Somers Town (2009)

Somers Town 

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

4.5 Out of 5 Stars or A

 

The Plot: (from Allmovie.com)

Tomo has just turned 16, and as a result he’s no longer under parental care. Eager to escape the Midlands and seek out a better life in London, Tomo sets out for the big city and strikes up a friendship with Polish immigrant Marek while traversing the streets of Somers Town. Marek is a quiet and sensitive boy who harbors a growing interest in photography and still lives with his father. But Marek’s father is a hopeless drunk, and doesn’t even notice when his son invites Tomo to share their apartment. Most days, Tomo and Marek are content to pass earning some quick cash from an eccentric neighbor, wandering the streets, and admiring a pretty French waitress named Maria who works at a nearby café. Eventually, the two become obsessed with the girl and begin tracking her every move. But one day Maria simply vanishes, leaving the boys to feel as if they have lost their muse. Later that night, Tomo and Marek decide to dull their pain by sharing a bottle. Of course, it’s this very same night that Marek’s father discovers his son has taken in a new roommate, and Tomo is swiftly evicted. As a result, the growing bond between the two boys is put to the ultimate test.

The Review:   

At the end of This is England, loosely based on the experiences of its director Shane Meadows, the young Midlands skinhead Shaun (played by the fabulously talented Thomas Turgoose) throws a St. George’s flag into the sea and watches it sink– along with his childhood.   For Shaun, adolescent style has turned into the dragon of politics and bigotry, killing its own in blind rage.  Shaun stands between shore and sea (a la Antoine Doinel of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows), between past and uncertain future.  He has lost his real family (his mother) and abandoned his racist brothers who have adopted the politics of violence.   In Somers Town (again based on memories of Meadows past) Tomo (Thomas Turgoose again) is on a train, shuttling away from his Midland family to London, his own jaunty confidence his travel mate. 

Somers Town is the colloquial name for the area around North London that houses the St Pancreas depot for Eurostar’s Chunnel train.  (Eurostar provided major funding for the film project.)   The locomotives crisscross under the English Channel and do the London-Paris route in 2 hours and 15 minutes or the London-Brussels trip in 1 hour and 51 minutes, according to the official literature.  Befittingly its community is also a way station, filled with Eastern European migrants and migrating lower-to-lower middle class Brits. 

For Shane Meadows and frequent writing collaborator Paul Fraser Somers Town is also a fit for adolescent— the quiet stopping place between childhood innocent with its hints of summer memories and the burdens, responsibilities and addictions of adulthood.  The group which welcomed the child passing through under the tunnel in This is England is now a marauding pack intent on stripping Tomo of money and baggage.  He is beaten, bruised and battered; the bruises on his face visible for the rest of Somers Town black and white life.  Tomo stumbles upon his innocent expression in the photo bug Marek (Pitor Jagiello), a gangly, shy and lonely Polish youth who wanders about while his father (Ireneusz Czop) works or hangs out with his mates.  

Marek’s photo muse is the much older French waitress Maria (Elisa Lasowski).  The innocent triangle that forms between the three gives Somers Town its charming Trufautian Jules et Jim echo.  The mid-picture lark through streets and parks with a found wheelchair turned magic vehicle is the last imaginative and innocent journey before adult rivalries and responsibilities.  Maria’s last words before her sudden disappearance to Paris echoes Tomo and Marek relationship.  “Remember, I love you both the same.”  The three minutes of color video with Tomo, Marek and Maria reunited in Paris is both Truffaut homage and Eurostar travel poster.  The embrace and kiss between them under the bright light streaming off Sacre Coeur’s dome makes for the perfect ending to Somers Town— and adolescence.  

The perfectly caught details of that reverie raise Somers Town above bromance into minor masterpiece.   Marek and Tomo teeter-totering on too small carousel horses in the park while drinking and eating the wine, bread and cheese lunch they bought for the all too soon gone Maria.   Tomo’s outfit:  the way big trousers and summer dress tucked into his trousers – the booty of a launderette raid to replace a ruined tracksuit.  The boy not quite ready for responsibility, but forced to be his own mother and father– his evolution from seeing himself as “useless waste of space” to finding his own space.  Marek’s photo obsession is an attempt to understand the world, love and his space in it, his stopgap before the inevitable child-parent split forges the uneasy compromise.  He and Tomo are perfect mates.  

Somers Town runs barely 67 minutes, almost a midday fantasy.  Still, it is long enough to cover the awkward years.    It gets an A. 

 

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Shane Meadows  – Director Barnady Spurrier  – Producer Paul Fraser  – Screenwriter Natasha Braier  – Cinematographer Gavin Clarke  – Composer (Music Score) Richard Graham  – Editor Lisa Marie Hall  – Production Designer Nick Mercer  – Executive Producer Greg Nugent  – Executive Producer Robert Saville  – Executive Producer Jo Thompson  – Costume Designer Danny Cowley  – Sound/Sound Designer

With:   Piotr Jagiello … Marek;  Ireneusz Czop … Mariusz;  Perry Benson … Graham;  Thomas Turgoose … Tomo ; Kate Dickie … Jane; Maria…Elisa Lasowski ;  Huggy Leaver … Cafe Owner

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Tokyo!

