Doing the Thing Right

Hit-and-Miss Director Scores with Epic Saga
 by  Morgan P Salvo


You gotta hand it to Spike Lee. He’s willing to take risks. With Miracle at St Anna, the risk is in making a huge mainstream war movie with larger-than-life proportions while still holding on to his visionary/radical/art-house/civil rights themes. Does he pull it off? Well, for the most part, yes.

From the first scene of an ex-Buffalo soldier watching The Longest Day with John Wayne on TV, to a final scene of extremely questionable merit, this is the epic saga of redemption cloaked in a war story mystery. While working at the post office, Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) shoots a man he recognizes from his past, and the head of an extremely rare statue is found in his closet. His story is then told in flashback form, following the escapades of the Buffalo soldiers’ 92nd infantry division and their descent pretty much into hell. A big oafish soldier, Train (Omar Benson Miller), carries around (for good luck) the aforementioned statue head he found in some ruins. He befriends an injured, Italian peasant boy who literally won’t let him out of his sight or clutches. Seeking help, the regiment, under Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke), travels out of radio contact to an Italian village and holes up with an Italian family living there. The impending arrival of German troops adds tension to the transpired time. The plot here gets almost too big to handle but even when it meandered I liked it. The use of clips that could’ve easily hit the editing floor added believability, conveying the kind of idiotic small talk that might prevail when doom waits around every corner.
Every single scene in Spike’s movies is expertly crafted and Miracle establishes this without fail. The characters don’t really develop once established, but they take on a life of their own through superb acting. The story goes into the formulaic Hollywood stereotypes, but the presentation and the acting from every character never missed a beat—the bigoted soda-jerk, the serious staff sergeant, the gold-toothed ladies’ man, the bi-lingual level-headed radio operator, the gentle giant, the Italian partisans (one good, one a traitor), the sexy Italian babe who entices all, the patriarchal fascist grandfather. You get the picture; there’s a lot going on, but Lee’s insight and faith in his film technique brings it all together.
Lee’s fixation with Italian Americans and African Americans has always been tantamount in most of his movies but Miracle takes it to the hilt. The discrimination message which he hammers home in every one of his movies once again provides real food for thought.
The only real beef I had with this movie was the music and the ultra-corny ending scene. Terence Blanchard’s somber droning dramatic overtones swept through virtually every scene. It’s like Lee leaves the stereo on when he’s working and forgets to turn it off. The ending scene’s music was pumped up way too loud, adding so much overkill to sentiment that it was a major disappointment. Silence would’ve been way more powerful.
This movie works on many levels: it’s a bloodbath war movie to rival Saving Private Ryan, it’s a racial discrimination statement on the treatment of all black Buffalo soldier brigades, it’s a tragedy ala “Of Mice and Men”, and at times, due to the claustrophobic nature of being confined to one place, it worked like a stage play. Commendably, Lee always manages to take you out of the moment with certain shots---taking creative, artistic license, doing something almost surreal with camera angles and ideas. Miracle at St Anna contains a variety of hit-and-miss scenes, but due to its compelling performances, stunning visuals, messages intertwined with compassion and Spike’s visionary style, it proves that miracles can come true.

Miracle at St. Anna
Starring Derek Luke, Laz Alonso, Michael Ealy, Omar Benson Miller
Directed by Spike Lee
3 stars
Extra points for John Turturro’s cameo

