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The Stoning of Soraya M. Review

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:34:41 +0000

Short version: The Stoning of Soraya M. is an important film that needs to be watched – especially considering the current world political climate.

Screen Rant reviews The Stoning of Soraya M.

The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on a true story and a book by Iranian-French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. It is about the stoning death (murder, more accurately) of a 35 year old woman in a small village in Iran during the rule of Khomeini in 1986.

James Caviezel plays Freidoune, an Iranian expatriate visiting Iran on assignment when he runs into Zahra (played with usual intensity by Shohreh Aghdashloo), Soraya’s aunt, who convinces him to visit her to listen to her story. He is reluctant at first (seemingly sharing some native attitudes about womens’ lack of worthiness), but Zahra’s forthrightness and intensity convince him to give her a chance. He turns on his tape recorder and she begins to tell her tale.

Soraya (Shohreh Aghdashloo) has two boys and two younger girls and is financially trapped in a marriage to her prison guard husband Ali (Navid Negahban). Ali wants a divorce so he can marry a 14 year old girl, but does not want to commit to the financial support of Soraya and their daughters. Soraya would not be able to support and feed her daughters with just the house and land he wants to leave her (he wants to take the boys with him).

Ali beats Soraya, who has been rejecting him due to his treatment of her and his dalliances with prostitutes, but being a “man” is adamant that he will not let her have her way in an equitable divorce agreement. The film takes place just a few years after the Shah was overthrown, and there are people who were loyal to the Shah and others who are loyal to religious leader Khomeini. Ali knows that the town Mullah (religious leader) was a Shah loyalist and in prison after the overthrow – so he threatens him to find a way to get Soraya to agree to a divorce on his terms.

There is also the mayor, Ebrahim (David Diaan) – he was a Shah supporter but is doing the best he can to get by in the current regime. He seems essentially fair – but weak.

One thing leads to another and a conspiracy is formed to accuse and convict Soraya of adultery – a crime punishable by public stoning to death.

Soraya being led to her execution

Just based on the title, you know the ending is inevitable – and the further I got into the film the more my heart was in my throat anticipating that ending. Soraya is portrayed as an honorable woman, just trying to do what she needs to in order to support her children. But two false witnesses are assembled (all that is required to accuse a woman of adultery and demand a hearing) and of course as a woman she has to prove her innocence instead of the men having to prove her guilt.

Zahra remembers life before head to toe burkas and stands up to the men in power in town (and Soraya’s husband). There are no marks against her since her husband died and I guess widows are at least treated with a bit of respect – but she is ineffective in convincing anyone of anything (she is still just a woman after all). In the end people are threatened, a kangaroo court is formed, and Ali gets his way. There is nothing to be done and Soraya resigns herself to her fate, entrusting her daughters to Zahra.

Eventually the title event of the film arrives – the closer we get to it, the slower the film seems to move… making it seem right around the corner but taking its time arriving. It is a brutal scene and not over quickly. Yes, it’s very hard to watch (and some people, my wife included, may not be able to watch the entire scene) – but it’s necessary if you really want to comprehend the heinous injustice of the situation, which is still taking place all over the Middle East today.

Of course it’s not indicative of all men in Middle Eastern countries, but it does show a prevalant attitude that exists in the minds of much of the leadership in the area – and still goes on today despite denials from those same governments.

It’s not an easy film to watch, but you really should see The Stoning of Soraya M.

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‘UP’ Review

Kofi Outlaw — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:11:37 +0000

Short Version: UP is arguably Pixar’s finest achievement to date, and is surprisingly mature (and moving) in its subject matter. Oh, and the 3D visuals are pretty awesome too.

Screen Rant Reviews Pixar's UP (in digital 3D)

There’s nothing better than an easy review: Pixar’s latest summer offering, UP, is a fantastic film. Simply fantastic. Seriously, if Ratatouille and Wall-E deserved to be in the running for Best Picture of the Year (as many said they did at the times of their releases) then UP certainly does.

It’s that good.

The film – which was written by Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo, Ratatouille) and directed by Peter Docter (Monsters, Inc.) – delivers all the things we’ve come to expect from a Pixar animated feature: gorgeous visuals, a strong story rife with moral lessons and (gasp) good character development; humor both low-brow (for the kids) and high-brow (for the grownups), with strokes of bold wit and a dash of sagely wisdom for good measure.

And yet, UP also delivers something quite unexpected: Pixar’s most adult-oriented story yet, slyly disguised in a fantastic adventure tale.

UP tells the life story of Carl Fredricksen (the unmistakable voice of Ed Asner), a shy little boy who grows up in (1930s?) America, an era in which people pack into movie theaters to watch news reels about adventurous explorers like Charles Muntz, who travels the world on one epic quest after the next.

Young Carl Fredricksen idolizes Muntz: He spends his lonely days roaming his neighborhood pretending to be Muntz until one day he runs into Ellie, an energetic and fearless young girl (everything Carl is not) who idolizes Charles Muntz just as much as Carl does. Ellie and Carl cross their hearts then and there and swear to be great adventurers like Charles Muntz, and with that oath, theirs is a match made in heaven.

After that fateful first encounter, we get a truly beautiful montage of Carl and Ellie’s life-long romance. We see the young kids grow into a teenage couple; see them get married and buy a house, working day jobs (balloon vendor) while saving up for the kind of adventures they fantasized about as kids. We watch the couple deal with the ups and downs, joys and tragedies of life; and gradually we watch them grow into old age, Ellie’s “My Adventures” scrapbook still unfilled, even as her time on Earth ends.

With Ellie gone, Carl becomes a disgruntled old man desperately trying to hold on to a house, heirlooms and a lost-love he cherishes. A physical confrontation with neighborhood developers leads to Carl being forced into a retirement home for the rest of his days – but before the old man will give in he decides to honor the oath he and Ellie swore as kids and take one last shot at adventure! Carl ties an impossible number of balloons to his house (working a balloon cart at the zoo was his job for many years), rigs a steering system and UP he goes!

But there’s a stowaway on board: a young boy scout-type named Russell (Jordan Nagai), who is desparately trying to earn his last merit badge assisting the elderly, for personal reasons that are as moving as a they are heartbreakingly naive. From that point on, the story mainly focuses on Carl trying to find room in his broken heart for love and friendship again, with Russell acting as his primary foil and simultaneous source of inspiration. Russell is also handy for providing the comedic relief the kids will get.

Of course there’s a whole flying to South America, evil nemesis (Christopher Plummer), talking dogs/mythical bird adventure thrown in there. All of that stuff is pretty cool, and will be sure to entertain the kids. However, as one of the grownup kids, the story (for me) was all about Carl dealing with his profound sense of loss and love. The flying house escapism, fantastic creatures and evil villains were all just means and metaphors for that awesome emotional narrative.

No lie, there were a lot of sobs and sniffles around me in the theater. If you’re old enough to know about love and loss, it’s hard not to be affected by UP. By now it’s no secret that Pixar knows how to tell a fantastic story, but who knew they could handle romantic drama so well? Superb work.

Visually, UP is just as stunning. The digital 3D tech employed for this film is far from a gimmick – it enhances the experience of the film by multitudes. When Carl and Russell are walking over cliffs or trekking through gorgeously rendered South American jungles, with an enormous floating 3D house harnessed to their backs, it’s not just some of the most gorgeous eye-candy seen onscreen (the balloons are truly amazing), it’s also a very clever and potent metaphor for grief. Rendered in 3D, those themes stood out loud and clear; the rest of the time, this movie was just a treat to look at.

