The Fighter

The Fighter (2010) dir. David O. Russell
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Jack McGee

****

By Alan Bacchus

Back in December I shamed myself for doubting this picture. As I was posting my ‘Best of 2010’ list, I had the opportunity to hold off until I saw this film, but my impatience had me doubting The Fighter. After all, the story of a down-and-out boxer overcoming the odds to win a title shot is perhaps the oldest story in Hollywood, one that is also played out. Knowing that this was originally a Darren Aronofsky project that was passed off to David O. Russell, I questioned the passion of the filmmakers behind this movie.

And so, what a joy it was to be shocked to life by Russell’s impeccable skills. This is a story so perfectly crafted and executed, it hits those core, base and fundamental emotions we have toward brotherhood, ambition and survival in life. It’s a true triumph of the human spirit that provides the same chills up our spine as other classics of the genre, including Rocky, The Wrestler and Million Dollar Baby.

My DFD colleague Greg Klymkiw described Clint Eastwood’s Invictus as a meat-and-potatoes film. The Fighter also falls into this category. We know these characters very well. Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and Dickie Eklund (Christian Bale) are half-brothers from the working class town of Lowell, Massachusetts. Dickie, the eldest who once fancied himself as the ‘Pride of Lowell’, is a failed boxer who clings to his one triumph – knocking down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight 14 years prior. Now he’s a crack addict with one foot in the grave, and he would be dead if it wasn’t for his younger brother, whom he trains to be the next ‘Pride of Lowell’.

Micky Ward, the younger brother, is actually near the end of his career. He’s suffered three losses in a row and needs a victory to keep him in the game. A painful loss to a heavier fighter cripples the relationship between the two brothers. The defeat is blamed on Dickie and his headstrong mother/manager Alice (Melissa Leo). Enter Charlene (Amy Adams), a red headed bargirl/college drop-out, who gives Micky the idea that he could be a success if he breaks away from his family.

And so, Micky is presented with an agonizing internal conflict – the desire to live up to the pedestal on which his brother places him, and the loyalty and love he deeply desires to give his family. This is the strongest kind of decision-making we can see in cinema, and they’re decisions we in the audience subliminally make in our heads as we watch the film. We imagine confronting our own older brothers or dedicated mothers who have nurtured us our whole lives.

The Fighter has the rare spark of truth, a miraculous kind of truth that exists in every moment of the film. Russell impressively mixes the emotions conveyed by Micky’s decisions and Dickie’s heartbreaking fight with substance abuse with the same unique sense of irreverent humour found in all his other films, including Flirting With Disaster and Three Kings. Much of the humour in The Fighter comes from the authenticity he finds in the working class milieu of Lowell. It can be seen in Micky’s seven sisters, for instance, all of whom look like haggard cougars-in-training pulled from the seediest bar in Lowell. They appear together as a group in almost every scene in the background, like a peanut gallery.

The performances in the film are top-notch in every role. It’s one of Christian Bale’s best, as he goes beyond the superficial physical transformation to become an underweight crack addict. We feel the genuine love he has for his brother and his desire to win despite the personal trauma he experiences. Wahlberg admirably assumes the less showy role, a reactive straight man performance, which usually gets overshadowed by the histrionics of the more rowdy characters. Amy Adams and Melissa Leo both shine as two strong women who antagonize each other with Micky in the middle. Both are fighters in their own way who won’t back down from each other.

Although it’s a story of two brothers with a focus on the very masculine world of professional boxing, The Fighter is not a macho film. It’s a universal story of family, mothers, daughters, brothers and the inexplicable bond that can push us all toward extraordinary things.

The Fighter is available on Blu-ray/DVD from Alliance Films in Canada.

Stand By Me

Stand By Me (1986) dir. Rob Reiner
Starring: Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The expert casting by Reiner and company solidifies the legacy of this fine film. I can’t think of any other group of child actors that commands the screen more effectively and with greater emotional depth than Stand By Me. This is a movie with almost no adult presence. Sure, Kiefer Sutherland and his gang of bullies provide periodic glimpses of young adults, but for 90% of this film we are with four 13 year olds holding their own on camera.

Directors will tell you the secret to directing child actors is casting the right kids and letting them be themselves. For Wheaton, Feldman, O’Connell and arguably River Phoenix, this was the pinnacle of their careers.

Including The Big Chill, The Wonder Years and others, Stand by Me fits in with a common theme of the 80s, filmmakers looking back on 1950's/60's post-war era from the skewed point of view of dreamy nostalgia. Of course, this story originated in a novella by Stephen King, his first non-horror film adapted as a feature. It’s the story of a group of four young teens in a lonely rural town who embark on a two-day hike to find the body of a dead boy.

One of the four kids is Gordie Lachance (Wheaton), a meek and skinny kid with feelings of inadequacy after his older brother passes away. Since the death of his brother, Gordie has retreated to the comfort of his childhood friends and his love of writing. There’s also Teddy Duchamp (Feldman), a loudmouthed shit-disturber who’ll do anything to wind people up, a defence mechanism masking his fractured home life. Vern Tessio (O’Connell) is the fat kid teased and pushed around by his buddies, but still a respected member of the foursome. And lastly, Chris Chambers (Phoenix) is the confident rebel and defender of the group. He’s from a hardened criminal family and desires to escape the expectations of failure that society has placed upon him.

