscular Gina Carano into Hollywood’s latest female action star, then so much the better for movie audiences to relish in her innate ability to charm and surprise. But that still leaves an open-ended question about whether Steven Soderbergh has what it takes to create the filmic masterpiece that his work as a filmmaker seems to point toward. It’s anybody’s guess whether or not he’ll pull it off.

Rated R. 93 mins. (B) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Front Line

South Korea’s impressive entry for the 2011 foreign-language Oscar race offers a different kind of war picture in its foreshadowed setting of the blood-soaked front line between North and South Korea during the 1950-53 war. Crafted with profound understanding of the war’s complexity, director Jang Hun makes palpable the wide range of emotions of soldiers caught up in a Sisyphean struggle of repeatedly winning and losing occupation of the strategically important Aerok Hill. The stench of death permeates the area where a strange aura of insanity pervades.

The death of a South Korean commander of the “Alligator Company,” by a regiment pistol, points to the possibility he was murdered by one of his soldiers. Lieutenant of Defense Security Command Kang Eun-pyo (Shin Ha-kyun) is sent to investigate the situation to discover if a mole is operating within the ranks of the beleaguered unit. Kang is surprised to discover that his former college buddy Kim Su-hyeok (Ko Soo) whom he believed killed in action has taken over command of Alligator Company. Other surprises follow. Kang finds that soldiers from both sides of the conflict have been exchanging gifts and notes in a kind of rough-hewn mailbox hidden in the floor of a bunker in the hill. Precisely articulated flashbacks fill in the blanks of Kang’s investigation even as the ongoing war ebbs and flows with unrelenting pitched battles. “The Front Line” emphasizes the theme that war itself is the enemy of all peoples. Being a soldier means committing suicide in an abstract and prolonged way for which there is no reasonable rationale. The film fills in an essential missing chapter in a war that is frequently overlooked.

“The Front Line” emphasizes the theme that war itself is the enemy of all peoples. Being a soldier means committing suicide in an abstract and prolonged way for which there is no reasonable rationale. The film effectively fills in an essential missing chapter in a war that has wrongfully been eclipsed in history books by the war in Viet Nam.

Not Rated. 133 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Contraband

A testament to January’s reputation as the worst month for new movie releases, “Contraband” is a purely disposable crime thriller. Mark Whalberg doesn't even bother to phone in his performance as John Bryce, an ex-smuggler who gets drawn back into the game after his brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) tosses overboard a shipment of drugs due to be delivered to Giovanni Ribisi's revenge-hungry gangster Tim Briggs. Rather, Whalberg goes through the motions of earning a paycheck as if he were doing a beer commercial--Shlitz paid for a sizable portion of the film's budget.

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur fails to improve on a truly mediocre by-committee script written by Aaron Guzikowski, Arnaldur Indriðason, Óskar Jónasson--names you won't be seeing again anytime soon. The disjointed plot takes Bryce on a cargo ship to Panama City where he plans to purchase a palate filled with counterfeit bills to sell back in the states in order to pay back Briggs. Bryce leaves his wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale) and kids in the unsteady hands of his recovering alcoholic pal Sebastian (Ben Foster). Inexplicably, Bryce takes Andy along on the voyage, thereby setting up one of the film's more dubious plot holes.

There's no comparison between a great action/espionage movie like "Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol" and cinematic trip such as "Contraband." To choose the latter over the former is a bad move.

Rated R. 109 mins. (C-) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

Crazy Horse

For better or worse, viewers of Frederick Wiseman's undisciplined documentary about the Parisian nude review venue the “Crazy Horse” will never have to visit the landmark club. By the end of the film’s 134 minutes the viewer has soaked up so many pert nipples and plump behinds that the entertainment factor of such exhibition is diminished beyond recognition. Perhaps the most surprising tidbit the film proffers is the dancers’ aversion to touching one another onstage because such interaction crosses an imaginary line into something “dirty.” Good to know.

