Rocky IV

Rocky IV (1985) dir. Sylvestor Stallone
Starring: Sylvestor Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Brigitte Nielsen, Talia Shire, Burt Young

***

By Alan Bacchus

'Rocky IV' has so much going wrong with it, it’s an easy film to pick apart, chew up and spit it out as film criticism, which make it so difficult to do that when the film is so much damned fun. Why is that?

First of all, the film is a huge cheat on the part of Stallone. There’s barely a film here, almost no story whatsoever. As usual we see in the opening moments a flashback to the end of the previous Rocky film – Stallone coached by his former nemesis Apollo Creed, fighting and defeating the snarling Clubber Lang (Mr. T).

Cut to Rocky Balboa, once a street level hood who walked around in baggy, ill fitting clothes on the streets of Philadelphia is a now a multimillionaire living in a swanky mansion with a robotic waiter (nice try Sly, the household robots never did catch on). Rocky is now retired, same with Creed, who like Rocky, has nothing to do but relax alone in his backyard swimming pool. But when Apollo hears of a champion Soviet boxer, Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) splashing himself all over American television he decides to take on the bulky blonde for a comeback fight in the name of Cold War patriotism.

Despite Rocky’s protests that Apollo's too old, the show must goes on, and after a ridiculous and embarrassing musical sideshow introduction by James Brown Creed gets his butt whipped, and is actually killed in the ring. Rocky won’t stand for it, and desires for revenge against the evil Commies, thus challenging Drago to a match in Russia on Christmas Day. Despite Adrian’s fears he’s got to do it, because he’s a man and a fighter, and without the fight, he’s not a man.

Cue a series of musical montage scenes which contrast the scientific training methods of Drago with the old fashioned organic method of training - push-ups, sit ups, log lifting, snow shovelling and wooden cart pulling. The fight starts and then Rocky wins and earns the respect of the Soviet people.

The film feels like a cheat because Stallone actually gets away without telling a story. He fast forwards through the most difficult part of writing and essentially crafts two fight scenes sandwiched in between half a dozen montage scenes. One after another, we’re shown the same match-cut edited training sequences. Each piece of music is bigger, and grander and more inspiring than the next. There’s ‘Burning Heart’ by Survivor, then ‘Hearts on Fire’ by John Cafferty, then ‘Man Against The World"’ by Survivor (again) and the appropriately titled ‘Training Montage’ by the film’s composer Vince Di Cola.

But it all works beautifully. The montage scenes are crafted very well, and shot and composed perfectly by Stallone. Even though it’s a glorified music video these scenes create great anticipatory energy. Stallone has earned his right to use the sequences. He’s already at the fourth film in the series, each one as popular and successful as the one before it. So Stallone’s just giving the audience what it wants. Sure it’s a sell out to the spirit of the original film, and Stallone indeed would attempt to reboot the series, twice!

'Rocky IV' is disposable franchise filmmaking at its best, an invigorating guilty pleasure, impossible not to love at least on some kind of juvenile level.

The entire Rocky ‘Undisputed’ Collection is available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment

Passion of Joan of Arc

Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) dir. Carl Dreyer
Starring: Maria Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz

****

By Alan Bacchus

The legend and mystique around Dreyer’s landmark film certainly helps its appreciation – the original version of the silent masterpiece was appeared to have been lost after a number of fires destroyed what was thought was the only remaining complete film elements. But when a near complete version was found in a janitor's closet of an Oslo mental institution in 1981, along with an exhaustive restoration, ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ was rediscovered.

My moderately articulate words cannot possibly describe how great this film is. We all know the story of Joan of Arc, the teenaged French peasant who heard the voice of God command her to join the French army and lead her into victory for the nation. Dreyer’s film picks up the story when she was captured by English, imprisoned, tried and eventually executed.

Dreyer distills the production down to its bare essential elements, a few unadorned interior sets – the courtroom, Saint Joan’s prison cell, and other rooms in the prison. The walls are white with little in the way of art decoration or props - just the powerful words of the judge, jury and executioners and the expressive face of Joan, played by Maria Falconetti (sometimes referred to as Renée).

The story of Ms. Falconetti is even more legendary than the recovered film print. As lead actress it was her one and only performance, which emphasizes the astonishing artistic achievement. A performance which stands alongside Max Schreck as one of the great ‘one and only’ film acting roles in cinema history.

Dreyer almost exclusively frames Falconetti in a close-up, rarely placing her in a two shot with other actors and rarely anything wider than below her shoulders. Within these constraints, Falconetti expresses the anguish, fear, courage of the heroine with amazing intensity – arguably greatest ever female performance put to film. Rumour has it that Dreyer’s direction of Falconetti was so emotionally draining it pushed her into emotional collapse, thus she never acted again.

Even if Falconetti’s performance were merely adequate, the film is a masterpiece based on Dreyer’s stunning stylistic visual treatment and camerawork. Dreyer’s distinct compositions are simply astounding. The minimized aesthetic allows Dreyer to create a fresh visual dynamic by experimenting with creative and unorthodox framing. At Joan’s lonelinest moments watch Dreyer frame her awkwardly in the bottom half of the picture engulfed by the negative space above, and at her most powerful with her eyes framed at the top of the screen with the rest of her face and head dominating the lower half.

No shot is wasted, everything has a purpose. His stark white colour scheme and his reliance on close-ups emphasizes the duel of wills between Joan and her captors. The way he moves his camera feels thoroughly modern as well. The camera rarely sits still constantly roving throughout the courtroom, panning and tilting around the frame to guide the viewers’ attention and pushing into the English characters’ faces to boldly emphasize their intimidating strength. Dreyer exclusively holds on Falconetti’s close-up, repeatedly with same frame size subliminally conveying her resolute faith in God.

Dreyer’s makes up visually what he loses in his minimalist mise-en-scene with a sharp editing style, which resembles how filmmakers cut their films today. Multiple close-ups from different angles and multiple reaction shots which control the pacing of the scene. In fact, if I didn’t know about the film it could pass for one of those modern films shot in the style of old silent pictures – like the Lumiere Bros’ omnibus film or the opening sequence of PTA’s “Magnolia”.

It’s obvious “Passion of Joan of Arc” works well as a metaphor for the Christian crucifixion. And anyone who's seen both this and Mel Gibson’s "Passion of the Christ", will see the heavy influence of one on the other, with Gibson paying direct homage by borrowing the 'Passion' from the title.

Dreyer lasting message is more secular than Gibson's. If you ever felt doubt in yourself, or loneliness or questioned your faith in something you believe in, “Passion of Joan of Arc” is as good a remedy as any confession.

Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket (1987) dir. Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Matthew Modine, Arliss Howard, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D’Onofrio

****

By Alan Bacchus

With each successive viewing “Full Metal Jacket” seems to rise the ranks of the Kubrick oeuvre. For me it sits in his top three just below “Dr. Strangelove” and “2001” A Space Odyssey”. Like his other war film “Paths of Glory” Kubrick cuts the film in two distinct halves. Each half is a masterpiece in it’s own right and when put together greater than the sum of its parts.