I confess having wet eyes myself, not once, or twice, but on several instances during UP. Sometimes I was thinking, “This movie is breaking my heart.” Other times I was thinking, “This movie is melting my heart.” And sometimes, I was simply thinking, “This movie is so damn beautiful.”

It definitely lifted me UP.

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Let The Right One In Review

Kofi Outlaw — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:37:25 +0000

Short Version: Let The Right One In is one of the greatest vampire movies ever made; a worthy Oscar contender for International Film of the Year.

Screen Rant Reviews Let The Right One In

I just had to see Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the John Ajvide Lindqvist novel, Let The Right One In, as soon as it hit American theaters this past Friday. There had been such fervent buzz about how good this film was that I, as a fanatical follower of the vampire genre, could not ignore the opportunity to see if the film lived up to the hype.

Well, having seen the film and already scheduled a second viewing, I can tell you that Let The Right One In deserves every amount of praise it’s earned: it sets new standards for what a vampire movie should be, and how horror movies should effect us.

The film mirrors the novel’s plot about a twelve year old boy named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant). Oskar is not like a lot of his classmates: his pale, awkward looks mark him as an outsider; he has morose hobbies, such as keeping a scrap book of newspaper clippings about the grisly murders happening just outside his small town. His parents are divorced, both mother and father can barely be called adults, and poor Oskar is tossed back and forth between them like the hot potato neither one wants to hold too long. No surprise then that in his private moments, Oskar indulges in violent fantasies about murdering the bullies who torment him every day in school.

Life changes the night that Oskar first meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), a twelve year-old girl who has moved in next door to him in his large apartment complex. Oskar immediately senses that he’s found a kindred spirit: Eli is also a loner, she smells “funny,” she walks around in the snow with no shoes and no coat, she’s never even seen a Rubix Cube (the film is set in the 80’s, mind you), and oddly enough, she only comes out to play at night. Eli quickly takes a liking to oddball Oskar and the two form the kind of friendship/puppy-love bond only ‘tweeners share.

Admist all this young love, a string of ritual slayings begin to occur in Oskar’s small town–right around the time Eli and her “father” move in. The victims are found hoisted up by their feet, their throats slashed, blood drained. It’s no great SPOILER to tell you that the murders are indeed being perpetrated by Eli’s “father.” However, when one of blood-hunts gets botched and Eli’s father has to make a terrible sacrifice (you have to see it to believe it) in order to protect his “daughter,” Eli is left alone, forced to hunt for her own blood supply. Having no other protector Eli turns to Oskar, her only friend, forcing the young boy to make a man’s choice about who he is going to be in a world of predators and prey.

Let The Right One In is a stunning achievement in terms of direction. Unlike so many American horror films, Let The Right One In doesn’t bash you over the head with obvious metaphors or hackneyed plots that barely hold together beyond getting you from murder scene A, to murder scene B. Tomas Alfredson crafts the film like a series of short stories, rather than a whole novel. What I mean by that statement is that Alfredson meticulously packs every scene with detail and nuanced implication, helping every moment to convey so much, while doing so little. Like any good short story, you could take any scene of Let The Right One In and have it stand alone as it’s own short film-and because every scene succeeds so well in telling it’s own story, the movie as a whole is able to present what, on the surface, seems like a straightforward narrative, yet taken in context with all implications surrounding it, the story becomes a complex, densly layered morality tale that resonates in a fundamental way with our emotional compasses. This is all accomplished using the bare minimum of cinematic tools: dialogue in the film is sparse, there is very little ambient music (basically the same eerie tune from the trailer playing out in full), and the stripped down format helps to give the gorgeous visuals extra room to breath–creative space that Alfredson works with a skillful hand only the most masterful directors posses.

Within the context of a horror film, the minimalist approach truly flourishes: before a word is even spoken we’re already deeply invested in Oskar. We sympathize with the pain of each and every hit the boy takes in the schoolyard, yet we can’t help but feel a deep-seeded anxiety whenever Oskar, alone at home, takes his favorite hunting knife out into the yard to fantasize about murdering the classmates who torment him. Twenty minutes into the film, Alfredson has us doing emotional somersaults about whether we’re watching the sufferings of a picked-upon nerd, or one of the Columbine killers (to put it in an American context) having the seeds of a murderer sewn by the abuses of his formative years. By minute twenty-one, when Eli first appears, the movie has achieved one of the near-impossible feats of telling a good vampire story: keeping the human drama elevated above the monster madness.

By keeping things emotionally grounded, and utilizing a “less implies more” approach, Alfredson corners us right where he wants us. Whenever there is a display of violence–be it human on human, or vampire on human–we feel it and it disturbs us. In this era of Hostel, where people can so often watch others get maimed and murdered while still wolfing down their popcorn a handful at a time, getting the audience to feel anything is a feat in and of itself. Let The Right One In forces you to grapple with the psychological weight and violent nature of the survival instinct–and because that weight is being placed on children who are barley at the threshold of adolescence, the gravity of their choices resonates in a profound way that adults (i.e. those no longer “innocent”) could never convey.

Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) In Let The Right One In

Thank Hedebrant and Leandersson for bringing lead characters Oskar and Eli to life so vividly. I can’t imagine another pair of young actors playing these roles. Hedebrant breathes unique breath into what could have been a cliched character: the social misfit. In Hedebrant’s hands, Oskar’s every quirk and awkward glance work to make him a three-dimensional and relatable character. No matter what country you are from, or where you went to school, you knew a misfit kid who was just like Oskar, yet at the same time, not quite him. Leandersson, on the other hand, is a beautiful young actress who is bound for stardom, if she chooses to pursue it. In playing Eli, Leandersson has an ageless stare about her–one that makes you question whether Eli has been a vampire for five days, or five hundred years. To keep the monster grounded in humanity, Leandersson treats Eli’s vampirism like a communicable form of cancer, portraying Eli like the long-time patient of a cancer ward, who wants to be free to explore her adolescence, even if it costs the lives of those around her. This dual rendering of Eli, as both rabid predator and afflicted victim, is a major reason why the film’s climax (and a lot of the more nuanced plot points) works so plausibly. Hedebrant and Leandersson exhibit tremendous chemistry: their relationship is Shakespearean in scale: as complex as a middle-aged couple trying work through the turbulent circumstances of a breast cancer diagnosis; yet still as naive and innocent as that first adolescent crush we’ve all had. Remarkable work from these two young leads.

Let The Right One In is such a good film that after just one viewing I too share Tomas Alfredson’s anger over the American remake that is already underway. This film doesn’t need to be remade: it needs to be dissected, so that more American filmmakers can observe and understand the fact that it is subtlety and nuance that help films transcend their medium; horror filmmakers need to be reminded that good horror films in fact HORRIFY us by having bad things happen to fully-formed characters we’re actually rooting for. Stock victims and buckets of blood be damned.

Unfortunately, at the moment Let The Right One In is only playing in L.A. and NYC. No word yet on if it will get a wider release in forthcoming months (if it doesn’t, the DVD is due out March 10, 2009, so Netflix it now). The American remake is scheduled for a 2010 release. But don’t wait, see this film now, in its original form. You will so very happy that you took to the time to sink your teeth into it (the obligatory vampire pun).

