Category: Films

  • ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’ proves that remakes usually don’t live up to the original

    ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’ proves that remakes usually don’t live up to the original

    Jim Carrey, Alec Baldwin and Richard Jenkins in ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’

    Fun with Dick and Jane screenwriter Judd Apatow, fresh off of his big screen debut with The 40 Year Old Virgin runs into the sophomore jinx in this outing, and the efforts of noted director Dean Parisot (Home Fries, Galaxy Quest) can’t help the film overcome a horribly weak script. That’s the simple explanation, but there is more. This is a remake of a wonderful film from 1977 that starred Jane Fonda (imagine, choosing Jane to play Jane, how original) and the underrated George Segal. The remake suffers greatly by comparison.

    Jim Carrey, who is a terrific talent whether doing comedy or drama, is Dick Harper, rising star employee of Globodyne, who suddenly finds himself promoted to Vice President at just the right moment. Or is it. As he appears on a financial news program, unprepared to answer hard questions about the activities of his companies’ CEO and CFO (Alec Baldwin and Richard Jenkins) in handling the company’s balance sheets and assets, the stock value suffers a melt-down and suddenly the company is bankrupt and Harper, along with everyone else at the company is out of work.

    If this sounds like Enron or Worldcom, the resemblance appears intentional and worse yet, Jane Harper (Tea Leoni, who stepped in when Cameron Diaz had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts) quits her job as a travel agent on the same day, due to Dick’s sudden promotion and impending affluence. Worse yet, the couple, who have a young son, apparently failed Financial Planning 101 and had all of their savings and retirement funds in the stock of Dick’s company which is now of course, worthless. So they are now unemployed, broke and in a major mess. Or as Jane says in the best line from the first trailer announcing the film, “We might be in a little bit of a pickle, Dick.”

    Dick tries to find an equivalent job, but they just aren’t out there, or worse yet, he can’t get hired, thanks to his performance on television trying to answer for the misdeeds of his former CEO and CFO. When he finally lowers his standards about what kind of job he will take, both he and Jane are able to find work, but they are both less than successful in their endeavors with somewhat humorous results. Meanwhile, they are slowly sinking into poverty, as a joke from the original film is recycled when their lawn is repossessed. A beaten-up, banged-up Ford Festiva replaces their nice, leased BMW. I really laughed at the moment when they bought the Festiva, because it looked a lot like the one I used to own and who knows, maybe it was. Just as an aside, they may look stupid, like little roller skate cars, but it always started, ran great and the mileage it got was nothing short of incredible. However, aside from their pre-owned vehicle being dependable, everything else is going wrong.

    Jim Carrey in ‘Fun With Dick and Jane’

    Eventually, with an eviction notice promising the loss of their home within 24 hours, Dick and Jane finally turn to crime. At first, with less than fruitful results, but eventually, like with all things, they improve with practice. There are some funny moments here, particularly as they learn to disguise their appearance while carrying out their crimes, so as to avoid being caught.

    Soon, the lawn is back, and everything appears right with the world. To everyone else, it appears that the Harpers have simply recovered from some bad investing and are now doing well in the market. But a close call on what was to be their last “job” where Dick is nearly captured leads them to reconsider their criminality until they hear that Dick may be the next former Globodyne executive to be indicted.

    I will leave what happens from this point on un-spoiled, for the enjoyment of the viewer, because there are some changes from the plot of the original film in how the villain receives his justice. It is worthy of note that like many re-makes, there are changes in the story that make no sense, and others that do. This remake is set in the year 2000 deliberately to take advantage of what happened with Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, etc, but comedies as message movies don’t send clear messages. That corporate greed and outright thievery are bad doesn’t need a good comedy message movie, people are already aware of such a basic concept.

    Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni are very talented actors, but they are saddled with a script that just doesn’t do justice to the original material and the wonderful performances by the stars of that original work. That isn’t to say that the 2005 version of Fun with Dick and Jane is a bad movie, because it isn’t, it just is nowhere near as good as the material from which is was spawned. Carrey is a great comedic actor, but there is not a single scene in this movie that I found as funny as any number of simple, elegant moments in the original. Here is an example. In this exchange of dialogue, George Segal and Jane Fonda are arguing over the failed family finances:

    Dick: You’re gonna get a job?
    Jane: Yes, incredible as it may seem.
    Dick: May I ask—no offense, mind you—what do you think you’re qualified to do? Secretary of the Treasury seems to be filled at the moment.
    Jane: There must be lots of things that I can do.
    Dick: Oh come on, Jane, you never worked a day in your life. You can’t type and you can’t take shorthand.
    Jane: I’m a college graduate, reasonably intelligent, not altogether unattractive.
    Dick: Yes, but will you be happy being a hooker?
    Jane: Interesting that the only two jobs you consider me qualified for are secretary and hooker.
    Dick: You’re not qualified to be a secretary.