The opening starts with some popular music – something we aren’t accustomed to in the Kubrick universe – Johnny Wright’s “Hello Vietnam” while our characters’ hair are being buzzed off. Kubrick is stripping his characters down – bare – so they can be shaped into the stone cold Marines they will become. Then we get a loud introduction to Gunnery Sgt Hartman (Lee Ermey) – a drill instructor with the most foul mouth to ever grace the screen. The opening half of the film which takes place entirely within these training barracks is hell on earth for these characters. As the verbal and physical abuse continues the character of Joker (Matthew Modine) emerges as the leader and protagonist. We also meet Leonard “Pvt Pile” (Vincent D’Onofrio) who is eloquently described by Hartman as a ‘digusting fat body’ and a ‘slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit’. The abuse doesn’t harden Pile into a Marine though – his mind is carved into a psychotic who will eventually take his anger out in the most violent of ways.

The second half is like an entire different film. Only Pvt. Joker and Pvt. Cowboy continue on in the film. It’s months after basic training. Joker, looking more relaxed and comfortable with his position in the army, is a war correspondent who writes articles for “Stars and Stripes” magazine. Joker is assigned to cover a platoon on reconnaissance after the famous Tet offensive. Like the first half Joker’s tour becomes a journey into hell. When the platoon gets lost they encounter a lone sniper that will test their physical and moral strength.

The Kubrick style is in our faces loud and clear. He elegantly glides his camera easily across the pristine floor of the training bunks. The rows and rows of beds allows for some immaculately composed shots – mostly symmetrical compositions of course. In the second half, Kubrick spares no expense in the production design – creating Vietnam out of the English countryside. Kubrick’s frame is composed just as carefully, specifically the use of the omnipresent background smoke. I can’t even fathom the logistical nightmare of coordinating the billows of smoke miles in the background. But it’s these details that make the film a visual delight.

The final sequence which follows the platoon into the abandoned town to confront the sniper is the highlight. Watch the amazing long tracking shot from behind the soldiers as they crouch and run into their positions (notice the similarities in these shots to “Saving Private Ryan”). Watch the subtle lighting changes throughout the scene as the sun goes down. The scene moves from standard daylight to magic hour light to complete darkness. Again watch the fire and smoke which seems to breathe a life of its own. And that’s only the background!

The confrontation with a lone sniper presents the soldiers with a moral conundrum. After all the immoral death Kubrick makes us sympathize with his exposed and defenseless victim. This final scene is important not just in conveying the theme of the film – the duality of war – but also the themes of Kubrick's career.

Like most of his films “Full Metal Jacket” is largely inhumane, showing us an emotionally unencumbered world of violence. But after almost 2 hours of dehumanization Kubrick slaps us with a moment of humanity. And the denouement which takes the soldiers back to childhood reinforces his theme of innocence regained. Enjoy.

Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket

North By Northwest

North By Northwest (1959) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Cary Grant, Eve Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau

***½

By Alan Bacchus

Despite its sterling reputation, Hitch’s sprawling cross country epic adventure was never one of my favourites. Perhaps it was the overly-preposterous maguffin plotting, or the extensive and often distracting overuse of his rear projection process shots, or its over length (it was Hitchcock’s longest running time, clocking in at 2:15mins) but on Blu-Ray, it’s a completely different experience, a pristine and stunning high definition presentation which makes the entire picture larger than life and close as ever to the big screen immersive theatrical experience.

The story behind the making of the film which is revealed to us in the beautifully designed Warner Bros liner notes indeed stemmed from Hitchcock’s desire simply to make his biggest movie to date - a disposable action picture bereft of the psychological layers he previously dug himself into in ‘Vertigo’ or would go on to do in his subsequent effort, ‘Psycho’.

‘North By Northwest’ is breezy entertainment to say the least. The plotting is as fantastical and paper-thin at best. Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a NYC Ad exec (think Don Draper with a sense of humour) who randomly gets pulled into a cab by a couple thugs carrying guns who claim he's a CIA spy named George Kaplan. When Thornhill escapes the clutches of the baddies he finds himself on the run, a journey which would take him by plane, train, and automobile from NYC to Chicago to Indiana to South Dakota trying to clear his name.

When he inadvertently gets a murder rap pinned on him, he’s made a fugitive from the law as well as the suited heavies. With no one to trust he finds himself helped by a mysteriously femme fatal blondie, Eve Kendell (Eve Marie Saint) who uses her sexual powers to seduce Roger then double-cross him back into the clutches of the spies. Thornhill finds trouble and adventure in a number of wild situations including the UN building, Grand Central Station, the streets of Chicago, the prairies of Indiana and finally and most famous Mount Rushmore.

Despite the danger Hitchcock never lets Thornhill take the situation too seriously. His ability to take the piss out of anyone and any tense situation adds a typically Hitchcockian and British wry comedic tone.

All the other hallmarks of Hitchcock’s style is heightened. The film works best as series of set pieces, all of which are impeccably choreographed to maximum suspense. The crop dusting scene is still one of his best ever directed sequences. As Thornhill stands along at the desolate crossroads, even before the plane strikes Hitch teases us with the sound of the bi-plane humming in the background. He misdirects us away from the plane by having Thornhill converse with waiting bus passenger on the road. And when Hitchcock decides to have the plane strike at him his use of composition and editing creates teeth shattering tension and danger.

Though the scene takes place in the wide open, and in bright day light, this scene is made frightening by the isolation of Thornhill in the expansiveness of the environment. This is a consistent theme throughout. In every scene Hitchcock is conscious of the placement of his characters in space and architecture. The UN scene is a good example, his wideshots frame in the high ceilings and lengthy staircases of the interior design and the final magnificent exterior overhead shot of the building, which shows Thornhill leaving in a cab is framed to shrink the character against his surroundings. This is the entire purpose of the Rushmore sequence, his character having their final confrontation on a mountain sculpted into by four massive heads into the rock.

“North By Northwest” is not perfect either. The third act resolution in South Dakota is long and takes too much time trying to explain the narrative jumps it took to tease us for the previous two acts. We’re also left without much to resonate with. The final phallic train shot entering the tunnel is subliminally clever and cheeky but is also as eye rolling as James Bond double-entendres as well.

I used to have a major problems with Hitchcock’s insistence on cheating studio interiors for exteriors, even into the late 50’s when on location shooting was common in Hollywood. Hitchcock even places his characters on hideous studio-confining treadmills against prerecorded backdrops to do exterior walk and talks. But under the high definition Blu-Ray treatment these scenes blend in better than they ever looked on VHS or DVD.

As usual Warner Bros’ respectful packaging, design and special features are worthy of this great film.

Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are (2009) dir. Spike Jonze
Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo
Voices: James Gandolfini, Maureen O’Hara, Chris Cooper

***½

By Alan Bacchus

After 3 years of publicized production and post-production difficulties bringing this picture to the screen which caused much gossip as to the quality of film it was all worth the wait. In fact, Where The Wild Things Are is better than we could have hoped and exactly the kind of idiosyncratic auteuristic picture we wanted from Spike Jonze.

The notion of Jonze adapting Maurice Sendak’s 1960's children’s book was certainly a risky choice, potential for both triumph and complete failure. After all “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” were both phenomenally original films, but this story NOT a Charlie Kaufman script, but a sparse 19-page picture book, with a wide open canvas for adaptation.

The finished film is a courageous work of art, a wholly unique experience, meeting and exceeding our high expectations. Under anyone’s else’s watch this film would have been turned into an fantasy extravaganza, replete which mondo special effects, overly designed fantasy worlds, fantasy creatures and Pixar/Disney sappy comedic tones. After all, it’s a familiar story, a troubled and lonely child retreats to his dreams where he finds a fantastical world of monsters, of which he makes himself king.

The actual book is only 19 pages, and only about one sentence per page, a very sparse jumping off point for Jonze and his co-writer Dave Eggers. The film version expands on the opening pages of the book, showing us the lonely existence of Max a rambunctious and imaginative 11 year old who is too young to hang out with his newly pubescent sister and who receives little attention from her newly dating single mother. As a result Max has his imagination to retreat to, and when his mother chastises him for standing on their kitchen table proclaiming himself a king, he runs away from home. His flight transforming him not unlike Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, into his own fantasy world of his subconscious mind.

Max finds himself in a world inhabited by giant beasts, or ’Wild Things’ as the title suggests. Max, dressed in his wolf pyjamas, plays the role of a king in order to convince the beasts not to eat him. He befriends their leader Carol (James Gandolfini), a volatile personality who is as innocent and congenial as he is on the edge of destructive violence. Over the course of the next few days Max explores the island and caroses with his new beastly playmates satisfying all the inhibitions and desires he couldn't express at home.

The joy of the film lies in Jonze’s steadfast determination to root the story in reality. His choice of using the Jim Henson Creature Shop ’old school’ designs is retro-inspired. His wild things are a seemless blend of old fashioned men in furry suits and carefully-used and near-invisible computer effects. But its the techniques of the past which have been obsolete for over 15 years now that adds the real-world organic quality.

It's just one aspect of Jonze’s remarkable ability to retain the simplicity of the story. While there’s little plot in the book there’s just as little going on in the film. Yet it sustains its 1 hour, 40mins running time admirably.

Jonze is in tight control of his tone - a melancholy sense of reflection. While the action in the story is generated from Max’s childlike imagination, it's told through the eyes of Jonze, the adult. His direction of the voice actors is inspired, favouring natural, understated voice cadence and dialogue over jokes, punch lines and all traditional template dialogue we hear in kids flicks. The characters are simple, so are the words coming out of their mouths, but the way the lines are read feels sophisticated and complex. Jonze’s camera work is typical of his style. Once again his favourite lensman, Lance Acord shoots the film handheld and natural without it feeling 'shaky'. Carter Burwell’s touching score, which Jonze said, was influenced by listening to Arcade Fire, finds completes the tonal consistency. And so this is how Jonze achieves his vision, an auteur sensibility which fits in perfectly with his two Kaufman films.

“Where the Wild Things” is a kids film made for adults, which, unfortunately means it never ever had a chance to make the big bucks its Disney conpatriots exploit for their adaptations. Though it will not make $100million dollars at the box office, the film is a success, a great success. While children most will not be able to comprehend the dark and melancholic tone there’s no doubt Jonze’s film will last much longer than ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball” or ‘Monsters Vs. Aliens”.

Rocky

Rocky (1976) dir. John G. Avildsen
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The formulaic nature of the multiple sequels of this film might suggest that 'Rocky' itself is a formula film - that is, chronciling the journey of a down and out boxer from the rough streets of Philly to boxing highest stage, a shot at the heavyweight title. Indeed this is how “Rocky” plays out but its honest and truly sincere character-based personal approach as written and performed by Sylvestre Stallone subverts all expectations for the first time viewer.

The inspirational humanist director John G. Avildsen ((“Karate Kid”, Save the Tiger”, “The Power of One”) directs and opens with Rocky Balboa fighting a small-time boxing match, with barely a hundred people in the audience. The fight is even until he’s headbutted by his opponent which sends Rocky into an impassioned frenzy and knocking his opponent out. After the fight Rocky is paid a measly $40 for the victory. Rocky lives in a working class area of Philadelphia. He’s a neighbourhood guy, who also works for a local bookie collecting on debts. Rocky does this to make ends meet, as he says, “since he can’t sing and can’t dance, there’s not much else he can do”. But Rocky’s not even good at collecting debt. He’s supposed to break a guy’s thumbs if he can’t pay up, but instead lets him go scott free. The only thing Rocky can do right is box.

Rocky’s given a chance at glory with reigning champ, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) who’s in town to grant an unknown local fighter a chance at the title for publicity purposes. Creed chooses Rocky because he’s white and that his nickname, the Italian Stallion, would sound good on the marquee. Of course, Rocky is completely underestimated by the cocky showboating Creed.

Rocky reluctantly employs the help of veteran manager Mickey (Burgess Meredith) to train him into shape. Rocky is initially hesitant since it was Mickey who hasn’t shown him the respect he thinks he deserves. But the two convalesce and Mickey proceeds to train Rocky the old-fashioned way, lots of running, one-armed pushups and a slab of meat.

Despite the opportunities for emotion in the ring Avildsen and Stallone find the heart of the picture in Stallone’s desperate attempts to court local pet store cashier, Adrian (Talia Shire). Adrian is a shy awkward wallflower. She’s a tough catch, and perhaps it’s the challenge that he’s attracted to. His perseverance to get his first kiss from her is impressive. On Thanksgiving they go on their first date, he bribes a local ice rink owner to stay open late so they can have a romantic skate, then he convinces her to come into his apartment. Rocky, a simple man, gains her reluctant trust with the utmost sincerity and honesty.

When the fight happens it’s less about who wins and it is about Rocky's need to prove to Adrian that he can provide a decent life for her. Of course, the fight lasts more than the 3 rounds predicted by Creed, and he’s not the pushover he’s expecting. The ending isn’t the grand victorious triumph that parts II, III, IV etc drive towards, the climax isn’t a miraculous knock out, but Rocky’s recovery to continue after a brutal 15 rounds. He’s more George Chuvalo than Buster Douglas.

Avildsen was one of the first films to extensively use the Garrett Brown’s newly invented panaglide/steadycam device. As a result he’s able to capture Sly’s dramatic and gallant strides through the city of Philadelphia with grace. And when Bill Conti’s awe-inspiring score crescendos as Sly abounds four steps at a time to the top of Philly’s Museum of Art I still get shivers of joy. Enjoy

All six Rocky movies are now available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment. Check back for more reviews and coverage of this comprehensive and well-packaged collector's item.

The Buttercup Chain

The Buttercup Chain (1970) Dir. Robert Ellis Miller
Starring: Hywel Bennett, Leigh Taylor-Young, Jane Asher and Sven-Bertil Taube

*

By Greg Klymkiw

This dull, idiotic, pretentious bit of soft-core is not especially sexy and lacks even the tiniest shred of entertainment value. It is, however, one of the most sumptuously photographed bad movies I have ever seen.

Shot by the brilliant Douglas Slocombe, one is treated to impeccable compositions, delicate interior lighting and sun-drenched location photography of the highest order. And of course, whenever the supple flesh of the attractive leads is bared, Slocombe captures the puff pastry of the ladies and the buff brawn of the gentlemen with the eye of a pornographer extraordinaire.

Not that this should come as a surprise. Slocombe, a multi-award-winning-and-nominated cinematographer had, by the time he worked on this film, been making dazzling images for twenty-five years. His early career in Britain included lensing some of the great Ealing Pictures including the classic chiller “Dead of Night”, the black comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets”, Alexander Mackendrick’s wry satire “The Man in the White Suit”, the quiet, delicate and almost elegiac “The Smallest Show On Earth” and the all-out hilarity of “The Titfield Thunderbolt”.

Throughout the 60s, Slocombe created indelible images on a variety of classic films from all genres. He gave us the lurid glory of the sickening, terrifying “Circus of Horrors”, the hip, groovily-dappled colours and endless heart-stopping shots of Raquel Welch in “Fathom”, the glory of the intimate historical epic “The Lion in Winter”, Roman Polanski’s gorgeously expressionistic “The Fearless Vampire Killers”, Peter Collinson’s Euro-trashy heist thriller “The Italian Job” and among many others, the subtly darkening black and white palette of Harold Pinter-Joseph Losey’s “The Servant”. In the same year “The Buttercup Chain” was made and released, Slocombe also shot Ken Russell’s utterly insane, phantasmagorical biopic of Tchaikovsky, “The Music Lovers” a cinematographer-director match made in heaven.

Of course, any of the above-named titles, should probably not even be mentioned on the same page as “The Buttercup Chain”, but alas, Slocombe was also enough of a pragmatic artist that he also took jobs that were just that – jobs. Not that money was the only aim in shooting this – I suspect he was attracted to the stunning and wide variety of gorgeous European locations and the prospect of photographing a bevy of babes and hunks against such a backdrop.

And just what, pray tell, is a “Buttercup Chain”?

Well, aside from being one of the least entertaining bad movies ever made, it appears to have something to do with the two lead characters and their childhood obsession with buttercups and how this, by extension, transmogrifies into a summer of carnal delight with everyone but each other in order to avoid the hint of incest that lingers over their desire for each other.

“Say, what?” you say!!!

France (the broodingly beautiful and ever-so-slightly mincing Hywel Bennett) and Margaret (jaw-droppingly ravishing model Jane Asher) are cousins. Their respective mothers are twin sisters. From childhood, they are deeply in love – the cousins, that is: not the twin sisters. As adults, they give each other lots of hugs and pecks, but never consummate their fleshly desires for each other. Instead, France desires to “pimp” (the word – I kid you not! – that he actually uses) Margaret out to as many lovers as possible so he can experience, from afar, the joy she will receive from every other man, but himself. For her part, Margaret also wants France to get some lovin’, so she encourages him to bed down the luscious Manny (that scrumptious morsel of big-screen 70s desire Leigh Taylor-Young). France chooses the swarthy Swede Fred (stiff-jawed and bulgingly endowed salami-meister Sven Bertil-Taube) to lay pipe within his beloved.

We, the audience, get to sit back, take our shoes off, apply the palm lubricant of choice and voyeuristically participate in this oh-so-sexy romp through the most exquisite European vacation spots imaginable as our two attractive couples… couple.

Alas, I feel I have made this cinematic equivalent to dog-shit spattered streets sound far too watchable, if not downright compelling. It’s not. The dialogue is moronic, the performances wooden and Robert Ellis Miller’s direction is utterly pallid.

Miller’s poor work is not surprising. Essentially a camera-jockey (television director), he lucked out with one big screen picture, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” – thanks mainly to a fine cast and lovely source material. Here, he has a quartet of incompetent actors and high-mindedly boneheaded source material.

There is, however, Slocombe’s gorgeous cinematography, but as mentioned above, there is a clutch of good and sometimes great movies that already existed prior to this film that benefited from his magnificent eye. In fact, AFTER shooting “The Buttercup Chain”, Slocombe continued to dazzle as the Director of Photography on such diverse and solid work as the two terrific Norman Jewison pictures (“Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Rollerball”), the flawed, but thoroughly compelling “The Great Gatsby” and especially, the first three instalments of Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones” pictures.

This deservedly obscure picture has recently and shockingly been bestowed with a DVD release on Sony’s weird “Martini Movies” label. Like many pictures in this series, one wonders why “The Buttercup Chain” is considered a “Martini Movie”.

One thing I can assure, however, is a few dry, stiff, shaken-not-stirred carafes of the old olive-garnished belt-back will numb you rather pleasantly – should you choose, that is, to divest yourself of 95 precious minutes of your life.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) dir. Wes Anderson
Starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Bill Murray

****

By Blair Stewart

Joining Tim Burton and Spike Jonze on their forays into youthful material, Wes Anderson raids the farm with Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". Featuring a knock-out cast of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon, Anderson takes liberties with the classic book yet still maintains the wily essence of the original.

After renouncing his status as the best thief in the valley, refined family man Mr. Fox (Clooney) pulls off one last heist from the three nastiest farmers in the land, Boggis, Bunce and Bean. His looting goes over a tad too well, with the farmers tearing up the land (and taking his tail as a prize) to get at Fox and his family in an upstairs/downstairs battle. As his fellow evicted animals come knocking in Mr. Fox's bomb shelter our hero must win the day while bonding with his wary son Ash (Jason Schwartzman).

After diminishing returns since the success of "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums", Wes Anderson comes back with his style and pace seamlessly grafted onto the children's standard. Employing exceptional stop-motion animation from the likes of cinematographer Tristian Oliver of "Wallace and Gromit" and production designer Nelson Lowry from "The Corpse Bride", the fields of Dahl's story are uncannily realised.

"Mr. Fox's" setting is so beautifully lit in deep blues and browns that I hope the camerawork is noticed come awards season over most live-action fare. The script by Anderson and Noah Baumbach goes off on American-ized tangents that have irked British fans but the snappy chemistry of the cast breezes along, in particular Clooney with Streep as Mrs. Fox. An appearance by Willem Dafoe in an iconic role caps off a memorable year for him as well. Surprisingly, some of the humour and subject matter of the script makes this more ideal for older children and grown-ups than toddlers, mostly due to a litany of explosions
and the odd knife fight.

A great autumn season surprise, and if Hayao Mizazaki or Nick Park (or both!) ever tackle Dahl's "The BFG", my head would explode. Enjoy.

Anna Karenina - 2009 Version

Anna Karenina (2009) dir. Sergei Solovyov
Starring: Tatyana Drubich, Oleg Yankovskiy and Yaroslav Boyko

**1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Hailed as one of the great novels of all-time, Lev Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” has been adapted into so many film and television versions, one wonders if we will ever get the ultimate cinematic rendering of this great story. It has not happened yet, and this new Russian mini-series, which makes its North American premiere this weekend in Toronto at the Kino/Art Film Festival, is blessed with sumptuous production design and excellent performances, but is ultimately, at its best, not much more than watchable.

This oft-told tale of tragic romance, infidelity and social commentary is, on the page, an extremely complex work, yet when one boils it down to its essentials, Tolstoy hung the layers of the world he created on a very solid and simple narrative coat rack and delivered a subtle stylistic use of language to create the feeling of a steam engine hurtling its characters in steady forward motion with all the requisite jostles, twists, turns and abrupt, though always temporary stops.

The simple love triangle involves Anna, the title character (played beautifully in this version by Tatyana Drubich) and how she escapes a loveless marriage to the bureaucrat Aleksei (Oleg Yankovskiy) when she meets and begins a passionate, scandalous affair with the dashing Count Vronsky (Yaroslav Boyko – definitely dashing, supremely charming and a most excellent choice for this role). A brief reconciliation with her husband eventually gives way to a return to the Count and the two lovers are ostracized by the society they both were once an integral part of. Anna, fearing the Count is unfaithful to her, eventually, and in despair, hurtles herself in front of an oncoming train.

That, in a nutshell, is the narrative coat hanger and after seeing many film and television adaptations of the novel, I am inclined to think that the best attempts to render the story visually are the ones where the filmmakers do not stray too far from the simplicity of Tolstoy’s dramatic story structure and leave the dense novelistic complexities aside. To date, my favourite versions of this tale remain David O. Selznick’s production of the Clarence Brown-directed film starring Greta Garbo and Alexander Korda’s production of the Julien Duvivier-directed rendering that stars Vivien Leigh.

Oddly enough, it is the two Russian versions I’ve seen that I like least. The 1967 Mosfilm production of “Anna Karenina” is not without merit, especially with its elephantine 70mm treatment, but it feels like a half-epic; not long enough to flesh out the aspects of the novel usually left out of the film adaptations and long enough to be tedious. This might have a lot to do with the disjointedness of the film and the fact that it’s caught in the horrible middle of including too much and not enough.

This, of course, does not seem to be the problem with Solovyov’s TV mini-series version. In many ways, it might actually be the ultimate version in terms of remaining as faithful to the events of Tolstoy’s novel. And though it is well made and is endowed with an adherence to the text, there is something lacking in the medium it presents itself in. With an episodic structure that features numerous fades-to-black and fades-up-from-black for what appear to be outs and ins around commercial breaks, it lacks the kind of bigger-than-life sweep one wants from the story. While the production seems perfectly serviceable for television consumption, it just does not have what it takes to raise itself to the stylistic heights of either Brown or Duvivier’s versions which both have the stylistic, very theatrical (big-screen) and expressionistic flourishes of cinema.

It is interesting that late in life Tolstoy lamented the fact that he had yet to find a medium of artistic expression that would be ideal for what he really wanted to do. I always find this lament so strange given his ground-breaking literary achievements, but it is a fact that he did indeed feel this way and even dabbled with using the stage to create a multi-dimensional rendering of his prose. Alas, he found that the proscenium was also too constricting. When he finally realized that the medium of film was just what the doctor ordered for presenting stories in a truly multi-dimensional platform, he was in his final years and the medium was still at its earliest stages.

I look back at most of the film and television adaptations of Tolstoy’s work, including this new version of "Anna Karenina", and it is with a considerable degree of wistfulness that I dream and wonder what magic Lev Tolstoy might have wrought if God had given us another century of this great artist to ply his trade as an auteur of cinema.

For more information on Toronto's KinoArt Festival Nov 5-8) visit: www.kinoartfestival.com

Taras Bulba - 2009 version

Taras Bulba (2009) dir. Wolodymyr Bortko
Starring: Bohdan Stupka, Ihor Petrenko, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Magdalena Mielcarz and Sergei Dryden

**

By Greg Klymkiw

Via the Kino/Art Film Festival in Toronto this weekend, audiences will be subjected to one of the vilest displays of cinematic propaganda I have seen in a long time and oddly, the charge is not levelled against Hollywood, but Russia – not the Russia of the butcher Joseph Stalin, but that of contemporary Russia – a country rife with the sad, evil remnants of Stalin in the guise of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, current Prime Minister of Russia and for many years, a nasty little KGB spy who specialized in rooting out those who opposed the supposed glories of Communism. (And let’s not even mention Putin’s disgusting career as a teacher and academic where he actually used his position to carry out surveillance on students.)

The film on view is “Taras Bulba”, a new screen adaptation of the legendary Ukrainian writer Mykola Hohol’s (the common Russian transliteration being “Nikolai Gogol”) great novella of the same name and a film that chooses to use Hohol/Gogol’s pro-Russian version as its base rather than his original manuscript published prior to his subjugation where he bowed to the will of Czarist Russia to deliver a product more in keeping with the country’s own version of Manifest Destiny throughout Eastern Europe.

Propaganda in the cinema is nothing new. In fact, many knee-jerkers will look for any excuse to trash Hollywood for this very thing. Since its very beginnings, a common charge against Uncle Sam’s cinema has been the preponderance of propagandistic elements to extol the virtues of truth, glory and the capitalistic American way in terms of cultural/political superiority and to defend the country’s constant need to engage in warfare. One cannot disagree with this common assertion; however, America ALONE has not propagated the myths of their “superiority” using the most powerful medium of artistic expression – the cinema. The most common example of this would be the vicious work of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who utilized cinema to spread anti-Semitism with “The Eternal Jew”, a foul “documentary” that goes so far as to trace and equate the spread of Judaism with that of rats and the spread of the Black Plague. Of course, no mention of Nazi propaganda would be complete without referring to the work of the brilliant Leni Riefenstahl – a truly great artist who delivered one of the most stunning, yet reviled works of the 20th century, her stirring document of the Nuremburg Rallies, “The Triumph of the Will”.

Strangely, the work of Russian propagandists has not seen the same kind of vitriolic bile heaped upon it and yet, Sergei Eisenstein, (surely as brilliant a filmmaker as Leni Riefenstahl) was happy enough to wear extremely comfortable knee-pads as he knelt before the dictatorial powers of Russia to continually afford him the opportunities to make movies. Eisenstein delivered one film after another that not only propagated the myth of Communism and the notion of Russian superiority, but eventually even extolled the virtues of an even bigger butcher than Hitler, Joseph Stalin. (For more on this, see my review of the Kino DVD release of “Battleship Potemkin” by visiting http://www.dailyfilmdose.com/2008/04/battleship-potemkin.html at the Daily Film Dose website published by Alan Bacchus.)

The new version of “Taras Bulba” received a substantial portion of its financing from the Russian Ministry of Culture and while it may bear the trademarks of typical old-Soviet-style propaganda, it is hardly a work that bears the hallmarks of superior filmmaking. At least Eisenstein, Riefenstahl and any number of American directors who generated similar propaganda (Steven Spielberg with “Saving Private Ryan” is a good example) are great artists who created landmarks of cinema that expanded the boundaries of the medium. The mediocre, though clearly competent television director Wolodymyr Bortko (who prefers the Russian transliteration “Vladimir” in spite of his Ukrainian heritage) serves up some sumptuous production value, elicits some fine performances and seasons his celluloid broth of borscht with all the clichés of epic cinema, but none of the depth one might find in the work of masters of the elephantine genre like David Lean. Bortko’s screenplay adaptation unimaginatively catalogues, almost by rote, the events of Hohol/Gogol’s Russified version of the novella, but somehow manages to completely miss the spirit of the original writing.

Telling the classical tale of a Cossack Chief, Taras Bulba (majestically portrayed by the great Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka) who sends his beloved sons Andriy (Ihor Petrenko) and Ostap (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) to the Polish-ruled university in Ukraine’s capitol city Kyiv to not only get a well rounded education, but to acquaint them with the “enemy”. He eventually takes his sons to the legendary Cossack “Sich” (fortress) of Zaporozhia to train them in the skill of Cossack barbarism.

Bulba’s hatred for Poland flares even more intensely when he learns that his farm has been destroyed and his wife is murdered by the Poles. He manages to get the Cossack nation to march against Poland and soon the Ukrainians are wreaking havoc and decimating their Polish rulers. Things come to a head when Bulba and the Cossacks attack the Ukrainian city of Dubno which is under Polish rule. Unbeknownst to our title character, when Bulba’s most beloved son Andriy was at school in Kyiv, he fell in love with Elzhbeta (the eye-poppingly stunning Magdalena Mielcarz) a member of Polish royalty. As bad luck would have it, her father is now the governor of Dubno and Andriy realizes that he is laying siege to the city of his beloved. Love, it would seem, becomes the ultimate enemy as Andriy betrays his country and father to be with her.

It’s a great story! One of its biggest fans was Ernest Hemingway who proclaimed its genius whenever he could. Too bad, then, that this film version is so by-the-numbers. That said, even a mediocre rendering such as this one is no match for the power of Hohol/Gogol’s literary prowess and for this we are dealt some tender mercies. Finally though, the movie is a bit of a slog – plodding along its way, but without any of the spark of the original writer. In fact, the tone of the movie is resolutely dour. This is no surprise since screenwriter-director Bortko has chosen to amplify the Russified version of the novella. Without that glorious spark of Hohol/Gogol’s wonderful sense of boys’ adventure and his delightfully, deliciously and resolutely Ukrainian sense of humour, the movie has all the spark of a funeral dirge.

By over-emphasizing the Russification of the original text what we have is a brutal glorification of Russian superiority. This grotesque mockery of a story that, in actuality is a rousing depiction of Ukraine’s never-ending fight for freedom from subjugation leaves us with a very foul taste in our mouths. We are handed one ultra-violent set piece after another – all in the service of boosting Russia’s own notion of might as right. By appropriating this very Ukrainian story by one of its great writers and turning it into grotesque Russian propaganda to try and suggest that the Cossacks and in turn, the Ukrainians, consider themselves little more than barbarians doing the bidding of those who would subjugate, exploit and even perpetrate genocide against them (as Stalin did) is thoroughly reprehensible. Even the occasional guarded loyalty the Zaporozhian Cossacks paid to the Russian Empire was betrayed by both Czar Peter I and Catherine the Great who respectively destroyed the Zaporozhian Sich and forced them to scatter and disband or face death. None of this would have been lost on Gogol - especially with his first, but suppressed edition of the novel and even within the Russified version, this healthy distrust of the Empire boils just below the surface.

Bortko’s mediocrity as a director reaches its nadir, however, in his lame handling of the fighting, action and battle scenes which is, in a word, dull. With fabulous locations, thousands of extras and impeccable production and costume design, he cannot direct action. His shooting style is cudgel-like, but it never has the thrilling and freewheeling quality the action needs. Bortko appears to have everything that money can buy – everything that is, except the genuinely distinctive artistic voice that would allow him to rise above his own mediocrity.

I do reiterate, though, that such propagandistic shenanigans would ultimately not be as problematic if this was actually a good movie, but it isn’t. Saddled with a clumsy flashback structure, a lazy use of prose narration from the novel and a dull television-mini-series mise-en-scene, “Taras Bulba” might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of the story. Let’s not forget that Hohol/Gogol came from Cossack stock and that he was inspired by the very moving Ukrainian nationalist “dumy” (folk ballads) of the Cossacks themselves. Also, one of Hohol/Gogol’s chief literary inspirations was the great Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and that “Taras Bulba” was conceived as a Ukrainian version of those swashbuckling tales of Scottish Highlanders battling their British oppressors/occupiers (especially notable in "Rob Roy"). A cool historical footnote is that Cossacks themselves might have had some roots in Scotland at a much earlier historical juncture. Another interesting correlation between Scott and Gogol is that both portrayed strong, sympathetic Jewish characters in their respective swashbucklers - Scott created Rebecca in "Ivanhoe" and Gogol gave us Yankel in "Taras Bulba".

Not surprisingly, the best version of “Taras Bulba” is the fabulous J. Lee Thompson epic from Hollywood in the 1960s. It captures the derring-do, the humour and the stirring, romantic nationalism of the story by adhering the book’s Ukrainian roots as opposed to Bortko’s ill-conceived attempt to please Vladimir Putin. The American treatment of the character of Andriy, the son who betrays father and country is far closer, I think to the spirit of what Hohol/Gogol intended. Ihor Petrenko’s portrayal of Andriy is so dull and serious and lacking the boyish charm that Tony Curtis with his swarthy Hungarian-Jewish looks and magnificent sense of humour brought to the role. The other idiotic attempt to Russify this story is how Bortko has commissioned a musical score so lacking in any spirit whatsoever. At least in the Hollywood version, legendary composer Franz Waxman based his entire score on traditional Ukrainian music and delivered a score that was cited by even Bernard Herrman as one of the great scores of all time. (For my full review of the Hollywood version on the Alan Bacchus-published Daily Film Dose site, feel free to visit http://www.dailyfilmdose.com/2008/04/taras-bulba.html for a full blow-by-blow.)

In fairness to Bortko, however, his screenplay, unlike the Hollywood version restores the odd symbiotic friendship from Hohol/Gogol’s novella between Bulba and the Jewish money lender Yankel (yielding a stellar performance by Sergei Dryden) and, most importantly, the whole aftermath involving the capture, torture and execution of Ostap at the hands of the Poles and Bulba’s revenge and final noble sacrifice. These are all stirring story beats and while I am grateful for their inclusion, I am less grateful that they are present almost solely to provide Russian propaganda.

This new version of “Taras Bulba” no doubt has poor Hohol/Gogol spinning in his grave. I’m sure he never would have imagined that so many generations later his work would be bastardized as a piece of propaganda for the country that even now seeks to consume his Motherland whole and tries continually to repress its spirit, culture, language and people.

For more information on Toronto's KinoArt Festival Nov 5-8) visit: www.kinoartfestival.com

Taking of Pelham 123

Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) dir. Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, John Turturro

**1/2

The original film is left untarnished and unscathed from competition from this pseudo remake. Just about the only aspect which remains from the original other than the name and the subway locale is the core relationship of hero and villain. So what. I have no problems with films getting remade as few if any films are precious enough to be left alone. I even welcomed Gus Van Sant’s ‘Psycho’.

So I approached ‘The Taking of Pelham 123” with as much optimism as any film. And, if anything, it’s the languishing creativity of Tony Scott in recent years which made me suspect this film could ever be done well.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Denzel Washington plays Walter Garber a working class dispatcher controlling the trains of New York City’s labyrinthian subway system. One day, a crackerjack burglar and his henchmen take over a subway car and hold the passengers as ransom for $10million. Over the course of the day, the burglar, who calls himself Ryder, develops an attachment to Garber’s calm demeanor over the phone who thus becomes the mediating voice between the cops and robbers.

Headed by narrow-minded hostage negotiator Camonetti (John Turturro), the cops use all their skills to free the hostages, but really wind up just getting in the way. Of course Ryder’s got a plan and he seems to be one step ahead of everyone – except Garber. His working class instincts and need for professional redemption turn Garber from an ordinary bystander into an gun-toting action hero.

It all makes for a decent second tier summer blockbuster, better than most of Scott’s recent films, but a long way away from touching the cleverness of the original, or even many of the numerous ‘Die Hard’-influenced pre-9/11 terrorist films of the 1990’s.

Travolta and Denzel make a good pairing. Washington’s accessible everyman likeability infused with his low key sardonic superior coolness shines through. It’s by far Travolta’s best role in 10 years, coiffed to look badass with his jailhouse tats and pencil-thin tough guy fu-manchu, we sense an emotional vulnerability beneath. And indeed writer Brian Helgeland peppers in a backstory of a fall from grace for his character into a hardened, cynical terrorist with a death wish.

Like the original much of the film takes place in a number of phone conversations between the two adversaries. Tony Scott films both locations well, although the prevalence of the oversaturated green lighting look feels so 2001. Helgeland’s intimate screenplay would seem to run counter to Scott’s penchant for mondo action. And indeed, on the DVD special features one of Scott tells us one of his goals was to inject the original story with the aggression of steroids. Scott’s rat-a-tat shooting style is blanketed over the material. He even manufactures a car chase out of nothing, complete with car crashes, explosions, and flipping vehicles.

In the end, its surprisingly conventional plotting, without any twists or turns. Ridiculous plot holes, hanging narrative threads and logic inconsistencies abound in virtually every corner of the script, but under the filter of the Hollywood blockbuster gloss machine, its not that bad.

"Taking of Pelham 123" is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Prince of Darkness

Prince of Darkness (1987) dir. John Carpenter
Starring: Jameson Parker, Dennis Dun, Victor Wong, Lisa Blount, Donald Pleasance

****

By Alan Bacchus

“Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level... into ghosts and shadows”

That's a great line from one of the great underrated horror pictures...“Prince of Darkness”, according to John Carpenter, was born in part from his desire to work with some of the Asian actors from his previous ‘Big Trouble in Little China’. Carpenter did indeed bring back Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, but really PoD serves to scare the crap out of the audience, using all the tools, tricks, and recurring themes of Carpenter’s cinematic arsenal.

Carpenter’s film plays on one of the great traditions in the horror genre - spooky Apocalyptic premonitions of the Catholic Church – in this case a two thousand year battle between the God and Devil which will manifest itself in physical reality during the course of the picture. There’s something inherently scary about Christianity, whether its old Church basements or scrolls of ancient Latin text, even the artistic depiction of Jesus on the cross which is in every Catholic Church is terrifying. And so, like ‘The Exorcist”, and “The Omen” Carpenter exploits the real world fear of God Catholics harbour deep in their bones to maximum effect.

Carpenter opens up the film with death of an elder priest from a depressed low income district parish in Los Angeles. Before he dies he gives away a mysterious box and key to his underling played by Donald Pleasance. Who would guess that this little church, an obsolete relic amongst its modern surroundings, would harbour a dark secret held from the world for thousands of years? With as much tension and suspense he can wring out, Carpenter reveals behind the door unlocked by the aforementioned key the imprisoned soul of the devil himself – a soul which now has slowly been awakened.

Sensing the danger which lies in the room, the Priest employs a group of PhD students headed by philosophy professor Howard Birak (Victor Wong), to document the paranormal disturbances and thus prove to the world the existence of the Devil. Like the four horseman of the Apocalypse, or seven, or however many there are, the students experience many of these environmental signs – an eclipse, homeless people possessed like zombies outside, ants and bugs gathering, cold air wandering into rooms.

This is the stuff of John Carpenter, employing the same mood, tone and pacing of his 1980 classic, “The Fog”. Like that picture the antagonist is force of nature, in this case, the soul of the devil which takes over the bodies of regular humans to do his nasty work. Most of Carpenter’s films refashion in some form of another the work George Romero. And so, like ‘Assault on Precinct 13”, ‘The Fog’ “Escape from New York” and others, the physical form of the antagonists turn out to be relentless hollow brained zombies. The possessed homeless people in PoD are more than just lumbering troglodytes, their organized formation and lethal skills with sharp objects are more menacing. Take Alice Cooper’s creative use of the broken bicycle which he uses to impale the nerdy physicist. Or the evil bagwoman’s deadly garden shears which kills the smug scientist Wyndham (who, twice, uses the word ‘Ca Ca’ in a sentence).

Jameson Parker, that handsome blonde TV actor from ‘Simon and Simon’, is the hero playing Brian Marsh, a thoughtful intellectual with an impressively bushy chevron moustache and healthy libido, who has just fallen in love with one of his students. A decent romance emerges during the 48 hours of terror he and his colleagues become subject to which elevates the stakes beyond the mere destruction of the earth. Parker’s shows surprisingly decent leading man chops, but sadly these were the days when television and film rarely cohabitated and thus, when the film did not succeed, Parker never graduated fully to the big screen.

During my prepubescent youth John Carpenter was my absolute favourite filmmaker and ‘Prince of Darkness’ got much play on the VHS. His slow, pulsating slow score acts like a metronome of tension which builds up perfectly to the film’s truly awesome grand climax. And the numerous individual moments of shrieking terror still haunt my nightmares. Let’s list my top five:

5) Possessed and sweaty Calder (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson) singing ‘Amazing Grace’ before sticking himself in the neck with chairleg – ouch!
4) The communal dream experienced by the research students resulting from tachyon-beamed signals from the future – how awesome is that!
3) The insect-infested body of mullet-headed Wyndham (Robert Grasmere) collapsing like a sack of potatoes in the parking lot
2) The terrifically freaky ‘radiologist with glasses’ who becomes the devil’s #1 minion of death
1) The final shot, a classic Carpenter moment – a terrorized Brian reaching for the mirror looking for his lost girlfriend.

Natural Born Killers - Director's Cut

Natural Born Killers (1995) dir. Oliver Stone
Starring; Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr. Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones

****

By Alan Bacchus

It's about time this disc arrived. In fact, why Warner decided to release the now irrelevant and obsolete theatrical version of this film on Blu-Ray last year remains a mystery; we all knew this director's cut edition wasn't far off.

The term "director's cut" is not what it used to be. What was once a badge of honour for filmmakers, a rare triumph of their creative vision over the tinkering hands of studio execs, has become an overused marketing tool. Despite the diluted power of the term, the fact is this version of Natural Born Killers is one of the best-ever director's cuts out there. The Blu-Ray disc essentially repackages the same collection of extras from the mid-'90s laserdisc and double VHS set ― audio commentary from Oliver Stone, featurettes, some truly awesome deleted scenes, a Charlie Rose interview and an alternate ending. A couple of mediocre new additions in high definition include an introduction from Stone reflecting on the relevance of his film 15 years later and a silly featurette postulating what kind of celebrity Mickey and Mallory might have achieved in the age of the internet.

The real treasures are the 150-plus reinstated cuts and shaved frames Stone needed to make to achieve a theatrical R-rating. Though the two cuts differ only by three minutes, these small edits skyrocket what was an enjoyable, thought-provoking, violent romp into the stratosphere of cinematic chaos. The restored scenes include more throat-slashing, body mutilation, blood splattering and, towards the end, the sight of Tommy Lee Jones's head on a stick waved around by the rioting prison mob ― moments perhaps too quick to notice but that add up to an even greater sense of nihilistic mayhem.

Watching it again, it’s hard to believe the script started off as a Quentin Tarantino film. Though the visual style and statement-making satirical tone is wholly Oliver Stone, some of the Tarantino hallmarks remain. The murderous duo, Mickey and Mallory, on the road and on the run, contain many of the humorous dialogue interaction and genre-reverence as Tarantino’s scripts for “True Romance”, “From Dusk till Dawn”. But in the hands of Stone, and his co-writers it became a beast through he could make his type of grand statements. Since it's a satire the extreme flourishes are necessary and make the statement stronger.

None of the freneticness would work if the film wasn't entertaining. Harrelson and Lewis make a wonderful fun loving couple of psychotics. If anything Juliette Lewis’ character treads too much on the performances from her other films (ie. “Kalifornia”), but Harrelson who is cast against type has the screen presence and confidence to pull off his conflicted character.

Around every corner is a number of wonderful scene stealer supporting performances. Tom Sizemore’s extreme ‘bad cop’ Jack Scagnetti and Tommy Lee Jones’ prison warden Jack McClusky are even more repulsive than Mickey and Mallory. But it’s Robert Downey Jr.’s Aussie TV talk show host Wayne Gale who shines. It's one of Downey's best characters. Although Gale is manic, absurd and goes over the edge his TV interview with Mickey brings out a sharp intelligence to his character.

The amount of media coverage the ridiculous "balloon boy" story recently garnered clearly renders Natural Born Killers as relevant today as yesterday. But even those turned off by Stone's sledgehammer statement making should still marvel at the quality of his technical experimentation in mainstream storytelling. It's one of the last films in a remarkably productive ten-year run of filmmaking for Stone, which saw him hone and perfect his bold and innovative multi-format, multi-media techniques. Natural Born Killers achieves a state of nirvana for this style; it's a monumental achievement to create coherence from the almost random cornucopia of imagery and sound mashed together. In fact, in the DVD audio commentary, Stone ends his discussion by giving extra special thanks to his negative cutter, who had the hardest job on the production, assembling the final film from over 3,000 edits from multiple format sources.

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen (2009) dir. F. Gary Gray
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx and Colm Meaney

*1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Great vigilante movies are driven by a hero or anti-hero that we connect with on a personal level and where ultimately, there are few, if no shades of grey in the quest for retribution. They are also driven by a directorial style that is not only efficient, but endowed with a clear obsessive voice.

Michael Winner’s classic 1974 thriller “Death Wish” is the first mainstream picture in a decidedly urban setting to make vigilantism entertaining and acceptable as an alternative to supposed law and order. Charles Bronson starred as Paul Kersey, a Manhattan architect whose perfect life is shattered when a pack of thugs home invade his wife and daughter, rape and beat them to a pulp, send the wife to her grave and the daughter to a catatonic state. Frustrated by the seeming indifference of the police and the general lack of law and order, Kersey embarks on a one-man vendetta against crime – roaming the mean streets at night and inviting random acts of violence against him to provide ample opportunities to turn the tables and blow the filth away. The chief investigator of these vigilante slayings is a detective played by the sympathetic, jowly and always-engaging Vincent Gardenia. Between bouts of exquisite vigilante violence and an entertaining cat-and-mouse game between Bronson and Gardenia, “Death Wish” had “hit” written all over it, playing as it did to packed houses of cheering blood-lusting action enthusiasts in addition to crossing over and appealing to movie-goers of all stripes..

Winner himself seemed to hit his stride as a director with “Death Wish” – displaying virtuosity and a penchant for nastiness that was seldom matched either by his own work or others (save for Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah who decidedly went further and with even more style in their own ground-breaking pictures). That said, Winner was no slouch in the style department. With “Death Wish”, his style was dark, clinical and even now, it’s a film that packs a considerable wallop. Aided by Wendell (“Anatomy of a Murder”) Mayes’s terrific single-minded screenplay, the picture wisely dispensed with the shades of grey in the original source material of Brian Garfield’s novel. The thematic retribution staple of so many westerns and historical pieces was now placed in a contemporary context and was, for quite some time, accepted by audiences with very open arms.

With a great tradition of vigilante pictures since the ground breaking “Death Wish” (including last year’s delightful surprise hit “Taken”), the recently-released “Law Abiding Citizen” had a lot of potential to join this delicious coterie of moral reprehensibility as mass entertainment. Kurt Wimmer’s ambitious screenplay sets the wheels in motion for vigilantism directed at ALL the perpetrators of crime – the criminals, the lawyers AND the entire justice system. Seeing the filth get their come-uppance is always pleasurable, but to have the vigilante act upon the system itself, not unlike a home-grown terrorist, could have taken the genre into a whole new realm.

The buff macho hero at the centre of “Law Abiding Citizen” is seeming everyman Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) who is home-invaded, forced to watch as his wife and child are raped and murdered, then left for dead – bound, gagged and bleeding on his living room floor. As if this wasn’t indignity enough, Clyde watches helplessly as the ambitious Philadelphia prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) negotiates a plea-bargain and sends the accomplice to a death sentence while the foul perpetrator of the violence is handed a slap on the wrists. Needless to say, revenge is extracted on both the accomplice and the true person behind the heinous crime in a manner that puts most torture porn to shame. That’s just an appetizer, though. Where the real fun begins is when our hero plays cat and mouse with the system that let him down and he begins murdering lawyers, judges and politicians – in the City of Brotherly Love, no less.

Sadly, the picture is a letdown on two prime counts. Firstly, and most notably, the direction provided by F. Gary Gray is so utterly lacklustre that this potentially stirring narrative plods forward – not with an obsessive quality, but with the dull, single-mindedness of a bull elephant rampaging about a fine china shop. Gray is a director who at his best is barely competent (“The Italian Job” remake) and at his worst, completely bereft of talent (“Be Cool”, the miserable sequel to “Get Shorty”). Secondly, Kurt Wimmer’s potentially solid screenplay veers into confused, schizophrenic territory where the anti-hero becomes a sort of protagonist to the prosecutor, who is portrayed, not as the antagonist, but as the eventual hero. Unfortunately, the prosecutor is clearly a bonehead. He ignores his duties as a family man for his job, he allows ambition to guide his actions and he becomes obsessed with nailing the vigilante to save his own ass – personally and professionally. In many ways, this is a similar problem that drags down Scorsese’s (at least well crafted) remake of “Cape Fear” where the simple good versus evil story is marred with the wrongheaded attempt to shade the tale with grey – what made J. Lee Thompson’s original so powerful was the pure adherence to black and white (lawyer – good, psychopath – bad, unlike Scorsese’s: lawyer – morally ambiguous, psychopath – bad, but almost justified in exacting terror upon the lawyer).

One wonders if Wimmer’s “Law Abiding Citizen” screenplay was unceremoniously and bone-headedly over-tweaked-and-tinkered-with to provide new-fangled moral ambiguity to what should have been a simple, but effective white-hat-black-hat action thriller. Most importantly, one also wonders if it might have been a more successful outing if Wimmer had directed himself. As a director, Wimmer's Milla Jovovich ass-kicker “Ultraviolet” displayed just the sort of panache and obsessive qualities that could have made “Law Abiding Citizen” a genuinely entertaining and effective vigilante picture. It was, alas, not to be. Instead, we’re saddled with a confused, dull and by-the-numbers action thriller that lacks a necessary nastiness and clear directorial voice. We still get to see lawyers, judges and politicians blown away along with criminal scum and while this is not without considerable entertainment value, it all could have risen above the mere IDEA of such delightful proceedings and instead delivered the real goods.