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Gran Torino Review

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:17:01 +0000

Short version: It’s really very simple: If you’re a Clint Eastwood fan going way back, you’re going to LOVE Gran Torino.

Screen Rant reviews Gran Torino

You know I’m getting pretty used to taking heat for my movie reviews, and I have no doubt that it’ll happen again for this review of the Clint Eastwood written and directed film, Gran Torino. But you know what? I don’t care, and I don’t apologize for my reviews. You may be entitled to your opinion, but you know what? So am I – like it or not. So… onward.

Gran Torino is the story of Walt Kowalski, an old veteran of the Korean War. As the film opens we see that his wife has just died, and within seconds of his appearance we know exactly what sort of character Walt is: a cranky, grizzled (and racist) old timer who despises what’s become of the people in the world around him.

He sneers at his disrespectful teenage grandchildren who show up at the funeral making jokes, texting on their phones and dressed inappropriately. The relationship between Walt and his two sons is strained at best and there is not much patience or empathy heading in either direction.

The neighborhood he’s lived in for well over 30 years is no longer populated by lower middle class white folks, but has turned into an Asian neighborhood – much to his chagrin. A Hmong family lives next door: A grandmother, single mother and her two teen kids – Thao (played by Bee Vang) and Sue (Ahney Her). Thao is quiet and intelligent but utterly shy, while Sue is very outgoing and fearless.

The local Asian gang wants to recruit Thao whether he wants in or not, and he doesn’t. Unfortunately you don’t just say “no” to a gang and being the weak fellow he is, they talk him into trying to steal next door neighbor Walt’s mint 1972 Gran Torino. Walt stops him but Thao gets away unrecognized.

Soon the gang is back one night to forcibly take Thao with them, and Walt comes out with his 50 year old rifle and chases them off. Eventually he learns that Thao was the boy who broke into his garage, and reluctantly takes him on to work off his bad deed (at the urging of Thaos’s mother).

Eventually Walt sees the good and potential in Thao and takes it upon himself to show him how to be a man and try to help him steer clear of the gang.

Eastwood is just great to watch in this film – he has the greatest snarl in this movie, and he uses it often and to great effect. He’s totally convincing as the retired old war vet who’s seen it all and is pretty much afraid of nothing. As a matter of fact at one point in the film I actually decided that this was basically another Dirty Harry film, much like last year’s Rambo – revisiting a familiar character after many years in order to show us what happened to him.

Of course he wasn’t really Harry Callahan, but it didn’t take much of a leap to swap characters and end up with pretty much the same movie. The way he confronts trouble is awe-inspiring. In particular there’s one scene (that ends up very funny) where he comes up against three African-American men who are harassing Sue – it’s classic.

Now, I’ll tell you – there’s nothing “cinematically amazing” about this film. No “cutting edge” direction or camera angles or visual effects or anything else. What you have is Clint “I’m still a bad ass at 78″ Eastwood, great characters and a great story. Depending on how good or bad I consider a movie, when assigning it a “score” (which I’m regretting more and more these days – people get caught up in the numbers) I go one of two ways:

If it’s awful, I start at zero and start looking for worthwhile things about it that will add “points.”
If it’s great, I start at the top and look for things that maybe didn’t work here and there and deduct from there.

In this case I started at the top, but I couldn’t think of anything that I didn’t like about the film or struck me the wrong way – so there you have it: 5 out of 5 stars from me.

Now yes, of course… Walt is a racist, hurling every sort of ethnic slur you can think of – but the point is that he learns to look past his prejudices and sees people for who they are, not for their race or heritage. And if you’re a long time Clint Eastwood fan based on the hard-edged character he played back in the Dirty Harry and spaghetti western days you’ll really enjoy this.

On the other hand (and I know I’m generalizing) if you’re on the young side, you’ll probably think he’s a cranky old bastard and what’s he getting so fired up about.

There is plenty of foul language in the film and violence as well – It’s rated R, so leave the kiddies at home.

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Review: Hot Fuzz

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:35:17 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A fantastic send-up of loner cop action hero movies, with a final half hour that makes it the funniest thing I’ve seen this year.

Hot Fuzz is the funniest movie that most people haven’t seen this year. Sure, everyone is fawning over Superbad, which was OK, but if you’re an action movie fan, especially of stuff along the lines of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon you really need to see this movie.

Hot Fuzz was made by the same folks who showed us that zombies could be funny in Shaun of the Dead. It stars Simon Pegg (who co-wrote the script) and Nick Frost. They were the same on-screen team in Shaun. Here Pegg plays officer Nicholas Angel, a by the book, excels-at-everything-he-does officer who is so good that he’s making the rest of the London police force look bad in comparison (his arrest rate is 400% higher than the next highest). Due to this, his superiors decide to ship him off to the small village of Sandford, where the crime rate is ridiculously low and the citizens are proud of it’s designation as Village of the Year.

Angel brings his tough, no-nonsense view of the law to the sleepy little town, and the welcome he receives soon turns to annoyance and ridicule by the townsfolk. A series of murders are interpreted to be accidents by the existing police force, with the two town detectives continually accusing Angel of trying to see a crime where none exists. He is teamed up with the police chief’s son Danny Butterman – a portly and overeager fellow who fantasizes about the sort of police action seen in Point Break and Bad Boys II.

The first 3/4 of the film is funny in a low-key, subtle way. Much of the humor is derived by the counterpoint of the overly serious performance of Pegg as Angel in the face of the existing officers of Sandford who all play their roles for goofy laughs. Also, casting the diminuitive Pegg as a hard-boiled super-cop is funny in and of itself. But where the movie really breaks loose and gets it’s legs is in the final 30 minutes or so when it goes into full-on cop movie parody mode. There are more references to previous films here than I could count, but the vision of Nick Angel riding through town on horseback armed to the teeth was really funny, and his shoot-out with the local townsfolk left me in stitches.

One-time James Bond Timothy Dalton is also in the film and does a great job of portraying a smarmy businessman with the all the charm of a used car salesman.

Be warned that it’s rated R for a reason, with a few fairly gruesome scenes and plenty of foul language that instead of seeming superfluous is actually used to great effect.

I’m really shocked that this film didn’t do better here in the U.S. – perhaps people just don’t get the (sometimes) more subtle British humor and are more open to the more direct (and crass) humor in movies like Superbad. It’s a shame more folks didn’t get out and see this one, but now that it’s out on DVD I highly recommend you check it out.

Go check it out and let me know what you thought of it!

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Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:40:07 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: The Bourne Ultimatum hits it out of the park as a smart, action-packed and compelling spy thriller which puts the series at 3 for 3.

Rarely do you get a movie trilogy where all three films are fantastic. Actually, the only other trilogy that comes to mind that fits that description is Lord of the Rings. Now we can add The Bourne Ultimatum to that list of one.

I gave the first two films very high marks (5 stars for Identity and 4.5 stars for Supremacy) and this one lives up to the standards set by the first two completely.

The movie opens with a brief recap of the events at the end of the previous film, showing Jason Bourne’s escape via train from the authorities in Russia and then jumps to six weeks later. At first Bourne’s (Matt Damon) apparent grudge (with good reason) against the CIA doesn’t seem to make sense if you recall the final scene of the previous film, but towards the end of this film it becomes clear, and in a way that is very cool regarding the timeline of the second film and this one.