Video Game Goes all Euro

Just Not Enough Blood Sleaze and Sex... but close...
by Morgan P Salvo









Hitman is a strange film. My gut feeling told me I wouldn’t like it, turns out I didn’t dislike it as much as expected. The opening intriguing credits exude a super European feel. Ave Maria is playing, kids are getting their heads shaved through a soft focused lens (foreshadowing assassin grooming), and most of the actors’ names are foreign. I was also curious to see Timothy Olyphant (“Deadwood”/“Live Free or Die Hard”) playing #47, a.k.a. “The Hitman”, since he is an engaging actor, surprisingly in this role.
The plot tries its best to be convoluted but is pretty easy to figure out. It is based on a video game, after all. Basically, the Hitman is just that, a hired assassin who has his hit-orders ordained from a computer. From the get-go we see him as a loner, content in offing people by command. When his situation is compromised and he is accused of killing the wrong man (the Russian president no less), he realizes he has been set-up, now doomed to be hit himself. Pretty soon the CIA, Interpol and the FSB (Russia’s CIA equivalent) are all involved. Then we get department heads locking horns, a body double, and an earnest chief trying to make things right (Dougray Scott). But the main thrust of the movie is to find the elusive Hitman and do away with him. Turns out there are more killers just like him out there…really making me wonder why these guys don’t invest in hats. I mean anyone in their right mind who sees a bald guy in an Armani suit with a bar-code tattooed to the back of his shaved head would simply cry “hit the Decks!! ASSASSIN ALERT!”
Despite some sight-seeing: Niger, Istanbul, Russia, Turkey, and London, it’s really the action that saves this movie…when it happens. The narrative is pretty low key, but the hyper-kinetic violence goes all out - guns blazing, blood spurting, acrobatic-fighting, and swordplay. Obvious references are made to John Woo’s “The Killer” with its two-handed pistol shooting technique, and “Reservoir Dogs” in which four similar-looking assassins on a train simultaneously point their silencers at each other but decide to be more “honorable”, resulting in fist and sword combat.Ok so there’s action, there’s intrigue. What about the nudity you ask? All good European action films have to have some nudity correct? You got that right! It comes in the form of Nika (Olga Kurylenko), in the “whore with the saddest story you ever heard” role, and the hottest outfits you’ve ever seen .A witness to the president’s demise, she becomes a foil for all traps to snare the Hitman, and provides the opportunity for him to do something nice, like protecting her. However, she could prove to be his Achilles heel, but who cares when she takes off her top a lot. Not only does he keep his guns in ice, he keeps his heart there too… perhaps another body part as well. Even with Nika trying her darndest to seduce him reminding me of a newer, hipper Maria Schnieder (“Last Tango in Paris”). Sadly, Hitman just doesn’t do sex. Personally I like my brain and blood-splattered walls mixed with some decent frontal nudity. Where was I? Oh yeah, Hitman…
There are some other notable scenes: a mini “True Romance”/”Scarface” drug and gun deal shoot ‘em up, an obvious tongue in cheek touch when #47 runs through a hotel room leaving us with a glimpse of two kids playing the Hitman game on TV and of course my favorite: a bathtub torture scene involving barb wire and electrocution, straight out of “Saw”.
I assumed the bald dude was supposed to be ultra suave, but Olyphant makes him seem soft spoken, almost confused. A kinder, gentler killer... a whole different take on someone who is never fooled…ever.
In the end, this movie also attempts to convey the answer to a deeper question, “why would a good man kill”? Easy because PlayStation told him to.

HITMAN
Starring Timothy Olyphant,Dougray Scott,Olga Kurylenko
directed by Xavier Gens
 2 stars

eX-istential Stew

This installment belongs back in the filing cabinet
 
by Morgan P Salvo


Coming out of this movie one main question was burning in my brain: Why was it made? Was it the product of marketing research – a sufficient amount of X-Files fans loyal enough to go no matter what? Did Director Chris Carter (X-Files creator) get together with the two main stars (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) and say “let’s do another movie and see how long and drawn out and boring we can make it?” This is one huge lesson in vapidity. Now don’t get me wrong - I wanted to like it. I was never a big fan of the series, but I have caught some decently clever and fairly warped episodes in re-runs. Based on that fact alone, I thought I might be more sympathetic to this movie. Even blending in body parts, a pedophile psychic priest, a love interest, missing agents, with a twist on the Frankenstein legend turns out to be a big waste of time. “Want to believe” is at the bottom rung of mediocre.
The story unfolds as Mulder (Duchovny) is drawn out of hiding by Scully (Anderson) to assist the FBI in finding a missing agent. They are following a lead from a questionable source: visions of an ex-priest Father Joe (Billy Connolly). Some quasi-intrigue is mixed in with the underlying themes of God versus science versus instinct versus what the FBI says. There’s chance for a believable love story between Scully and Mulder (they’re now an item) but it’s screwed up with tortuous soap opera dialogue. The convoluted clues are not presented well so we, the audience, have a hard time figuring out why they are even giving them to us in the first place. The incompetence of the FBI in figuring things out is annoying. It was like a “guess how many mistakes are on this page” kid’s book exercise. The tension X-Files lacks provoked a lot of heavy sighs out from yours truly for seeing things way before the psychic or FBI agents did.

Speaking of agents, Amanda Peet is so extremely miscast as the head of her bureau team, that I could hardly look at the screen. She looked like she was about to do something cute every second of screen time. It’s a bad joke. But even worse was Xzibit as the unbelieving FBI agent scoffing at everything, acting all dead serious with a permanent scowl etched in his face. Duchovny actually brought a little more life and humor to his character than I’m used to seeing and Anderson was more compassionate and caring—softened by her obvious love for life and all things human. Connolly, a really funny guy (and not a bad actor) seriously delves deep into in his Father Joe role (a priest in a world of hurt, praying for forgiveness for buggering 37 alter boys). Director Carter should’ve spent a lot more time with his character as it showed superior signs of potential.
By the time the plot wraps around the body parts/organ-donor-heist caper and the secluded snow-covered Russian Frankenstein laboratory and mutation plant, I had given up on attempting to care. The compound is even guarded by a crazy vicious two headed-dog (experiment gone awry) and that scene still fails to deliver… I KNOW FOR A FACT that a two-headed dog can spice things up—but not this time.
“I want to believe” goes beyond innocuous and dreary. Adding to the emptiness and slowing down the pace is the dark and gloomy three note soundtrack. The only use of the original TV theme music other than opening credits was in a comedic moment when Scully and Mulder stare at a picture of GW Bush then to J Edgar Hoover, an obvious reference that aliens are among us.
One thing I should give this movie credit for is that it didn’t use a lot of high tech mumbo jumbo to tell the story. It’s too bad there was hardly any story to tell. One of the key quotes in the film is a non-mystifying command of “don’t give up.” Sorry, I gave up in the first 15 minutes…it’s a shame too, because I so wanted to believe.

X-Files: I Want to Believe
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Billy Connolly, Xzibit, Amanda Peet
Director: Chris Carter
 1 1/2 stars

Youth Gets Old

Coppola's Time Traveling existential mess doesn't live up to his reputation

 By Morgan P Salvo


I really wanted to like this movie. It just wouldn’t let me. I spent almost the entire second half aching for it to be over. It was incomprehensibly boring.
The opening montage was nice. The old school credits in the beginning, reminiscent of 40’s style movies, were refreshing. The colors and photography were close to captivating. There’s nothing wrong with the acting.
Then there’s the story. Somewhere hidden in this mess is a really cool concept. Steeped in ambiguity, I just can’t figure out where the legendary director stashed it.

Tim Roth plays Dominic Matei, a 70 year old professor in 1938 Romania who gets hit by lightning. Instead of croaking immediately, Matei finds himself in the hospital 30 years younger and rejuvenating much to the awe of the hospital and one doctor in particular, Stanciulescu (Bruno Ganz), who conducts tests on him. During the process they become friends. The Nazi party gets intrigued, forcing Matei to go into hiding and allowing the audience to visit different scenic European landscapes. Dominic becomes increasingly more intelligent, deciphering multitudes of languages and being able to read books by “absorbing” them. He literally holds them up and soaks in their contents via a really ridiculous special effect.

This movie is a mystery hidden in a love story as well as a vaguely transcendental meditation whose moral is that too much knowledge has dire consequences. It touches on redemption, spiritual enlightenment, and time travel. Stylistically it copies a gazillion different movies that have already been made (including The Conformist, Dead Ringers, Steppenwolf, Kafka). It basically takes on the essence of an intellectual mutant X-men meets Bewitched with a little bit of Nostradamus thrown in… but every genre it steers towards dissipates in seconds right when it looks like it knows where its going. It grinds to a halt retreating into this snail pace that made me realize how uncomfortable my seat was.
I surmise it’s supposed to make you think. All it did was make me squirm. At one point it is all about dreams versus reality then Roth’s character sprouts a double and talks to himself in a way that is just annoying and not really central to any kind of plot development. The dialogue is perplexing and meant to be convoluted but it borders more on preposterous. Every time a decent thought or idea would emerge it was blasphemed by the script, becoming nonsensical, morphing into transparency. I kept wishing someone would wake up with a horse head in their bed. Not to say I don’t enjoy slow moving thought provoking movies, noting that I think Coppola’s movie “The Conversation” is one of the finest movies ever made. Coming from the same director one would think the techniques heaped upon this movie would spark some bonafide excitement. No such luck - “Youth” gets old pretty quickly.
Youth Without Youth
Starring Tim Roth, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara
Written, produced, and directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
 2 stars

Gonzo At Large

In Search of an American Icon: Less Fear More Loathing on the Documentary Trail.
by Morgan P Salvo


“Gonzo journalism” is the self-titled phrase that Hunter S. Thompson used because his writing seemed so far out of control it defied normal terminology. And it was a word he liked. Over time he became all things “Gonzo”. This documentary expands on this theme… or tries to.
There have been many films on Thompson and I was hoping this was going to be THE definitive one. It holds your attention at the beginning with a Natural Born Killers feel of photography and follows with great interviews and archival footage, but ultimately the story is conveyed a helluva lot better in Tom Thurman’s film Buy the Ticket Take the Ride.

Gonzo follows Thompson’s writing years, detailing his journalistic “Fear and Loathing” books and articles, work on political campaign trails and drug & alcohol use. The movie begins in Thompson’s home of Woody Creek, CO. showing him firing guns to an exhilarating choice of music, Bob Dylan and the Band’s live version of “All Along the Watch Tower”. Narrated whimsically by a sometimes on screen Johnny Depp, it includes interviews with Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. Jan Werner from Rolling Stone magazine is prominently figured as is a surprisingly reverent (to Thompson) Pat Buchannan.
Several stages of his life are covered: his infiltration of the Hells Angels and ensuing book, his run for sheriff of Aspen, the onslaught of ingested drugs and booze, his fight to legalize marijuana, his instrumental coverage of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter’s campaign, the berating of candidates by spreading hilarious rumors, his love for the Kennedys and hatred for Nixon and GW Bush. His prophecy of the Nixon years and the correlation to recent Bush years is uncanny. Despite his excessive merry prankster/joker/rebel/trickster lifestyle and image, he’s painted accurately as a realist and a patriot.
Excellent archival footage is used, though some needed to be delved into deeper: a TV debate with motorcycling Hells Angel arguing about the truth of Thompson’s book, various talk show spots, “What’s My Line?” footage, and excerpts from a movie called Breakfast with Hunter were all so brief they seemed like a tease. AND there was way too much footage from Terry Gilliam’s flick Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The standout irritation was the glaring mistake of setting up his infatuation with Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane and then showing footage of the first lead singer, NOT GRACE SLICK!!!!!
Gonzo provides a myriad view of Thompson’s life but doesn’t put all the pieces together coherently enough to swing the huge gavel that Thompson did on life and what he considered its many evils. I admit it’s hard to fill a mere two hours with Thompson’s complex and convoluted life but I truly felt that this movie missed many of its chances to champion his attributes. It seemed to self consciously intent on being slick . After a rundown on his journalist life with Sports Illustrated to finally Rolling Stone, the rest of the movie almost dissipates along with Thompson’s lust for life, glossing over his last years where he held court as a drug addled compound cult leader. There are interesting insights from interviews with his first wife (who shows real compassion towards him) and the second wife (who though kinda ditzy remains respectful to his memory). His son Juan has the most poignant line when he reveals his dad’s suicide was no surprise—he had been talking about it for 30 some odd years— “It was about time”. Thompson literally went out with a bang—twice…shot himself in the head, then as per his will/request was shot out of a rocket on his ranch while fireworks exploded, scattering his ashes everywhere.
While a young version of Thompson is portrayed throughout the beginning of the flick, the last images of him are old, tired and sadly without the fire in his eyes. He was simply a mess…saddened by the parody he became of himself; Thompson became a prisoner to his own fame. Gonzo is a reminder that no documentary can do this tragic radical icon justice, never fully explaining his evil-genius anger. A visionary to the end, he was consumed by what was wrong with the world. Every time I see a clip of him and his messed up hyper-critical-brilliant brain at work I just want to go home and re-read everything he wrote. The worst part is that his words are now finite. At least this movie gives us some glimpses for us to remember him by. Anyone with a sense of the patriotic, the absurd or the truth knows that the world needed Hunter S. Thompson. It’s a shame he chickened out and left us forever.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S Thompson
featuring Hunter S. Thompson, Jan Wenner, Johnny Depp, Jimmy Carter and Pat Buchanan
Directed by Alex Gibney
 3 stars

To Laugh, or not to Laugh, That is the Question.

Hamlet 2 squanders its weight in gold

by Morgan P Salvo

Hamlet 2 is a mixed bag of treats, missed opportunities, inspired comic genius, dull plodding, and failed timing. In other words some parts are good, while others not so much.
The film starts off with a collage of the “work” of actor Dana Marchz (Steve Coogan) including infomercials and roles in Xena, showing real humorous potential. Cut to the present where he is a depressed but optimistic dweeb acting teacher in Tucson. He is on the verge of losing the drama department due to the lack of talent in his plays (stage versions of movies like Erin Brokovich) plus fiscal cutbacks and a really mad, conservative principal (the always underrated Marshall Bell) who hates his guts. He then inadvertently adopts a bunch of inner city kids into his class, fighting the trials and tribulations that all that entails. He comes up with the idea to do a sequel to Hamlet. “Everyone dies in the first one” so Marchz (a name constantly mispronounced) solves that problem with a time machine, Jesus and a lot of gay references.
Steve Coogan is brilliant in the lead role, but perhaps too brilliant…he is given way too much leeway to over act and at first it works but then it becomes tedious overkill. The character drains you of any sympathy, and after a while you just want to punch him in the face. As wife Brie, Katherine Keener does her smartest and bitchiest person in the room shtick, nothing new there, although she does drink a margarita that’s the size of a herculean goblet. Then there’s Elizabeth Shue playing herself as giving up on acting and becoming a nurse; this is thankfully underplayed. In a bizarre twist, roommate Gary (David Arquette) has two lines. Like his mere presence is enough.
There are some real comic moments throughout but what it lacks is timing. Long drawn out scenes where nothing is integral to the plot, long pauses after things that should be funny but aren’t funny, and then the pause is supposed to be the funny part. What I found most humorous were the little throw away lines, like referring to the Patch Adams star as Robin C. Williams, and signage behind them like “prickly pear fertility clinic” and the “Snackatorium” (where they are forced to rehearse).
There are some first-rate funny one-liners, but an engaging movie one-liners do not make. Missing entirely was any kind of build up to the show. The supposed show stopper song “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” is a let down. I hope this was the point. The movie should’ve spent more time building suspense (or at least interest) in pre-production rehearsals along the lines of Waiting for Guffman. Better yet, as with writer Pam Brady’s input to Team America, this would have been way funnier if the whole thing was done in puppet form.
I think that the premise and production of this movie was designed to frustrate the audience, to lead us to water and then not allow us to drink. H2 is one big façade to force the audience to watch something half-ass satisfying… I could just feel writers Brady and Andrew Fleming (director) wishing to be the flies on the wall watching audiences to NOT laugh and NOT get parts in this movie. It seems to be the ultimate in-joke like we are the consummate test audience and WE are the joke to sit back and feel duped. In theory that’s kind of a good idea but to the guinea pig it is not. I understand that really bad, meaningless, cute, touching, politically incorrect, wacky and wrong humor can make everyone laugh but I think director and writer are laughing at the audience’s expense—which just dries out any hope of having any REAL feeling towards this movie. The more I think about it the less I like it. Hamlet 2 could’ve soared into dazzling hilarity, but the never ending in-joke and flat material, although weirdly fresh, is just not that funny.

Hamlet 2
Starring: Steve Coogan, Katherine Keener, David Arquette, Elizabeth Shue
Director: Andrew Fleming
2 stars