Bambi

Bambi (1942) dir. David S. Hand
Animated voices by: Hardie Albright, Stan Alexander, Peter Behn, Tim Davis, Donnie Dunagan

****

By Alan Bacchus

In terms of Disney chronology, by release date, Bambi was Disney’s fifth feature film, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio and Dumbo, but more importantly, it was the last in the remarkable ‘Golden Age of Animation’. If John Ford made an animated film it might be this one, a tender and dreamy romanticization of the majestic North American forest and wilderness.

Bambi's closest relative in the Disney canon might just be Fantasia, more an visual/tonal essay than a traditional fairytale or other narrative story. There’s very little story to be told at all here, instead, using a dance of image, sounds and music Disney shows us the cycle of life of the creatures of the forest, specifically the majestic deer.

Over the course of four seasons we see the titular Bambi, birthed by her mother into the ecosystem of rabbits, skunks, birds under cover of the enormous trees which look upon these animals. As each season passes, Bambi moves through each stage in his lifecycle, learning to walk, playing with friends, learning the pack hierarchy of his fellow deer, and even procreating for the next generation.

Disney compartmentalizes his scenes in distinct set pieces not unlike Fantasia. The magical work of the handdrawn animators is exquisite, the ice-skating sequence for instance, each movement of Thumper's to teach Bambi how to stand and move on the ice in time with the music creates a touching and delightful dance. Tonally Disney masterfully moves the audience between moments of pure cuddly cuteness to dark and heavy emotional turmoil. The death of Bambi’s mother is a legendary moment in animation – a scene which has stayed with all of us who watched it as children. Looking back with adult eyes, it feels a lot different, quicker than I had remembered. In fact we don’t even see the mother die, the moment is played entirely off screen, leaving us only with Bambi's heartbreaking tear rolling down his face to tell us what happened. A moment so powerful it ranks up with Chaplin’s smile at the end of City Lights in terms of tearjerking moments in cinema.

In between Disney takes time to craft a number of scenes of just pure visual delight. The storm sequence for instance feels right out of Fantasia, and the stag sequence, that is, the running of the male deer through across the plains is like Howard Hawks' cattle stampede sequence in Red River, or the Buffalo Hunt in Dances With Wolves.

It’s interesting to note on the Disney Diamond Edition Blu-Ray, the year of the film’s original release is never stated. Obviously it's a conscious choice by the studio to not place Bambi in a specific era, literally creating a timelessness to its products. Indeed although children may notice differences in animation styles between now and then, Bambi is a film for the ages, adaptable for each new generation. Disney has always done this well, timing their re-releases of their films so that each time it comes back on the market it’s as if we’re all seeing it again for the first time.

Bambi is available on Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Home Entertainment

The Time That Remains

The Time That Remains (2009) Dir. Elia Suleiman
Starring: Elia Suleiman, Saleh Bakri, Samar Qudha Tamus, Shafika Bajiali and Tarek Qubti.

****

By Greg Klymkiw

I was initially unable to put my finger on it, but I knew there was something quite perfect about Elia Suleiman’s “The Time That Remains”. It became abundantly clear during an extraordinary scene wherein a group of Palestinian children are sitting in a dark classroom within the confines of an Israeli-colonized Arab School as their wide-eyes are utterly transfixed upon the flickering images emanating from a rickety 16mm projector. The pieces of time dancing before them, projected onto a tiny screen, yet retaining a scope bigger than life itself are none other than the sprawling spectacle of the Stanley Kubrick-directed epic “Spartacus” – Hollywood’s ultimate big-screen allegory of Zionism. It is this scene that precisely defines the perfection of Suleiman’s great film for a number of reasons. First of all, the scene flawlessly demonstrates the differences in approaches to the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict. “Spartacus” is, of course allegorical and an epic tale of subjugation presented with all that money can buy. “The Time That Remains” is also an epic, but with comparatively meagre resources, it focuses – not on spectacle, but on the smaller, more confined details of humanity in the realm of subjugation. Secondly, the scene demonstrates the perfection of Suleiman’s delicate, poetic and quiet approach to the subject, in direct contrast to the violent, spectacular bombast of Kubrick’s picture which, in fairness to Kubrick is an exquisitely directed gun-for-hire job and not the personal, poetic, from-the-heart and primarily autobiographical approach that Suleiman takes. As well, Suleiman shares with Kubrick that magnificent stylistic approach to the tableau – finding just the right composition and holding on it. Thirdly, the scene expresses the notion that all cinema, no matter what side of the political fence it sits on, is rooted firmly in some form or another of a perspective that is almost always propagandistic in nature. “The Time That Remains” takes a side and sticks to it in a black and white manner with an occasional splash of grey in order to present its tale of subjugation with an equal mixture of sadness and humour.