He’s still unstoppable and so clever in how he gets around seemingly air tight security and surveillance that it can’t help but put a smile on your face. It’s fascinating to watch him navigate seemingly impossible situations and get through them in a way that is at least somewhat plausible (at least in the context of the story). Although the program that gave birth to his uber-spy programming: Treadstone, seems to be dead, there is a new program that seems to have replaced it and Bourne needs to find out the details about it in order to find the men responsible for his programming and to find some closure to his situation.

I won’t get into the story much in order to preserve the experience for you when you go see it, but suffice it to say that the action sequences, fights and car chases while very reminiscent of the previous film, have enough newness to them to keep it interesting. This movie and the previous one have what I think are the most realistic hand to hand fight scenes and car chases that I’ve seen on film. The sheer amount of beating that the cars Bourne drives seems much more like what might happen in a real world car chase at the level of intensity shown here. Most movies show ancillary damage to bystander’s vehicles, but the “hero” and “villain” cars rarely sustain much damage until the very end of the chase. Here there are multiple crashes involving the hero and the main antagonist in pursuit, and many times Bourne uses those crashes to inhibit those chasing him. The hand to hand fights are also very realistic and brutal. Sure, the camera is in a bit close, but the style of the combatants is such that even if standing there watching the fight it seems that it might be difficult to follow the action due to the speed and complexity of the moves.

I can’t say enough about these movies. The combination of action, suspense and thrills while still developing the characters and making the audience care about them just cannot be beat. You can take Transformers and stuff it… THIS is an action movie.

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Review: Enemies Of Happiness

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:23:14 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A powerful documentary about a young woman who risks her life for human rights in Afghanistan and gives insight into what daily life is like there.

Regardless of which side you are on in regards to the current war, you will be entranced by Enemies of Happiness. It is an important film which humanizes the people of Afghanistan by showing the daily struggles of everday people and how the lingering ways of the previous regime still hover over their lives.

The films opens at a government meeting in 2003, where Malalai Joya, then a 25 year old woman and outspoken critic of the Taliban (which marks her as incredibly brave right from the start) is given the opportunity to speak to the hundreds of people present. She criticisizes the government for still allowing tribal warlords to be in power and function as part of the government, pointing out the atrocities that they have committed, particularly against women, over many years. Although we are shown some nods of agreement with her statement in the audience, the official presiding over the meeting has her thrown out and banned permanently from any future meeting of this type.

Cut to three years later, in 2006, where Malalai is running for Paliament in the first-ever free elections in Afghanistan history. Her life has been in danger since that day in 2003 and she has had to move constantly, never living in one place too long. Although she despises the traditional burka that women have been forced to wear for so long, she must wear it when she goes outside. Ironically that sign of oppression of women now serves to hide her from her enemies.

Malalai is not only a politician – she also serves as a counsellor and and lawyer to the locals, offering advice to a young girl of 13 who is in danger of being forced into marriage with an opium dealer old enough to be her grandfather, and to a married couple whose marriage is being destroyed by a husband who is an opium addict. At one point she sits down with the opium dealer in an effort to talk him out of forcing the young girl into marriage (he already has multiple wives) and although we certainly don’t side with him, we get to see that perhaps there is more than one side to this story and that although the father of the young girl wants to protect her desperately he may not have been completely honest with Malalai about what he accepted in exchange for his daughter. It is heart wrenching to see this young girl come to Malalai pleading for help, not wanting to marry this man and saying that if worse comes to worse she would rather set herself on fire than marry him.

The love and dedication that Malalai has for her people and to the idea of freedom is obvious and geniune, and that is what has contributed to her popularity and status as a folk hero among her people. At one point a very elderly woman arrives to visit her, who has walked with cane for two hours to come see her. She is obviously over 80 years old and claims to be 100 although she probably doesn’t really know her own age. Her belief in Malalai is touching and humbling: She has seen much in her life and seeing her hope that Malalai can actually change things that have been the status quo for so long is very moving and shows the faith the people have in her.

There is no sense of self-awareness of heroism however, only a feeling that she is doing what she can because she can. She is an amazing woman, doing what she knows to be right despite many assasination attempts on her life and the constant threat of death.

Even if you’re not generally a fan of documentaries, this is an important film and I highly recommend that you find a way to see Enemies of Happiness.

Official website for the film: EnemiesOfHappiness.com

Malalai Joya’s website: MalalaiJoya.com

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Review: United 93

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 06 May 2006 00:17:49 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A gripping, realistic portrayal of the events of 9/11 centered on the passengers of United Airlines flight 93 that’s hard to watch but must be seen.

Where to start with this one? A sense of anxiety would be a good place… as in the feeling I had come upon me from the very first frame of United 93, lasting all the way through to the very last frame of the film where the screen abruptly goes black.

There’s no question that this is a very powerful, and important film covering what happened on September 11th, 2001 and focusing on the passengers and crew of the one airliner that did not make it to its intended target. Some have said that it’s too soon for a movie depicting these events, but I disagree. It seems to me that just enough time has passed to where the events of that day… the crystal clear memories of the emotions we felt, have started to fade. Sure, we all remember what happened, but the raw emotion of it has been blunted by the passage of time. No, this is the right time for this film, as both a tribute to those who died and their families, and a kick-in-the-gut reminder to the rest of us of what that day felt like.

The film opens showing the perpetrators in their hotel room, preparing for what lies ahead through prayer and ritual. At this point I hesitate to use the word “terrorists” to describe them, because they are not portrayed as such… yet. What the director, Paul Greengrass has managed to do here is to create real, believable human beings on both sides of the event, and as much as is possible considering the events the film plays things out from a neutral vantage point. This is quite a feat. Not having the terrorists portrayed as evil caricatures must have been, I think, very difficult.

Everything is very mundane at first (as things usually are at an airport), showing folks sitting around waiting for their flights, talking on cell phones, working on laptops, etc. We see the arrival of the four Muslims at the airport and watch them go through security. One of them is shown to be carrying a knife, and he somehow gets through without a problem.

We catch little bits of conversation from passengers and crew, all very trivial, but that adds to the sense of reality about it all. Watching and listening to them talk about their plans for later on was for me, physically painful… knowing what was to come and that none of them would survive the day.

At the airport, the runway is backed up and they have approximately a 30 minute wait on the tarmac, which stresses the leader of the terrorists, since timing was critical to them on that day in order to terrorize everyone to maximum effect. The film takes place aboard the plane, at a central traffic control hub and at air traffic control at multiple locations. Also, part of it takes place at NORAD, where a training exercise is about to take place.

The events of the film seem to unfold in slow motion, as the first hints of a hijacking come to light to one of the air traffic controllers at first as a possible technical glitch, then a communications problem and then a bit of cockpit conversation heard that bodes ill and must be verified. At the time there had not been a hijacking in what? Two decades? So no one jumped up and scrambled on this, although it certainly was not taken lightly.

Seeing the World Trade Center towers in the skyline was gut-wrenching, knowing they would fall that day.

What becomes painfully clear is the lack of a pre-thought-out system to coordinate communications between the various agencies which had a need to know about this, including the military. The awareness of the seriousness of the situation seems to take a long time to build, although it was in reality probably less than an hour or so before everyone got in the groove.

Eventually we see the dreaded takeover of the flight, as the terrorists murder the pilot and co-pilot, and stab a passenger just to show they’re serious. The frustration of the commanders at NORAD really comes across, as it seems that they might have been able to counter what was going on more quickly if channels had been more open. Yes, this might have involved shooting down the planes, and it’s abundantly clear the anguish that possible decision had on those in charge. We also see the realization of the passengers that this is a suicide mission, and that if they’re going to die they may as well try and take the plane.

We all know what happened, and as I stated, that makes the film that much more difficult to watch, but watch it we must, in order to remind us of what we are up against. Yes, I know there are some whack jobs scattered out there who think that the government blew up the WTC and shot down that plane, but they can go pack sand. Greengrass did extensive research on this and was in touch with as many family members as possible in order to properly pay homage to those men and women and to make this as accurate a portrayal as possible considering the circumstances.

You can feel the seriousness with which the actors took their roles, on both sides. This was no Die Hard take on the events: It was solemnly and tastefully done. As I sat through the credits I was astonished to see the number of people who portrayed themselves in the film, both at the air traffic control locations and at NORAD.

You need to go see this film. No, it’s not fun… it’s important.

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Review: Serenity

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 15:51:32 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: If you’re yearning for some great sci-fi, you owe it to yourself to get to know the crew of Serenity, based on Firefly, the little sci-fi show that wouldn’t die.

In case you haven’t heard, the history of the TV show Firefly (upon which Serenity is based) harkens back to that of a little known television show from the 60’s. You may have heard of it… it was called Star Trek.

Like the original Star Trek back in the 60’s, Firefly gained a strong, hard-core following right from the outset. The problem was that the show (brainchild of Joss Whedon whose previous huge hit was Buffy the Vampire Slayer) aired on FOX network. It wasn’t the fact that it was FOX so much as the fact that they showed episodes out of the intended order and instead of giving the show a chance cancelled it after only 11 episodes had aired.

Almost immediately the call went out among the small but dedicated fanbase to try to get another network to pick up the show. Unfortunately none of the networks wanted to carry the torch, but with brisk sales of the DVD version of the series, Universal decided to get a big screen version into production, and if word of mouth ends up carrying Serenity into big numbers, all those networks may end up feeling like CBS after they decided to go with Lost in Space instead of Star Trek.

I would actually recommend that you pick up the series on DVD since you can find it as ridiculously low as $30. Take a couple of days over the weekend to watch it and then go see the movie. You’ll enjoy Serenity that much more.

Having made all the comparisons to Star Trek, the similarities end with the cancellation and popularity issues mentioned previously. Serenity is not about a grand mission to explore space, but is instead more of what would happen if a bunch of working class folks got a hold of a spaceship. Serenity is the name of the ship, a Firefly-class transport that Captain “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) purchased as a near-junker sometime after a solar system-wide civil war has taken place, and his side (the Browncoats) has lost. He has a rag-tag crew (sorry for the cliche, but it fits) and they spend most of their time doing small-time jobs along the “outer rim”, the outskirts of the solar system where the planets are more like the Old West than the gleaming spires of the inner, core planets. Included in the crew are a young doctor and a teenage girl who seems to be suffering from mental problems after having been a victim of experiments by the “Alliance”, the government entity that won the war and is not as benign as the core planet citizens believe it to be.

The crew of Serenity has always known that the Alliance wants the girl (River, played by newcomer Summer Glau), but the government has stepped things up by putting a master assassin on the trail. The story takes us through the twists and turns of discovering what is so special about River and why the Alliance is after her.

That’s all I’ll say about the story, because the real strength of Serenity/Firefly comes from the characters. Joss Whedon (creator/writer/director) has crafted a great cast of complex characters. As a whole they function like a dysfunctional family that fights and bickers, with personalities that are not clear-cut… sometimes pulling them towards the easy way out while at other times pulling them towards doing the right thing. Mal is fiercely loyal to his crew, but he will not hesitate to put them in harms way if the stakes are high enough. He is strong, but not infallible and when in doubt, well he’s still the captain and that’s the end of it.

Among the rest of the crew we have Zoe (Gina Torres), his first officer who served with him during the war. Calm and reasonable, but you wouldn’t want to be on the other side during a firefight with her. There’s Wash (Alan Tudyk), her husband and pilot of Serenity, and with her toughness and his sense of humour they make an odd but endearing couple. We have Kaylee (Jewel Staite) the “Scotty” of the show, a wide-eyed (but not innocent) young lady to whom ship maintenance comes naturally. And then we come to my personal favorite Jayne, played by Adam Baldwin… He’s the most “dirty” of the bunch as far as willingness to shoot someone or sell someone out for a reward, and he’s the least intelligent of the group, but he’s the most endearing character of the bunch. He’s almost like a big kid that doesn’t know any better and just follows his impulses. In the end, if he really considers you a friend he’ll lay it all on the line for you.

There’s also Ron Glass playing a small role as Shepherd Book, a minister whose mysterious backround contains more than meets the eye (his role was larger in the TV series). I don’t recall seeing him in anything since his days on Barney Miller but I’ve always liked him as an actor and it was great to see him back on the screen.

If you’re disappointed by the watered down, cardboard character sci-fi that Star Trek has become and by Star Wars’ CGI-is-everything-and-characters-are-secondary style, you owe it to yourself to get the DVD set of Firefly and then go see Serenity. Just be warned that this isn’t for the under-10 crowd as some of it (in both the TV show and the movie) is very intense and some of it pretty graphic.

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Review: Kung Fu Hustle

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 05:51:57 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A hyperkinetic, Looney Toons inspired combination of kung fu, comedy and action that will leave you alternately awestruck and laughing out loud.

I often comment that I find it much more fun to write reviews of a bad movies than of good ones. Well folks, here’s a definite exception to that rule. Kung Fu Hustle starred, was written and directed by Stephen Chow, and if there is any justice at all, this film will make it to U.S theaters in it’s current form. Stephen was also the writer and director of last year’s Shaolin Soccer (which I have decided I must go out and rent immediately), a movie that was “improved” by studio execs with dubbing and recuts and died a quick death at the box office as a result.

On the surface, the plot of Kung Fu Hustle is pretty simple: Chinese gang terrorizes local towns except for the poorest, which offer no profit. One day they decide they want to take over the town of Pig Sty (really) but things don’t turn out as they expected as they are met with resistance and defiance by the local townfolk.

I really don’t want to give too much away as that would spoil it for you, and I absolutely insist that if you are at all a fan of martial arts, action, or superhero movies, you must see this film once you have the opportunity to do so.

It starts out with an interesting contrast of dramatic music and a butterfly floating by imposing cliffs, which we eventually soar above to watch them turn into the title of the film. Immediately we are taken into a police station where we hear someone being beat up. The camera pans from room to room and floor to floor as the sounds continue, with everyone standing very still. From what’s been seen up to this point you won’t be sure if you should be laughing or getting into “serious” mode, and Chow keeps you in this ambiguous place throughout this opening sequence. To give you an example of what I mean, the film goes directly from two characters being murdered (one by shotgun and one by axe), directly into a dance sequence performed by the Axe Gang.

I told you this was weird, but trust me, in a good way.

A couple of oddball characters show up in Pig Sty claiming to be members of the Axe Gang (Stephen Chow, Chi Chung Lam) and they end up complicating things for both the gang and the town. We are introduced to the most hysterically funny cast of characters I’ve seen in a long time including the flakey landlord of the town, his over the top domineering wife, a barber who can’t seem to hike his pants up above his rear end (I predict a fashion trend launched right here), and a not quite macho tailor. These folks are full of surprises, and most of them are not who you expect them to be.