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

2 Out of 5 Stars or C+ 

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Triptych feature telling three separate tales set in Tokyo, Japan. "Shaking Tokyo" centers on a man who has lived for 10 years as a hikikomori, (a term used in Japan for people unable to adjust to society and so they never leave their homes) and what happens when he falls in love one day with a pizza delivery girl. "Interior Design" follows the story of a wannabe movie director who arrives in Tokyo with his girlfriend only to find that parts of her bones are turning into wood. "Merde" concerns a hideous, Gollum-like humanoid that emerges from the sewers of Tokyo. After wreaking some mild havoc, the creature is captured and interrogated by the authorities. Merde, as this terrorist calls himself, baldly indicts the people of Japan as "disgusting," and the ending suggests that future cities are ripe for harassment.

The Review:

Tokyo! a triple feature of short films directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (Pola X, Les Amants du Pont Neuf) and Bong Joon-hoo (The Host) has nothing but derision for the host city.   The Tokyoites here are an unloving, alienated, disaffected and angry bunch.   The title sequence depicts an animated flat cityscape drawn in muted primary colors— no pretty picture postcard views like in Paris and New York film anthologies.   Almost every shoot is street level with almost no hint of sky.  Gondry’s Interior Design explores alienated love; Carax’s Merde (French for the expletive s**t) is a satirical attack on everything Japanese—its imperialist past and capitalist—consumerists present; Bong Joon-hoo’s Shaking Tokyo, exposes a peculiarly Japanese version of shut-in anxiety, the Hikikomori.

Michel Gondry aligned with Charlie Kaufman equals the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The two seem to share the same hallucinations and creative dreams.   Gondry soloing on his own creations can be pleasantly comfortable (Be Kind Rewind) or a boring illusionist (The Science of Sleep).  Interior Design about the slow dissolve of a young and roaming Japanese couple’s relationship is heartfelt and nicely observed until the girlfriend starts turning into a piece of furniture.   The literal symbolization of her mental and emotional stasis sacrifices the meaning and a well-earned ending for trademark kookiness. It is a case of Gondry typically over thinking the unnecessary.  

Leos Carax has been a cinema nonentity since 1999, so not surprisingly his creature (played by Carax regular Denis Lavant) pops up from a manhole cover after a long underground sojourn, promptly creating chaos, shock, fear and loathing in the Japanese denizens he ambles into— money, cell phones and flowers magnetically Velcroing to his hair and clothes.  On his second jaunt, he gleefully tosses the remnants of an imperialist war cache onto citizenry and infrastructure alike.  Eventually, he is tried, convicted, hung and resurrected.  Allegory or satire?  Maybe both.  Then, just like its title, Merde is just maybe a piece of merde. 

The 10 year Hikikomori (a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home, literally a withdrawn being) of Bong Joon-hoo’s Shaking Tokyo crashes into the world when he pushes a tattooed button on the thigh of a sleeping pizza delivery girl.   The shock of love causes her to become a Hikikomori also.  He wanders an overexposed world looking for her, an earthquake occurring at their meeting and his pleading for her to enter the light.  Joon-hoo’s haiku about the seismic nature of virgin love gets it right.  

Except for Jong-hoo’s contribution most of Tokyo!’s wit gets lost in its impenetrable symbolism.  Interior Design gets a C, Merde a C- and Shaking Tokyo a B+– graded on the curve Tokyo! gets a C+.     

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Bong Joon-ho  – Director / Screenwriter Leos Carax  – Director / Screenwriter Michel Gondry  – Director / Screenwriter Masa Sawada  – Producer Michiko Yoshitake  – Producer Gabrielle Bell  – Screenwriter Caroline Champetier  – Cinematographer Jun Fukumoto  – Cinematographer Masami Inomoto  – Cinematographer Etienne Charry  – Composer (Music Score) Lee Byung Woo  – Composer (Music Score) Jeff Buchanan  – Editor Nelly Quettier  – Editor Mitsuo Harada  – Production Designer Yuji Hayashida  – Production Designer Toshihiro Isomi  – Production Designer Kenzo Horikoshi  – Executive Producer Hiroyuki Negishi  – Executive Producer Yuji Sadai  – Executive Producer Celine Guignard  – Costume Designer Hironori Ito  – Sound/Sound Designer Takeshi Ogawa  – Sound/Sound Designer Fusao Yuwaki  – Sound/Sound Designer Sadie Hales  – From Idea By

With:  Ayako Fujitani  – Hiroko Ryo Kase  – Akira Ayumi Ito  Denis Lavant  Jean-François Balmer  Renji Ishibashi  Teruyuki Kagawa  Yu Aoi  Naoto Takenaka  

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

3 Out of 5 Stars or B

 

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn’t counted on Romilda Vane’s chocolates! And then there’s Hermione, simmering with jealousy but determined not to show her feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.