Set against the backdrop of the city of Nazareth, the film charts the life of a simple, loving Palestinian family from 1948 to the present day and is delivered to us in a number of different time periods. Based on his father’s diaries and his own recollections, Suleiman presents the lives of his family, friends and neighbourhood and examines the absurdity and injustice of people being forced to live as strangers in their own land. In fact, the Palestinians who choose to remain in Nazareth instead of being exiled are categorized by their oppressors – not as Palestinians, but as Israeli-Arabs. Suleiman presents all of this with a strange mixture of humour and tragedy. In one scene – which is as beautiful as it is bizarre – the same group of children described above are seen proudly singing a rousing, pro-Israeli song in Hebrew on a national holiday while a group of adults look on proudly. In yet another, a group of young Palestinian men sit outside a café in the blazing sun and watch with a poker-faced bemusement as a soldier runs back and forth, occasionally asking which way he should go to the battlefield and when told which way to go, he argues that it must be the wrong way – especially since the sounds of battle seem to be coming from every which way. Another scene involves Israeli soldiers decked out in Arab gear and marching along the street when a Palestinian woman congratulates them on their victory. She receives a bullet to the head for her salutations in a shocking, deadpan and screamingly funny manner – recalling that famous moment (in of all movies) “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when Indiana Jones casually blows away the sword-wielding turban-adorned bad guy.

Since Suleiman’s film spans several different periods and doesn’t follow (on the surface) the traditional and comfortable storytelling checkpoints, it’s not an easy movie to describe in terms of plot, but in a nutshell – it is a story that begins with resistance to subjugation, moves through to acceptance of subjugation and ends up in a seemingly ambiguous place of “Where am I?” While the narrative feels unconventional, Suleiman does indeed adhere to the principles of basic storytelling, but cleverly masks them to create the feeling that with the passage of time, not much changes. In spite of this, things DO change, but the changes are incremental and subtle.

The primary reason for this overwhelming sense of the unconventional is that Suleiman establishes a rhythm and structure early on in the film and adheres to it passionately – one that involves the repetition of certain actions and situations – the funniest being one in which the family’s neighbour, a mad old man, unsuccessfully and repeatedly attempts to immolate himself, dousing himself with kerosene and lighting his match improperly, and upon subsequent tries is continually talked out of it by Suleiman’s father.

As a character in the film, we also follow Suleiman who, in the early portions casts some extraordinary look-alikes to play himself in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood before taking over the role proper in the latter sections of the film. Suleiman and his surrogates continue his silent Keaton-like poker face from earlier films to especially powerful effect in this new picture.

Many have commented on Suleiman’s debt to the likes of Keaton, Harry Langdon and Jacques Tati and while I will not quarrel with this, I also feel strongly that he infuses his work and performance with the same sublime qualities so prevalent in the best work of Chaplin. “The Time That Remains” has several moments that come close to matching the incredible emotional wallop of Chaplin’s final smile at the end of “City Lights” and this is finally why watching this film is such a breathless and awe-inspiring experience.

“The Time That Remains” might well be a masterpiece, though time, as always, will be the ultimate judge of that.

Assessing the Social Network/King's Speech Battle

So you have your Oscar pool voting sheet in front you and can't decide between The King's Speech and The Social Network? I've been thinking about it too.

After the string of Critics’s Awards at the end of 2010, The Social Network was the clear runaway leader in the Best Picture/Best Director race. Other categories such as actor, actress, supporting and all that jazz were still close, but the Fincher/Rudin/Sorkin dream team were flexing their muscle.

Now with Tom Hooper's rather surprising victory over David Fincher at the DGA Awards for Best Director, suddenly The King’s Speech has gained significant ground, and in some opinions might be the odds leader.

This opinion is not unfounded. I think we all know the track record of how the DGA Award has aligned with the Best Director and thus Best Picture Oscars in previous years. The 2000 Gladiator/Traffic year and the 2002 Chicago/Pianist year were the recent anomalies. As well, the Academy has had a history of chosing prestige older-skewing films over younger/edgier material. The 1990 Dances With Wolves triumph of Goodfellas for instance, the 1989 Driving Miss Daisy victory of Born on the Fourth of July, and the 1980 Ordinary People victory over Raging Bull.

These are travesties of justice, which cinephiles still take to heart. Dances With Wolves, Ordinary People and Driving Miss Daisy are all good movies, and maybe back in the day, seemed better movies that those others. But over the course of time their competitors have risen in prestige and timelessness, arguably above and beyond the Oscar victors.

I wholehearted believe this is such a case this year. I can see it now. The King’s Speech is a great movie, right? So is The Social Network? Doesn’t matter which wins right, because both are terrific films? But think 20 years from now, which film will we still be talking about? Which film will represent the zeitgeist of the times? I think this is painfully clear, and yet there may not be anything to do about it.

That said, in recent years, the tastes of Academy have skewed considerably more to the edge than ever before. Victories of the nihlistic No Country For Old Men and The Departed are two of the toughest films the Academy has ever voted as the top dog. So maybe the Academy will swing back to youthful The Social Network.

If Academy wants to even things out, Original Screenplay and Best Actor wins are assured for The King’s Speech, same with Sorkin’s screenplay for The Social Network. Other than the cinematography, music, editing type of awards, the only other high profile categories it has are Best Director and Best Picture.

My office pool vote is still undecided.. and what it will likely come down to, as it does every year, is who I think will win versus who I want to win. While it’s not Sophie’s Choice, it’s heartbreaking still the same.

Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity (2010) dir. Tod Williams
Starring: Sprague Grayden Katie Featherston, Brian Boland, Micah Sloat

***

By Alan Bacchus

This movie is just about as good as it could be. A surprisingly successful and very decent sequel to the now classic found footage indie darling of last year. The filmmakers’ adherence to the techniques and narrative of the first film adds substantial credibility to what could have been seen as a shameless knock-off capitalizing on the original film's brand appeal.