Rob Reiner’s invisible direction is subordinate to the kids’ performances and the mood and tone of the period. The journey is effectively broken down into a number of set pieces along the way. Gordie’s tale of the pie-eating contest, for example, is cleverly incorporated as a story-within-a-story. The chase scene across the train bridge provides the most suspenseful moments, and sharp R-rated humour misdirects us from the sombre finale that awaits the kids.

The film’s narration is essential to conveying the nostalgic qualities of the story. The theme of memory and storytelling mix elegantly. We watch the film from the memories of Gordie as an older man reflecting on the times. We all know the effect of the passage of time – reality shaped by what we choose to remember about the past. As a result, the elder Gordie becomes an ‘unreliable narrator.’ We don’t really know if the actions, altercations and events of these four kids happened exactly as we see them. But based on Gordie’s memories, the tall tales significantly convey the importance of this time on his life as an adult and a father.

Casting Richard Dreyfuss adds even more rich texture to the film. Sure his nasally radio voice has a soothing effect on our ears. But his mere presence connects us to one of the film’s antecedents, American Graffiti, a similar film recalling the same era told with the same style of embellished nostalgia. Stand By Me stands tall beside George Lucas's own celebrated masterpiece.

Stand By Me is available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

The Tourist

The Tourist (2010) dir. Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff

*1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Considering the immense talent and money involved with The Tourist, its failure is completely shameful. Everyone deserves a naughty slap on the wrist for this picture. Hell, look at the writing credits – three Oscar winners contributed to this stinking coiler.

It’s as bad as everyone says it is – an elegantly shot and designed yet lifeless comic romance spy thriller set in Venice, where an international thief and his gorgeous girlfriend are due to meet up. It’s a teasing opening, during which Elise (Jolie) is given a letter from a courier while she sips coffee at a Paris cafe. The note is from her lover, Alexander Pearce, who tells her to take a train to Venice and befriend a man who looks similar to him to act as an unwitting decoy. With the British authorities and some Eurotrash gangsters hot on her tail, Elise uses Frank (Depp) as her decoy. Frank is a humble high school math teacher on vacation in Europe by himself – as if.

Despite Elise’s angle, there are some sparks between her and Frank, and when the action and chases start, Frank is caught in the fray. He tries to convince the people shooting at him that he’s just a tourist. The twists are telegraphed from the outset and fool no one about how this film will end.

In between, the emotionless performances from Jolie and Depp will have most people falling asleep on that first train ride to Venice. Jolie still seems to be playing the elusive spy Evelyn Salt and Depp’s only bit of business is his goofy muggings from his Tim Burton comedies.

Everyone phones this one in, including co-writer/director von Donnersmarck, who directs his action without any pacing, creativity or inspiration. Even his studio-shot, blue-screened scenes stand out like bad Hitchcock-era process-work.

Even the usually fantastic composer James Newton Howard was smart enough not to waste his good stuff on this picture. His score disappears into the background and brings up little if any of the emotions of the film.

The most annoying part of the whole endeavour is the amount of time wasted by the director, who previously directed the magnificent The Lives of Others. This is the peak creative period for von Donnersmarck, and arguably at least a film and a half is now lost from him. Let’s try and forget this movie ever happened.

The Tourist is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Enterainment

127 Hours (Second Look)

127 Hours (2010) dir. Danny Boyle
Starring: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara

***

By Alan Bacchus

Looking at this picture for the second time, its strengths remain the same; however, the flaws seem amplified. It’s not an altogether masterpiece, but a commendable and slightly cumbersome ‘experimental’ film from Danny Boyle.

OK, we all know the story... Aron Ralston, a foolhardy independent hiker, embarks on a solo hike into the canyons of Utah where he trips, falls and gets his arm stuck between a rock and the wall of the canyon. After three days and with no other options, he commits an astonishingly gutsy and resourceful act of self-surgery to free himself.

Where the film succeeds, which I pointed out in my first TIFF review, is Danny Boyle’s ability to maintain a level of suspense despite the fact that the outcome of the story is already known. He does this by executing his electric visual style and fantastic ear for music.

Unfortunately, the shortcomings in the first act burden the film even more the second time ‘round. Boyle’s attempts to create an enlivened pace in the opening scene to jumpstart the film, which has been one of his modi operandi throughout his career (see opening chase sequences in Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, etc.), feels forced and unnatural compared to the inherent pace of the story. The split-screen effect showing masses of people moving around and playing sports would seem to imply some kind of metaphor for Aron’s life, which never really emerges substantially. I imagine it’s supposed to present Aron’s frenetic lifestyle, but it feels like too much of a reach for Boyle to create action where there is none.

The bombardment of visual stimuli Boyle throws at us provides terrific eye candy and complements the film’s unique point of view. However, he never goes deep under the surface of Ralston’s predicament. In particular, the earth-shattering instantaneous acknowledgement of what Ralston needs to do to himself in order to escape seems sudden. Like all of Boyle’s movies, 127 Hours is pure visual and aural stimulation but lacks psychologically.

That said, once Ralston starts taking that dull knife to his forearm in the third act, we’re into another movie – an ‘action set piece’ of astonishing emotional power. The grotesque realism of the surgery is wholly necessary, leading us to the powerful flight to safety powered by the awesome music of Sigur Ros. Despite the reservations I have about the first two acts, the third act still makes the hairs on my arms stand on end, not to mention the shivers down my spine and the lump in my throat it produces. And in the big picture, 127 Hours remains a commendable and enviable addition to Danny Boyle’s body of work.

127 Hours is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Four Lions

Four Lions (2010) dir. Chris Morris
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Arsher Ali, Nigel Lindsay, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay

***

By Alan Bacchus

Director Chris Morris throws caution to the wind with the biggest set of cinematic balls this side of Werner Herzog. He co-wrote and directed this jet black British comedy about four hapless wannabe Islamic terrorists who declare their own personal Jihad. Miraculously, Morris manages to make terrorism hilarious.

Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a British Muslim living in conspicuously unnamed London. He’s disillusioned with the treatment of Muslims around the world and thus desires to join Al Qaeda. Omar joins up with three other like-minded stooges to plot their own act of terrorism at home. The hapless foursome includes Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a blue-collar Joe and convert to Islam, Waj (Kayvan Novak), a complete dufus who lets Omar do the thinking for him, and Faisal, who is even more hapless and clumsy than Waj.

After a training mission in Afghanistan goes wrong - Omar accidentally fires an RPG backwards into their own desert encampment - Omar and Waj return home to wage war. Their target is a city marathon where they intend to dress up as clowns with bombs hidden under their clothes. But as the clock ticks down, second thoughts about their actions conflict with the patriotic fervour.

Four Lions sits closely with another British black comedy, In the Loop, and the similarities go beyond the tone and subject matter. Both are productions of Film4 in the UK, and director Chris Morris comes from the Armando Iannucci think tank of comedy, having worked with Iannucci and Steve Coogan on BBC2’s The Day Today.

The film scores big points for its sheer audacity, which is found in all great black comedies, as it skewers what’s sacred and delicate. Morris conducts his farce with the same rhythm as the great Brit-coms. Jokes are of the deadpan and slapstick variety in the tradition of the cinematic idiocy of say, Spinal Tap.

Unfortunately, Four Lions is missing some of the cinematic quality of In the Loop, as it often feels contained and closed off, like a television series rather than a larger canvas of a feature film. It also suffers from sameness in some of the characters. Although the four actors have the right type of deadpan comedic timing and charm, there’s little to differentiate between Waj, Barry and Faisal, and the jokes are interchangeable between the three characters.

But for sheer audacity and its tone of irresponsible comic nihilism, Four Lions is a whole lot of fun - just not the gut-buster the high concept implies.

Four Lions is available on DVD in Canada from EOne Entertainment

Jack Ass 3

Jack Ass 3 (2010) dir. Jeff Tremaine
Documentary

***

By Alan Bacchus

Qualifying this film as a documentary stretches and likely ‘insults’ the genre a bit. Well, I can’t really say, ‘glorified reality-show’, ‘you-tube feature’, or ‘home movie’. Maybe the catch-all genre of ‘special interest’ from the Best Buy DVD shelves works best.

Like the first film, Jack Ass 3 features a fantastic opening credit sequence, shot in feature quality spectacle, high definition resolution, a slo-motion montage of carnage which serves to introduce us to the Jack Ass group. I appreciate these sequences, which look difficult to choreograph and demonstrate some showmanship worthy of the big screen. The filmmakers clearly have no intention to sit on their laurels and deliver what we could have seen on the small screen.

Perhaps Jack Ass was always meant for the big screen, arguably the film is enhanced not so much by the 3-D treatment, but the communal experience of laughing at and being reviled by the impressive grotesqueness on display. On DVD and Blu-Ray where we can only view the film now, much is lost.

That said, I still laughed my ass off throughout.

The usual suspects are back Johnny Knoxville, who must be in his forties yet still wrestling wild animals and getting his balls knocked around for our enjoyment. The really hardcore guy is Steve-O who takes the worst knocks, including the awe inspiring final stunt, where he sits in a port-o-potty and gets bungied into the air, with the contents well... you get the point. There’s also Bam Margera whose running joke of his parents’ involvement continues, though with dimishing returns. Chris Pontius who specializes in penis stunts is also back. The little-person Wee Man exploits his short stature for some dwarf-hilarity and for Dave England who always seemed the ‘weakest’ of the bunch, the distress caused by his stunts arguably provides the most laughs.

While most of everything scores, the lamest sequences of the bunch continues to be Johnny Knoxville’s public pranks as the old man in the wheelchair. The most squeemish stunt arguably is Ehren McGehey’s Lamborgini Tooth Pull, which has a string tied to both McGehey’s loose tooth and the bumper of the Italian sportscar. I couldn’t look at the screen for that one.

Whatever we classify these films as, they are still supremely entertaining. They work for two fundamental reasons 1) the characters are supremely engaging and entertaining personalities. My friends couldn't do the same stunts and pull off something worthy of a 90mins feature film which makes $100million at the box office. 2) These guys tap into some kind of latent childhood need and desires of our own to test the limits of our own bodies. Somewhere, deep down inside us, we can relate the curiosity of what it would be like to have to someone crazyglue someone else's hand to your own hairy chest, or beard, or ass. I guess it was called 'dare' back in the day. Jack Ass is like an extreme version of dare, in which we can live vicariously through these Jack Ass guys who have balls of steel and would just about do anything for a buck.

From Paramount Home Entertainment Jack Ass 3 is available in old-fashioned/dual-coloured glasses 3D on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as traditional 2D. But after having those awful Red and Blue glasses on your face for 5mins, you’ll quickly switch over to the 2D version.

Obsession

Obsession (1976) dir. Brian De Palma
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams, Wanda Blackman, J. Patrick McNamara

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Looking back on the filmography of Brian De Palma, 1976’s Obsession is one of his most important. It was made prior to Carrie, his breakout film, but after Sisters, this was the first of his Hitchcock-homages, a style of filmmaking he would return to numerous times in his career.

Like many of his pictures Obsession is a deliciously dreamy thriller, enjoyable on a number of cinematic levels. In terms of story, the title represents the state of transcendant experienced by De Palma’s hero Michael Courtland (Robertson),who, years after his wife and daughter’s kidnap and apparent death, obsessively courts a young girl who looks strikingly similar to his former love. The title also resonates with the methodology of filmmaking from De Palma, his own personal obsessions with Hitchcock from whom this film and many others have heavily borrowed.

Enjoyment of a Brian De Palma requires buying in to these many levels, however sensational and shameless. And most certainly the De Palma experience is helped by one's knowledge cinema and seeing where his films link up to others throughout history (for example, watch Jules Dassin's Topkapi together to Mission Impossible!). In particular to this film, the fun of linking Obsession to Vertigo. For example, in the final shot, it would be difficult to accept and appreciate the circular camera shot spinning around Bujold and Robertson embracing. The shot is so excessively long it calls attention to itself, but knowing it apes the dramatic kiss between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in the middle of Vertigo adds a specific context which is not present on the page.

The plotting of Obsession is very traditional for two thirds of the film, the opening takes place in 1959, wherein we see the kidnapping of Michael’s family, an event dramatized not unlike the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Robertson’s performance as a grieving man who becomes obsessed with Sandra (Bujold), a doppelganger for his wife, is understated and terrific – rare qualities for a De Palma film. Robertson is quietly heroic and sympathetic, and arguably more grounded than Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.

The relationship between Michael and Sandra is the stuff of soap opera plotting but emotionally engaging thanks to Robertson and Bujold. Where the film falls off the rails, is in the second half, when the ulterior motives of Sandra and Michael’s wily partner La Salle (Lithgow) are revealed. It all becomes rather silly and outlandishness very quickly, but there’s inspiration in De Palma's grand plans for Robertson’s redemption. He pays off a number shots established in the first of the picture, cleverly doubling back over the some of the same scenes to show an almost divine chance for redemption for Michael’s character.

Viewers also need to buy in the mood and tone of De Palma’s works. It’s not hard to be swept up by Bernard Herrman’s grandiose score, which recycles many of his themes from his Hitchcock pictures, but there's no doubt this score is amplified by De Palma’s own tastes for the excessive. Herrman’s score in this picture is front and centre, driving the film harder than Hitchcock’s films ever did.

The redemption of Michael is obviously played out on the nose by De Palma, but without the sumptuous aural and visual experience, Vilmos Zsigmond’s hazy-romantic photography and Bernard Herrman’s score, the film would die an awful death. Instead it remains to be a mesmerizing early De Palma classic.

Excalibur

Excalibur (1981) dir. John Boorman
Starring: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Paul Geoffrey, Cherie Lunghi

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Excalibur is both supremely awful and inspired at the time, arguably the most passionate, intense, gory and gothic romantic version of the legendary story of King Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin, Perceval, the Holy Grail and the Sword in the Stone ‘Excalibur’. This is John Boorman's adaptation with help from his creative collaborator Rospo Pallenberg and as per the credits, adapted directly from the Thomas Mallory writings on the legend.

I still marvel at the grandeloquent mix of operatic melodrama, supremely gory bloodshed and sexual activity, set to the best-ever use of Richard Wagner on film (yes, even better than Apocalypse Now). It’s also acted with subtly of a wart, featuring performances so wooden and atrocious, it’s no wonder we’ve never heard of any of these actors, save for Helen Mirren and small early appearances by Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Patrick Stewart.

Boorman begins with the story of Uther Pendragon, father of Arthur who uses the sword Excalibur to defeat his enemies and become King of England. Unfortunately his carnal desire for his best friend's wife overcomes him and he uses Merlin's magic to deguise himself and rape the woman Igraine (played by Boorman's own wife, ew!). Eventually Uther is killed, embeds the sword into the stone, years later to be unleashed by his own bastard son, Arthur. Using Excalibur's power Arthur unites the scattered knights of England forming the 'round table of Camelot'.

Peace doesn't last long when Arthur's #1 knight Lancelot, betray his own moral conscience and succombs to his lust of King Arthur's wife Guenevere. Meanwhile, Arthur's half sister Morgana plots revenge against Arthur by encouraging the conflict with Lancelot and eventually manipulating Merlin into disguising herself as Guenevere, man-raping Arthur and giving birth to Mordrid, his half-Nephew/son/heir to the throne and thus his soon to be mortal enemy.

Visually, it’s a stunning work of art, John Boorman’s ability to protray the rich pathos of this fantasy medieval period with glorious cinematography and perfect compositions. Stylistically Boorman employs the same soft hazy lighting scheme popular in the 1970’s and used to fine effect in Boorman’s own films, ‘Point Blank’ and ‘Deliverance’, and to lesser effect in bombs, ‘Zardoz’ and ‘Exorcist II: The Heretic’.  The psychedelic embellishments rides a fine line between on laughable unintentional comedy and the right supernatural elements contained in the mythology.

Alex Thomson finds a unique visual design which blends the rich medieval period details with the pure storybook fantasy elements. Watch carefully the scenes in which the Excalibur sword is featured, Thomson subtly shines a cool green glow in the background or on the actor’s faces to remind us of the mysterious quality of the sword. And the wondrous lady of the lake moments seem to be pulled directly out of that awesome final shot of Boorman's own Deliverance.

As mentioned the immaculately designed armour worn by the knights gleam magnificently under Thomson’s lighting, especially in the wedding scene. It’s a distinctly glamour 80’s look, just stopping short of using a star filter to accent the reflections. I doubt that ever came up as an option, but it’s distinct to the decade in the best way possible nonetheless.

The finale is especially grandiose and operatic violent. The confrontation of Arthur and Mordrid, father and son who climax their oedipal relationship by stabbing each other through their plates of armour, spewing blood over their chests is so bloody grotesque and phallic. As preposterous and extravagant the scene is played, it fits like a glove to Wagner’s music. Well, that’s obvious because the bookending music is actually Parsifal, music from Wagner’s opera about the Arthurian legend.

If you understand and appreciate the connection to the opera and the tonal extremity where this film needs to reside in order achieve spiritual heights that is does, then you can look past the atrocious performances and the general silliness which critics and detractors oppose. Nigel Terry in particular as King Arthur, whom we see first as a meek squire and then grow to become King of England and die in that bloodbath ending is mostly unmemorable. Nicol Williamson’s Merlin could be seen a nasily sportscaster reciting faux Shakespearan dialogue, yet to me his giddy performance is representative of the tone of the entire movie and glues everything together. If you can't accept Nicol Williamson as Merlin, then you'll find yourself on the other side of that fine line between appreciation and repugnance.

Excalibur is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment

Slap Shot

Slapshot (1977) dir. George Roy Hill
Starring: Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Struther Martin, Lindsey Crouse

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

“Slapshot” is one of the more unlikely successes to come out of Hollywood. Though it takes place in the U.S. it’s a quintessential Canadian story of minor league hockey, a warts and all inside look into a unique sports culture. Yet, it took Hollywood’s brightest stars to exploit this story and tell it more truthfully and entertainingly than any Canadian could have.

First of all, who knew that Paul Newman could skate so well, and play hockey even with such skill and believability? And why would the Oscar-winning director of “The Sting” and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” want to make a movie about hockey?

Well, Newman was once a hockey player as a kid, so he had natural puck handling skills. As for Hill, the fact is Nancy Dowd’s well researched script is not only knee-slapping hilarious, it’s one of the most authentic sports scripts ever written – a fearless and unpretentious look into the sport. Like Bull Durham, one of the greatest baseball films ever made, minor leagues provides the point of view into the sport. The milieu of working class, semi-pro althetes, with the same worries, wants and desires as it’s audience, makes for a much deeper examination of sport, and the dedication it takes to win and make a living at it.

Slapshot tells the story of the Charleston Chiefs, a hapless minor league hockey team led by a player/coach Reg Dunlop (Mr. Newman). Dunlop's career is coming to an end, yet he remains on autopilot with his team. Winning or losing doesn't seem to matter until he discovers the manufacturing plant which drives the town will soon go under - the death knell for the entire team. When a prospective buyer in Florida expresses interest, suddenly the stakes in winning and entertaining are elevated.

The saviours of the team come from an unlikely trio of goons named the Hanson Brothers. Their physical play and unending enthusiasm for the game help them and the team become a league sensation. Unfortunately everyone's dreams of playing in comfort in Florida come crashing down when when Dunlop's dubious lies are revealed. With their final game at hand, the team decides to give their fans a crowd-pleasing extravaganza of entertainment on ice.

The inspriation for Dowd's script came from Dowd's own brother and his experiences playing minor league hockey in the 70's. The scene-stealing Hanson Brothers were based on a trio of real life hockey players who play versions of themselves as well. After the movie the trio continued to play hockey and in retirement make celebrity appearances at events and appear in the two shameless sequels which followed many years later.

In the United States Slapshot is generally considered a very good sports film, but in Canada, the characters, gags and comic set pieces are so revered they are memorized with the same obsession cine-geeks have for, say, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Dowd's politically incorrect and lewd dialogue has made this one of the naughtier sports films - a genre now dominated by saccharine comeback films. And so Reg's dishonest actions and irresponsibility represents the perfect antidote these antiseptic Disney films.

The Naked Prey

The Naked Prey (1966) dir. Cornel Wilde
Starring: Cornel Wilde, Ken Gampu, Gert Van Der Berg

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

One of the unique experiments of the 1960’s is Cornel Wilde’s ambitious parable of culture and conflict, “The Naked Prey”. A remarkably simple concept - a British game hunter is captured by African natives for torture, escapes and has to fight the harshness of the African environment while in flight from his pursuers. The result is a 90min chase film which comments on the fragile state of our civilization with the same irony as “The Most Dangerous Game”. "Lord of the Flies”, and “Planet of the Apes”. The film would also become the main influence for Mel Gibson to make his own version of the story, "Apocalypto".

The stripped down narrative and decidedly unheroic and matter-of-fact approach to the action runs counter to the Hollywood notion of popular entertainment. But it was made in 1966 and reflects the experimentation with independent filmmaking in the 60's.

In the opening act, we see a small group of British hunters gaming on the African plains, guided by armed African soldiers as they go about killing elephants indescriminantly. The stock footage used to visualize this is horrific, but effective in characterizing the foreigners as exploiters. When the group is caught by a rival tribe, the Africans are killed and the British mocked in an elaborately staged torture ritual. It features some of the most grotesque and demeaning torture I’ve seen on screen. At one point one of the officers is covered in clay, which after hardenening into a solid is baked like pottery on a spigot over an open fire.

In a role only named as 'the man' Cornel Wilde is stripped down and made to play a game of chase against the tribesman. Wilde manages to escape the compound and out into the wilderness where the chase would continue. The film is consistently raw and brutal. Wilde continually reminds us of the base themes of conflict and survival by intercutting the action with scenes of animals preying on each other.. The man fights off a number of assailants with brutal, uncompromising and realistic force, rarely showing emotion, relying on adrenaline and instinct to keep him moving forward.

Wilde trusts the innate drama of the situation to pull us through the entire film without dialogue or traditional melodramatic goals. I remember in "Cast Away" a similar film about isolation and survival Robert Zemeckis felt the need to add in an inanimate volleyball for Tom Hanks to talk to get some dialogue in. And even Gibson's "Apocalypto" needed to add a pregnant wife for the man to save to amplify the stakes.

In each of these cases, talented filmmakers refused to trust their audiences to believe in the situation. In "The Naked Prey" we never get the sense that the man will escape, or that we even want him to escape. The pursuers are never categorized as evil, only that the chase is the natural order of this world. And the final confrontation results in a small but truthful moment of respect between the two combatants.

The film was the brainchild of maverick producer/director/actor Cornel Wilde, a studio player in the 1940's who made the rare transition into producing and directing in the 1950's and 60's - a path not unlike the career Mel Gibson. "The Naked Prey" was the first of an unofficial trilogy survival, followed by his WWII set "Beach Red" (1967) and his near future apocalypse film "No Blade of Grass" (1970).

"The Naked Prey" is available through the prestigious Criterion Collection on DVD.

Rain Man

Rain Man (1988) dir. Barry Levinson
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dustin Hoffman, Valeria Golino

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Rain Man survives well these many years, and having few legitimate contendors (remember it was the 80’s) it probably deserved the Best Picture Oscar that year. It’s chock full of Hollywood schmaltz, essentially a road movie, two characters with a predictable trajectory touching the soft doughy parts of our emotions but executed so well it’s difficult even for the most hardened art house cine-snob not to feel something from this movie.

Tom Cruise plays the same character we saw in his previous three films Top Gun, Cocktail and Color Money, Charlie Babbitt a cocky self-absorbed egomaniac who operates his own smarmy luxory automobile distribution business. It’s a typical character of the cutthroat capitalist 80’s, a man who chews up and spits out anything that comes in his path toward his entitled fortune.

But when Charlie discovers his estranged father has passed, he looks to have found his fortune instantly through a large inheritance. Unfortunately for Charlie the money has been put in trust of Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), his severely autististic brother he never knew about. Charlie kidnaps Raymond in hopes of ransoming him off for his share of the money. While at first Charlie finds Raymond’s idiosyncracies annoying and frustrating a genuine and bond of brotherhood grows between the two, thus finding the real family Charlie never had before.

Barry Levinson finds himself at the height of his career directing with complete confidence. He was arguably one of the top Hollywood directors of the 80’s, directing one memorable film after another from 1982 to 1991 including Diner, Young Sherlock Holmes, Tin Men, Good Morning Vietnam, Avalon, and Bugsy. His direction in Rain Man is unflashy yet efficient, letting his actors command the screen. Yet, he finds time to choreograph a number of iconic scenes and individual shots which have stayed in the pop culture public consciousness. First, the memorable long shot of Cruise and Hoffman leaving the grounds of Wallbrook, as seen by the Center’s director. There’s also Cruise and Hoffman’s slow descent on the Casino escalator, revealing both characters wearing identical grey suits, ready to beat the house.

While Hoffman won all the accolades, showcasing his talents in transforming himself into a mysterious yet sympathetic idiot savant, Tom Cruise deserves as much credit. On the surface his characterization of Charlie as a soulless bloodsucker comes off as histrionics, but Cruise goes through the largest and most profound transformation of the two characters. The irony that the meek, unassuming socially stunted man breaking down such a streetwise intimitading person makes for great comedy. And this couldn’t happen without Cruise’s reactions and comic timing to Hoffman's Oscar-performance.

Rain Man also survives intact despite an awful sense of fashion which permeated most other movies of it’s day. The movie admirably surmounts Tom Cruise’s pleated pants and polo shirt buttoned up to the top, as well as Valeria Golina’s awful comnbination of tapered jogging pants and converse high-tops.

Most impressive of all is that Rain Man survives Tropic Thunder’s pinpoint accurate scathing of these Oscar-baiting movies where famous actors 'go retard' shamelessly exploiting audiences sympathies.

Rain Man is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

When Directors Act (for Others)

By Alan Bacchus

Back in the day, directors stepping out in front of the camera to act was rare, saved for those iconoclastic directors who have a flare for dramatics. Or perhaps directors with the biggest egos, a little bit of both maybe. Orson Welles is the best example, directing and starring in his first film. His bombastic reputation was equalled by prodigious talent in front of and behind the screen.

His best and most well known performance directed by someone other than himself is Carol Reed’s post-war noir The Third Man. Playing the mysterious Harry Lime. He doesn’t appear until the second half of the film, only referenced numerous times as a dead man, and the reason why the film’s hero Holly Martins has come to Vienna. Lime’s and thus Welles’ appearance in the film comes as a great suprise. Welles’ self-written cuckcoo clock speech is deservedly a classic, same with Welles’ frantic chase through the sewers of the city, so dramatically shot by Reed.

The stories of director Otto Preminger's on set temper and tyrannical nature are legendary. His passion in life (he once had a relationship with burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee) matched his work on screen. Laura, The Man With the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder and Advise and Consent are some of his more famous works as director, but to many he's most recognizable as Mr. Freeze in the 60's Adam West Batman series. His greatest on role was no doubt in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 as the ruthless comandante, a role that perhaps mirrored the terrifying presence he was on set of his own pictures.

Erich von Stroheim was also an early director who memorably appeared in other director’s films. Even more impressive than Welles perhaps, not only doing it inside and outside of Hollywood, but in two different languages. His performances as the artistocratic aviator in Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion is a classic, same with his iconic portrait as Norma Desmond’s butler in Sunset Boulevard.

The presence of John Huston in Chinatown has a similar effect as the presence of Welles The Third Man. He first appears as an old, deprepit and presumably innocent businessman questioned by Jake Gittes into the disappearance of Hollis Mulwray. Later Robert Towne, via Roman Polanski (another director/actor), reveals a darkness in his character no one ever could have predicted.

Sydney Pollack just has a great voice, if he didn’t direct he would have made a great character actor. His gruff smoker’s voice and midwestern accent, and strong screen presence made him an ideal white collar bureaucrat. His fine character work in Tootsie and Eyes Wide Shut added strong sense of credibility to his roles.

The casting of Francois Trauffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind is perhaps the most unlikely. After all, Truffaut barely spoke English, let alone having any association to the style of filmmaking associated with Steven Spielberg. Then again, maybe not, through his work with Cahiers du Cinema, Truffaut began analyzing auteurs in Hollywood, including populist directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. If he were still writing into the late 70’s, he might have been lauding the work of a young Steven Spielberg. His performance as the sympathetic French scientist Lacomb, was a large role, requiring a tender side which Truffaut brought in spades.

Nineteen Ninety-Nine was a great year for Spike Jonze. Months before his Being John Malkovich garnered him a Best Director Oscar nomination for his first feature film, he played one of key supporting principals in David O Russell’s high profile summer action flick Three Kings. The film actually should have been called Four Kings, because Jonze’s character Conrad has equal weight and stake in the hero’s journey. Despite the fine performance it would be Jonze’s only significant appearance as an actor in a feature film (thus far).

Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica may be lesser known in North America, but the two-time Palme D'Or winner had shown to have a wide range of acting talent, acting in English and French, in Neil Jordan's The Good Thief and Patrice Leconte's The Widow of St. Pierre, most notably his lead role in Christian Carion's acclaimed spy thriller L'Affaire Farewell alongside another actor-director Guillaume Canet.

In lesser roles, directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg have had fun and memorable cameo roles in other people’s films. Cronenberg's touching performance in Don McKellar’s Last Night for instance, or his cameo in Gus Van Zant’s To Die For. Cronenberg seemed to make regular appearances in other horror films, thus lampooning his own predalictions for the genre, but since the 2000’s he’s stayed strictly with directing. Scorsese first had a remarkable acting debut in his own Taxi Driver, but later adapted well for Robert Redford in Quiz Show, Irvin Winkler in Guilty By Suspicion and Akira Kurosawa in Dreams.

Outspoken and larger-than-life 90's directors such as Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino have tested the waters outside their own films without much lasting success. For Smith, recently he's branched our farther than cameos sending up his persona, in legitimate comic relief roles in Catch and Release and Live Free or Die Hard. For Tarantino there was his title role in the forgettable Destiny Turns on the Radio in 1995 at the height of Tarantino-mania. But the most memorable performance in the worst movie of all listed in this piece is Tarantino's brief appearance at the end of the fogettable relationship drama Sleep With Me, taking a page out of Orson Welles' book writing his own memorable speech, discussing the homo-erotic undertones in Top Gun.

Moonstruck

Moonstruck (1987) dir. Norman Jewison
Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, John Mahoney

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

It’s hard to imagine this film, so fluffy and light as air Italian-American romcom being the 6th highest grossing film of it’s year 1987. It was a huge hit. Then again, back in 1987 Cher was hot, Julia Roberts hot.

Moonstruck hits some of the same cultural buttons as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A film set exclusively in the culture of NYC Italian-Americans, yet is so familiar to other second generation immigrants in other cities and countries around the world.

For Loretta Castorini (Cher), she’s so identifiable and sympathetic as a hero. She’s in her mid 30’s, widowed early in her marriage, but years later still unable to find a guy, or at least have a decent guy propose to her. Along comes Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), who seems to have his head on straight, Italian, grounded, with a decent job. But there just seems to be a spark missing. Loretta doesn’t mind, she’s pragmatic enough to know being married is better than living at home with her nagging parents.

The rub here is Johnny’s mother, whom he is completely submissive and beholden to. He can only marry Loretta when mom is dead, presumably after a trip to Sicily to say goodbye at her death bed. While away Loretta, in planning the wedding, meets the real love in her life, Johnny’s loose cannon brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), an emotional spark plug if there ever was one. While this torrid affairs blossoms, so does two others, involves Loretta’s mother and father, all three of whom seem to be appeasing their own urges toward martial impropriety but in search of a different kind love.

While John Patrick Shanley’s script sings delightfully, as directed by Norman Jewison and acted with aplumb by his perfectly cast actors, the film elevates to dramatic heights of an Italian opera. In the first act, Jewison plays the drama with realism, setting up Loretta’s predicament naturally. We can easily see these characters in our own kitchen, bickering and squabbling. In the second act, with the introduction of Ronny, Jewison cranks up the melodrama. The introduction of Ronny alone, is drawn out to the maximum. Ronny is first seen in a sweaty wife-beater, shovelling red hot coals into a iron furnace which bakes the bread for the family business.

His first meeting with Loretta is a hailstorm of conflict, and dramatic flare – a hyper-emotional performance from Nicolas Cage full of all the histrionics which would define his unique career. And even though they’ve just met, we can easily see how they could fall in love instantly.

Loretta’s no pushover though, and she represents as much the foil as the match for Ronny. This is the stuff of best romantic comedies. Their passion fuels the second act wherein Jewison executes a number of wonderfully romantic moments, including the central opera set piece as well as Cher’s famous morning stroll through the street kicking the can across the road like young teenager with her first crush.

The potential infidelities and temptations exercised by Loretta’s mother and father in the b-story serve as a perfect counterbalance to the whimsical romance in story-A. Specifically Rose, Loretta’s mom, played by Olympia Dukakis. In her meeting with John Mahoney’s character, she moves on a similar path to Loretta, but with the years of experience she is able to look at the relationship with a more objective viewpoint. Under Jewison’s direction of these two fine performances he brings forth a different kind of uncomsumated romance.

Moonstruck deservedly won Oscars for Cher, Dukakis, and Shanley and is now available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Due Date

Due Date (2010) dir. Todd Phillips
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan

***

By Alan Bacchus

The perceived failure of this picture notwithstanding, Due Date is actually a pretty decent film. Perhaps the sleepy critical and audience reception stems from the fact that there’s very little we haven’t seen in this film that isn’t in all other road/buddy pictures which came before it. Much has been made of the similarities between this and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. And sure, perhaps this film is an unofficial remake of said John Hughes classic, but so what, it’s certainly not stale bread and is actually a lot of fun.

The Todd Phillips brand of broad physical comedy and a strong ‘heart’ binds this picture together. And certainly the affability of both actors (Galifianakis and Downey) make each of it’s scant 90mins easily watchable and entertaining.

I don’t know how much range Mr. Galifianakis has an actor, and perhaps his shelf life is limited in traditional feature films, but Due Date is the perfect vehicle for him. In The Hangover, he was the wild card, who had timing good enough to have his zingers stick. In Due Date, he’s one half of the film in what really is the exact same role as in The Hangover, by way of his online persona on the Between Two Ferns series.

The story goes like this, Downey plays a stuck up right-brained architect Peter Highman wh,o before a flight back to LA gets kicked off the plane for fighting with an obnoxious passenger, but in the melee loses his wallet, ID, money, credits and everything else. The only way he can make it to the birth of his child is by teaming up with the same person who got him kicked off the plane in the first place. This is Ethan Tremblay (Galafinakis) a doofus of extraordinary proportions who desires to move to Hollywood to start an acting career. All he has with him are his ludricrous headshots, a coffee can containing his father’s ashes and a french bulldog.

The actual gags are perfunctory speedbumbs along the road. Stuff like the comedy of errors with homeland security, Ethan’s masterbating dog and even dialogue like, “if you are allergic to waffles, don't eat them. Then don’t take me to a waffle house’, which was quoted in every trailer, isn’t really funny. And we know Ethan’s ashes will be mishandled and either consumed or bathed in at some point in the film. These are all rehashed gags from other comedies and are not the highlights of the film.

What works is the dynamic between Downey and Galifianakis, like the Steve Martin/John Candy relationship the trajectory from 100% conflict to sincere admiration and friendship for each other is surprisingly heartwarming and delightful. Todd Phillips saves us from the schmaltz of the Hughes movie, his trademark chaotic tone remains, and at 90+mins it’s not a minute too long.

The fact this movie was squeezed in between the two Hangover movies is evident. The movie seems rushed, and according to interviews with Phillips it seems as if the script was essentially rewritten as the film went along. But Phillips’ casting of the leads and the careful placement of a few key cameos, including a fun turn by Phillips himself, makes it all satisfying and a decent rental.

Due Date is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Warner Home Entertainment