The Review:

Having a muggle only appreciation for the Harry Potter franchise, (I have only read Deathly Hallows) it is easy to come to each new incantation with a level set of eyes.    They need to work as film and film only. That is why the first two installments bored me—they were respectful and lifeless, the classic comics version, made for the fans.  

The third and the last one were the only ones that worked by themselves—and those were the ones who departed in some way from the canon.    The Order of the Phoenix managed to wrap up all the agony of teenage angst (the anger, the alienation, the rebellion against authority, the confusion) into the conventions of a political thriller.  Peter Yates direction and Michael Goldenberg’s screenplay (filling in for resident Potter scribe Steve Kloves) made the hormonal rush of adolescence fit in with the unfinished serial roughness required of the Potter world.  Stuck between childhood and looming adulthood, it was rightly awkward, a work in progress like all the teen years are.  Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) helmed the third installment, The Prisoner of Azkaban, the most majestic and honestly emotional of the Potters.   Azkaban had an artistry based on a true understanding of children and film craft (Y tu Mama Tambien, Great Expectations, A Little Princess), the perfect magical-realist edge.  The Potter kingdom was his– had he wanted it.

Half Blood Prince snogs around the descending blackness, trying to be a romance in the dark for about half its running time—at least, until the noir and adult stuff kicks in.    The kids are starting to feel their oats and the ensuing bliss and jealousies.  Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) are rivals in a chaste triangle that involves Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Ron’s sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright).  Love is treated as an oddity, a potion gone awry, something not real.  There is little emotional depth to the couplings and entanglements.  It is just fluff.  Cuarón would have found the edge to make it more mature. Yates cannot find the parallel in all the snoging to give it a serious side, a socio-political consciousness.   He sees only the candy heart. 

The politic is for the adults and Harry– and it involves the death of a major character.  There is urgency to Dumbledore—a Dumbledore trying to prepare Harry for the looming battle while still letting him enjoy the first flush of love.   Michael Gambon, in his best performance in the series, plays it with the right mixture of fear and courage.  Alan Richman’s slow release word play reflects Snape’s ever-shifting loyalties.  Helena Bonham Carter is all black magic lusciousness as Bellatrix Lestrange.  Jim Broadbent’s guest starring role as Horace Slughorn, the visiting professor of potions with much needed info on Voldemort, is pretty much a romp. 

Voldemort’s story is the dark shadow that blots the soul here, the inky spots of memory in a beaker of clarity.  Dumbledore sees separating the truth from the legend, the magic from the man, turning the immortal lord to mortal muggle as the key to victory.  Harry fate is to find, confront and destroy the scattered remnants of that immortality. William Dillane and Hero Fiennes Tiffin (yes, the son of Ralphe Fiennes of he who plays Voldemort) give the teenage and childhood Voldemort a suitably bad seed edge. Yates deafly handles the revelations and the action.   Love may trip him up, but death and politics he knows intimately.  The movie gets a solid B.

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

David Yates  – Director David Barron  – Producer David Heyman  – Producer Steve Kloves  – Screenwriter J.K. Rowling  – Book Author Bruno Delbonnel  – Cinematographer Nicholas Hooper  – Composer (Music Score) Mark Day  – Editor Stuart Craig  – Production Designer Alastair Bullock  – Art Director Martin Foley  – Art Director Molly Hughes  – Art Director Neil Lamont  – Art Director Martin Schadler  – Art Director Hattie Storey  – Art Director Gary Tomkins  – Art Director John Trehy  – Co-producer Timothy T. Lewis  – Associate Producer / Unit Production Manager Lionel Wigram  – Executive Producer Jany Temime  – Costume Designer Jamie Christopher  – First Assistant Director Simon Emanuel  – Production Manager Fiona Weir  – Casting Tim Burke  – Visual Effects Supervisor Nick Dudman  – Creature Effects / Makeup Special Effects Greg Powell  – Stunts Coordinator John Richardson  – Special Effects Supervisor