PA2 takes place a couple of months before the original, but in the same city, and with many of the same characters. This time we’re in the house of Kristi Rey, sister to the demonized hero Katie, in the original. Kristi lives with her hubby Daniel, teenaged daughter Ali and super cute toddler, Hunter. After their house appears to have been vandalized, the Reys set up some security cameras around the house.

Of course these cameras, as well as Ali’s camcorder become the ‘found footage’ used to construct this faux documentary. Night by night, mysterious paranormal phenomenon scares the bejebees out of the family. Young impressionable Ali believes wholeheartedly the house is haunted, slowly mom Kristi, becomes a believer, Daniel, despite evidence in the recorded videos remains a sceptic. Katie and Micah from the first movie shows up from time to time to visit, dropping hints her and the family history with hauntings.

For the majority of the film Williams builds the same kind of nail biting tension as Oren Peli did from watching those bland security videos. Even in complete stillness when nothing is happening we find ourselves riveted to those frames. Williams mines fantastic suspense with little sound, or movement, just the anticipation of the worst. Like Peli, when Williams holds on those frames for inordinate amounts of time, as audience members, we finds ourselves scanning the image for movements, in the windows, the doors, the furniture. It’s Peli who deserves all the credit for tapping into this primal reaction of ours to this kind of fear and Williams smartly doesn’t fool with the formula. Healso admirably expands the scope, using several security angles, which results in a more visuals to stimulate us, while staying true to the realism of the set-up.

But as the father of a 16-month old, the aspect of PA2 which got under my skin is the presence of young Hunter, the little boy of similar age to mine who is completely oblivious to the haunting, though often reacts to the unseen paranormal presence. With a child in the picture, the stakes suddenly becomes elevated another notch. While Micah from the first film seemed to get his comeuppance for his egotism and male chauvinism, Hunter, is a pure innocent, who, according to the story’s internal mythology is meant to suffer from the sins of the family’s past.

The action-oriented third act, admittedly is silly and fails the picture, but not enough to dismiss the marvellous spine-tingling lead up and broadening of this now legitimate horror film franchise. Just how much more dramatized 'found footage' will be too much? Tough to say, but by the end of this picture, I wouldn’t mind seeing another.

Paranormal Activity 2 is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment

The Exiles

The Exiles (1961) dir, Kent McKenzie
Starring: Mary Donahue, Homer Nish, Clydean Parker, Tom Reynolds, Rico Rodriguez

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The reputation of Kent McKenzie’s “The Exiles” precedes it. The famous USC student film about aboriginal youths living in Los Angeles was often discussed as a landmark film in American independent film, yet its inaccessibility, and lack of a video release made the film kind of a myth. The expertly assembled special edition from Milestone Films does justice to this cinematic treasue.

Made and set in 1961, “the Exiles” is a time capsule of the era, without nostalgic hindsight and told with largely amateur actors and in real locations, the film becomes an authentic depiction of 1960's youth run wild.

McKenzie, with documentary-like realism, follows 12 hours in the lives of a group of aboriginals who have chosen to leave their reservation to live among the white people in the area of LA known as Bunker Hill. It’s a Friday night and the group of 4 or 5 youthful and rambunctious men decide go out for a night on the town. Their journey involves boozing, fighting, driving recklessly and doing whatever it takes to pick up women. Unfortunately poor Mary, the innocent and pregnant wife of one of the men is forced to stay home and wander in aimless loneliness throughout the night. In particular, McKenzie's cuts from the boys’ high speed convertible drunk-driving to Mary sitting alone in a movie theatre is earth shattering.

Narratively the film doesn't adhere to traditional character arcs or the needs of conventional storytelling. All McKenzie needs to do is observe the behaviour of his characters for us to figure out the 300-year long arc of despair of the aboriginal people. The effect of the city of Los Angeles on the youth in the film is embodied by Homer, the drunken gambler who left Mary alone at home, the energy of the nightlife acting like the inebriating and soul-sucking effects of alcohol on the Aboriginals’ society at large.

This blanket of sadness, clouds the entire picture, with a sense of inevitable doom. The effectively morose narration which reveals the characters’ inner thoughts sound like documentary voiceover - insightful and often unemotive revelations which don’t necessarily relate directly to the images on screen but expresses a contrasting tone of intelligent self-reflection against the drunken, testosterone fueled irresponsibility.

The high contrast black and white transfer is pristine and stunning. The night time exterior lighting is simply phenomenal capturing the bright lights of Los Angeles with authentic vibrancy - a look which echoes Haskell Wexler's great work on 'American Graffiti'.

The film is by no means as polished as Graffiti though and the rough 'indie' aesthetic aids in its gritty realism. McKenzie’s tone of New Wave authenticity is reminiscent of not only early Godard, but the great Canadian neorealist indie 'Nobody Waved Goodbye'.

It resonates best in the big picture - a powerful statement about Aboriginal socio-economic and racial politics, and a remarkably poignant story of the troubled integration of all marginalized people into the social fabric of white middle class-dominated American life.

“The Exiles” is available on DVD from Milestone Films.