If the documentary comes from any primary point of view, it’s that of Philippe Decoufle, the club’s director and choreographer assigned TO the task of creating a new batch of dance set pieces for the storied revue, which has been around since 1951. The film is made up primarily of performance and rehearsal footage of floorshow dances with names like “Baby Buns,” that are undeniably titillating. Footage of staff meetings reveals conflicts between Decoufle and the owners over the idea of shutting down the club temporarily to allow him to properly polish the complex dance sequences, which rely heavily on lighting and careful synchronization on the part of the limber dancers. Decoufle also goes head-to-head with the venue’s underappreciated costume designer.

At about the halfway mark the film becomes repetitive to a fault. Extended scenes of dances, wherein tricks of lighting and costume emphasize breasts and bottoms for their own sake become abstract reflections on femininity for the editorial power of body-part curation. “Crazy Horse” left me feeling ambivalent about the dancers, the club, and a form of entertainment that attempts to elevate the art of striptease to another level. There’s no question that there is a tremendous amount of artistic effort applied to the performances. But the much ballyhooed climax set piece, involving the dancers singing out of tune, drops the, um, bottom out of an already tenuous enterprise.

At about the halfway mark the film becomes repetitive to a fault. Extended scenes of dances, wherein tricks of lighting and costume emphasize breasts and bottoms for their own sake, become abstract reflections on femininity for the editorial power of body-part curation. “Crazy Horse” left me feeling ambivalent about the dancers, the club, and a form of entertainment that attempts to elevate the art of striptease to another level. There’s no question that there is a tremendous amount of artistic effort applied to the performances. But the much ballyhooed climax set piece, involving the dancers singing out of tune, drops the, UM, bottom out of an already tenuous enterprise.

Not Rated. 134 mins. (C) (Two Stars - out of five/no halves)

Miss Bala

Treating dramatic convention like it was industrial garbage director/co-writer Gerardo Naranjo's attempt at agitprop cinema is a frustrating mess. While "Miss Bala" may have some effect of reducing tourism to Mexico's Baja region, where the story takes place, it comes off as an exploitation film made to fan the egos of its filmmakers. Newcomer Stephanie Sigman plays Laura Guerrero, a homely peasant girl from Tijuana with an unreasonable dream of competing in the local Miss Baja beauty pageant--no telling why the film isn't titled "Miss Baja." Laura stumbles into a party full of American DEA agents to meet up with her best friend just as a local mob of hit men attack the fiesta to wipe out everyone present. The filmmaker's attempt at making the shoot 'em up violence entertaining with tricks of light has the opposite effect. Laura miraculously survives but makes the time-honored mistake of putting her trust in a corrupt police officer who simply hands her over to the men responsible for the previous night's bloodletting. Mob-leader Lino (Noe Hernandez) hatches a hair-brained scheme to leverage Laura into the fraudulent Miss Baja Beauty Pageant so she can get next to a local General Lino wants to assassinate. Talk about hackneyed storytelling. There isn't much story here, and what little there is is barely enough to keep a fully caffeinated viewer awake. It's confounding why so much critical praise has been lavished on "Miss Bala" during its tour of film festivals. Here is a low-budget fiasco that should have gone straight to DVD.

Rated R. 113 mins. (D+) (One Star - out of five/no halves)

Personal Best - Classic Film Pick

Although screenwriter Robert Towne's directorial debut fell largely on deaf ears when it was released in 1982 "Personal Best" remains a powerful examination of high-stakes female athletes during the late ‘70s, an era when smoking pot and drinking beer were part of America’s cultural landscape—even for Olympic contenders. Most significant is Towne’s pitch-perfect depiction of a lesbian relationship that goes through various stages of bliss, disagreements, and outside pressures over the course of a few years. The auteur’s striking ability to use the sexuality of his story's two lead female characters as an integral aspect of their ambitious motivations is an impeccable example of eroticism's function within a narrative framework. The author of such film classics as "The Last Detail" (1973) and "Chinatown" (1974) flexes his writing muscles to conjure the atmosphere Olympic-level female athletes who eat, breathe, and live for the opportunity to conquer their opponents, as well as their own mental and physical limitations.

In a role that should have made Mariel Hemingway the biggest female star in Hollywood for the ‘80s, ‘90s, and beyond, the indisputable beauty plays track-and-field runner Chris Cahill. Chris’s troubled promise as a professional athlete starts to look up after an unfortunate restaurant episode puts her in the car of Tory Skinner (Patrice Donnelly), a track-and-field star with an established coach. Romance blossoms between Chris and Tory who shack up in Tory’s San Luis Obispo apartment. Tory imposes on her coach Terry Tingloff (Scott Glenn) to give Chris a chance during a routine practice. Chris suitably impresses Coach Terry, who harbors no illusions about the tricky nature of Chris’s and Tory’s romantic relationship within the demands of competing for a spot on the 1980 Summer Olympic Team.

A touch of American politics provides a backdrop for the story due to President Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games as punishment for Russia’s recent invasion of Afghanistan. A television news commentator announces during the film’s climax competition, the competing athletes are, “all dressed up with no place to go.”

“Personal Best” takes a matter-of-fact approach toward the intrinsic sensuality of professional female athletes. Towne uses a sauna as a frequent meeting place for the girls’ team to congregate in the nude to laugh and joke, but also to carry on serious discussions. Chris’s bisexuality is not commented upon, but rather comes about organically after competitive circumstance separates her from Tory. A frank bit of innocent humor comes during an intimate scene between Chris and her new boyfriend when she follows him to the bathroom to hold him while he pees. The scene perfectly captures Chris’s fearless spirit of childlike curiosity and determination. 

War Horse

Steven Spielberg puts a sunny disposition on World War I in this shamelessly old-fashioned (read sentimental) rendering of Nick Stafford's stage play, which was based on Michael Morpurgo's 1982 children's novel. The horrors of the famously brutal war get mashed through a Disney filter toward a cinematic experience not unlike the feeling you get from a Howard Hawks western.

From a filmmaking perspective "War Horse" is stunning. Every shot is an exquisite composition to be revered. From a narrative perspective, things get dicey. Character development comes across as a flat line for a young man named Albert (Jeremy Irvine) and the charismatic horse his father (Peter Mullan) over-leverages the family farm to purchase in spite of the horse’s dubious capacity for pulling a plow. As the title predicts, Albert's newly procured horse “Joey” is conscripted for battle use by the British cavalry from the family’s rented pastoral farm home in Devon, England. A greedy landlord (wonderfully played by Daniel Thewlis) waits with baited breath to foreclose on the property. Joey gets shipped into battle in France before being captured by the Germans. Naturally, Albert enlists in the army in spite of his underage status in order to get back his much-loved equine possession. Sadly, Peter Mullan, and the family matriarch Rose (Emily Watson), get relegated to third-class supporting character status.

For all of its soft-peddled nostalgia “War Horse” methodically hits every mark of emotional degree with surgical precision. Still, the movie remains a lightweight rendition of war wherein a horse is the ostensible hero. Crocodile tears will almost certainly be shed by audiences who go along for the ride.

Rated PG-13. 146 mins. (B-) (Three Stars - out of five/no halves)

Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol

Aside from an unwarranted bit of miscasting in the guise of Simon Pegg, "Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol" is an energetic addition to the long-gone-missing franchise. It's been five-years since "Mission: Impossible III."

Screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec upturn the franchise's popular affinity for gadgets and disguises. In the 21st century's high-tech age, new fancy gadgets just aren't that reliable. Anti-gravity gloves fail right along with an automatic mask-making machine that promises to help Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of special agents steal Russian nuclear launch codes before they fall into the hands of international baddie Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist). Hendricks already has control of a Russian satellite from which to wage World War III.

Jeremy Renner brings some necessary gravitas as Brandt, a Presidential right-hand man with a few well-kept secrets up his sleeve. Ethan and his accomplices, goofball tech-wiz Benji (Pegg), sultry fire-starter Jane (Paula Patton) and Brandt (Renner), constantly find themselves in uncertain situations where they must think and act way outside the proverbial box.

Director Brad Bird seamlessly transposes his skill for animated features (see "The Iron Giant") into the super-action format. You want heart-racing chase scenes, set pieces, and stunts; you got 'em in spades. The eye-popping sequences filmed to fit the IMAX screen do more than take your breath away. They mesmerize you before giving you the biggest kind of visual and visceral double-punch you can imagine receiving from a movie. It doesn't hurt that the film goes big-spectacle crazy in Russia--see the Kremlin explode--and in Dubai, where the world’s tallest building (the Burji Khalifa) does some great supporting-character duties. Prague also provides some impressive background atmosphere for roving espionage activity.

“Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol” is great cinematic entertainment. The storyline is sharp. The action sequences are brilliantly staged and edited. I highly recommend seeing the film in a real IMAX cinema if possible—beware of the mini-IMAXs. Sit in the middle back row. It’s all the excuse any movie fan should need to down some popcorn, Red Vines, and soda.

Rated PG-13. 133 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

A Remake by Any Other Name
David Fincher Takes One for the Team
By Cole Smithey

David Fincher can do a great re-make. Now, let’s hope he never does one again. By definition, remakes demand that audiences go back to the original to compare differences slight and large. I don’t put any credence in the faulty premise that a second film based on the same source material constitutes anything other than a remake. Indeed many of the compositions and sequences are similar enough between director Niels Arden Oplev’s version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and Fincher’s that watching both is akin comparing apples with apples. Still, the significant difference between the two films is a big one. In Fincher’s version Lisbeth and Mikael Blomkvist get busy, and as such earn a level of intimacy sorely missing from Arden Oplev’s sill powerful film.

Audiences will split hairs over Noomi Rapace’s iconic Goth portrayal of Lisbeth Salander as compared to Rooney Mara’s savant-sex-alien rendition. It’s a fascinating comparison. Rapace kicked bat-shit-monkey-ass in the original, while Mara’s Lisbeth is more the type to ask permission before seeking lethal revenge—as occurs in a pivotal scene late in the film. Mara approaches a bland quality of androgyny whose asexual appearance is belied by her lustful intentions which she carries out with respectable focus.

There’s no question that David Fincher is a muscular director whose capacity for creating cinematic wonder is astounding. “Zodiac” (2007) is one of the most stunning police procedurals ever made. He understands the importance of seducing his audience right from the start of every one of his movies. His opening credit sequence here explodes with a shiny, oily-black sensual fury that announces the movie as an exploration in thoroughly modern style and sass. And to that end he succeeds full stop. Where he slips up is, surprisingly, in articulating Stieg Larsson’s story—something that Niels Arden Oplev did better. Some of the blame can be put on screenwriter Steven Zaillian, but editing decisions by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall play a hefty role. You don’t care as much about the mystery of the missing girl as you do with the original film because the narrative isn’t enunciated with the same degree of passion.

Even the seemingly ideal casting of Daniel Craig doesn’t work as well for the role. With his downtrodden bearing and doughy charm Michael Nyqvist made for a more empathetic Mikael Blomkvist. Although the filmmakers wisely keep the action in Sweden, rather than transposing the story to somewhere like the Hamptons, the film refuses to soak up the European culture it’s submersed in. Here again miscasting plays a part. Robin Wright just isn’t convincing as a Swedish character. Her accent evaporates mid-sentence. In spite of her blonde hair and Nordic features, Wright feels like an interloper in the movie. An utter lack of romantic chemistry between her and Daniel Craig further distracts from the story.

David Fincher’s “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a very entertaining movie. The credit sequence alone is worth the price of admission. Is it better than Niels Arden Oplev’s film? I’ll leave that up to you.

Rated R. 166 mins. (B+) (Four Stars - out of five/no halves)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie continues to degrade the iconic characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, albeit with a fresh round of screenwriters since the abominable 2009 franchise starter. “Deus ex machine” doesn't begin to describe a compulsive narrative tic that allows Robert Downey Jr.'s no-shit-Sherlock to see milliseconds into the future whenever he's under physical attack. Holmes’s slo-mo premonitions allow the audience to study in-depth the exact martial arts moves the sinewy Downey Jr. appears to employ with lightening quick reflexes.

The 1891 European-set "Game of Shadows" is an appropriate title for a movie that's all smoke-and-mirrors and no substance. Sherlock and engaged companion (not like that) Dr. Watson (Jude Law) are taunted by Jared Harris's Professor Moriarty. The diabolical villain is busy pulling political strings with a string of bombings designed to ignite a war between France and Germany. Don't worry, there's no groovy political allegory to get swept up in. Noomi Rapace stumbles into the story as Madam Simza Heron, a gypsy fortune teller whose level of believability roughly matches Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. The best thing you can say about “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is that it plays like a bunch of barely entertaining vignettes. Sarah Greenwood’s artful production designs keep your eyes busy. Still, frequent lulls come slogging by during the film’s corpulent 129-minute running time. It might be pretty to look at but nobody in their right mind would be so bold as to assert that anything here has the slightest thing to do with the pipe-smoking literary detective known to the world as Sherlock Holmes.

Rated PG-13. 128 mins. (D+) (One Star - out of five/no halves)

Freaks - Classic Film Pick

In spite of the tremendous success he enjoyed with "Dracula" in 1931, Tod Browning's directorial career was effectively ruined after he made "Freaks" the following year. Informed by Browning's youthful experiences working as a performer with a traveling circus, "Freaks" broke cinematic ground by being the first film to feature performers with deformities. It was banned in Britain for over 30 years. “Freaks” only enjoyed theatrical success thanks to its rediscovery in the early ‘60s by cult horror film aficionados whose appreciation enabled it to be discovered again in the ‘70s during the Midnight Movie craze.

This Pre-Code movie is set amid a circus sideshow traveling through France. The story turns on a romantic drama that plays out between Hans (Harry Earles), an engaged midget, and a cunning trapeze artist named Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) whose warped sense of humor is matched by her twisted morals. Although Hans dearly loves his similarly-sized fiancée Frieda (Daisy Earles), he can't help falling in love with the full-sized Cleopatra when she seems to reciprocate his politely expressed affection. Little does Hans realize that Cleopatra is in league with the circus strongman Hercules (Henry Victor) to separate him from his from his vast inheritance.

After significant cuts by censors Browning tacked on an opening scene with a circus sideshow exhibit where a master of ceremonies introduces a curious group of spectators to a deformed woman in a cage that resembles a large baby crib. He calls the unseen woman the “Feathered Hen.” Not until the film’s end will a payoff scene allow the movie audience to see what the circus crowd find so shocking.
Although severely criticized at the time of its release as an "exploitation" film, "Freaks" takes every opportunity to humanize its characters. The story presents its group of human oddities-- a hermaphrodite, several microcephalics, conjoined twins, and several limbless characters--as performers whose real-life existence was hardly if ever addressed in the media. The real horrors in the story come at the hands of the "normal" people who attempt to take advantage of an oppressed group of people, who live by their own strict ethical code of conduct.

As happened to Michael Powell, whose brilliant filmmaking career came to an abrupt end decades later with “Peeping Tom,” “Freaks” is a unique horror film that was ahead of its time. It’s a testament to Tod Browning’s vision that even with 26 minutes removed by censors before its release “Freaks” stands up as a fully realized horror movie unlike any other.