With:   Daniel Radcliffe  – Harry Potter Rupert Grint  – Ron Weasley Emma Watson  – Hermione Granger Helena Bonham Carter  – Bellatrix Lestrange Jim Broadbent  – Horace Slughorn Robbie Coltrane  – Rubeus Hagrid Michael Gambon  – Professor Albus Dumbledore Alan Rickman  – Professor Severus Snape Bonnie Wright  – Ginny Weasley Maggie Smith  – Professor Minerva McGonagall Timothy Spall  – Wormtail David Thewlis  – Remus Lupin David Bradley  – Argus Filch Warwick Davis  – Professor Filius Flitwick Tom Felton  – Draco Malfoy William Melling  – Nigel Evanna Lynch  – Luna Lovegood Jessie Cave  – Lavender Brown Frank Dillane  – Tom Riddle (Teenager) Hero Fiennes Tiffin  – Tom Riddle (Age 11) Natalia Tena  – Nymphadora Tonks Julie Walters  – Molly Weasley Rob Knox  – Marcus Belby Matthew Lewis  – Neville Longbottom Helen McCrory  – Narcissa Malfoy Freddie Stroma  – Cormac McLaggen Alfred Enoch  – Dean Thomas Afshan Azad  – Padma Patil Shefali Chowdhury  – Parvati Patil Mark Williams  – Arthur Weasley Jamie Waylett  – Vincent Crabbe Amelda Brown  – Mrs. Cole James Phelps  – Fred Weasley Oliver Phelps  – George Weasley Katie Leung  – Cho Chang Georgina Leonidas  – Katie Bell Devon Murray  – Seamus Finnigan Geraldine Somerville  – Lily Potter Joshua Herdman  – Gregory Goyle Ralph Ineson  – Amycus Paul Ritter  – Eldred Worple Gemma Jones  – Madam Pomfrey

 

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

2.5 Out of 5 Stars or B-

 

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

The sub-zero heroes from the worldwide blockbusters "Ice Age" and "Ice Age: The Meltdown" are back on an incredible adventure for the ages. Scrat is still trying to nab the ever-elusive nut (while, maybe, finding true love); Manny and Ellie await the birth of their mini-mammoth, Sid the sloth creates his own makeshift family by hijacking some dinosaur eggs; and Diego the saber-toothed tiger wonders if he’s growing too "soft" hanging with his pals. On a mission to rescue the hapless Sid, the gang ventures into a mysterious underground world, where they have some close encounters with dinosaurs, battle flora fauna run amuck–and meet a relentless, one-eyed, dino-hunting weasel named Buck.

The Review:

The one enduring thing about the Ice Age series is the nut and squirrel sequence.    As the rest of the creatures march into extinction and the plots go glacial, the squirrel’s dance with the acorn becomes classic, balletic, poetic and endearing.   This time around, Scrat   finds a Scratte (rhymes with sautee) to tangle and tango with and love the nut.   The two bicker and dance the dance of love while trees, the foam of water and other long neck dinosaurs form clever heart patterns in the background.    The acorn becomes a ring, a rival and eventually the only thing that matters.  Scrat and the acorn are at one point encased in their own separate bubbles that waltz into and float away from each other.  The symbolism of their bittersweet fate is clear.  

The pack of the last two films, having struggled to become friends and family, now is facing the prospects of parenthood.  Their adventure takes them to a lost world in search of Sid the Sloth (voice of John Lequizamo) after the angry mother of the three baby dinosaurs Sid has adopted comes back to claim her brood and  makes Sid the family pet.   The two wooly mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) and  Sid the saber tooth tiger (Denis Leary) are aided in their search by Buck, a mad weasel with a pirate’s eye patch ( amusingly voiced by Simon Pegg also having a banner year as Scotty in the reboot Star Trek) on his own quest for a great white dinosaur. 

Shot in 3-D, like every other animated film with a $20 million plus budget, Ice Age 3 barely justifies the gimmick.   The primordial dinosaur world has sweltering jungle lushness.  Buck’s manic energy is perfect for eye-popping visuals.  The finale with dropping waterfalls, Sid floating on molten magma and pterodactyls piloting through narrow chasms are a 3-D delight echoing the best moments from the Star Wars six pack— mainly a New Hope and Revenge of the  Sith.  Still, twenty percent of Ice Age is well, ice, which is resolutely 2-D and white and rife with the usual force perspective gags.  Only Pixar’s Up fully integrates 3-D in a natural way.  

 Fortunately, Scrat and his acorn come in every fifteen minutes to stop gap the dragging action.   Ellie’s mid film delivery forces a too long scene were Sid must come to the rescue— the naturalness of mammoth labor being too rough for its PG audience. 

Ice Age 3 is pleasant for the kids and tolerable for the adults, just like a warm baby bottle.  It gets a B-. 

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Carlos Saldanha  – Director John C. Donkin  – Producer Lori Forte  – Producer Peter Ackerman  – Screenwriter Michael Berg  – Screenwriter Yoni Brenner  – Screenwriter Jason Carter Eaton  – Screen Story Mike Reiss  – Screenwriter John Powell  – Composer (Music Score) Harry Hitner  – Editor Michael Knapp  – Art Director Chris Wedge  – Executive Producer Christian Kaplan  – Casting Michael J. Travers  – Production Manager Galen Tan Chu  – Supervising Animator Peter de Seve  – Character Design David Mei  – Model Effects Supervisor James Palumbo  – Co-Editor Michael Thurmeier  – Co-Director Patrick Worlock  – Production Supervisor

With:  Ray Romano  – Manny [Voice] John Leguizamo  – Sid [Voice] Denis Leary  – Diego [Voice] Simon Pegg  – Buck [Voice] Queen Latifah  – Ellie [Voice] Seann William Scott  – Crash [Voice] Josh Peck  – Eddie [Voice] Bill Hader  – Gazelle [Voice] Kristen Wiig  – Pudgy Beaver Mom [Voice] Eunice Cho  – Diatryma Girl [Voice] Karen Disher  – Scratte [Voice] Harrison Fahn  – Glypto Boy [Voice] Maile Flanagan  – Aardvark Mom [Voice] Jason Fricchione  – Adult Molehog Male [Voice] Kelly Keaton  – Molehog Mom [Voice] / Shovelmouth Mom [Voice] Joey King  – Beaver Girl [Voice] Allegra Leguizamo  – Aardvark Girl [Voice] Lucas Leguizamo  – Aardvark Boy [Voice] / Beaver Kid 2 [Voice] Clea Lewis  – Start Mom [Voice] Jane Lynch  – Diatryma Mom [Voice] Christian Pikes  – Little Johnny (Aardvark Kid) [Voice] Avery Christopher Plum  – Beaver Kid 1 [Voice] Joe Romano  – Ronald (Shovelmouth Boy) [Voice] Carlos Saldanha  – Dinosaur Babies [Voice] / Flightless Bird [Voice] Sofia Scarpa Saldanha  – Molehog Girl 1 [Voice] Cindy Slattery  – Bird [Voice] Chris Wedge  – Scrat [Voice]

 

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Bruno (2009)

Brüno

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

3 Out of 5 Stars or B

 

The Plot: (from Allmovie.com)

Brüno (Baron Cohen) is the gay “voice of Austrian youth TV,” but when his career in haute couture hits the skids, he realizes that his last, best hope for fame is to make it big in Hollywood. Upon arriving in the U.S., his initial instinct is to create a celebrity interview show. Unfortunately, his champagne-soaked test screening goes horribly awry, forcing the flamboyant television host to once again reassess his career. Eventually, Brüno comes to the conclusion that in order to find true success, he needs to go straight. Enlisting the aid of a homosexual rehabilitation specialist, he interviews swingers and testosterone-fueled hunters while attempting to get in touch with his inner heterosexual. When all else fails, Brüno stages an ultimate fighting competition for a rowdy arena of drunken spectators.

The Review:

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character was the secret us inside us. That little foreign part of us with its prejudices and hatreds that we keep politely bottled up. His Brüno is the nowhere near us one, the over the top grandiosity that exists maybe in our most drunken thoughts. If Borat was id gone wild then Brüno is superego gone f***ing wild.   Nope, sorry, this review is not going to aspire towards that kind of outrageousness.  However, be forewarned that Brüno is rated R for graphic penis singing and dancing,  ass bleaching, sex involving an Asian little person and extended ghostly  fellatio —all of them screamingly funny.

Then, Brüno exists to be offensive and tasteless.  The film’s only concession to political correctness was the slashing of a three-minute sequence involving La Toya Jackson doing a parody of her brother Michael.  Still, its 60-20-20 ratio of laughs to groans and the out and out disgusting is a comic triumph by my shallow definition.  My main quibble: since the plot (you can read it above) is Borat II in structure—why the need for four screenwriters? Especially on a mock documentary that depends on Sacha Baron Cohen’s improve ability?

Baron Cohen had all of America as his stage for Borat.   The character was an oddity limited to British television and the small gathering of American HBO devotees who watched Da Ali G Show.  This time around, success spoils the shooting party.  The Milan Fashion Week sequence required a top down hair and fashion makeover of not only Cohen but the rest of the film crew after the real Milan fashion police thwarted an earlier party crashing.   Obtaining new credentials as an Italian photographer with a haute new outfit, Sacha and company were able to find a hidden nook backstage for him to change into Brüno.  At the start of the Prada fashion show, Cohen ran past security and onto the stage while director Larry Charles’ cameras were rolling. To get an idea of how the rest of the world “gets” Brüno and we don’t,  stay for the  clever “We Are the World” style number with Bono, Elton John, Sting, Snoop Dogg, Slash and Christ Martin that runs over the end credits.  Harrison Ford’s two word expletive response and the easily punked Paula Abdul are the only Hollywood stars who make an appearance.

The American production shoots were in Alabama and Arkansas (apparently the only states where Borat did not score big box office) and the Hollywood filled with enough desperate parents willingly to let their children do anything to be on screen. Two of the more outrageous ones made: liposuction and dressing as a Nazi pushing a wheelbarrow carrying a Jewish baby into an oven. In Alabama, Brüno goes hunting with some good old boys— some attempted midnight tent swamping earning him some buckshot.  He then attends a swinger’s party where a whip yielding matron asks him to perform in ways he never imagined. As part of his attempt to go straight, he meets with a Christian counselor who tries to pray the gay out and enlists in the National Guard.

Brüno is so über gay he exists beyond stereotyping into conceit.  He is too gay to be truly gay, as the lack of outcry from gay rights groups seems to bear.  He is just a mirror that reflects and exposes our prejudices. Take away the glory seeking; the clamoring for celebrity and Brüno would not raise an eyebrow.   Brüno gets a B.   

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Larry Charles  – Director Sacha Baron Cohen  – Screenwriter / Producer / Screen Story Jay Roach  – Producer Peter Baynham  – Screen Story Anthony Hines  – Executive Producer / Screen Story / Screenwriter Dan Mazer  – Screen Story / Screenwriter Jeff Schaffer  – Associate Producer / Screenwriter Anthony Hardwick  – Cinematographer Wolfgang Held  – Cinematographer Erran Baron Cohen  – Composer (Music Score) Richard Henderson  – Musical Direction/Supervision Scott M. Davids  – Editor James Thomas  – Editor David Saenz de Maturana  – Art Director Denise Hudson  – Art Director Lisa Marinaccio  – Art Director Jon Poll  – Co-producer Jason Alper  – Costume Designer / Associate Producer Jonah Hill  – Associate Producer Dale Stern  – Associate Producer Allison Jones  – Casting

With:   Sacha Baron Cohen  – Brüno Gustaf Hammarsten  – Lutz Paula Abdul  LaToya Jackson  Harrison Ford  Ron Paul  Chris Martin  Elton John  Slash  Snoop Dogg  Sting 

 

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Public Enemies (2009)

Public Enemies

 (2009)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

3 Out of 5 Stars or B

 

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Based on author Bryan Burrough‘s ambitious tome Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43, director Michael Mann‘s sprawling historical crime drama follows the efforts of top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale ) in capturing notorious bank robber John Dillinger. A folk hero to the American public thanks to his penchant for robbing the banks that many people believed responsible for the Great Depression, charming bandit Dillinger (Johnny Depp) was virtually unstoppable at the height of his criminal career; no jail could hold him, and his exploits endeared him to the common people while making headlines across the country. J. Edgar Hoover‘s (Billy Crudup) FBI was just coming into formation, and what better way for the ambitious lawman to transform his fledgling Bureau of Investigation into a national police force than to capture the gang that always gets away? Determined to bust Dillinger and his crew, which also included sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), Hoover christened Dillinger the country’s very first Public Enemy Number One, and unleashed Purvis to take them down by whatever means necessary. But Purvis underestimated Dillinger’s ingenuity as a master criminal, and after embarking on a frantic series of chases and shoot-outs, the dashing agent humbly surmised that he was in over his head. Outwitted and outgunned, Purvis knew that his only hope for busting Dillinger’s gang was to baptize a crew of Western ex-lawmen as official agents, and orchestrate a series of betrayals so cunning that even America’s criminal mastermind wouldn’t know what hit him.

The Review:

Public Enemies is all about the smiles.   The ones about getting away with it all, pulling off the big one, finding love staring you in the face, seeing your name up in lights and yourself on the big screen.    That big moment comes at the very end of Public Enemies when Johnny Depp as John Dillinger watches Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama walking sneeringly to his fate in the electric chair.  JD sees JD and approves just as much as Dillinger admires the Gable style— a style he tried to duplicate with plastic surgery and that reedy moustache that dominates his famous last photos.

In the polls of the time, Dillinger was more popular than President Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh.  Dillinger even staged an impromptu press conference and exchanged jokes with reporters during a prison transfer.   He had an easy smile, style and confidence and a Hollywood agents sense of public relations– a shrewdly cultivated Robin Hood persona that allowed him to hide in plain sight.  In his heists, he would often destroy mortgage and foreclosure paper or give back the money of the man who was cashing his paycheck. “We’re here for the bank’s money, not yours,” he reputedly said.   One robbery had the Dillinger gang pretend to be a film company that was scouting locations for a bank robbery scene.  Except for the press conference and paycheck incident, none of this Dillinger history is in Public Enemies. 

Adapting Public Enemies from Bryan Burroughs lush nonfiction chronicle, Director Michael Mann and screenwriters Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman manage to lose the human Dillinger along with his g-man nemesis, Melvin Purvis in the march of facts.  Mann and Depp keep the inner Dillinger in the shadows, showing only the guise—afraid to admit that there was not much to the man beyond luck, bluff and that Hollywood gangster style. There is barely a blush of romance between Dillinger and his moll Billie Frechette (the vibrant Marion Cotillard barely covering her French accent in a role that leaves her mostly worrying and fretting alone in a room). The few scenes Deep and Cotillard share before her arrest and imprisonment burr with a Bonnie and Clyde promise cut short by the fact that she will outlive him.  Cotillard’s coda with the wonderfully taciturn Stephen Lange playing the Texas Ranger Red Hamilton– a man of violence with a secret gentleman ethos— grants Public Enemies its only emotional grace.

The real Melvin Purvis was a short, skinny Southern lawyer who looked like the nerdy Crispin Glover and talked in the high tones of Don Knotts.   His essential qualities: brevity, unflappable calm and tenacity— embody the Christian Bale screen persona, the man of thought prompted to action and greatness by rampaging evil events.    The quiet enmity between FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Purvis that Public Enemies displays was historically authentic.  Purvis’ disgust over Hoover’s constant grandstanding and his what-ever-it takes ethos would lead Purvis to quit the Bureau just scant years after Dillinger’s death.  If Dillinger was Public Enemy Number One than Mann certainly makes the case for Hoover being Public Enemy Number Two. 

Mann tries to fudge things by suggesting that Dillinger and Purvis were really two sides of the same coin, the last of the old stubbornly holding on while the new marches over them.  In Enemies it comes when Dillinger walks into a safe house that is merely a front for a bookie operation– rows of phones and bet takers all making in a day what Dillinger did in his last five heists.    Organize crime cutting loose the unorganized criminal.  Dillinger was dead the moment he refused to pick up the phone.  Purvis, however, adapted– after the disaster at the Little Bohemia Lodge Purvis brought in Texas Rangers with the stomach and experience for the manhunt.  Purvis was Dillinger’s self-annihilating fury, his death wish.  Ironically, Hoover discarded Purvis as soon as Dillinger’s body turned cold.    For the next forty years, Hoover was America’s only crime czar.

The Dillinger-Purvis parallel bleeds the drama and conflict from the story.  The immediacy of Dante Spinotti’s high definition cinematography and the actual use of Dillinger haunts such as the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana; the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin; and the Biograph Theater on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, Illinois are reduced to newsreel and postcard reminders.  Mann fails to be true to history and movie history at the same time.  He should have tossed the dust and saved the lightning.    Public Enemies gets a B.  

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Michael Mann  – Director / Screenwriter / Producer Kevin Misher  – Producer Ronan Bennett  – Screenwriter Ann Biderman  – Screenwriter Bryan Burrough  – Book Author Mark St. Germain  – Screenwriter Dante Spinotti  – Cinematographer Bob Badami  – Musical Direction/Supervision Elliot Goldenthal  – Composer (Music Score) Kathy Nelson  – Musical Direction/Supervision Jeffrey Ford  – Editor Paul Rubell  – Editor Nathan Crowley  – Production Designer William Ladd Skinner  – Art Director Bryan H. Carroll  – Co-producer Gusmano Cesaretti  – Co-producer Kevin de la Noy  – Co-producer Maria Norman  – Associate Producer G. Mac Brown  – Executive Producer Colleen Atwood  – Costume Designer Bob Wagner  – First Assistant Director Julie Herrin  – Unit Production Manager David Kelley  – Second Assistant Director Allen Kupetsky  – Second Assistant Director Darren Prescott  – Stunts Coordinator

With:  Johnny Depp  – John Dillinger Christian Bale  – Melvin Purvis Marion Cotillard  – Billie Frechette Channing Tatum  – Pretty Boy Floyd Giovanni Ribisi  – Alvin Karpis Billy Crudup  – J. Edgar Hoover Stephen Dorff  – Homer Van Meter David Wenham  – Pete Pierpont Stephen Graham  – Baby Face Nelson Jason Clarke  – John "Red" Hamilton Stephen Lang  – Charles Winstead Len Bajenski  – Police Chief Fultz Lance Baker  – Freddie Barker Michael Bentt  – Herbert Youngblood John Michael Bolger  – Martin Zarkovich Ed Bruce  – Senator McKellar Bill Camp  – Frank Nitti Geoffrey Cantor  – Harry Suydam Jim Carrane  – Sam Cahoon Adam Clark  – Sport Rory Cochrane  – Agent Carter Baum Brian Connelly  – Officer Chester Boyard Matt Craven  – Gerry Campbell Peter DeFaria  – Grover Weyland Emilie de Ravin  – Barbara Patzke Madison Dirks  – Agent Warren Barton Don Frye  – Clarence Hurt Spencer Garrett  – Tommy Carroll Peter Gerety  – Louis Piquety Gerald Goff  – Captain O’Neill Shawn Hatosy  – Agent John Madala John Hoogenakker  – Agent Hugh Clegg John Judd  – Turnkey Branka Katic  – Anna Sage Elena Kenney  – Viola Norris Steve Key  – Doc Barker John Kishline  – Guard Dainard Diana Krall  – Torch Singer Andrew Krukowski  – Oscar Lieboldt Keith Kupferer  – Agent Sopsic Shanyn Leigh  – Helen Gillis John Lister  – Judge Murray Domenick Lombardozzi  – Gilbert Catena Dan Maldanado  – Jacob Solomon Adam Mucci  – Agent Harold Reinecke Carey Mulligan  – Carol Slayman Kurt Naebig  – Agent William Rorer John Ortiz  – Phil D’Andrea Sean Rosales  – Joe Pawlowski James Russo  – Walter Dietrich Randy Ryan  – Agent Julius Rice Martie Sanders  – Irene the Ticket Taker Gareth Saxe  – Agent Ray Suran John Scherp  – Earl Adams Robyn Suzanne Scott  – Ella Natasky Jeff Shannon  – Angry Cop Richard Short  – Agent Sam Cowley Casey Siemaszko  – Harry Berman Danni Simon  – May Minczeles Leelee Sobieski  – Polly Hamilton Rebecca Spence  – Doris Rogers Stephen Spencer  – Emil Wanatka Jeff Still  – Jimmy Probasco Christian Stolte  – Charles Makley Lili Taylor  – Sheriff Lillian Holley Rick Uecker  – Edward Saager Mark Vallarta  – Harry Berg Guy Van Swearingen  – Agent Ralph Brown Michael Vieau  – Ed Shouse Wesley Walker  – Jim Leslie David Warshofsky  – Warden Baker Alan Wilder  – Robert Estill Chandler Williams  – Clyde Tolson Kris Wolff  – Deputy Patrick Zielinski  – Doctor

 

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Waltz With Bashir (Vals im Bashir)

 (2008)

A Movie Review

By

Jonathan Moya

4 Out of 5 Stars or A-

 

The Plot: (from IMDB.com)

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.

The Review:

Sometimes the greatest soul pain is in the amnesia of life.   The moment’s one ought to remember but cannot.    In Waltz with Bashir, an animated documentary about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra Shatila massacre, Ari Folman tries to recover that experience from the ennui of war, genocide, the holocaust and the Jewish consciousness.  Folman was a 19-year-old Israeli soldier stationed close to the Sabra-Shatila refugee camps at the time of the massacres.   Now forty-five, Folman can only remember the leave times.  He seeks out others in his platoon to see if they have the same memories.  Waltz with Bashir becomes their animated nightmare, testimony and witness.

The memories that come back are like a pack of twenty-six snarling marauding dogs baying under a window– the ritual nightmare that has haunted Boaz Buskila for thirty years.  Twenty-six was the number of dogs he shot during the war.  Boaz gives his testimony but not his face.  The animated Boaz is a composite done by an actor in the original reference videos.  The same for Carmi  Cna’an, the longtime friend of Folman  with genius potential but who turned his back on all of it after the war to embrace Buddhism and a Dutch exile.  Their encounter in Bashir is cold and detached, made tolerable by the reefer they share. 

The other five who share their faces and voices, recall the events with a narrative and emotional detachment that makes them characters, witnesses and bystanders to their own story– something terrible that happened to someone else.  The reality is there- as much of it as they can absorb before the body heals the mind with the balm of forgetfulness and memory and time bends existence into the eternal fiction-fact compromise. Only Roni Dayag has a trauma free normality, a future without the war shadows and ghosts.  Detached from his squadron he survived by spending the night sitting still behind a rock and slipping into a calm sea that drifts him back to his comrades the next day. Dayag found peace in the surrender to that calm flow while the others fight the tide of guilt and conscience.  They rise out of the sea’s baptism, fully armed but naked, fearful and weary, thrust into the golden exploding city melting before their eyes.  Folman revisits that scene two more times just as the violence and war shifts to more savagery (the invasion) and massacre (Sabra-Shatila) making it a prophecy that points to the entryway of Sheol.  The squadron drift into a stasis and nothingness that allows the Sabra-Shatila evil by the Christian Phalangists.  In a memorable scene, Israeli flares light the way to the camps. In their head and souls, The Holocaust lives just a small conscience step away from genocide.

The two who try to do the right thing are circumscribed, their futures dismembered.   Dror Harazi, Folman’s tank squadron commander who aspired to be a general, did everything he could to alert his superiors to the situation at the Shatila camp, only to earn a premature and disgraceful discharge from the army.   His testimony is a last cry to expose the truth. Ron Ben-Yeshai, an Israeli war correspondent of twenty years and at least six campaigns, called Minister of Defense Arik Sharon about the massacres.  Sharon did nothing to stop them.   The next twenty years for Yeshai were without promotion.   Sharon made sure of that.    

The need to forget horror provides horror its opportunity.  Waltz with Bashir shows the results of that genetic holocaust which has existed ever since Cain murdered Abel.  It gets an A-.   

The Credits:   (From Allmovie.com)

Ari Folman  – Director / Producer / Screenwriter / Cinematographer Serge Lalou  – Producer Gerhard Meixner  – Producer Yael Nahlieli  – Producer Roman Paul  – Producer Max Richter  – Composer (Music Score) Nili Feller  – Editor David Polonsky  – Art Director / Illustrator Thierry Garrel  – Co-producer Pierrette Ominetti  – Co-producer Aviv Aldema  – Sound/Sound Designer Bridgit Folman Film Gang  – Animator Tal Gadon  – Chief Animator Yoni Goodman  – Animation Director Roiy Nitzan  – Visual Effects Supervisor

With:  Ari Folman  – [Voice] Ori Sivan  – [Voice] Roni Dayag  – [Voice] Shmuel Frenkel  – [Voice] Ron Ben Yisahi  – [Voice] Dror Harazi  – [Voice] Boaz Rein Buskila  – [Voice] Carmi Cna’an  – [Voice] Yehezkel Lazarov  – [Voice]

 

 

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya