Exhuming McCarthy
Now Playing: Good Night, and Good Luck (2005, d. George Clooney)
The time has come, people, to forgive George Clooney for Batman & Robin, The Peacemaker, and, yes, even Return of the Killer Tomatoes. More than that, it’s time to recognize that his talents extend far beyond acting. For a long time now, I have felt that Clooney has been our greatest “movie star,” equally at home in comedy and drama, his handsome features and easy manner a throwback to an earlier archetype we haven’t really seen since Cary Grant. Since attaining superstardom, he has chosen interesting mainstream roles and contributed to the independent filmmaking world through his partnership with Stephen Soderbergh in Section 8 Films. But with his directorial efforts on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and now Good Night, and Good Luck, (and with buzz building about his performance in the upcoming Syriana) it’s time to recognize Clooney as the guy who’s got it all and can pretty much do it all. He’s like Orson Welles without the creative genius—-but with the ability to finish a film on time.

Lest I get too carried away, let me say that Good Night, and Good Luck is not a masterpiece. It’s not the kind of film that’s going to have audiences standing up and cheering and it won’t win a bunch of awards (though I hope I’m wrong about that) come Oscar time. But it is a nearly perfect film in that it accomplishes everything it sets out to do with a style, economy, and mastery of technique that you just don’t expect from that good-looking doctor from ER. As in 2002’s Confessions, Clooney shows an admirable restraint, a great understanding of cinematography, and a sure hand with actors. Of course, his fame allows him access to some of the best people working in Hollywood today, but how often has a great cast and crew been brought together to become something altogether less than the sum of its parts? In the first of many good choices, Clooney and Grant Heslov’s script examines the escalation and denouement of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s infamous HUAC witch hunt solely through the frame of reference of the CBS newsroom at the time, and specifically Edward R. Murrow’s Face to Face program, which went on the attack at the height of the hearings, exposing McCarthy for the dangerous fraud he was at a time when doing so could have been tantamount to career suicide. We get no framing news reports, no backstory, no perspective of the “man on the street.” Instead, Clooney stays for the most part within the smoke-filled confines of the news department, presenting the film like an installment of "Playhouse 90" or one of the other TV dramas of the 1950’s. Robert Elswit’s superb camerawork perfectly captures the feel of black and white television from the 50’s, and Clooney wisely uses no background music—-though he does adopt the conceit of a jazz singer (Dianne Reeves) recording contemporary songs at CBS as a transition device. The 50’s aesthetic allows Clooney to seamlessly incorporate actual footage from the era, creating a perfectly self-contained world in which the viewer is immersed. It’s not a pseudo-documentary, but it does feel like a contemporary drama, and so has the air of authenticity.

David Strathairn, who may not have given a bad performance in his professional life, does great work here. His Murrow radiates an intelligence and integrity that befits the exalted newsman, but also the weariness and disillusionment of a man who has devoted his life to the news medium only to bear witness to the beginning of its downfall. He takes on McCarthy not because he’s a crusader or a true believer but because he has dedicated his life to the now-quaint concept that news should present the truth of any situation as objectively as possible—-an ideal he saw being thrown aside by the news media in fear of attracting the dangerous attentions of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin. The performances are uniformly excellent, especially Clooney as Murrow’s dedicated producer Fred Friendly (whom my father reminded me went on to do Monday Night Football—what a resume!) and Ray Wise as Murrow’s ill-fated colleague Don Hollenbeck. Frank Langella gives appropriate gravity to CBS eminence gris Bill Paley, making us long for that simpler time when network decisions were made by people rather than legions of committees and consultants. Langella’s performance is nicely nuanced; we can see his personal affection for Murrow through the veneer his patrician persona, yet we don’t doubt for a minute that he will send Murrow packing once he starts costing the network significant money. Also great are Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as a husband and wife newsroom team who are forced to conceal their relationship because of company policy, but their characters represent the film’s most serious misstep. Their subplot is largely superfluous, and while it is a good device to convey the workplace tenor of the time, it could have been truncated and achieved the same effect. As it is, it reeks of filler to pad the film’s relatively brief running time.

Here’s the thing. Good Night, and Good Luck is a very good film. But more than that, it’s an important film. Not an Important Film (I’ll write about the difference one of these days), but an important film. The parallels between the McCarthy era and ours are evident everywhere, and Murrow’s speech about the deteriorating state of television that bookends the film is so prescient that it’s hard to believe they are his actual words (they are). Without resorting to cheap nostalgia, the tone and substance of Clooney’s film create an elegy for the high water mark of television news, the moment when the medium fulfilled its promise and almost immediately started its decline. It encapsulates the debate so relevant to the TV news medium today—what is its obligation to the truth? Is it merely to present a “fair and balanced” viewpoint, with all sides given “equal” time (as Fox News and others have amply demonstrated, equal time doesn’t always mean equal consideration), or is there sometimes a greater truth to be uncovered? I’m not sure, but then again these days I’m getting most of my news from the Internet and "The Daily Show."

Pulling the Trigger
Now Playing: A History of Violence (2005, d. David Cronenberg)
If A History of Violence is David Cronenberg’s attempt to sell out to the studios, then he’s having the last laugh. It may have spendy production values, an A-list cast, and a story based on a comic book, but audiences expecting a Hollywood vigilante flick will leave scratching their heads. Cronenberg cannily adopts the trappings of such a picture, but refuses to give the audience the expected payoff of either a protagonist who has gone through a dark place only to emerge happily reunited with his loved ones, or the big “oh shit” moment where he realizes the horrible consequences of his actions. All the people our putative hero dispatches (and there are many) deserve killing, but Cronenberg (working from a screenplay by Josh Olson) refuses to let us feel comfortable about it.

The movie’s trailers spell out the blood-simple plot. Small town diner owner and all-around standup guy Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is closing up when two hoodlums on the lam come in, threatening to do some very nasty things to Tom and his employees (we know they mean business from a creepily chilly opening sequence). Acting on instinct, Tom disarms and kills them, becoming a local hero in the aftermath. Though he shuns the spotlight, media attention is pervasive, and attracts one-eyed Philly mobster Carl Fogaty (Ed Harris, who I always like better as a bad guy), who shows up with two henchmen to harass Stall’s family. Fogaty is convinced that Tom is actually a hood named Joey Cusack, and is determined to bring him back with him and take revenge for the loss of his eye. His persistence begins to wear on Tom’s small town lawyer wife (Maria Bello, in a fine performance) and son Jack (Ashton Holmes)—does Tom’s facility with violence belie a hidden criminal past?

All of this sounds like a typical (albeit watchable) crime flick. But a synopsis cannot begin to convey the profound ambiguity that Cronenberg invests in the story. He puts us in situations where we are rooting for Stall to take violent action, but when Stall takes that inevitable step, we cannot feel good for the character. Cronenberg seems to be saying that there is a hidden reservoir of violence within us all, but that tapping into it is not a cause for celebration for there is no going back afterward. Simpleminded critics have seen this as Cronenberg (a Canadian) criticizing America’s violent society. To view the film in those terms is to completely ignore Cronenberg’s body of work. In most of his films, Cronenberg serves up incredibly graphic violence (though one of his most effective, Dead Ringers, merely suggested it with some really ghastly-looking gynecological instruments), but even in his early horror work, the violence is never an end unto itself, but a way to get under the audience’s skin, to infect their thoughts with indelible images that create resonances long after the film is over.

Cronenberg confounds expectations throughout the film, perhaps most effectively by turning the final act into a gruesome comedy, as Tom confronts the head of the Philly crime family (a scene-stealing William Hurt). In fact, throughout the film, there are moments where the audience is encouraged to laugh, either out of embarrassment (there are two sex scenes which are quite graphic by current Hollywood standards) or even outright physical comedy. But I don’t think the appropriate reaction is to stand up and yell (as Jeffrey Wells reported happened at the Cannes premiere) “Stop laughing--it’s not funny!” Cronenberg is too expert a director to get a reaction other than the one he intends. He’s one of the few directors working outside the exploitation genre who won’t shy away from graphic sex and violence, but what sets him (and a few other gore auteurs such as Takashi Miike) apart from the hacks of the industry is his complete mastery over the form and function of what he’s showing (and not showing) us.

A History of Violence is the kind of film that takes time to properly assess. Leaving the theater, I was ready to place it somewhere between The Dead Zone and The Fly in the Cronenberg oeuvre; that is to say quite good but not great. Yet it has a lasting effect, and lingers in the thoughts a long time after it’s over. And that, kids, is the mark of a great director.

Fox Can't Take the Sky From Me!
Now Playing: Serenity (2005, d. Joss Whedon)
Reviewer’s note: Since every man, woman and child with even a passing interest has no doubt already seen Serenity at one of its myriad advance screenings, this doesn’t necessarily qualify as a scoop. Nonetheless, I was able to see it before its official theatrical opening, so I guess that counts for something. As any discussion of this film seems to be framed by the user’s feelings on the past works of its creator, I’ll lay it out briefly before I begin the review in earnest. I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Joss Whedon fan club, though I think he’s quite talented. I thought the Buffy TV series was entertaining, but certainly not the apex of broadcast drama that some seem to feel it is, and I’ve never seen a complete episode of Angel. His writing for film has had a spotty track record: one great script (Toy Story), and a couple of interesting but ultimately flawed ones (Alien: Resurrection, Titan AE). I tried an episode of Firefly, the series upon which Serenity is based, when it was originally airing on Fox, but didn’t get into it for the same reason that it suffered an untimely cancellation: the network’s monkeying with the episode sequence made it impossible to get into Whedon’s impressively detailed universe. Still, enough people proselytized to me about its pleasures that I resolved to give it another chance on DVD. However, I wanted to see the film from the point of view of a non-fan, so I tried to wait to watch the series. A temporary Netflix drought and a persistent sci-fi yen conspired against my best-laid plans, however, and I popped the series pilot in my DVD player. I was an instant convert; Whedon’s nicely drawn characters and trademark snappy dialogue combined with familiar western-themed plots and solid ensemble acting to create a wonderfully addictive television experience. Like the legions of Whedonites that convinced Universal to pick up the movie rights, I began to anticipate Serenity as a chance to spend a little more time with the characters to which I had become attached over the course of series’ fifteen hours. With Whedon writing and directing, there was no chance the film would fail to deliver on that count. The big question on everyone’s mind (not least the studio plants in my row at the screening who kept asking everyone what they liked about the show) is: Will it play to the unconverted?

The answer is yet to be determined. My feeling is that it will, thanks to the familiarity of the tropes and some good action and special effects, but that newcomers will miss much of the nuance that made the series memorable to begin with. If you hadn’t seen the series, you wouldn’t know that Shepherd Book (Ron Glass, in fine voice and cornrows) was ever a member of Serenity’s crew, or that Inara Serra (the lovely Morena Baccarin) is a Companion—-a well-educated concubine-for-hire that enjoys the exalted position of a geisha in the futuristic world of the film. Her relationship with Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), who was smitten with her but unable to accept her profession, formed much of the romantic tension of the series. Do you need to know these things to enjoy the movie? No, but without those layers of context, the feature may seem like just another sci-fi western, albeit one with great dialogue and really likeable characters.

Newcomers get a tightly-constructed introduction to the world of Firefly. Sometime in the future, we’re told in the film’s intro, Earth’s population used up the planet’s resources and set off into the galaxy to claim new homes. As civilization spread out, a central government emerged to provide order to the core worlds. Settlers on the edge of civilization rebelled against this authority, and a bloody civil war ensued. On the losing end were the rebels, or Browncoats, with whom Reynolds served. In the aftermath, he and his crew are able to eke out a living through petty crime and chartered transport; the latter is how the crew came to include fugitives Dr. Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his enigmatic and possibly insane teenage sister River (Summer Glau), who Simon rescued from some sort of mysterious MK-Ultra style government mind-control experiment. Just what it was and why River was selected was clearly meant to be a mystery unraveled over the course of the series, but Whedon makes this the focus of the movie, answering most of the lingering questions. A top-secret, unnamed Operative (Chiwetel Ojiofor) has been dispatched to recover River by any means necessary, and as Reynolds and crew try to stop him, they begin to solve the mystery of their strange and dangerous passenger.

In his first directorial effort for the big screen, Whedon demonstrates an extremely able touch with his actors (chemistry developed over a year of working together no doubt helps), and, more surprisingly, fairly decent cinematographic instincts—not that anyone’s going to mistake him for Kubrick, but his frames are decent enough. The movie’s television roots show in the plotting, however. There are no subplots, just a direct line of action from beginning to end. It’s not enough to do the movie in, though—-the ride is thrilling enough that we aren’t looking for detours during the course of the film. In retrospect, though, it seems like Whedon may have sacrificed an opportunity to broaden and deepen his ‘verse to provide something the studio felt like it could sell.

Nitpicks aside, Serenity is one hell of a good time. Whedon and crew get the tone just right, serious when it should be but never so much that it gets pompous (Star Wars prequels, I’m looking at you). I can’t think of a serious sci-fi film with as many genuine laughs that don’t rely on in-jokes (ahem, Star Trek: The Next Generation films). Whedon’s trademark dialogue walks the line between witty and precious, and almost always stays on the right side. There are genuine scares, great effects, and believable action. The acting is solid throughout, especially from Ojiofor and Fillion, but even from series favorites Alan Tudyk (as wisecracking ship’s pilot Wash) and Adam Baldwin (channeling Warren Oates as grumpy hired muscle Jayne Cobb), who have been relegated to diminished roles in the feature. Best of all, Whedon isn’t afraid to make his universe dangerous. He risks alienating the rabid fan base with the fates of some of the characters, but he’s apparently paid attention to his westerns—-in just about all of the best ones, not all of the characters we care about make it to the end of the trail. And in these franchise-happy, merchandising-driven times, one has to respect a creator putting his babies in situations where some or all of them may not make it to the end. There are no dream sequences, no Deus-ex-machina moments, and it’s saying something that I’ve been conditioned to assume these cop-outs are coming.

I left the screening with a big grin on my face, knowing that I had seen a space opera the likes of which are all too rare these days. The fan in me may have subdued the critic, but I don’t think that’s the case. After all, I’ve loved Star Trek since I was four years old, but no amount of irrational nostalgia could convince me that Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier or Star Trek: Insurrection were good movies by any stretch of the imagination. I think if the public gives Serenity a chance, the film will do well at the box office. And the fan in me hopes that happens, just on the chance that success will warrant a sequel, and I’ll get to spend another couple of hours with the characters I’ve grown to love.

The Sound and the Fury
Now Playing: War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
The most terrifying thing about Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is Michael Babcock’s superb sound design. And though you should see it in the most THX’d-up theater you can to get the full effect, it’s not the explosions or screams or even the weird foghorn blast the alien tripod machines emit prior to blasting the living crap out of New Jersey that really get to you—-it’s the protracted silences that are most chilling. With an absolute minimum of score (credited to John Williams, who must have contributed all of 10 minutes’ work), the weird, almost silent interludes between alien attacks speak of terror, desperation, and the reduction of life’s complexities to the simple struggle to survive. Most of the film’s most unsettling images are accompanied by eerie silence--this seems honest and true to life, as do several of Spielberg’s visual touches: makeshift message boards displaying photos of missing people, the clothes of vaporized victims raining down from the sky, et cetera.

Of course, in post 9-11 America, we have plenty of source material from which to draw upon when making sure portrayals of Americans in catastrophic situations ring true, and I can’t fault Spielberg for including such reminders of that tragic event. He’s been criticized by some for raising the specter of 9-11 without fully engaging the issue—-well, for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be pretty difficult to make a movie about the destruction of our world without raising that ugly specter (and whether it’s useful or appropriate to make such movies is a legitimate subject for debate in other forums). Spielberg is interested in tapping into the primal fear we feel when we’re attacked seemingly without reason or provocation, and insofar as he’s successful, that’s a worthy engagement of the 9-11 issue.

The script, by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, isn’t concerned with showing us the macro view; we see the events unfold strictly through the eyes of Ray Farrier (Tom Cruise). This is creepily effective in conveying the disorienting effect of the surprise attack—-we see giant machines wreaking large-scale havoc, but there’s no way of knowing what’s going on outside of Farrier’s frame of reference aside from the occasional rumor or scrap of information. On the other hand, this approach frequently handcuffs the plot; there’s no scene as memorable as the one in the 1953 Byron Haskin version where the leaders approach the aliens under a flag of truce to try and communicate only to be casually atomized by the invaders.

And that’s part of the problem with Spielberg’s version. It’s perfectly legitimate to tell this story from the point of view of an estranged father and his two children, but we never feel any emotional attachment to the characters. We’re introduced to the characters, given a few broad strokes to show that Ray is a selfish guy who can’t connect to his kids, and then all hell breaks loose and the erstwhile family must make it from New Jersey to Boston (for no other reason than that’s where the kids’ mom is). Cruise, who plays most of the film in bug-eyed crazy guy mode (not unlike his recent interview appearances), does shell-shocked well. And I know that what we’re meant to take from this is that under extreme circumstances, our autopilot kicks in and we do what must be done to save our loved ones. That’s all fine and well, but there’s nothing in the movie that develops the relationships. Ray’s character arc goes like this: Bad dad to crazy guy to instant good dad. And Ray’s the most fully developed character in the film. Aside from him, we get Dakota Fanning doing yet another version of the preternaturally mature little girl thing, and Justin Chatwin, saddled with an extremely annoying role as the hotheaded son. There’s an extended scene with Tim Robbins, who’s not entirely convincing as a guy who has gone round the proverbial bend, a cameo from Miranda Otto as the kids’ mom, and a preposterous, giggle-inducing voiceover narration from Morgan Freeman.

In lieu of character development, we get a series of chases from one location to the next. Most are expertly staged and provide the requisite thrills (the main exception being a scene in which an alien tentacle-like camera device snakes through the basement in which Ray and his daughter are hiding—-a carbon copy of the scene from Minority Report that seems like nothing so much as lazy filmmaking), but we know Ray and his daughter aren’t going to die, and we aren’t given anyone else to care about. Even so, the script allows for a couple of moments of moral complexity that Spielberg completely mishandles. Without delving too far into spoiler territory, I’ll say that Farrier is faced with what should have been a difficult moral choice when he must silence the raving Robbins character or risk discovery by the aliens. Had Robbins’ character been at all sympathetic, Farrier’s decision might have carried some real weight. Instead, Spielberg makes Robbins a cartoon, and we’re rooting for Cruise to shut him up by any means necessary. The second involves a choice by Cruise that sends a key character to certain death, a weighty decision rendered comedic by a preposterous, unexplained Deus ex Machina moment at the conclusion.

That’s my problem with this film in a nutshell. It goes through the paces and provides the requisite thrills, but it doesn’t take advantage of opportunities to take the material further. Nobody expects high art from a big summer movie like War of the Worlds, but for someone who so adeptly handles all the moving parts of this admittedly impressive spectacle (and I’m not talking just about the big special effects shots, Spielberg is also masterful in choosing what not to show us), I wish he’d develop a similar facility with the characters. Even in his "serious" films such as Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, Spielberg has demonstrated a simpleminded black and white view of morality that makes me very uneasy about his next project, which will mine the potentially fertile moral territory of the Mossad’s vengeance-driven response to the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. I’d never call for Spielberg to stop producing blockbuster (I don’t mean that perjoratively) movies—-he’s far too good at what he does—but I fear he’ll never ascend to the most elite rank of filmmakers without a more developed sense of moral complexity or at least a screenwriter that can produce fully fleshed-out characters.

The Dark Night Begins...Again
Now Playing: Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
Let me just say this: Batman Begins is a terrific film; a well-handled, mature treatment of a beloved hero that honors and assimilates elements not only of the comic book continuity, but the previous Batman films (well, the decent Tim Burton ones, anyway) as well. I have read a few negative reviews of the film, particularly David Denby’s pan in the New Yorker, and on most points I have to say: wrong, wrong, wrong! Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, but these reviews seem to have been based on a different film than the one I saw. To wit:

“The movie is too slow” – This from critics who have been banging the “Hollywood films are all big set pieces and no substance” drum for years? Yes, Batman Begins is paced more deliberately than your standard blockbuster. I liked the fact that it did not race from one outrageous set piece to the next. It gives the audience a chance to breathe, to get to know this film’s characters (as opposed to the ones we know from the books, movies, etc.) I never felt the movie dragging, or that a scene was unnecessary or went on too long. These are the hallmarks of a slow movie, not a dearth of giant explosions.

“Christian Bale is too wooden” – Perhaps years of mistaking overemoting by the likes of Al Pacino for acting has hardened some critics to a nuanced performance. It’s pretty difficult for anyone to convey emotion when concealed in a rubber bat suit. Bale does a better job than any of the previous incarnations (yes, Michael Keaton apologists, I include him) in the suit—-witness the barely controlled rage in his voice when interrogating criminals. Without the benefit of facial expression, we are made to understand the battle waged between the competing desires for revenge and justice within the character. In his scenes as alter-ego Bruce Wayne, Bale allows his seriousness to break in a few key moments that illuminate his character. Bale's Wayne has a mischievous side, which surfaces when he’s acting the part of the bad-boy billionaire. Diving into a decorative hotel water feature with his Eurotrash escorts or throwing guests out of his birthday party, we see that a part of him enjoys it. Might a tendency toward flaunting authority illuminate a person’s reasons for carrying out vigilante justice dressed in a freaky costume? And those who accuse Bale of humorlessness apparently missed the great moments between him and Michael Caine (as loyal butler Alfred) and Morgan Freeman (as Batman’s equipment outfitter, Lucius Fox). These are brief moments to be sure, but they go a long way in making the character sympathetic. Most of the time, Bale treads the line between driven and psychopathic that’s defined the character since Frank Miller’s seminal graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, and he’s genuinely scary at times. Keaton’s portrayal was a typical Tim Burton freaky outsider, unable to fit in with regular society unless he’s wearing a costume. An interesting angle, but it ain’t Batman. Bruce Wayne’s cover is that of a wealthy socialite, for crying out loud. He can’t be too much of a loner.

“The production design is too drab” – This criticism is likely leveled by those who thought Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy represents the nadir of comic book-based films. Burton brought his unique vision to his films, courtesy of the great Anton Furst. Cool as it was, those of us who grew up on Neal Adams’ elegantly stylized art (and followed it through that of the gritty work of Frank Miller, Tim Sale, and others) longed for a Gotham City that looked like a real city—-one whose sense of decay and menace came from dark alleys and abandoned buildings, not from a stagy-looking baroque amusement park (and lest you think I’m picking on Burton’s films, let it be noted that I enjoyed those films for what they were—-Tim Burton films that weren’t necessarily trying to be faithful to the comic books-—and that I can’t even bring myself to discuss the crimes against cinema perpetrated by Joel Schumacher in the name of the franchise). Nolan’s Gotham looks like Chicago or New York, with a few nice stylistic touches, like a now-decrepit monorail bisecting the skyscrapers at the heart of the city. In the aerial shots of the city, as in the rest of the effects work, CG is integrated seamlessly, calling as little attention to itself as possible. Nolan’s city doesn’t look like a soundstage; neither does it look like Vancouver. It’s its own city, recognizable and perfectly realized in the production design. Which brings us to…

“Chris Nolan doesn’t leave his mark on the film” – No offense to Nolan, whose work I have enjoyed since Memento, but I don’t think he’s quite the auteur Denby seems to think he is—-not yet, anyway. Stylistically, his remake of Insomnia couldn’t be different from the edgy puzzle-logic structure of his studio debut Memento. That film’s aesthetic was tense, gritty, unhinged; Insomnia produced a sense of increasing disorientation from the stillness and perpetual daylight of its setting. When it was released, I was disappointed that Insomnia looked like a Hollywood film; I felt that Nolan had not fulfilled the promise made by Memento’s indie-film sense of style. After seeing Batman Begins, I think that Nolan’s visual strengths lie in creating atmosphere rather than in a trademark visual style. A Batman film needs atmosphere; Nolan supplies it in spades.

“The action scenes suck.” Actually, I can’t argue with this too much. The action choreography is my biggest complaint about the film. Shot in the super-quick cut style foisted on the viewing public by the Bruckheimer School, it’s confusing to the point of incomprehensibility. It’s possible to use quick cuts to make an effective fight scene, as in the Bourne films, but here the editing just looks like it was meant to conceal poorly executed fights. In a way, I think Nolan was on the right track, in that the action in the previous incarnations was hurt by the fact that a guy in a big rubber suit just doesn’t look all that mobile. Nolan sidesteps the problem by having Batman lurking in the shadows, often swallowing up unsuspecting bad guys in a flash, like something from the Alien movies. It reinforces the horror-movie aspects of the film, as well as the theme (present from the genesis of the comic book, and emphasized nicely in the script by Nolan and David Goyer) that Batman’s biggest weapon is fear. I like the idea of Batman as a guy who uses stealth to help overcome larger numbers, but in a film like this, you just can’t avoid some on-screen fighting. As the principals have been secured for a three picture deal, I can only say to Mr. Nolan: please, please, please, get an action choreographer and second unit director that know what they’re doing and can produce an exciting, comprehensible fight scene. If you’re not sure who to use, give Tarantino a ring—-I’m sure he’ll have all kinds of suggestions.

I’m not going to bother synopsizing the plot here; I’ll just say it’s a good reboot of the origin story (why, oh why do the studios think there are people out there that don’t know the origin of superheroes that have been around more than 50 years?) that features some good second-tier villains (Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow is especially creepy, seemingly taking a cue from David Cronenberg’s mask-wearing psychopathic psychologist in Night Breed). The supporting roles are perfectly cast, and in addition to great work by Caine and Freeman, there are nice turns from Rutger Hauer, Tom Wilkinson, Katie Holmes, and especially Gary Oldman as the decent cop Jim Gordon. Nice to see him perform so well in this part after playing so many corrupt evil psychos his name had almost become synonymous with “bad guy.” And for those of you given pause by the ubiquitous online photos of the new Batmobile (of which I was one): Don’t worry. In action, it’s really cool.

Mr. XXXX
Now Playing: Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn, 2004)
I’ve admitted elsewhere on this blog to being a sucker for crime-genre pictures. By that I don’t mean that I give these pictures a pass—-only that I don’t expect these movies to break much new ground but rather to respect the conventions of the genre and do what they do well. Someone who’s not a sucker for the genre might enjoy Sexy Beast yet wonder why someone like myself gets all giddy about it. Thus, I was anticipating the eventual arrival in Denver of Matthew Vaughn’s directorial debut Layer Cake, which promised a twisty journey through the back rooms of the London underworld. Vaughn previously served as a producer on two of Guy Ritchie’s exercises in style over substance (For the record: I didn’t like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels; but I did like Snatch--virtually the same movie remade with a higher budget--due to its great cast and sheer exuberance), and stepped behind the camera when Ritchie bowed out of the production. It’s a good thing, for Vaughn proves to be a capable director, endowing the film not only with a distinctive visual flair (though thankfully not nearly as hyperkinetic as his former partner), but also with a moodiness that suits the material well.

Daniel Craig plays the unnamed protagonist, an upper-echelon drug dealer who’s essentially a middleman between the manufacturers and the dealers. He sees himself as a businessman, and abides by some rather strict rules of conduct which keep him and his close associates wealthy and out of trouble with the law. As the film begins, he has just completed a big cocaine deal that will net him a cool million pounds after the money is laundered. He plans to take his big paycheck and disappear into comfortable retirement. What, has he never seen a crime movie? Retirement plans never bode well for the (anti)hero, and here is no exception. Crime boss Jimmy Price enlists XXXX (yes, that’s how he’s listed in the credits) to unload a large quantity of ecstasy smuggled in from Amsterdam, and to find construction magnate Eddie Temple’s (Michael Gambon, at his reptilian best) missing daughter. Unsurprisingly, things get more complicated from there.

Craig’s performance is quite good—-he’s very believable as a man who has achieved his position by being smarter, quicker, and more careful than the competition. When his name was being bandied about as the next Bond, I didn’t see it—-I do now. He’s able to simultaneously convey smoothness and menace; he can seem sympathetic one moment and psychopathic the next. And he looks good in a tailored suit. There’s a large supporting cast, which includes Gambon, Colm Meaney (excellent as Price’s right-hand man), Tom Hardy (unrecognizable from his previous starring role in the last Star Trek movie), and many others; Vaughn handles them deftly, with the exception of the tiny part of Tammy (Sienna Miller) who plays the dual role of plot contrivance and sole female presence. He navigates the twisty plot with an assured facility, and though the accents are occasionally impenetrable, it’s not too difficult to follow along. Despite the flashy camerawork and pomo time shifts, Vaughn clearly owes more to the great French crime films of Becker and Melville than Tarantino. These films (as in the great Touchez-pas Au Grisbi and Bob le Flambeur) see the central conflict of crime films as rising from the disruption of the protagonist’s carefully ordered lifestyle by forces beyond his control, and Layer Cake follows this pattern closely. XXXX’s life is controlled to the most minute detail as the film begins; the journey of the film concerns its unraveling and XXXX’s attempts to stay one step ahead of the disaster that’s dogging him. It’s not an earth-shattering work, but those that enjoy such things will find the ride quite enjoyable.

Until the last scene. I won’t spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that there are about three ways crime films end, and Vaughn seems to be unable to make up his mind, so he gives us all of them in about a minute and a half. The last shot feels like a cheap betrayal of the audience’s emotional investment in the character. I have not read the novel upon which the movie was based, so perhaps it’s faithful. If so, it’s no excuse; Vaughn should have taken the opportunity to come up with something more satisfying.

The Hustler
Now Playing: Kung Fu Hustle (Steven Chow, 2005)
If you’re anything like me, you’ll leave Steven Chow’s latest suffering from exhaustion and sensory overload. As he proved in his previous film, Shaolin Soccer, his m.o. is "more is better"-—more gags, bigger stunts, visuals limited only by the processors on your rendering computers, and a complete willingness to go ever further over the top made that film irresistibly enjoyable despite the one-note simplicity of the plot. The good news: Kung Fu Hustle offers more of the same, with even more outlandish visuals and frenetic action. Those given to such things will find plenty to love in this film, which one-ups its predecessor while adhering to the same basic formula.

The story again concerns a ne’er-do-well who must learn to harness the mystical power of kung fu to overcome a powerful adversary. In this case, it’s the Axe Gang, a brutal triad that rules 1920’s Shanghai by freely exercising the eponymous hatchet and other brutal means of coercion. The residents of Pig Sty Alley are too poor to come to the attention of the gangs, that is, until Sing (Chow) stirs up trouble by grifting residents, claiming to be an Axe brother. When the gang retaliates, however, they find that all is not as it seems. The tenement is home to three kung fu masters who are living incognito, and the harridan landlady (Qiu Yuen, stealing the show) and her shrinking violet husband have some supernatural abilities of their own. Looking for a way to eliminate the protectors of Pig Sty Alley, the leader of the Axe Gang, Brother Sum (Kwok Kuen Chan) recruits Sing, who, despite a fundamentally kind heart, really wants to be a bad guy. Five hundred kinds of mayhem ensue.

Chow is quite gifted visually speaking, and Kung Fu Hustle gives him the right sized canvas. Where Shaolin Soccer’s low budget was sometimes evident, the follow up has a look as slick as anything out of Hollywood. The ‘20’s setting allows for fantastic costumes and sets, and Chow makes the most of them. An opening dance number introducing the black-suited legions of the Axe Gang establishes the right tone—something like a big musical production from the ‘50’s (although Chow drops the song and dance after that—probably too much for even him to juggle). Chow excels at using eye-popping special effects to create a live action cartoon, and he lets his Tex Avery fixation run wild. It bears notice in this sanitized age that slapstick is so-called for a reason. The violence certainly falls under the category of cartoon violence, but it seems strong at times, especially if you haven’t seen a classic Warner Bros. cartoon recently. It’s also bloodier (though hardly a gorefest) than American family fare. Still, it’s hard not to laugh when Landlady throws her hapless husband out of a top-story window and his crash landing is punctuated by the familiar flowerpot to the head, and a Roadrunner-inspired chase complete with legs motion-blurred into spinning wheels is delightful. Other sight gags are less successful, such as a number of obvious quotes from films from The Shining to The Matrix (whose legendary action choreographer, Yuen Wo Ping, also worked on this film). There’s no time to dwell on a failed gag, though—-think about it and you’ll miss the next ten. Chow throws it all up on the wall to see what will stick, and, at least in this case, more sticks than doesn’t.

Kung Fu Hustle is pure cinematic confection. You’ll leave the film with a big grin on your face, unsure of exactly what you’ve just witnessed and dubious about its nutritional value. But, hey—-sometimes you need a well-balanced meal; sometimes you just have to gorge on the sweet stuff. Kung Fu Hustle is a deep-fried Mars bar a la mode dipped in chocolate and topped with whipped cream and about fifty cherries.

DVD Roundup
Now Playing: Con Games
Steven Soderbergh has, throughout his career, confounded expectations through his choice of projects. His early body of work began with Sex Lies & Videotape?the film that arguably gave birth to the indie movement of the early '90's?continued with the difficult and idiosyncratic Schizopolis, and reached its zenith with The Limey. He then abandoned his art-house millieu to do Out Of Sight, a slick George Clooney vehicle that remains to this day not only the best adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, but the best Jennifer Lopez performance committed to film. It wasn't a box office smash, and Soderbergh counterpunched with Traffic, a large scale examination of the pervasiveness of the drug trade that seemed caluclated to hit with audiences and Oscar alike. It worked like a charm on both counts. After Traffic, Soderbergh's films seemed to follow the pattern of the indie director who, in order to secure financing for smaller, personal projects, makes the occasional Hollywood blockbuster. His remake of the Rat Pack heist film Ocean's 11 (renamed Ocean's Eleven, perhaps in a display of Soderberghian playfulness) was a huge success, allowing both his remake of Tarkovsky's Solaris and the disastrous digital video improvisationFull Frontal. How surprising then, that instead of the expected Hollywood slam-dunk sequel, Ocean's Twelve ends up looking and feeling more like an effort from the earlier period of Soderbergh's career.

Still essentially an excuse to get a whole bunch of stars in a room together, Twelve's action hangs on the barest framework of plot. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the mobbed up target of the first film's heist, has tracked down each of the members of Ocean's Eleven and presented them with an ultimatum: return the stolen money plus interest in two weeks or die. Not one to shrink from such a challenge, the gang's ringleader Danny Ocean (Clooney), who has been, with much difficulty, playing it straight with wife Tess (Julia Roberts), assembles the team and embarks on a series of heists throughout Europe to recover the money. Thwarting them along the way are an Interpol agent (Catherine Zeta Jones) who, improbably, is a former lover of Ocean's right-hand man Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt); and an aristocratic French cat burglar, The Silver Fox (Vincent Cassel), who is out to prove his superiority to Ocean.

As in the first film, the viewer's pleasure comes not from the intricacies of the heist, as in traditional heist movies, but from the riffing of a big group of stars of varying magnitudes. It's clear that everyone is having a blast, and this lessened the first film for me?-the sense that there was a joke the audience wasn't in on soured the experience somewhat. That this film is more successful is, I think, owing to Soderbergh's stylistic decisions. Instead of delivering a stylistic copy of the first film, Soderbergh switches things up, directly quoting sixties ?Swinging London? era films, from the grainy film stock look to the hip looking sans serif title cards that guide us as we jump around times and locations. The film just feels playful, and it suits the actors, of whom there are so many that, save for the leads, their parts of necessity become glorified cameos. For their part, the actors are game, though it hurts a bit to see Bernie Mac's part reduced to a single gag and the estimable talents of Chinese acrobat Shaobo Qin used only for a joke about lost luggage at the airport. Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner, the best things about the first film, are barely in the film at all.

Soderbergh and screenwriter George Nolfi smartly realize that in order for the film to have the necessary lightness, it won't do to delve to deeply into details. Rather than give us a detailed scene in which Zeta Jones' character breaks down a captured man for information, he uses visual shorthand, pulling the camera back to the other side of the two-way mirror and having two police comment on the difficulty of the achievement even as he shows the suspect breaking down at a few words whispered in his ear. In one of the film's best sequences, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle (British accent unimproved from the first outing) trade fictional schemes for stealing a Faberge egg, one-upping each other with each one (sample: [I'm paraphrasing] ?Baby With the Bathwater.? ?No. You need five guys and anyway, you'll never train a cat that fast.?) It has the feel of two actors improvising and having a blast doing it. Knowing the plot is slight, Soderbergh keeps us entertained by means of his directorial bag of tricks?at one point, he cuts away from a burglary in progress, then shows us Zeta Jones' investigation the following day to show us how it went wrong. There's even a metafictional gag where Tess has to pretend to be Julia Roberts. If we dwell too long on any of this, the seams begin to show. Soderbergh keeps things moving with good energy and a groovy sense of style that was lacking in the first film. No, it's not a crime caper that even approaches Out of Sight in terms of satisfying construction and narrative. But it's a much better ?famous people having fun? lark than the first film. I mean, what other reason is there for this kind of film's existence if it ain't fun? Now, if Soderbergh takes the same approach of trying something new for his next ?indie? effort, we may be in for a real treat.

Criminal, an American remake of the Argentinian con film Nine Queens, was produced by Soderbergh and Clooney's Section 8 Films. It satisfies in all the ways a con movie should, and is helped along by a lean plot and a talented ensemble including John C. Reilly, Diego Luna and Maggie Gyllenhaal. However, it begs the same question as all remakes of foreign films: why? One assumes that the usual reason is to Americanize the more foreign aspects of a film for a US audience. However, Nine Queens already follows the template of that most American of genres, the con. It was shot in the gritty, handheld camera-style that is prevalent in Hollywood today?-in short, it's a very American-feeling film presented in another language. One might also assume that a reason to remake a foreign film is for an American writer to riff off the themes present in the original in order to approach the same themes from a different perspective. It was with this in mind that I watched Criminal, and was disappointed to find that the writers, Gregory Jacobs and "Sam Lowry" (none other than Soderbergh himself), follow the plot points of the original beat for beat. Aside from a couple of completely superficial changes (the opening scene takes place in a casino rather than a gas station; the con centers around a forged treasury note rather than a forged set of stamps), the film follows the original to the letter. Why on earth did they bother? Unlike say, The Ring, Nine Queens enjoyed first run art-house distribution in the States, and was readily available on home video, having built a modest following thanks to good reviews. I can't necessarily say the new version isn't as good as the original on its own merits, but its superfluousness makes it so. Still, I enjoyed the film, thanks mainly to its appealing cast. If you haven't seen Nine Queens and can't abide subtitles, this film is for you. If you enjoyed the original and would like to see different actors in the roles, by all means check it out. If you haven't seen either, and if you love con films and can read, I'd say the original is best.

DVD Roundup
Now Playing: Mikey & Nicky
Elaine May’s 1976 Mikey & Nicky, now available on DVD from HVE, feels kind of stagy, not visually, but in May’s dialogue and the rapport between the two leads, played by John Cassavetes and Peter Falk. One could imagine the movie as an off-Broadway play during the heyday of Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson. May, of course, was a product of the theater scene, so it’s not surprising to learn from the interviews on the disc’s special features that the movie industry types were often exasperated by her actorly approach to the material. Off-and-on DP Victor Kemper and producer Michael Hausman recount the filming of one scene, in which May was oblivious to the fact that the cameras had long since run out of film, not wanting to interrupt Falk and Cassavetes’ inspired ad-libbing. In another anecdote from Kemper, May upbraids a veteran cameraman for cutting a scene in which the two had wandered out of frame because, “they might come back!”

May’s unwillingness to play by the established filmmaking rules leads to its share of amateurish mistakes, like a boom mike that comes into frame several times during a key scene, or the famous graveyard scene with an all-too-apparent lavaliere mike (Paramount head Barry Diller, finally seeing a rough cut after attempts to edit the million feet of film May shot had stretched into a two year ordeal, remarked, “I love the film…but why is there a microphone on Peter’s tie?). Other decisions, which might be seen as naive, work better, such as May’s decision to shoot the entire film in continuity at night, which expertly conveys the nightlong journey of the characters. As a whole, the film is remarkably assured, thanks to the chemistry between Falk and Cassavetes and the work of the much put-upon photographers and gaffers.

A description of the film’s premise sounds like a run of the mill crime story. Small-time hood Nicky (Cassavetes) has stolen money from his boss, who has put a contract out on him. Desperate, he calls on his oldest friend, Mikey (Falk) to help him get out of town. Mikey, torn between loyalty to his friend and boss, offers to help Nicky, but is also setting him up for the hitman (a good and creepy Ned Beatty) hired by the boss. But this is just the framework of the film, which is more concerned with the relationship between the two. Nicky is a self-destructive brat who really only cares about himself; Mikey is loyal, but has been pushed too far by the selfish Nicky, who belittles him publicly and only calls when he’s in trouble. We’ve all had a friend like Nicky—and the relationship usually self-destructs around a long dark night of the soul like the one portrayed here. The journey progresses through bars, across darkened city streets, to a girlfriend’s apartment, ending in the inevitable fistfight—and it’s almost uncomfortably familiar if you’ve been through a similar experience. Cassavetes is perfect as a handsome guy with a child's emotional maturity who instinctively sabotages every chance at salvation, while Falk evokes empathy as the put-upon friend (and makes his eventual betrayal is all the more devastating).

HVE’s transfer is quite good considering the source material, which has a grainy 1970’s verite feel which belies the experience of the crew. Extras are limited, but the interviews with Hausman and Kemper are quite good and offer insight into the film and its difficult production (Hausman’s irritation with May’s “artistic” temperament comes to the fore a number of times), giving the viewer hope that when artists and industry tradespeople get together, the result isn’t always disastrous.

He Stomped On The Terra
Feeling sad and kind of numb to learn of Hunter Thompson's passing. Nobody thought he'd go out in a hospital bed wired up to a bunch of tubes and machines, but the suddenness of this is shocking. Thompson, for better or worse, lived the way he wrote and practiced what he preached. To some degree, he seemed a prisoner of the larger than life persona he created, but unlike, say, Kurt Cobain, he lived fully within that persona and used it to accomplish things no ordinary journalist could. He was an authentic human, and we shall not see his like again, I fear.

Here in Colorado, just about everybody has a Hunter story. Whether you stopped in at the Woody Creek Tavern for a beer and happened to meet the man as he held court with his customary Wild Turkey, or he stopped into the place where you worked, he always seemed willing to deal with the public as generously as his current mental state allowed. I saw him speak up at the University of Colorado a few years ago, and while his ramblings that night were largely incoherent, here and there were interspersed some very funny remarks and incisive observations on the state of the government (this was before W would give Hunter a renewed source of vitriol against the Whores and Greedheads that run our country)--frankly amazing, seeing as he sampled a wide variety of the pills, joints, and other unidentified consumables (including a container of what seemed to be raw ether) that came flying onstage from the audience. And when he was finished, he simply stood up and walked offstage. No curtain calls or bouquets of flowers for him. The moderator, a bit surprised at the guest of honor's sudden departure, announced that Hunter would return after a brief intermission, but we knew he wasn't coming back. It just wasn't him.

There are a couple of filmic journeys into the world of Gonzo. A DVD of Where the Buffalo Roam was recently released--it's a valiant (if flawed) effort to transcribe Hunter's "greatest hits" to the screen. It doesn't hold together as a narrative, but it's got some very funny bits, and Bill Murray is quite good as the good Doctor. Peter Boyle, while not the Dr. Gonzo that I pictured (that would be Benicio Del Toro's iconic performance), is also memorable.

I'll be putting in the Criterion edition of Terry Gilliam's excellent Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a fairly faithful adaptation of Hunter's best-known work, featuring Johnny Depp's note-perfect portrayal of Raoul Duke and Del Toro's force of nature turn. I won't hear them, though, because I'll be listening to Hunter's brilliantly unhinged stream-of-consciousness commentary. And sipping a little Wild Turkey to help dull the pain of being a man. Godspeed, Hunter.