Chow writes and directs with such a light touch, that you can’t bring yourself to hate even the meanest, most obnoxious person in this movie. The humor reminded me of early Zucker brothers and John Landis, but without the naughty bits. There were so many laugh out loud moments that I honestly lost count. Everything from slapstick physical humor to great lines delivered by the cast. Nevermind that you’re reading them translated from Chinese… they’re still incredibly funny.

Then there’s the action… stuff that comes out of nowhere. At first I thought I was going to be treated to an old style kung fu movie without any wire work (or wire-fu as it’s come to be known), but eventually the wire-fu creeps in, and then barges in big-time. The thing is, as the movie progresses and diverges more and more from reality this style fits into the big picture very easily. There is also CGI employed, usually more for the humor than for action per se. The fight scenes were directed and edited really well… quite the opposite from the way these scenes are shot in American made films. You can actually see what’s going on in a fight sequence! Shots that last more than a nanosecond and with the camera actually pulled back far enough that you can see more than a close up of an elbow hitting a face.

Beyond standard martial arts action there are more special effects here than you can shake a stick at… worthy of many A-list superhero/sci-fi movies in my opinion. Along with the rest of the movie, some of these scenes will make your jaw drop and others while make you laugh out loud.

Lastly, there are riffs on so many movies here that every time I saw one I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. There were tips of the hat (ok, blatant copies) of scenes from Spiderman, The Matrix, Kill Bill, The Shining, Ghostbusters, and even Death Becomes Her (that Bruce Willis/Goldie Hawn/Meryl Streep dead wives movie).

Kung Fu Hustle is just a plain old good time at the movies with enough twists, turns, laughs and suprises to keep you smiling all the way home.

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Christmas review: Elf

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:33:13 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A family-friendly, funny and heartwarming holiday film with a great heart that is well worth watching more than once.

When was the last time that you’ve seen a movie that completely and utterly surprised you?

Last year a friend of mine and I left the wives at home, rounded up our kids and took them to the movies, as has become our annual Thanksgiving tradition. Around the holidays at least, it is possible to find family-friendly G or PG rated movies. Whether they will be any good is another story entirely.

Lacking any other holiday movies to which I could bring my then 7 year old, we settled upon Elf. Will Ferrel? Yet another “Saturday Night Live” alumnus? I figured hey, even if I think it stinks, at least the kids will probably find it funny.

Imagine how stunned I felt when this movie actually turned out to be great!

Right from the opening credits, I felt something was amiss… There was a nostalgic, light touch to them, reminding me of the old Rankin-Bass Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. Immediately, the movie gained some “take me back” points. Of course I was certain that this was just a tease and it would soon veer off into some “edgy” or “hip” spin on the holiday season.

As soon as I saw Bob Newhart narrating…. in a green costume, pointy hat and ears… as an elf… the feeling began to creep in that we might be in for something good. Part of the opening was a description of elves and their three possible jobs: Cobblers, Cookie-makers who live in a tree, or toymakers. When the toymaker elves were shown and described, there was no innuendo, nudge-nudge-wink-wink or anything of the sort. Just wide-eyed innocence and the joy of making toys.

This couldn’t be right… they don’t make (live action) movies like this any more…

The basic story is that during his annual rounds, Santa visits an orphanage, where a curious little tyke is attracted by a teddy bear in Santa’s bag. When we cut to Santa at the North Pole giving the elves atta-boys, out pops the baby. Santa decides to raise him as an elf.

Soon enough Will Ferrel as “Buddy” (brand name on the diapers the baby was wearing when found) outgrows by leaps and bounds his little pals, and we see how hard he tries to fit in, clueless that he’s not a real elf. Again this is played straight, wide-eyed, and not tounge in cheek by Ferrell, and he keeps up this performance throughout the entire film.

And therein lies the charm of this movie. You get the feeling that you’re watching this character who’s really 6 years old on the inside (but is a fast learner) trying to figure out how the world works, and oblivious to the fact that everyone isn’t as kind and giving as he is.

He learns that he’s adopted, that his mother has died, but that his dad, played by James Caan (who has been on the “naughty” list for quite a while) is in New York City. Buddy decides to set out (on foot, from the North Pole of course) to find him.

From here it’s clear that the influence of Buddy will turn dear old dad from the curmudgeon that he is to a kind fellow who once again learns the meaning of Christmas. But you know what? Jan Favreau’s direction, David Berenbaum’s script, and the actors create such a charming story that you won’t care that you’ve seen it before. It does have enough of an original spin that is employed effectively by Will Ferrel to deliver lots of laughs that you can enjoy with your kids.

Elf is a great film that will remind you of how movies used to be funny without being inappropriate, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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Review: Super Size Me

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 14 Nov 2004 04:42:00 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

The short version: You REALLY need to watch this movie before you go through another fast food drive-thru: It’ll cure you of “Mac Attacks”, guaranteed.

Super Size Me is the brainchild of Morgan Spurlock and it’s a heck of a concept: Eat nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days straight… breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If it ain’t on the menu, he won’t eat it. He sparked to this idea one Thanksgiving as he was lying on the sofa post-dinner and happened to see a news item about the two teenaged girls whose parents were suing McDonald’s for making them obese.

In light of today’s 60% obesity rate in the United States this is an extremely important documentary. It’s an eye opening and shocking look at the effects of fast food on the body.

Spurlock lays the groundwork for gathering some good empirical data: Before he starts his experiment, he visits not one, but three doctors (each practicing a different specialty) and has each of them conduct a battery of tests and get baseline measurements of his overall and specific health status. He also consults a dietician and a personal trainer.

He starts out as a healthy guy, actually above average. He is 6′ 2″ and weighs approximately 185 lbs. His cholesterol is well under 200, and his body fat is a well below average 11%. Each of the doctors he informs about his upcoming experiment predicts minor effects: Triglyceride levels will increase along with cholesterol.

Another thing he decides to do is emulate the exercise levels of the average American, which is to say that he won’t do any exercise.

Oh, I forgot to mention his girlfriend is a vegan chef.

On Day 1 he has a McDonald’s breakfast, followed by lunch in his car later in the day. He has established a few rules:

1. If McDonald’s doesn’t serve it, he can’t eat or drink it (this includes water).

2. He can only Super-Size his meal if asked.

3. He has to eat every item on the menu at least once during his 30 days.

During the aforementioned lunch, he ends up with a Super-Sized Double Quarter Pounder meal. He is shown at 5 minute intervals attempting to complete his meal, which includes a 44 ounce Coke. He’s having a hard time, and at minute 22, loses it and heaves through the window and onto the parking lot.

It was not a pretty sight.

We come back to him on Day 3, and he’s happy as a clam, apparently his body having adjusted to the high fat/high sugar food. He likens it to quitting smoking: “If you make it Day 3, you’re home free.”

The film tracks his progress over the 30 days, and he stops in for check-ups along the way… the nutritionist is stunned when he puts on about 10 lbs in one week. As time progresses he literally goes through ups and downs: Feeling depressed for no reason, until he has a McDonald’s meal and then feels fine mood-wise, displaying the signs of addiction.

At points during the film he feels palpitations, has trouble breathing, and feels constriction in his chest. By about Week 3, the doctors are getting alarmed as tests indicate side effects far beyond what they predicted: His liver is showing signs of toxicity similar to that of someone who goes on a drinking binge, and he is warned to look out for signs of gout, a heart attack, and other nasty things.

There are interviews scattered throughout with the representative of a large food lobbying group, a former Surgeon General, the lawyer who sued McDonald’s on behalf of the obese teenagers, and various “man on the street” interviews as well. Many (and I mean MANY) of the diseases related to obesity are listed, as well as the fact that the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. is obesity. I’m emphasizing that for all the folks out there who think that being obese doesn’t hurt anyone. Of course a side effect of this is also increased insurance rates for all of us due to the treatment of these preventable diseases.

By the end of the 30 days, Spurlock’s cholesterol has passed 200 by a wide margin, he’s put on almost 25 lbs, his body fat has increased from 11% to 18% and his liver is on red alert. In the closing credits it’s mentioned that it took him 8 weeks to get his liver back to normal and over one year to get down to his previous weight.

Coincidentally (not) shortly after Super Size Me was released, McDonald’s announced it was going to discontinue it’s Super Size menu. They of course denied it had anything to do with the film.

On the DVD, there are also some great extras including an interview with Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation“, who describes the history of fast food. His description of how that food is processed was enough to put me off from ever wanting to visit a fast food chain restaurant again. Another amazing extra was an experiment demonstrating what happened to different foods when they are left for weeks at a time in glass jars. What happens with the McDonald’s french fries will blow your mind.

The film doesn’t lay all the blame of obesity on fast food companies… at one point Spurlock interviews a lawyer who is made to look as if his only reason for suing is money and nothing else. People do have free choice, but the point he makes is that these companies go out of their way to make the food pretty much addictive through the use of sugar, fat, and caffeine and that they go out of their way to hide how unhealthy this stuff really is.

Another thing he spends quite a bit of time on is the connection between obesity, fast food, and children. Childhood obesity is one of my hot button subjects… it really makes me angry. Spurlock covers three different school lunch programs:

1. One where the meals come from a fast food-type supplier.

Here he indicates that the school staff’s logic is to turn a blind eye and hope for the best. When a students’ self-selected meal consists of nothing but candy and chips, the cafeteria worker rationalizes that the child also brought a bag lunch: wrong.

2. One where the meals come from a gov’t sponsored program.

We’re all familiar with this: Everything comes out of a box or can. Real healthy.

3. One school stumbled across a supplier (Natural Ovens) that actually delivers fresh, healthy food for about the same cost as the junk offered by the above two.

The third school above is actually a school for “troublemaker” kids. Once the school meals were switched from fat and sugar infested junk to the healthy, fresh food the dean stated that behavior problems went down to almost zero.

I consider myself pretty well educated when it comes to nutrition… I actually read the nutrition labels of food I buy, but I was really taken aback at the information in this documentary. I can imagine most people who don’t take the time to educate themselves would really be stunned if they realized what they are doing to their bodies over time by eating this food regularly.

In summary, I don’t recommend that you rent this movie, I highly recommend that you buy it and as a public service to the ones you love, you loan it out once you’ve watched it to everyone you know.

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Review: Collateral

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 15:09:35 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Slow paced with spurts of intensity that will suck you in due to the excellent acting by Cruise and Foxx make this a must-see.

I have not yet read any reviews of Collateral so you’re getting this fresh, without any subconscious influences concerning what others are saying, and I’ll say this: Collateral has… weight.

By that I don’t mean that it’s heavy, but that it feels like it has substance, it draws your attention. Sure, that’s what a movie is supposed to do (dramas, anyway) but how many times have you sat through a film that feels more like the Cliffs Notes version of a movie? Kind of like “Movie-Lite”? That’s certainly not the case here.

The film opens with the Dreamworks and Paramount logos in black and white, with the opening scene of the movie shot extremely grainy, but in color. I don’t really understand the reason for that… maybe someone smarter than me has it in their review. In any case Vincent, our grey-haired assassin (Tom Cruise) bumps into an unknown (to us) person (Jason Stathom who you may recognize from the recent film The Transporter). They intentionally switch suitcases and part ways. I had really hoped that Stathom would turn up in the movie later, but that’s the last we see of him.

You probably know the basic story by now: Max the cabdriver (Jamie Foxx) is unlucky enough to pick up Vincent the paid assassin, who happens to have a number of jobs to do one night and wants Max to be the chauffer for the evening.

Before picking up Vincent, Max picks up extremely attractive customer Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) as a fare, and they have time to connect during the drive. She’s a prosecutor and he’s a cabbie with plans to open up his own limo business. Max turns out to be intuitive and soft-spoken, and by the end of the ride there’s a connection there.

Cut to Vincent almost not getting in Max’s cab while Max daydreams about Annie. Even though I knew what was to come, some part of me was hoping that Vincent would not get in Max’s cab, but of course he does. Vincent passes himself off as a real estate investor who needs to get papers signed by five clients all across town that night and offers Max double what he would normally earn for a full night’s work.

Things get ugly right off the bat as the first assassination does not quite go according to plan and Max finds out about it (to say the least!). Vincent’s idea was that Max would never know, but it doesn’t phase him: he “adapts, evolves” and keeps the situation in hand. So from there it’s all about Max not wanting to be a party to this yet not being able to get away, all the while trying to figure out how to stop Vincent.

I can see why Cruise chose to do this film: Vincent is not a caricatured “bad guy”. Sure, he’s a sociopath, but he has moments where he shows he’s got a tiny bit of humanity left when he helps out Max on more than one occasion. He also has his own personal Nietzschean philosophy which he seems to be eager to share. His point of view is very defeatist, yet pragmatic, and he actually brings some enlightenment to Max, although not in the manner he intended. Cruise’s Vincent is actually quite personable until he starts filling you with bullet holes. He slips into the role quite comfortably, and I never for a moment thought “Hey, that’s Tom Cruise, he’s supposed to be the good guy”.

Foxx was also effective as a mellow guy who just doesn’t want any trouble, but who is pushed further and further and is willing to step beyond his personality when he sees that the situation is not going to get better any time soon. He’s certainly come a long way from In Living Color, and he’s much more believable in a serious role than say, Jim Carrey, who in contrast seems to ooze sincerity to the point that it doesn’t look sincere.

The movie worked well, giving us time to get to know the characters with extended scenes, instead of cutting back and forth in a choppy manner to indicate things happening simultaenously. There is more than one way to show that, and it was done well here, so props to the editor. However if you’re an adrenaline junkie who walks out of a movie thinking it was lame because the music wasn’t blaring and the movie wasn’t a two hour long action sequence, you might be disappointed.

Michael Mann has done well once again, and seems to be on the short list of consistently good directors. The movie probably could have lost about 3 or 4 minutes about 3/4 of the way through to pick up the pacing, but beyond that, it is a great film.

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Review: The Bourne Identity

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 05:38:42 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A definitive action/spy movie with a cool lead character and a plot that won’t insult your intelligence.

In preparation for the release of the upcoming film The Bourne Supremacy I decided to sit down and have another look at The Bourne Identity. I have to say that the second film in this series has a lot to live up to.

Bourne Identity opens with our unidentified protagonist afloat in the Mediterranean, presumably dead. He is picked up (unconscious) by a fishing boat where immediately it’s apparant that he is not just a regular shmoe. The closest the boat has to a doctor pulls bullets out of our mystery man’s back, as well as an implanted capsule containing what seems to be a bank account number saved in a rather ingenious way. Mystery man (Matt Damon) awakens briefly, groggy but immediately aggressively defensive, and it’s divulged that he does not know who he is.

From there on we see that we’ll be taken on a journey where we will know just as much as he does, and things will be made clear only as he discovers them himself. Shortly after arriving back on land (in Germany), clueless as where to turn, we get a peek at what is to come. Our hero is accosted from his sleep on a park bench in the middle of the night by two police officers, and before you can say “what happened?” he overpowers the two gentlemen.

The cool thing about that scene is that when he defends himself, he seems to go into autopilot, surprising even himself in the knowledge that he knows how to beat the hell out of two guys in as many seconds flat.

And so it goes from there, but never quite where I thought it would go. I was kept very interested in the film by wanting to figure out who and what he (ok, Jason Bourne) was and how he arrived at his current status.

Plenty of very cool fight scenes, edited such that although they are fast-paced, you can actually see what’s happening. Of course there’s also the required car chase, which was well done in that it was fairly realistic… for a movie car chase.

The look of the movie was very much 60’s spy flick, but with a faster pace. There just seems to be something about shooting in Europe that makes films seem more timeless.

But if I had to point out just one thing that made this move enjoyable, it’s envy: Here’s this guy, wakes up half-dead with no clue who he is, but he manages to piece together who he is, where to go to find out more, and how to go about it… all the while having these kick-ass martial arts skills and spycraft abilities.

I really thought he was just the coolest character ever as I sat there on my couch with a blanket over me and a glass of milk on the coffee table.

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Review: Spiderman 2

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 23:31:31 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Better than the original on most every level.

So I’m a little late to the Spidey 2 party, what can I say? Life gets in the way, and being out of my teens and twenties, I’m over the “stand in line the night before the big blockbuster movie premieres” syndrome.

Ok, so I even did that in my thirties, but The Phantom Menace cured me of that forever. On to the review….

If I were one to give movies ratings, which I generally don’t, I’d have to give Spiderman 2 five stars out of a possible four. It was incredible, not just as a superhero movie, but against any action/adventure film. (No, it’s not Citizen Kane, all right?)

I went in with high expectations due to all the positive buzz, and I was not disappointed. Spiderman 2 grabbed me right from the opening credits, where an overview of the first movie was shown via a combination of live action shots and Alex Ross renderings. It was a great refresher to prepare us for what was ahead.

In this film it’s been a couple of years since Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has donned the red and blue tights. The responsibility of being Spiderman while also trying to pay the rent and do well in college is starting to take it’s toll. He may be able to shoot webs from his wrists, but he’s still gotta sleep.

Being the responsible person depicted in the first film, Peter has a tough time turning his back on crime and people otherwise in trouble. As you can imagine, living in NYC this would be a full time job on it’s own. He’s starting to fail in school, does not see his friends, and can’t even hold down a job as a pizza delivery guy. He’s extremely stressed, and it’s even started affecting his web-slinging abilities.

His friend Harry Osborne (James Franco) is still harboring a hatred of Spiderman due to the death of his (Harry’s) father which is bordering on obsession. Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter are still doing the “I love you but I can’t tell you” dance, which handled differently, had the potential to be extremely annoying, but was done well here.

Otto Octavious (Alfred Molina) is a scientist on the verge of inventing fusion as a power source, using mechanical arms tied into his nervous system to manipulate the energy, when his demonstration goes horribly wrong. Just as in the first film, he’s a villian who is essentially a good man who loses control of his mind.

As you’ve probably read elsewhere, this film far exceeds the first film, which I thought became rather weak once the blue and red tights showed up. Here the characters carry the film all the way through to the end. Good use was made of every main character, even Aunt May (Rosemary Harris). There is plenty of moviegoing satisfaction in the interactions between the characters, particularly centered around Parker/Spiderman.

The action scenes were breathtaking, and abundant enough to keep things hopping. The CGI was vastly improved from the first film, with only a couple of moments where it really stood out as such. There were also a few laughs, some of them inside jokes, others just plain funny even if you’ve never picked up a comic book.

It’s PG-13, and there were parents in the audience with kids as young as four, but the violence got pretty rough in a couple of spots. In particular there was a scene in an operating room that I thought was very intense not just in content but in prolonged duration. But hey, if you want to desensitize your kid to violence, feel free. Also, for those of you who care, there was a scene reminiscent of the “upside down” kiss from the first film, but with a tighter close up and a longer duration.

This gets a very high recommendation from me, and those of you who know how picky I am, know that’s saying a lot.

Go check it out, you won’t be disappointed… unless you’re like the guy behind me who turned to his friend and said it was boring. People really need to learn the difference between a movie and a video game.

I can’t wait to go see it again.

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Review: Return of the King

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 18 Dec 2003 23:59:10 +0000

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Just go SEE it!

Let’s just get this out of the way: Return of the King was awesome.

There, I’ve said it. Now we can move o?n….

First thing you need to know is that if your date takes too long to get ready, then you hit traffic o?n the way to the theater, and your date annoys you again by wanting to stand in line for popcorn….. it’s OK. Why? Because if you miss the first 30 or 40 minutes it’s not that big a deal.

So I’m kidding. Sort of.

During that time there’s some backstory involving Gollum (which is very important), but then there is more dreaded Arwen/Aragorn romance related stuff, which to me dragged more than a bit. The real reason you went to see the movie starts after all that.

I think the reason I felt this way was because the previous film (The Two Towers), ended o?n such an exhilirating note: The battle for Helm’s Deep…. which just rocked my world. I mean really, just put that entire battle o?n a loop, hook it up to my brain, and I’m good to go for a few days. I went in pretty much expecting things to pick right up at that pace, but Peter Jackson (the director) decided to downshift for a bit.

After that? Man, where to start… keep in mind I didn’t go in with a pad and paper, I’m just writing this off the cuff. o?nce again we see the weakness of Man demonstrated, but there is also redemption. Most of the characters evolve, growing from their experiences in the previous film and this o?ne. Surprisingly Frodo and Sam are two characters that don’t change much from the previous film, but to me it’s just because they’ve gotten there before everyone else.

The battles… ah the battles. There is some stuff in there that will make you cringe because it’s so effectively done, and o?ne scene in particular where the audience actually cheered AND applauded. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you’ll know which o?ne I’m talking about when you see it.

The scope and cinematography was breathtaking and o?n a grander scale than the previous two films, as is fitting for the final chapter in the greatest trilogy ever put o?n film. You will see thousands o?n the battlefield, Nazgul in the air, giant Oliphants and Trolls o?n the ground, and the ugliest damned Orc I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying a lot).

The film really makes you understand the difficulty Frodo and Sam faced in carrying the Ring to it’s destruction. The moments leading up to the destruction of the o?ne Ring are truly excruciating to watch… these Hobbits had to reach DEEP down to summon the strength to complete their task.

As to the ending, Peter Jackson could have copped out with an easy Star Wars-type celebration, but he takes it further… showing us the effects and consequences of being involved in such a harrowing and epic journey. You’ll keep thinking it’s over, but it won’t be.

Aw, just go see it already! Then come back and post your comments here and let me know how much you disagree with me.

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