Get Low

Get Low (2010) dir. Aaron Schneider
Starring: Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Lucas Black, Sissy Spacek, Gerald McRaney

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

There’s a strong whiff of the Coens Brothers through most of Get Low – Aaron Schneider's indie success from last year, the story of an old hermit who organizes his own funeral as a means of repenting for the sins of his past. The staid anachronistic tone, golden brown cinematography and dead pan humour reminds of the Coens at the most idiosyncratic – A Serious Man, Barton Fink, et al.

Robert Duvall plays Felix Bush, a ragged hermit, who for 40 years has lived in isolation in the outskirts of a rural 1930’s Tennessee town. As a result much gossip and rumours of Bush, who wears an intimidating scraggly beard and blown out hair, has grown. One day he walks into a church, first contact in many years with the outside world, and asks about how to arrange his own funeral – not when he’s dead, but now.

For Buddy (Lucas Black) a young funeral home worker, it becomes a chance to bring in some business for his opportunistic boss Frank Quinn (Bill Murray). With less people dying these days and with them badly in need of money they accept the job and go about Felix’s demand to bring as many people to his wake to tell stories about the man. So what’s eating Felix? A complicated backstory emerges of guilt and regret involving an old friend played by Sissy Spacek, a history which requires Felix to repent and find peace with the people he’s hurt.

While there may have been influences by the Coens it’s an impressive achievement for a new director, as it appears from outset he’s found a unique but familiar voice. The dark comedic tones, absurd concept and American hinterland setting contributes to the gothic fairytale quality.

It’s a meaty role Duvall who relishes every bit of business he can milk from the character. It’s not quite the dream matchup we hoped from the casting of Bill Murray opposite Duvall. Their scenes together are fun but understated, consistent with the tone of the rest of the film. Lucas Black turns in another sympathetic role. He was of course a former child actor, plucked from obscurity by Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. He’s matured well into a legitimate adult actor, but still with the same aw-schucks Ozark charm he had when he was a little boy.

Looking into Schneider’s bio, it’s not surprising he started out as a cinematographer and lighting technician, the experience of which he has obviously put into Get Low. The film is beautiful, shot in the increasingly rare 35mm anamorphic format. The compressed and then expanded image we get from the camera lenses results in a distinct epic feel, with lovely textured backgrounds. The lighting is also exquisite, delicate and controlled.

Get Low is unfortunately too heavy on visuals and tone propping up a script to sparse to connect with deeper than the aesthetic level, the emotional juice of which is concentrated into one revelatory scene at the end, by which time the film has used up its welcome. But overall, an admirable effort from Schneider to showcase Duvall again in all his iconic glory.

Get Low is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Thelma and Louise

Thelma and Louise (1991) dir. Ridley Scott
Starring: Susan Sarandan, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald

****

By Alan Bacchus

Thelma and Louise, when first released was a big hit, deservedly nominated for several Oscars. After a series of middle-of-the-road but mostly disappointing films post-Blade Runner, T&L was kind of like Ridley Scott’s comeback film. Looking back the film survives well over the past 10 years or so. With today’s eyes it’s better than I had remembered, a passionate feminist road movie, and the best of a rather large batch of similar films from the 1990’s Tarantino-era.

Ridley Scott adapts well to the rural sundrenched southern locales of Oklahoma, finding complete authenticity in the world of Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise Susan Sarandan), two girlfriends who embark on two–day fishing trip away from their husbands. After their first stop at a dingy country bar Louise shoots and kills a drunkard attempting to rape Louise. From there, they are on the road on the run from the police.

There’s a reason this film is discussed so prominently by script gurus like Robert McKee, Callie Khouri’s screenplay is the closest thing to perfection - structurally perfect, like the Parthenon. Khouri hits all the right dramatic beats without having the film feel stale or predictable.

The characterization of the two spry gals makes for supremely engaging banter and conflict even outside of the big picture threats on their lives. Susan Sarandan as the elder gal, with years of emotional baggage behind her, a cynical attitude of men and the police is born from a rich backstory which is never quite made known to us. Louise is expertly drawn as well. Her carefee instincts run counter to Louise’s pessimistic and pragmatic outlook on their stituation.

Supporting characters are terrific, scene stealers popping up periodically in every scene, but who never overshadow the leads. The Brad Pitt role of course is a celebrated introduction to a future movie star. Harvey Keitel’s ‘comeback’ as the sympathetic cop Slocumb trailing the gals plays out as an emotional parallel story unto itself. As Slocumb gets closer to the girls and reconstructs these two characters from his investigation, we can feel the admiration and familial love between these characters who never meet. Christopher MacDonald is hilarious as the affable but cruel domineering husband. More importantly Scott populates his scenes with the most genuine and colourful background players, full of piss, vinegar and good old country charm.

These characters compliment the typically rich and textured visual design from Scott. Thelma and Louise is no exception. Though not overly decorated as in some of his other films, it's stylishly cool without being overbearing.

We saw a rash of these throwback crime spree road movies in the early 90's. Thelma and Louise may just have been an influence into Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance script. Other than the connection of the brothers Scott directing each picture and the casting link-ups with future QT players Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen and Brad Pitt both scripts portray the same kind of passionate melodramatic storytelling and a thorough knowledge of the history of the genre.

After Alien and Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise is undoubtedly Scott next best film and a tier above anything else he’s done.