    I can still remember the audience roaring with laughter when George Segal delivered that punchline. No pratfalls, no singing in elevators, just some brilliant use of language. Now that I’ve extolled the virtues of the original, let me make it clear that I am not saying you should avoid this remake. It has a number of funny scenes, Carrey and Leoni work hard to overcome Apatow’s poor script and you will laugh and have a good time. But after you’ve spent whatever it costs you to see the new version, take a moment out to rent or buy the old version and enjoy a real treat.

  • ‘Munich’ is worth a visit

    ‘Munich’ is worth a visit

    Mathieu Kassovitz, Eric Bana, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler and Daniel Craig in ‘Munich’

    “Deuteronomy 19:21 – Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

    In Steven Spielberg’s brilliant film Munich, one cannot help but  wonder if Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) thought about the above passage when she finally gave the approval for Operation Wrath of God.

    You won’t hear that name during the film, but that is the name that was given to the revenge operation approved by PM Meir after the September 1972 massacre of 11 Israelis who were taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. It was an event that transfixed the world at the time and Spielberg brings it back to life using actual footage of Jim McKay’s narration of the events alongside with his recreation of the hostage-taking and the events that followed. We don’t see them all at once, Spielberg cleverly reserving many of these sequences to be sprinkled in throughout what follows the opening tragedy that resulted in the death of all 11 Israelis and all but three of the Palestinian terrorists.

    What happens afterward is that Avner (Eric Bana), a low level operative of Mossad is recruited for an operation. An operation that he doesn’t find out until afterwards is to hunt down and kill 11 of the terrorists who were responsible for organizing the Munich Massacre. He is brought before the PM herself and she assures him that he is doing what must be done. Of course, before he can be sent off to Europe, first he must resign from the Mossad, and sign a contract saying that he is no longer employed by them and that in essence, he doesn’t exist.

    Mathieu Kassovitz and Eric Bana in ‘Munich’

    Neither do his four teammates, Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciaran Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz) or Hans (Hanns Zischler), all of whom have special skills that they bring to the team, although none of them is a trained assassin. That is something they are all going to have to learn on the job, as Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), their case officer explained to Avner going in.

    Ephraim has also told them they are to work in Europe, to stay out of the Arab countries, and not to return to Israel. For Avner, who has a wife who is seven months pregnant, that will not be an easy order to obey. However, the order to search out and kill those who are believed responsible for what happened at Munich will be very easy to obey. The question is, just how do you do that without killing any innocent bystanders, and do it while not getting you or any of your team members killed?

    Munich is not just about what happened in the Olympic village and at Furstenfeldbruck (the airfield where 9 of the 11 hostages died) it is about the search for Vengeance, which happens to be the title of the book that the screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth is based on. The book, written by George Jonas was originally published in 1984 and was been re-issued in 2005 with a new commentary by the real “Avner”. It is a fascinating read and while some have questioned its authenticity, Jonas stands steadfastly by its accuracy.

    This is one of Spielberg’s best films, if not the best ever. The authenticity of the era is captured throughout in appearance and sound. The textures of the cinematography are incredible, with a wonderful feel that are just plain fun to look at. Eric Bana’s performance as Avner may not be the one that ends up winning the Best Actor Oscar for 2005, but if he isn’t one of the five nominees come Oscar time, there’s something wrong with the nominating process. I am going out of my way to avoid spoilers, but there is a moment when he is on the phone with his wife after she has given birth and he speaks to his child that may be his best moment in the film. Kudos also to the entire membership of the Kidon (Mossad’s name for hit team, in Hebrew it means bayonet), as Craig, Hinds, Kassovitz and Zischler are all very good, and Geoffrey Rush is particularly good as the epitome of a case officer managing a team in deep cover.

    I could quibble with Munich for ignoring the Israeli failure at Lillehammer in July of 1973, but Spielberg’s work is so good, I’ve decided to overlook this omission. If you want to know what happened there, read the book by Jonas, he makes a quick mention of it. But don’t miss seeing Munich in the theater, it is a masterpiece.

  • ‘Domino’ is the story of a model turned bounty hunter

    ‘Domino’ is the story of a model turned bounty hunter

    Keira Knightley in ‘Domino’

    There is an ancient Chinese proverb that cautions: “Be careful what you wish for, for your wish may well be granted.” Apparently it is a proverb that the late Domino Harvey never learned. She wanted to become a legend and now she has… posthumously. She died on June 27, 2005 and now, less than four months after her death, the story of her life comes to the big screen in the form of a film titled Domino, directed by Tony Scott and written by Richard Kelly.

    Domino is brilliant, dreadful, insightful and awful; and it manages to be all of these things all at once thanks to a truly dreadful script from Kelly. Apparently he felt that the real life of Domino Harvey wasn’t nearly interesting enough to capture the interest of film fans and instead he made up wild flights of fancy that have nothing to do with the reality of her existence. At the same time, he ignores the tortured parts of her existence that made what she managed to accomplish so much more extraordinary.

    Take Kelly’s script.  Add in the requisite Tony Scott visuals where cuts are done at the speed of a frog in a blender set on high and you have Domino. There is lots of action and thrills but it is a rough ride.  You may want to bring some aspirin or other painkiller into the auditorium along with your movie snacks, to make the journey bearable.

    The film shows us that Domino was born to a famous actor father and model mother. Her father died when she was young and that her mother abandoned her to boarding school early in life in order to pursue another husband. She located that husband and not too long after marrying him, relocated to Beverly Hills from London. Once there, the young woman rebelled against her family’s desires, giving up a career as a model to pursue a new life as a bounty hunter. Actually the idea of being a bounty hunter comes to her after she reads about a seminar on how to become a bounty hunter that she can attend for $100. She shows up, pays her money and she wants her money’s worth.

    What happens after this develops into the aforementioned flights of fancy, ignoring the reality of Domino’s life. There is a great scene involving the pursuit of a gangbanger that director Scott set up using real members of Los Angeles’s 18th Street Gang, a very funny scene involving the Jerry Springer show guest “LaTeesha Rodriquez” (Mo’Nique).   LaTeesha goes on Springer to espouse her views on biracial issues, and she coins phrases such as Blacktina and Chinegro that had the audience laughing out loud. There was even a chart that Ross Perot would have been proud of.

    Mickey Rourke in ‘Domino’

    Keira Knightley portrays Domino and she at least bears a passing resemblance to the late bounty hunter. Note that I did not say model turned bounty hunter, because I am convinced that she was not a model (more on that later). Mickey Rourke plays “Ed Mosby”, the bounty hunter who teaches Domino the trade of tracking and apprehending fugitives. His character is based on Domino’s real-life bounty-hunting partner Ed Martinez. The talented and seemingly always underutilized Delroy Lindo is “Claremont Williams”, the bail bondsman who employs Mosby and his character is also based on a real-life person, Celes King III. He worked on the movie as a technical consultant. Edgar Martinez is “Choco”, who was Mosby’s partner before Domino came along, and who speaks only Spanish to her, even though he knows she doesn’t understand it.

    Tony Scott is the personification of the yin and yang of filmmaking. He can be brilliant as he was in Top Gun and True Romance and abysmal as he was in The Last Boy Scout and The Fan. He doesn’t know where the top is and manages to go over it in almost every movie he makes. And while he can shoot action sequences as good or better than any director in the biz, apparently he has gotten lazy. The final shootout scene is right out of the script of True Romance (Bad Guy vs. Bad Guy vs. Cops while girl drags shot guy away). Richard Kelly on the other hand hasn’t written anything of note except Donnie Darko and after seeing this, I wouldn’t mind if it remained that way. The real life story of Domino Harvey would have made a much better film.

    What was Domino’s real story? Her father was an actor, Laurence Harvey and her mother a model, Paulene Stone. He died when she was very young and her mother remarried in the 1980s, marrying Peter Morton of the Morton’s restaurant and Hard Rock café fame. Domino studied the martial arts while in high school, and apparently was NOT a fashion model. While almost every source, including the film’s script goes along with the legend that she was a model of some type, either on the catwalks of London or for the Ford Agency in New York, a story this past July in the Los Angeles Times cites family and friends as definitive sources that she did not do any modeling. She did other things like designing clothes though. But the main part of her life that is left out of this film is that she apparently did drugs. Indications are she died of an overdose of the painkiller Fenatyl and she was under indictment for federal drug trafficking charges at the time of her death that carried a possible ten year prison term.

    Now that you know a little of the true story, perhaps you’ll know why it would have made a better film than the fake story did. The film wasn’t bad, but it could have been better.

  • Don’t wait to see ‘Waiting’

    Don’t wait to see ‘Waiting’

    Justin Long and Ryan Reynolds in ‘Waiting’

    “Waiter, what’s this fly doing in my soup?” “Looks like the backstroke to me, sir.” That old saw is worthy of a chuckle at best, but it pales in comparison to some of the choice humor that writer/director Rob McKittrick delivers to patrons of Waiting, a raunchy restaurant comedy.

    Set in a place called Shenaniganz — which could be Bennigans or TGIFridays or any other in the endless series of chain restaurants found on the corner of major intersections or in malls across the fruited plain — the film stars Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Luis Guzman, Chi McBride and Andy Milonakis, among others as the crew of this restaurant, just waiting to serve you.

    That is, as rookie server “Mitch” (John Francis Daley) learns on his first day from “Monty” (Reynolds), when the men of Shenaniganz aren’t too busy playing “the Game”, which you’ll just have to see the film to learn about. I won’t spoil that experience for you by attempting to describe this particular juvenile foible. Or if they aren’t too busy lusting after the still not quite legal hostess “Natasha” (Vanessa Lengies) or the equally gorgeous and apparently unavailable lesbian bartender “Tyla” (Emmanuelle Chriqui). The servers deal with a kitchen staff who have apparently been carefully trained to provide the worst attitudes and least sanitary food possible, at least from what we the audience are allowed to see. Everything looks fine to the patrons, although if they saw what we saw, they’d think twice before digging in. This is especially true for those patrons who were less than polite to the servers.

    In the midst of all of this debauchery (and we get to see lots of that, both in the restaurant and at the crew’s parties after work) “Dean” (Justin Long) is wrestling with his own demons. He is attending community college and has been doing that and working at the restaurant for four years now. Meanwhile one of his classmates from high school has just graduated from college with a degree in engineering and is on the fast track to success, while Dean is on the slow track to nowhere. How he chooses to deal with this realization, especially when he is offered a promotion to assistant manager of the restaurant, is a nice subplot in the midst of the comedy.

    Luis Guzman and John Francis Daley in ‘Waiting’

    McKittrick clearly knows his subject, having worked in the restaurant industry, but what fascinates me about his involvement with this film is his tireless marketing of it on the internet on his own. He has engaged in dialogues about the movie with users of the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) on that site’s discussion forums about his film, and he certainly does not refrain from speaking his mind.

    In a response to a post where someone accused Waiting of being a ripoff of another movie, here is part of McKittrick’s response: “In any case, rather than being an accusatory bag-o-douche, why don’t you reserve the final judgement for when you see the movie, rather than simply a trailer”. Now the ripoff accusation was inaccurate and downright rude, but should a director really engage in that kind of dialogue with potential ticket-buyers? In another discussion topic, where a poster says that actor Luis Guzman has said some very unfavorable things about McKittrick, McKittrick has said he will have a lot to say about Guzman after the movie is released. No surprise there, this is a director who is clearly never at a loss for words.

    This is a very funny movie, with one exception. Andy Milonakis. Milonakis, who has his own show on MTV though I do not know why, is very similar to Gary Coleman in that he suffers from a thyroid condition. As a result, he looks much younger than his real age, and is short, with round, chubby cheeks just like Coleman. Milonakis also suffers from that disease known as “cannotactitis”. A rare condition, found only in movies or television where people somehow make it to the screen without the ability to act. By the way, if you have a better adjective to describe this condition, please feel free to email it to me, for use in future reviews.

    Meanwhile, see Waiting. I plan to see it again. That’s the best review I can give any movie.

  • ‘Roll Bounce’ revisits the era of roller-disco rinks

    Bow Wow, Brandon T. Jackson, Khleo Thomas and Marcus T. Paulk in ‘Roll Bounce’

    Director Malcolm Lee (forever to be known as Spike’s cousin) and writer Norman Vance take us back to the late 1970s roller-disco craze for Roll Bounce the latest in the string of films from producers Robert Teitel and George Tillman Jr. Teitel and Tillman Jr., who have given us Men of Honor, Soul Food, Barbershop and its spinoffs are intent on delivering a new type of “black” film that is almost the antithesis of the blaxploitation because they lack the exaggerated violence and profanity and because they show African-Americans, and African-American men in particular, as positive role models. Superfly is a classic film, but do we really want or need to be encouraging anyone to grow up to be a cocaine dealer? Instead, Teitel and Tillman Jr. deliver movies where the heroes can be held up as role models.

    That is a good thing and one of the many positives about Roll Bounce, a fun film with great music. It stars Bow Wow as Xavier (Like Mike) and Chi McBride as Curtis, as son and father living on the South Side of Chicago. McBride’s “Curtis” is an engineer who has lost his job, along with his wife. Xavier is his son and he has two major issues.  One is his inability to communicate with his father about the loss of his mother and the other is the loss of his favorite place on Earth — the skating rink where he and his four friends ruled the floor.

    Nick Cannon and Rick Gonzalez in ‘Roll Bounce’

    The alternative is to skate at a Northside rink where the best skater around is “Sweetness” (Wesley Jonathan) and he and his crew win the annual Skate-Off and its $500 prize with regularity, or to not skate at all. Not skating is not an option and soon Xavier and his buddies “Junior”, “Naps”, “Boo” and “Mixed Mike” are on the other side of the tracks, skating and trying to have fun and finding obstacles in their path at every turn. Of course there is confrontation and that will lead to the expected face-off in the “Skate-Off”, and while it is paid off by director Lee with style and flair, the predictable outcome cannot help but be anticlimactic.

    Lee has managed to recreate the “air” of the era, although there are some notable gaffes, like nutritional wrappers on ice-cream and light-up wheels on skates, things that didn’t exist at the time. The music is also perfectly suited for the settings, matched to the moment as though a committee of 1970s-era roller disco DJs and radio Music Directors met and helped to choose the songs to go with the settings.

    RollBounce will not win any Academy awards, it won’t top any critic’s lists of the best films of the year and it will not top the box office list for even one weekend. Does any of that matter? I don’t think so. It’s a good movie. It has good role models and positive images, and it was fun to watch and experience. Do we have to have more than that?  The answer is a resounding no!

  • ‘Pretty Persuasion’

    Evan Rachel Wood (left) and Jane Krakowski star in 'Pretty Persuasion'
    Evan Rachel Wood (left) and Jane Krakowski star in ‘Pretty Persuasion’

    I usually cringe when going to see feature film debuts from directors who have been previously limited to music videos. So I was more than just a little surprised by the quality of Pretty Persuasion, the debut film from Marcos Siega. It is the best feature directorial debut I have seen since Rod Lurie’s “Deterrence” over six years ago. While Siega had help in the form of a sharp script from writer Skander Halim, Siega’s final product is the work of a director who will be around for the long haul.

    Persuasion stars Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen, The Upside of Anger) as Kimberly Joyce, a 15-year-old student at an expensive and exclusive private school in Beverly Hills. And while she may look as sweet as a Wonka Bar, she is anything but. The sole child of a divorced couple, and currently living with her father, Kimberly is determined to make it as a professional actress and achieve fame and fortune at any cost. Her best friend Brittany shares the same dreams but perhaps not quite the same level of determination, and the newest student in the school, Randa (newcomer Adi Schnall), an hijab (headdress) wearing Arab transplant who dreams only of passing English and pleasing her parents, who are spending a fortune to keep her in the upscale academy. However, all three of the girls are having issues with their English and Drama teacher, Mr. Anderson (Ron Livingston), and just how serious those issues are becomes clear when the trio file a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

    A lawsuit of this type, at a high-priced Beverly Hills private school, would draw massive media attention even if the Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart trials were going on at the same time, and this is no exception. This trial gets particular media interest since there was a reporter doing a fluff feature on the school present when the lawsuit was filed, and that reporter (Jane Krakowski) immediately senses this is the kind of story that leads to promotion and opportunity for someone like her.

    The question here is who is exploiting whom. Kimberly doesn’t discriminate. She exploits everyone she can. Maybe not equally, but that is only because she is able to manipulate some people further than others, and she will use them all to accomplish her goals. Yes, goals. She has more than just the achieving of fame and fortune as goals. Kimberly is complicated and has several agendas and plans.

    Will the lawsuit succeed? Will it fail? Whatever happens, it is Kimberly who is manipulating the players involved, much like a master puppeteer — and all of the marionettes are going to move exactly as she has planned. This is all part of a master plan and while all three of the girls have a stake in the outcome, the only certainty is that you know Kimberly will get what she wants. Will the other two girls be as successful is a question that can be answered only by being there when all of Kimberly’s plans come to completion.

    Siega is the kind of director who manages to let the actors actually perform and act while on-screen, something some directors can’t manage to do because they are too busy focused on getting the action just right. While this is not an action film, that did not relieve Siega of the challenge of maintaining tension while allowing the actors to shine and he achieves both goals. The result is a taut 104 minutes of film where you are either laughing at the dark humor of Halim’s script, marveling at how it attacks and skewers things that go way beyond the politically correct limits of most films, and yet all seems plausible in the world of high-priced private education. I found it believable and I worked in a very expensive private school near Beverly Hills for more than 15 years.

    Evan Rachel Wood delivers a breakout performance as Kimberly, the maniacal manipulator who will do anything and everything to get you to do her bidding. James Woods will have your sides splitting in his all too brief appearances as her father with his acerbic, acid wit. Is he bigoted or does he just hate everyone? Go and see for yourself, but don’t sip from your soda when he’s on-screen or you might end up spitting on your neighbor.

    This is a must-see movie. One of the best movies I’ve seen all year. Persuade yourself to stop off and see Pretty Persuasion.

  • ‘The Great Raid’ is the story of a little-known, amazing military mission

    ‘The Great Raid’ is the story of a little-known, amazing military mission

    The soldiers getting into position for ‘The Great Raid’ on Cabanatuan

    John Dahl is the last director I would have expected to have been behind The Great Raid, Hollywood’s homage to one of the most heroic and least well-known stories of World War II — the rescue of 510 American and British prisoners from a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines. None of his prior films had any connection with war or the military, and he didn’t have a lot of experience with big “action” sequences.

    Of course when Miramax makes a movie; logic is not always involved in the choices being made, so why not Dahl?  What might have seemed a suspect choice before shooting began, the final result shows Dahl was the right person for the job.

    The Great Raid is based on not one, but two books that chronicle the true story of the rescue of the 500 plus survivors of the Bataan death march who ended up at the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan. They had to be rescued because the Japanese government had ordered they be murdered before the Allies could free them from the POW camp. When the Allied forces commanded by Generals Douglas MacArthur and Walter Kreuger landed on Luzon there was a strong possibility the POWs might be liberated, so the order to kill them was about to be implemented. When General Kreuger learned of this, he ordered a rescue mission be planned and carried out.

    The Great Raid begins by saying it was “Inspired by true events” and gives a bit of a history lesson. It remains fairly faithful to the actual history of the rescue itself. Benjamin Bratt plays the real-life officer who commanded the battalion that was given this mission, Lt. Col Henry Mucci, commander of the 6th Ranger Battalion. Bratt bears a strong resemblance to the man who he gives a fairly accurate portrayal of.  Colonel Mucci was a man who could motivate his soldiers in spite of daunting odds and overwhelming obstacles.  James Franco portrays Captain Robert Prince.  Prince was a non-career officer who wanted nothing more than for the war to end so he can go home to his wife.  In spite of that desire, he planned and lead one of the most daring and successful military rescue operations in the history of warfare. 121 Rangers, aided by several hundred Philippino guerilla soldiers carried out the operation. They suffered only two American and 21 Philippino casualties while rescuing every single prisoner in the camp and killing over 800 Japanese soldiers in the process.

    Connie Nielsen in ‘The Great Raid’

    We see the planning of and then the carrying out of this operation, done in spite of required changes made on the fly, and some nice additions made in the field that enhance the plan, while inside the camp we witness the horrific conditions the prisoners are forced to live under. Acts of bravery under fire and the military genius of the planning of this operation are demonstrated as the invaders quickly overwhelm and destroy the camp’s guard force, which fights to the very last man.

    Connie Nielsen gives a strong performance as Margaret Utinsky, an American nurse in the Philippines at the time.  She was helping the Filipino Resistance in supplying medicines and food to the prisoners at Cabanatuan.

    Unlike modern techno-war films where we see the wizardry of weaponry, smart-bombs, fuel-air-explosives, this is war fought in the old style, mano-a-mano. The Great Raid is the kind of war movie that John Wayne used to make (not counting that propaganda statement entitled The Green Berets or the kind of war that George C. Scott’s Patton talked at length about throughout that masterpiece.

    Dahl’s work deserved better than to sit on a shelf for two years and it deserves more than a limited, poorly-timed release. It is worth seeing.

  • ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is a sweet treat

    ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is a sweet treat

    Freddie Highmore as “Charlie Bucket” staring at the last Golden Ticket in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

    It seems that everyone who is reviewing the new movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory feels compelled to compare it to the 1971 film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There’s no need. They are different films and no comparisons are required. They stand apart and separate and should remain so. This work, directed by Tim Burton and staring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly and Helena Bonham Carter, is worthy of being evaluated on its own merits.

    Like the Roald Dahl novel, this is Charlie’s story and we should all be grateful to Johnny Depp for insisting that Freddie Highmore be cast in the role of Charlie. Depp had worked with Highmore in the critically acclaimed Finding Neverland and was so impressed with his effort there that he convinced Burton to cast him. It was a wise move on both their parts as he was the perfect choice for this critical role. Highmore brings the right amount of innocence, wonder, excitement and maturity beyond his years to the part that is required by John August’s adaptation of Dahl’s book.

    The story is, of course, little changed from Dahl’s brilliant tale. Charlie lives with his parent and four grandparents in a little wooden house on the edge of the big city where the gigantic candy factory of the great Willie Wonka is located. They are very poor, but happy in their poverty. While the factory is still operating and candy is being shipped out, the gates were shut and locked years earlier, after Mr. Wonka grew tired of his competitors sending in spies to steal his secret recipes. No one knows how he is continuing to operate; it is one of the great mysteries of the world.

    Deep Roy as all of the Oompa Loompas in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

    Then suddenly without warning comes the announcement that the Wonka factory is going to be opened to five and only five children, accompanied by one adult guardian, and that the children will be those five who are the lucky finders of golden tickets which have been hidden inside Wonka candy bars. Soon, four of the most unlikable children you can imagine, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teevee, have found golden tickets and there is only one left. Charlie wants a golden ticket, but his annual birthday bar of candy didn’t contain one, nor does an extra bar he buys with a hidden stash of cash he gets from Grandpa Joe. However, as the story is told in the book, Charlie finds some money in the street, buys more candy and finds that last golden ticket on the day before the factory is to be opened up and so he and Grandpa Joe (who arises for bed for the first time in years) head off and they and the others get to meet the man, Willie Wonka.

    I liked Johnny Depp’s take on Wonka. He was a bit off-center, a bit odd, and at times, seemed to enjoy the fates of the four rude children as they toured his wonderful, magical factory, filled with amazing sights and tastes that are almost too much for even a child’s mind to comprehend. This telling of the tale doesn’t follow the book in lockstep fashion, adds things that actually enhance the story, and in the end gives the viewer a pleasing and enjoyable experience.

    The visuals were as close to perfect as they can be in this kind of film, with great use of color and contrast, particularly in the Wonkavision and Nut sorting rooms. Danny Elfman’s musical scoring fits the film better than a tight dress on a fashion model.

    Don’t miss Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Just be sure to take something sweet into the theater with you.

  • ‘The Lords of Dogtown’ rule skateboarding

    ‘The Lords of Dogtown’ rule skateboarding

    Lords of Dogtown
    Lords of Dogtown

    Lords of Dogtown begins by saying it is “Inspired by a true story”, and it definitely is. The film is loosely based on the true story of the legendary Z-Boys who changed the face of skateboarding forever in the mid 1970s. The true story was told several years ago in a terrific documentary film written and directed by one of the Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta. That 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys won a slew of awards including the 2002 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. This time out Peralta is content to merely be the screenwriter and Catherine Hardwicke moves from Production Designer to Director for a second time.

    Lords of Dogtown really struck a familiar chord with me. However, that makes sense because in early 1975 I was only 15. Like the Z-Boys, I grew up south of Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California (if you’ve seen the documentary you’ll get the reference). So please forgive me in advance if I’m a bit biased in reviewing this particular movie, but it definitely resonates with me for good reason.

    The true story is in the documentary and not Lords of Dogtown, so if you want the truth, this isn’t the film for you. But if you want to be entertained, enthralled and excited by some good filmmaking then you need to get into the multiplex to see Lords of Dogtown. Hardwicke’s use of a single, hand-held camera during the skating sequences makes them almost seem more than they are, even if the actors in the lead roles can’t do their own stunt work. That flaw, and the fact that the skaters are working without the protective gear that the real skaters used back in the day when they were exploring the very edge of the envelope of what was physically possible, are easily forgiven in light of the quality visuals that Hardwicke delivers.

    The late Heath Ledger stars in 'Lords of Dogtown'
    The late Heath Ledger stars in ‘Lords of Dogtown’

    Skip (Heath Ledger) runs the Zephyr surf shop where the Z-Boys hang out when they aren’t surfing or skating. When a vendor brings in a technological improvement for skating known as urethane wheels, he gets the idea of forming a team of skaters. Jay (Emile Hirsch) and Tony (Victor Rasuk) make the team immediately along with a number of others, but Stacy (John Robinson) is left off because he is busy working at a job and doesn’t have time for mandatory team practices.

    The team storms onto the scene at the 1975 Del Mar Skateboarding National Championships. Stacy shows up and competes without a team and after that, things accelerate. The Z-Boys quickly begin changing the very nature of the sport and what was once fun and games rapidly becomes high finance and corporate sponsorship. In this arena the Z-Boys and Skip face a rough road going forward.

    One of the developments of the era was a severe drought in the region that forced many pool owners to drain their pools and among their other excesses (drugs, drinking, vandalism, etc), the Z-Boys began scouting out and sneaking into homes with dry swimming pools to refine their skating techniques on these smooth surfaces that duplicated waves for skaters to use surf-like movements on the skateboards.

    Each of the three main Z-Boys goes in a different direction after the team breaks up, but somehow they will come together in the end to skate a particular empty pool one more time, for a very special purpose.

    What makes Lords of Dogtown work? One thing is its music. Each of the songs chosen for the film fits just right in the place where it is played. Not just tempo, but lyrical content as well. In addition, Elliot Davis’s cinematography combined with Chris Gorak’s production design does a very credible job of recreating the 1970s era P.O.P. and surrounding area. The actors aren’t brilliant, but as an ensemble they get the job done. The skaters who portray the groundbreaking brilliance of the Z-Boys are just plain fun to watch as they dazzle us with their performances in the pools and on the concrete.

    A side note to those who love the music and want to run out and pick up the soundtrack, beware. Some of the tracks in the movie have been omitted from the soundtrack, so look it over before you buy it.

    A lot of film critics panned Lords of Dogtown and in doing so, said it just didn’t measure up to the documentary version of the story that had already been done. I grant that, but the comparison isn’t fair. One film is a documentary and the other is an attempt to entertain. If you view it as that, then Lords of Dogtown definitely barks up the right tree.

  • ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ tries to be too many things and fails at most of them

    ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ tries to be too many things and fails at most of them

    Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’

    There are certain actors who are the Field of Dreams of movie making. If you cast them, the audience will come. Both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fit into this category. So when both were cast in Mr. and Mrs. Smith it was destined to do well at the box office. However, it is a sad thing that their presence didn’t guarantee or deliver a quality film to the screen that all those people pay to see.

    From a script penned by Simon Kinberg as his MFA thesis at Columbia University, and directed by Doug Liman, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the story of a married couple who have managed to hide their true careers from each other for the five or six years that they have been married. Liman, who has demonstrated his strong skill at action and adventure in The Bourne Identity and his ability with comedy when he has the right script with Jon Favreau’s Swingers; is working with a vehicle that tries to mix the two. It can and has been done, and perhaps Mr. Liman would have done well to rent one or two of the examples of when it was well done before he began work on this project. A screening or two of True Lies certainly couldn’t have hurt his efforts here.

    In this story, Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both assassins, working for rival agencies and both completely unaware of the other’s true occupation. Then they are both contracted to kill the same “mark”, except that it is a trap and they are actually supposed to kill each other. Suddenly they are both on the run from both agencies and everyone is trying to kill both of them and I’m being deliberately vague and leaving out the pitiful details of this woefully inept tale because it fails any kind of logic or believability test.

    Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’

    Trying to buy not one but two, rival “black-ops” government agencies, operating without the knowledge of each other, each in the process of carrying out dozens and dozens of killings? This doesn’t require just some suspension of disbelief, it requires completely disconnecting your pleasure sensors from your logical thinking process. Vince Vaughn is funny as a sidekick to Brad Pitt’s “Mr. John Smith”, but he is completely unbelievable as a serious operative in the world of intelligence operations.

    Now, all of that having been said, if you can completely suspend disbelief for two full hours, at least twenty minutes of which could and should have been trimmed and left on the cutting room floor, then you will enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Buy a big box of popcorn and a large soda and hang on to your seat. It can be a fun ride if you can watch a movie while knowing that what you are seeing simply would not happen in the real world. The action sequences are packed with bullets, explosions and violence, along with plenty of the kind of tension that will make you hold your breath. Brad and Angelina are terrific eye candy and for once it was nice to see a character in a gunfight having to reload and picking up the weapons of their fallen victims along the way.

    I wouldn’t pay money to see this film again, but someday it will probably become much like Roadhouse. A fun, action-packed film that you watch late at night on cable, but don’t tell anyone you were watching.