Thelma and Louise is available on Blu-Ray from Fox/MGM Home Entertainment

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom (2010) dir. David Michôd
Starring: James Frecheville, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver

***½

By Alan Bacchus

This is the second time seeing Animal Kingdom, now on DVD/Blu, over a year since I first saw it in Sundance. It was a special screening, an inspiring Aussie crime film made with the same auteur-like precision as Michael Mann and Paul Thomas Anderson. Second time round, it feels like a slightly different picture, a slower paced, meditative crime film, but no less enjoyable. It's still not a masterpiece, but an indication that one or two masterpieces will come from this new director.  

Director Michôd wears his influences proudly on his sleeve, the aforementioned Mann and Anderson and even the new crime epic from Jacques Audiard, “A Prophet“. “Animal Kingdom” is an Aussie crime tour de force of its own, an elegant saga worthy of the same breath as these filmmakers and their own great films.

James Frecheville is Joshua ‘J’ Cody, Michod’s Henry Hill, or Michael Corleone or Malik from “A Prophet“, who enters the film wet behind the ears and exits the film a stone cold killer. We first see him watching Aussie game shows on TV while his overdosed mother lies dead on the couch. With nowhere to go he calls up his grandmother to ask what to do. And so J joins up with his estranged family of criminals, who up until then had been kept separate from him by his mother. There are his three uncles, including Baz (Joel Edgerton), the paternal leader, and the lady MacBeth mother of the group J’s grandmother (Jacki Weaver). Later, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) the most wanted and dangerous member of the family arrives and plots vengeance against the police Armed Robbery Squad which has instigated an all out bloody war against the family.

Though we’re in present day Melbourne, Michôd crafts his world like the lawless west. J, the innocent, is thrown into the deep end of a precarious band of thieves. Under the leadership of Baz, the group is a disciplined family unit, under Pope’s command, he’s like Sonny Corleone leading the family into doom. J’s torn allegiances remind us of Clint Eastwood playing both sides of the gang war in A Fistful of Dollars.

As a first feature Michôd is clear to project his own cinematic style. His character-work seems to channel the films of Michael Mann. His portrayal of his characters as family members first and criminals second has the same natural realism Mann adds to his genre pictures. Even Michôd’s sound work and musical score is reminiscent of Mann’s ambient atmospheric soundscapes. Like Mann, Michôd's music overlaps and bridges scenes an effect which keeps the characters closely tied together.

He would appear to be a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, who like PTA, is not ashamed to slow down and admire his own work. Michôd consciously lingers closely on his best shots, emphasizing the most minor of moments for heightened dramatic effect. At one point his camera moves around to reveal Pope ogling J’s girlfriend sleeping on the couch. The ironic Air Supply song which plays in the background has no real motivation being there, yet it works as the same kind of dramatic counterpoint as PTA’s firecraker scene set to Sister Christian in ‘Boogie Nights’.

Admirably Michôd props up his admittedly thin narrative for the first two thirds with these extravagances. Under less capable hands these moments would reek of overindulgence, but Michôd's tone is consistently on the mark and thus we can appreciate these cinematic expressions as tools of a great auteur filmmaker.

The characterization of J as a naive teenager, mouth-agape and detached from everything around him is never reconciled. It's the biggest crutch on the film. This aloofness conflicts with the big picture stakes and quells any intensity which is badly needed in the third act. After attending Sundance for the past three year, the problem of pacing always seems to be common denominator with first features. Recently I keep going back to David O Russell's The Fighter when referencing pace, a terrific film which has ebbs and flows in dramatic intensity, comedy, and tragedy - Animal Kingdom has one note (albeit a terrific, pitch perfect note), but something which experience and maturity will correct.

Animal Kingdom is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from EOne Entertainment in Canada

Snow Angels

Snow Angels (2008) dir. David Gordon Green
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano, Olivia Thirlby, Griffin Dunne

**

By Alan Bacchus

Before he even reached 30, David Gordon Green has delivered three unique and personal auteur films, “George Washington”, “All the Real Girls” and “Undertow”. Unfortunately “Snow Angels” is his first failure – a depressing small-town character film represents a new benchmark in the ‘life sucks’ genre of films.

“Snow Angels”, based on the Stewart O’Nan’s novel of the same name, is set in small town Pennsylvania. It’s a depressed environment inhabited by depressed people. There’s Annie (Kate Beckinsale), a separated single mom working a dead end job as a waitress in a crappy diner. Annie’s separated husband is Glenn (Sam Rockwell) who’s even farther down in the dumps, living with his parents, jobless and recovering from a suicide attempt. Arthur Parkinson’s (Michael Angarano) parents are also going through separation, which has him in the dumps as well. Arthur's only respite is a burgeoning high school crush with a cute wallflower Lila (Olivia Thirlby). A local tragedy sends these characters into further despair which will eventually result in violence and more tragedy.

I appreciate a little of bit depression on screen. If it provokes proper emotional response, the film has done its job. But depression has to be part of the ebb and flow of the narrative and play against emotions of joy and happiness. But in “Snow Angels” things start low and get lower and lower and lower, until in the very end the actions of the characters are so dire and destructive, it becomes an exercise in torture.

Green has an affinity for ‘regular people’ in America – the working and underrepresented classes. And in “Snow Angels” his actors deliver these natural unHollywood performances. I think everyone knows one or more people like Glenn. Sam Rockwell plays him as a man who may have been one of the popular guys in high school, and even wedded the hottest girl in school. But without drive and motivation, success in life never moved past the scope of the town. I appreciate Rockwell as an actor, but he’s a scenery-chewer and in this film his reliance on mumbling speech and ‘actor’s business’ is especially distracting. In the second half of the film when things start to go really bad, Green turns Glenn from a natural character to movie character. He’s given no less than three rambling drunkard scenes, which essentially ruin the film. Kate Beckinsale gives a fine performance as Annie. And even though she’s still stunning beneath the atrocious outfits she has to wear, she is believable as the confused mother.

The film fails in the third act when the film goes into darker places it doesn’t need to go. After the tragedy the film has an opportunity to build back up its characters. Instead they are agonizingly beaten down to such disparity the film becomes as torturous to the audience as the characters.

Snow Angels

All the President's Men

All the President’s Men (1976) dir. Alan J. Pakula
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford

****

By Alan Bacchus

All the President’s Men is a film that will stand to the test of time as the quintessential political thriller. Yet, it’s a work of surprising matter-of-fact simplicity.

The film is based on the best-selling book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on how they broke the story of the Watergate Scandal. Woodward and Bernstein are the main characters, two young hungry journalists from the Washington Post trying to uncover a scandal involving a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters in the famed Watergate Hotel. They quickly learn the break-in was not a simple burglary but an elaborately-planned wiretapping scheme organized by the Committee to Re-elect the President (appropriately acronymed, C.R.E.E.P.). Woodward and Bernstein unravel the conspiracy by tracing the cause and effect up the political chain all the way to the President’s office.

The title is appropriate because the film is a series of ‘connect-the-dots’ to solve the puzzle. One man’s information leads to another man, who leads to another man and so on and so on. These are the “President’s men”, whose the orders of an anxious President trickled down to his subordinates and caused such heinous crimes against the democratic system.

We learn a lot about the procedures and workmanship of journalists in a CSI-like procedural fashion. It’s fascinating. The telephone proves to be a powerful weapon for the journalists. Many of characters we don’t even see, only hear through the multitude of phone calls from Woodward and Bernstein. We learn of their techniques to gain credible information, yet keep the identities of their sources safe. It’s also a little history lesson in investigative journalism before the age of the internet and the cell phone. For a good companion piece to this, also watch Michael Mann’s The Insider.

The newsroom is exciting, the constant sound of typing, printing, ringing telephones, televisions, and news chatter permeate the working environment. Gordon Willis’ camera follows the characters across the expansive room, moving through cubicles like a football player towards the endzone.

All the actors are in top form and perfectly cast, Redford with his charm and suave good manners allows him to cut straight to the point, Hoffman portrays Bernstein like a bull, who’ll get the information he wants no matter what. The great character actor, the late Jack Warden, brings working-class humour to his role as their department head, and Jason Robards is perfect as the consummate editor-in-chief, who supports his staff to the end, but from whom he demands the absolute best work.

All the President’s Men breaks many rules of conventional filmmaking, other than telling a good story. There is no action or fighting or death, there’s no physical antagonists, no subplots, no romantic relationships, and the main characters don’t arc in traditional ways, in fact, we don’t learn anything about their lives, they are simply instruments to uncover the facts. But these facts are like daggers, because we all know the stakes and the damage caused by the actions of these men. Despite these anomalies the film is suspenseful, dramatic and gripping from beginning to end.

All the President's Men is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment

Conviction

Conviction (2010) dir. Tony Goldwyn
Starring: Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo, Peter Gallagher, Ele Bardha

***

By Alan Bacchus

It’s a clever double-meaning for the title, Conviction, referencing both the result of Kenny Water’s arrest and trial for a 1984 murder of a former babysitter, as well as his sister Betty Anne’s long fight and internal fortitude to exhonerate Kenny from his seemingly wrongful sentence.

We’re in the increasingly popular world of working class Massachussets (ie. The Fighter, Gone Baby Gone, The Town, The Departed). Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell), a loose cannon n’er-do-well is arrested for murder of a former babysitter. He beats the rap until two years later he's picked up again for the same crime. This time his wife testifies against him which sends him to life inprisonment. Enter Betty Anne (Hilary Swank), a poor single mother, but with a moral conscientious made of iron, who believes whole-heartedly of her brother’s innocence, something even Kenny seems to doubt.

After realizing she just doesn’t have enough money to pay a lawyer, she decides to go to law school in order to represent Kenny herself. She's fighting for justice both in and out school as well as raising a family. It takes two decades before vital evidence can come to light which might just astonishingly get Kenny out of prison. You’ll have to watch to see what happens.

The timing of all this is important. It was the mid 90’s when DNA evidence first became influential. We even get to see Peter Gallagher play Barry Scheck, the diminutive lawyer on OJ Simpson's trial of the century, who used DNA evidence to get a real murderer off – go figure. Maybe his switch to the side of the right and just, was in response to his manipulative work with OJ.

If this weren’t all true, I’d find it a contrived, unbelievable and overly righteous John Grisham-type story. The idea that Betty Anne could even afford to go to law school let alone get Kenny a lawyer is ridiculous, but it happened. And so knowing this is true we have to accept this as plausible, right?

In many ways some Grisham-ness might have served the film better. Goldwyn stays as far away from salacious melodrama as possible, telling a mostly minimalist and contained story considering the long time frame involved. As such there’s a cable-tv HBO feel to this, not particularly cinematic or big screen worthy. The threat of Betty Anne’s commitment is slight. We’re supposed to feel that her family and her kids are at stake, but everyone is just so well put together we know, no matter what, they will be OK in the end.

Same with Kenny, who is in prison, but exhibits such extreme self-loathing and self-destructive behaviour prison might just be the best place for him. We rarely see him in pain or depression in prison. If anything, he almost seems to enjoy the camraderie.

What sizzles is the procedure of Betty-Anne’s investigation and the big picture journey frmo start to end. It’s turnkey lawyer plotting, Betty Anne digging into old files, revisiting old witnesses and such. I couldn’t help but think of Zodiac, which is the ultimae epitome of criminal procedurals. Conviction is character-based Zodiac. Goldwyn takes his time to show the details of the case, which is fun stuff, but he neither aspires for Zodiac, nor Reversal of Fortune, not even CSI.

Goldwyn pays most of his attention to Ms. Swank and her character Betty Anne. Her journey from lowly single mom to star lawyer is inspiring, and sole reason why this film, despite it’s faults, succeeds.

Conviction is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Wagon Master

Wagon Master (1950) dir. John Ford
Starring: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward Bond, James Arness

**

By Alan Bacchus

Warner Bros/TCM has packaged together a fine four-pack collection of somewhat lesser known John Ford westerns. The mix bag includes his second to last film, the epic Cheyenne Autumn (1964), the second entry in the ‘Cavalry Trilogy'.She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949); the Magi Story transplanted to the wild west, 3 Godfathers; and this picture, Wagon Master, a non-John Wayne western but reportedly one of Ford’s favourite pictures.

Unfortunately despite Ford’s own preference, it’s not his finest hour. A rare dud, for the most part lacking in the genre elements he helped give birth to and even his stylistic cinematic hallmarks of the rest of his body of work.

Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. play a couple of drifters, Travis and Sandy, hired by a Morman elder to guide his family convoy across the frontier to the San Juan Valley. Along the way the group has run ins with a some prostitutes, a medicine man, some Indians, and a snarly trio of bandits.

In the wild west with hostility threatening at every turn the film sadly feels under-dramatized. We never feel the stakes of the journey, and as protagonists Travis and Sandy fail to undergo any signficant change, or even feel any sacrifice for their decisions in the film.

As the Elder Wiggs, Ford has fun with his moral conflict in dealing with the ‘ladies of the night’ who join the group. Perhaps my indifference to this picture lies with the casting of leads. Without Henry Fonda or John Wayne, Ford's leads fail to rise to become heroes or stars whose personalities jump off the screen.

Even the normally scenic Utah locales lack that 'Fordian'  mythic resonance. The musical songs by Stan Jones as performed by the Sons of the Pioneers recalls their more inspiring work later with Ford on The Searchers, but certainly doesn’t come close to providing the same sense of period romance.

That said, this fine sets two of Ford’s best films, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 3 Godfathers, both teaming with the resonant genre qualites we desire from his work. I haven’t seen Cheyenne Autumn yet, so look out for a future look back at this picture – a late career epic from a man whose creativity, though it had brief ups and downs, never seemed to age.

Wagon Master is available via Warner Home Entertainment and Turner Classic Movies

The Tillman Story

The Tillman Story (2010) dir. Amir Bar-Lev
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

At the Super Bowl last weekend among the drawn out ceremonial coverage of the big game was a tribute to the soldiers of the US military – something now commonplace for big events. The moment, orchestrated by the director of the broadcast, featured American flags hanging calmly in the background, a recent medal winner standing respectfully in the endzone, and Troy Aikman and Joe Buck praising the work of all the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand the need to do this. After the ostracizing of the soldiers of Vietnam in the 60's, the collective American public wants to atone for the damage done to those shamed soldiers.

In The Pat Tillman Story, this need to blindly create heroes of the soldiers slides horribly to the side of egregious disrespect and contempt for the wishes of the families of those fallen men and women. The very public story of Pat Tillman, a former NFL football player who quit the league to fight for his country and who was killed by friendly fire in Iraq is comprehensively broken down and analyzed from the point of view of Tillman’s grieving family, who only the desired the truth, but instead were fed lie after lie by the military PR spin controllers.

Director Amir Bar-Lev unveils the story to us carefully, telling us the minute details of the events which led to his death.  He also approaches the events which led to Tillman’s family learning of Tillman’s death and the public hoopla which followed with the same careful consideration. The tragedy of which, considering the miscommunication of the friendly fire shootout, is heartbreaking, but soldiers admit the fog of war can easily create such havoc. The military never covered this up, and the family was even accepting of this sad reality or war, but the need to create a story of deified heroism and to parade their son's image in the name of military rabble-rousing was something they could not stand for.

The key moment of conflict which sends his parents on the two year long odyssey for justice comes when they question the military for more details on the official interpretation of events pertaining to their son’s death. With Tillman already in the public eye the family accuses the military of manufacturing a heroic spin on Tillman’s death in lieu of revealing the true grisly details none of us ever want to hear.

It’s as remarkable a character study as it is an investigative piece. Bar-Lev goes into the young life of Tillman as a rambunctious young boy, one of three brothers in a strong tight-knit family, to his feats of excellence in athletics. The connections of Tillman’s internal fortitude and his physical strength becomes a profound metaphor to his mother and father’s conviction to learn the truth.

The Tillman Story is thus both inspiring and frustrating. Inspiring for Tillman’s parents’ stubborn refusal to accept anything less than the truth, a fight which takes them all the way to a Congressional Oversight Committee hearing and frustrating for the US Government’s even more resolute stubbornness to save face and refusal to admit the lies they’ve been feeding the public – an admonition which would likely open up other old wounds from these post 9/11 conflicts.

In a year of great documentaries, this one has sadly fallen under the rradar during awards season. Don't miss it.

The Tillman Story is available on DVD from Alliance Films in Canada

Once Upon a Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America (1984) dir. Sergio Leone
Starring: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Treat Williams

***½

By Alan Bacchus

It took 13 years for Sergio Leone to get this, his last film, onto the big screen. For the most part the time away served him well, as this superlative exercise in gangster cinema, dramatically heightened to the max with the same dreamy romantic sensabilities of his Spaghetti Westerns, comes close to being the final word in prohibition-era crime films.

The long 229min version is available on Blu-Ray, and since virtually everyone believes this to be the true version of the film, I doubt we’ll ever see that 139mins theatrical version ever again. The length does justice to the immensely epic and emotionally dense character study.

Leone and his team of seven writers tell the story of two best friends David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson (De Niro) and Max 'Max' Bercovicz (Woods) and the evolution of their friendship through their life of crime in 1920’s New York City. Leone elegantly moves us through multiple timeframes without ever getting confused nor experiencing that ‘flashback’ feel. The opening lengthy sequence in 1933 shows us the extended movements of Noodles after the apparent murder of three of his boyhood friends. The scene carries on for 30mins, a set piece so dazzling unto itself, it almost seems out of place in the context of the expansive nature of the rest of the story. We don’t really know why Noodles is on the run, or why he’s aloof and melancholy as opposed to angry and vengeful after such a horrific act of violence. Ennio Morricone’s swooning romantic score tells us there’s a deeper level of emotion going on, something which Leone’s flashforwards and flashbacks teases us with.

After the opening the film settles down into a more traditional narrative, starting with Noodles and his gang as kids in the 20's moving from petty crime into organized crime in step with flashs to Noodles as an aged adult in the late 60’s returning to New York on a mysterious agenda, retracing the steps of his youth.

From the golden brown cinematography to the rich and textured production design of the era to the thematic and narrative connections to the action in the present, the influence of The Godfather Part II is felt through th is 1920's storyline. This delicate touch of Leone’s equals Coppola’s work in these scenes. Leone’s detail in the exterior street scenes is magnificent, teaming with people in every corner of his frames and as far as the camera can see. Leone never attempts to cheat his scenes, instead playing almost all of his action in wide screen grandeur.

The miracle of America is Leone’s ability to not let the sheer size of his canvas overshadow the finer details and individual moments of drama. His big and small moments have equal weight in all his pictures and it's never more important here. Just listen how little dialogue there is in the film, in particular the opening 30mins, a beautiful choreography of camera and actors. Leone's use of all elements of cinema: editing, camerawork and sound design is sublime and masterful. The drone of the telephone ring used in the opening sequence is a surreal use of digetic sound but draws our attention to the significance of a key decision Noodles will make later in the picture. Same with Leone’s attention to the locker key or the charred body in the street – all details set up to be paid off later.

This is the Leone modus operandi peppered into all of his previous films. The incessant drone of that telephone ring recalls Leone’s multiple references to Charles Bronson’s harmonica in Once Upon a Time in America, or Lee Van Cleef’’s musical pocketwatch in For a Few Dollar’s More.

A couple of wonky moments fail the film. The performance of some of the children as well as the casting of Elizabeth McGovern as Noodle’s object of desire Deborah never works. In fact, I could never see why McGovern got so much work back in those days. Her babyface look, I could never take seriously in high drama such as this.

But the scene I’ve never been able to reconcile with the rest of the picture is Noodles' rape of Deborah. It comes just before the intermission after the moment Deborah tells Noodles she’s leaving for LA to pursue an acting career, after which Noodles rapes her multiple times in the back of a car. Rape is something most of us don’t desire to see in a film, let alone the veracity with which Leone’s orchestrates the scene. Deborah’s pleas for help for Noodles to stop only encourages him to rape her even more aggressively. I understand the purpose of the scene, to create a source of regret for Noodles, destroying the only thing he ever loved, and to find a strong enough story beat that would split the pair before their reunion at the end of the film, but this comes at the expense of any kind of sympathy for his character Leone establishes up this point. Save for an earlier rape during the diamond robbery scene, Noodles was an honourable gangster, with convictions or loyalty to his friends. After Deborah's rape, Noodles is never truly taken to task for his dispicable actions.

This kind of scene would fit into Leone’s stylized and mysoginistic Spaghetti Western genre but in this more romantic and authentic world he creates for Once Upon a Time in America, the scene is a major crutch on the film.

And so it takes some mental smoothing to get over this scene and some of the wooden acting to appreciate Leone’s swan song as a dreamy, indulgent and grandiose genre film which it is.

Once Upon a Time in America is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment