Sleepers

Sleepers (1996) dir. Barry Levinson
Starring: Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Back in 1996, in the weeks prior to the film’s fall theatrical release the excitement was palpable. Going by the all star cast, the fantastic director and the promise of a crime saga in the tradition of Once Upon a Time in America, or Goodfellas, this film had the makings of a classic. Sadly the film failed to live up these expectations, resulting an epic too self-conscious of its intended legacy with these other films, in effect dying under it’s own sword.

Now 15 years later (has it been THAT long?) the new Blu-Ray release of Barry Levinson’s Sleepers is as sparse and no frills as can be. Special features include only one trailer, the cover art features the theatrical photo, wasting no time or money on expensive designs, and even the menu screen is a plain still image, bare bones work, the absolute minimum to get this onto the shelves.

The original source material comes from Lorenzo Carcaterra’s book of the same name an autobiographical tale of he and three other Hell’s Kitchen boys who in the 60's go to juvie prison after an innocent prank goes wrong. Barry Levinson seemed the right choice of director. His ensemble work with new actors in Diner launched his career. His nostaglic work in Avalon seemed the right fit for Carcaterra’s recollections of youth in New York.

Yet, Levinson’s lazy screenplay and direction is shamelessly on-the-nose. At every turn the film’s themes and metaphors are thrown in our faces. Bruno Kirby’s character for instance seems to be acting in a different movie, through Carcaterra’s (Patric) father we’re supposed to see the domestic abuse pervasive in the community, but at the same time the lessons of hard work and American dream. Instead Kirby’s stories of revenge pride and revenge of the neighbourhood gangster King Benny telegraph the entire path of this film. Same with the prison metaphors of The Count of Monte Cristo which Carcaterra reads with in prison.

The first half of the picture featuring the four main characters as ikmpressionable young kids learning life on the street seem to recreate the opening acts of Goodfellas and Once Upon a Time in America. Levinson showers us to dreamy nostalgia and earnestness. And sadly, the kids are only just passable. The adult versions of these kids are even less interesting. Brad Pitt looks handsome as an older Brad Renfro, and Jason Patric is mostly dull as the brooding alter ego of Joseph Perrino. The best of bunch are then newbies Ron Eldard and Billy Crudup who have grown up to be the neighbourhood gangsters. Anchoring both eras of the picture is Kevin Bacon as the dittling pedophile in the Juvenile prison who is effectively terrifying.

What fails the picture though are the enormous plot holes in the present – that is, the court case wherein Brad Pitt’s character choosing to represent the prosecution despite being childhood friends of the accused. We’re told that no one would make the connection since ‘juvenile records’ are destroyed after the children leave, but after painting the picture of Hell Kitchen as a place where everyone know each other, this notion just doesn’t tread water.

With this domino falling so does the rest of the film. The only bright spot is watching Robert De Niro, effective as the streetwise priest and Dustin Hoffman, as the drunken defence lawyer, sharing the same space and acting together. Wait for Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog a year later to see these guys in action in a far superior film.

Sleepers is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment

Under the Sun of Rome: Sotto il sole di Roma

Under the Sun of Rome - Sotto il sole di Roma (1948) dir. Renato Castellani
Starring: Oscar Blando, Liliana Mancini, Francesco Golisari, Maria Tozzi, Ferrucio Tozzi, Gisella Monaldi and Alberto Sordi

***½

By Greg Klymkiw

At one point in Renato Castellani’s strange neorealist comedy-drama Under the Sun of Rome, the layabout teen hero Ciro (Oscar Blando) and his hard-working beat cop Dad (Ferrucio Tozzi) are sleeping not-so-soundly during the day for very different reasons.

Ciro busily toils day and night doing nothing – save for occasional forays into mischief with his equally lazy pals. Pops, on the other hand, is on perpetual night shift – patrolling the dark streets and punching in tediously at the requisite check-in points. The son is only at risk getting caught for petty thievery. Pops is at risk every night keeping the eternal city as safe as possible.

One works, the other doesn’t – but as the sun of Roma beams through the windows of their tiny walk-up – both men on this particular morning, are getting no sleep.

Roly-poly Mamma (Maria Tozzi) is multitasking like only a mother can and berating both of them – at the top of her considerable lungs.

In a brief moment of respite from her justifiable haranguing (she works harder than the two of them together – multiplied, no doubt, to infinity), bleary Ciro calls out to his equally groggy Dad asking if ALL married women are like his mother.

Dad sighs with resignation and replies, “All.”

Ah, the eternal chasm ‘twixt man and woman.

Luckily, for the not-so-gentle sex, they have each other.

Under the Sun of Rome unfolds its episodic coming-of-age tale during World War II, but for a good portion of the picture, we’d never know it. Ciro and his buddies busy themselves with the fine rituals of doing nothing. Our hunky hero, adorned in a sporty new pair of white shoes and to-die-for shorts that outline the supple form of his delectable posterior and swarthy gams – Yes, GAMS! They’re that gorgeous – is supposed to be getting a presentable haircut for his new job.

Ciro has other plans. He rounds up his buddies for a day of slacking. Wandering through the crumbling Coliseum they come across Geppe (Francesco Golisari) a lad of the streets who makes his home there. Ciro and Geppe hit it off immediately and the new pal joins the layabouts for a dip in a secluded creek on railway property.

When rail company bulls show up to intimidate trespassers, Ciro loses his new shoes and the money Mamma gave him for a haircut. Nor has he bothered to go to work as promised. Terrified with the severe beating he’ll receive, Ciro does what any young lad would do – he doesn’t go home and instead, spends the night with Geppe in his magical little Coliseum hideaway.

This affords both young dreamboats the opportunity to gaze intently at each other’s fresh, lean man-boy perfection – replete with gentle digital gesticulations. Here Castellani directs veteran cinematographer Domenico (Ossessione) Scala’s camera in loving compositional directions to highlight the bountiful facial and physical attributes of both actors. (Larry Clark – eat your heart out.)

As time moves on, the picture recounts several entertaining incidents in the life of Ciro – stealing shoes from a shopkeeper (the great Alberto Sordi of The White Sheik and I Vitelloni fame), an on-again-off-again relationship with Iris (Liliana Mancini) the proverbial girl-next-door, dabbling in black marketeering once the German army enters Rome, dallying gigolo-like with the BBW-splendour of Tosca (Gisella Monaldi) a married-woman-cum-streetwalker and eventually crime that leads to the expected tragic ending.

Castellani’s storytelling technique and, in fact elements of the story itself, are delicately odd. I suspect his approach is intentional, though it is, at times slightly off-putting.

First of all, there is the first-person narration, which I think, IS exceptional. It’s literary AND literal. Often the voiceover will describe a physical action just before or during its execution as well as describing characters whom we see as described during said descriptions. Further to this, we will often hear narration to the effect of “So-and-so said…” and we’ll then hear the character recite the line of dialogue. The basic tenets of Screenwriting 101 suggest you should NEVER do any of the above. This, of course, is why the self-appointed scenarist gurus the world over are so often wrong. If it works, it works and IT does so splendidly here.

Secondly, I’m not so sure Castellani’s perspective on his female characters is as deep and sensitive as it could and should be. Even in I Vitelloni, the pinnacle of all male layabout films, Maestro Fellini is able to render strong female characters without turning them into borderline harridans as Castellani does with Mamma or worse, Iris – a harridan-to-be. (Not that the performances of the actresses are bad though – they’re as good as can be expected within the shallow dimensions they’re given to work with.)

Strangely, the female character that seems the most well rounded and lavished with the greatest degree of sensitivity is that of the plump, whorish Tosca. Even Scala’s cinematography of the women – save for the latter female character – is certainly competent, but lacking the loving detail and care so copiously drenched upon the young boys. One could argue this is intentional, but to that I say – argue away. Larry Clark rests MY case on this one – boys AND gals need equal cinematographic love. (In fairness though, there is ONE boner-inducing close-up of Liliana Mancini slowly opening the door.)

Finally, the strange element I find most appealing and flawed is the manner in which Ciro is portrayed – not in Blando’s performance, which is excellent within the parameters provided by Castellani, but the odd turns the character takes. When he is at his rakishly appealing, Ciro is a character we’re completely rooting for, but often he does and says things so abominable (for example, the way he continually professes love to Iris, kisses her passionately then hurls some invective that clearly hurts her feelings) that we turn on him so violently that it occasionally threatens to wrench us out of the drama. That said, what may feel like a storytelling flaw might well be completely intentional. In retrospect, Ciro’s eventual coming-of-age, his redemption if you will, has even greater force. The problem for me is that it’s in retrospect and not within the drama as it unfolds. Perhaps this is the film’s literary quality working, as it should and if so, I applaud Castellani’s brave choice in making such a bold series of moves.

What I love most about this picture is the craft employed in the forward thrust of its episodic narrative. The movie never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome at any point and yet, very often, it has a rhythm not unlike that of a lazy day and as such, is easily in the same sphere attained by Fellini in I Vitelloni. In fact, the slicing and dicing of editor Giuliano Betti is not only exceptional, but at times it is utterly breathtaking. Among many spectacular cuts, the one that stays with me is a gorgeous cut to a foot-level shot on the stairs in the walk-up when Ciro and Iris go into the hallway from his flat. Not only is this a cut of exquisite beauty, but also it leads us into a shot that is equally stunning (followed by a move that’s richly evocative and romantic.

Wow! This is rare cutting indeed.

Many of the cuts are suitably "silent", but only when they need to be. On occasion they knock you completely on your ass and force you to almost re-focus your gaze IN to the action on screen.

I have to sadly admit to having seen only one Castellani picture before (a weird English-dubbed public domain VHS tape of Hell in the City during the mid-80s - issued I think, to capitalize on Chained Heat and other babe-in-prison flicks starring Linda Blair and rented pour moi to satisfy my babe-in-prison fetish). Because of my Castellani-deprived state, I couldn't begin to claim that these cuts are a DIRECTORIAL trademark style of his and can only assume they were made in collaboration with a brilliant editor.

The credited editor is one Giuliano Betti. I have scoured the Internet quite extensively - including Italian sites, and found virtually no information about him. In fact, this appears to be his only editing credit (along with a bunch of assistant directing and continuity credits). Go figure. Whoever was responsible is a genius.

Under the Sun of Rome is a tremendously entertaining picture and even if it occasionally feels like a Diet Chinotto precursor to Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni (made six years before the Maestro’s masterpiece), it’s a worthy entry in the Italian neorealist sweepstakes.

The movie is playing Saturday August 6 on 35mm in the Toronto International Film Festival’s home at TIFF Bell Lightbox (as part of the delicious series “Days of Glory: Masterworks of Italian Neoralism”). Under the Sun of Rome will be a rare treat for those who make the effort to see it on a big screen as the picture still does not appear to be available on DVD other than as a non-subtitled Italian import. I Vitelloni will, by the way, screen in the same venue on Monday August 8 on a cool double-bill with Barry Levinson’s Diner. If you’re interested in reading several thousand words on the TIFF Bell Lightbox series and the Fellini-Levinson double bill, feel free to read my article at Electric Sheep Magazine.

The Music Room

The Music Room (1958) dir. Satyajit Ray
Starring: Chhabi Biswas, Padmadevi, Pinaki Sengupta, Gangapada Basu, Tulsi Lahiri

****

By Alan Bacchus

I have to confess that this was my first film from Satyajit Ray, the revered Indian director who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest film directors ever. In the middle of his famed Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and The World of Apu) he made The Music Room, a glorious meditative character study of an Indian aristocrat clinging to his outmoded, feudal way of life. Even if the Indian culture is too alien for lay-audiences, Ray’s visual style is distinctly Hollywood and wholly accessible, reminding us of a rich and textured studio system of noir films from the 1940s.

Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) is a 'Zaminder', a traditional Bengali aristocrat and landowner who rents his vast tracts of lands to be worked on by peasants and farmers. He’s 'old money', and at this period in his life he spends his time absent-mindedly listening to music and organizing lavish recitals instead of looking after his finances.

After a series of floods and a tragedy with his family, Roy is suddenly alone, his lands nearly wiped out and his finances ravaged with debt. Little by little the riches of his once great family palace are sold off leaving both the carcass of a kingdom and the carcass of a man laying in wake.

Roy’s only solace is his Music Room, a lavish room dedicated to throwing parties to showcase the best music and dance the country has to offer. Ray stages a number of fine musical sequences featuring traditional Indian instrumentation and dance. Now, I admit I'm not a fan of Bollywood musicals or even Indian music in general, but when used in this tragic melancholy story with Ray's superb eye for cinema, it’s a sublime and intoxicating combination.

Ray’s strong themes of class, family legacy and pride resonate as a form of disdainful imperial slavery. His main source of conflict comes from Mahim Ganguly, a self-made business man, who, at Roy's worst moment, hosts his own recital, thus stealing Roy’s thunder. Since Ray has put us in the point of view of the old-world aristocrat, we see Ganguly as an unsophisticated opportunist looking to usurp Roy and best him at the only thing that keeps him alive – his appreciation for music. And yet, we have no reason to sympathize with Ganguly, a man considered a lesser human being by the mere fact that his family does not come from title. Our awareness of this contradiction, the experience of being in Roy’s shoes and identifying with his shameful outlook of life, is wholly complex and intriguing.

Ray’s strong sense of cinema is of the highest order in this picture. The brooding gothic compositions and interior art direction remind us of a classic Hollywood mystery or potboiler. Ray’s camera is constantly moving, following his character through the massive, yet cold and desolate palace. Like the great studio master, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), Ray pushes his camera in and out of his characters frequently as a silent way of expressing and highlighting their moods and reactions without using words.

The Music Room set is especially brooding. The opening and closing shots feature a chandelier swaying in the wind, as if it has a life of its own. The motif complements the key beat, when, in the final act after the candles of the chandelier appear to shut off in succession, Roy goes mad and falls off the deep end for good. And helping set this mysterious and melancholy mood is Subrata Mitra's delicious high contrast black and white, reminiscent of something Orson Welles would have shot.

In fact, The Music Room has much in common with Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, two gothic noir films about patriarchal autocrats and their self-propagating fall from grace. It’s no exaggeration to put The Music Room in their company.

The Music Room is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane

There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (2011) dir. Liz Garbus
Documentary

***½

By Alan Bacchus

You may have heard this story already, as it made the press rounds a couple of years ago. It’s a strange case of a seemingly normal, well-adjusted middle-class mom travelling home from the cottage with her two young kids and three nieces. She inexplicably loses her sense of direction and starts speeding the wrong way on the highway before tragically killing eight people, including herself and all but one of her passengers.

So what happened to Diane Schuler? According to the autopsy her blood alcohol level was well above the legal limit and there were strong traces of marijuana. Diane’s husband, Daniel, appeared on Oprah, Larry King and other shows to vehemently deny the allegations. But science doesn’t lie, does it? Liz Garbus’s haunting documentary on the subject follows Diane Schuler’s husband and sister-in-law as they fight to clear her name and search out the truth about what happened to Diane on that fateful drive home.

Director Liz Garbus, fresh off her absorbing Sundance-screened doc Bobby Fischer Against the World, sympathizes with the family, who, because of the alcohol and drug tests, has had Diane’s name dragged through the mud as a drunk-driving irresponsible mother. As Garbus goes through minute-by-minute details of the four-hour journey from the New Jersey campsite to the Taconic State Parkway, we get to know the intimate details of Diane Schuler’s life.

We hear accounts of Schuler’s oldest niece calling home from the car on Diane’s cell phone alerting her parents to her aunt’s mysterious ailment. A migraine maybe? An embolism? We’ll never know exactly what happened in that car.

As important as the investigative details are, the details of Garbus herself and the life she led up until that point are just as interesting. Garbus expertly draws a thorough character sketch of Diane, who at nine years of age, traumatized by her parents divorce, grew up developing a subconscious urge to be in control. This trait helped her succeed in her career and raise two kids virtually on her own while Daniel worked nights. But it was a trait that also may have contributed to her death.

In legal terms this is called character evidence, and it feeds precisely into the objective of the film, which is to exonerate Diane and explain to the world what kind of exceptional circumstances must have contributed to the accident.

The final moments of the eyewitness accounts describing the accident are haunting and confounding. The images and descriptions of true blood-curdling horror have stuck in my mind for over a week since I saw the film. But the strongest lingering effects are the contradictory actions of Diane in these last moments of her life compared to the righteous decency and high level of responsibility she had shown as a wife and a mother. There was indeed something wrong with Aunt Diane and sadly we’ll never know what.

There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane is currently playing on HBO as part of the HBO Documentary Films Summer Series.

Five Minutes of Heaven

Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson

****

By Reece Crothers

Oliver Hirschbiegel, director of Downfall, once again blends fact and fiction to great effect in one of the year's most overlooked films. Working on a smaller canvas here than on the Oscar nominated Hitler picture, German filmmaker Hirschbeigel tackles "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland with an intelligent and challenging screenplay from Guy Hibberts, who collaborated with Paul Greengrass on another film about the plight of Northern Ireland, 2004's Omagh, a worthy film that was also mostly ignored.

Over black, the voice of Liam Neeson tells us, "In order to understand the man I am, you have to know something about the man I was," and so the part of the film that is fact is a meticulously recreated 1975 murder of a catholic boy by a young U.V.F. "soldier". The hit is lead by 17-year-old Alistair Little, who has volunteered with the hope that killing one of the enemy will make him a big man with the other lads, the higher-ups, who will then march him into the local pub as a hero, a force to be recognized. It's not personal for him. He doesn't see the enemy as a person. For Alistair there is only "us" and "them". As Alistair prepares to assassinate the Catholic boy, we are treated to scenes of the boy's family life and meet his little brother Joe, who spends all day kicking the football against the bricks of his row-house, trying to break his own record. When Alistair murders Joe's brother, shooting from the street into the bedroom window, he spares little Joe only because he mistakes the boy for a neighbour.

The boy grows into James Nesbitt as the adult Joe Griffen, a husband and father teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown, and we wonder how much life was really spared, how much of the little boy actually survived. Joe is a man hollowed out over years of guilt and grief and, most of all, rage. Nesbitt plays him as a bundle of nerves that could kick off an explosion at any minute. Liam Neeson plays the adult Alistair Little as a broken man, living a lonely empty life – a melancholy, lost soul haunted by the murder he carried out three decades ago, and about to face Joe Griffen for the first time since the night of the killing. A television reality program has brought them together ostensibly in pursuit of reconciliation. But with a dagger hidden in his belt, adult Joe has more than reconciliation on his mind. He's going for retribution and revenge for his "five minutes of heaven".

This is the part of the film that is fiction, the imagined meeting of two men who "bare the legacy of" the true story. "Do I shake the man's hand or do I kill him?" That question drives the first half of the film, where the journey of each man toward the TV set is plagued with painful memories played out in flashbacks. The two leads are a great match, and one of the picture's strengths is the thrill of watching two actors at the peak of their talents play against each other, whether in the same scene or through the clever editing of their parallel stories and flashbacks.

Both actors have given some of their best performances in films about the Troubles before: Neeson in the title role of Neil Jordan's excellent Michael Collins and Nesbitt in the lead of Paul Greengrass' pre-Bourne breakout Bloody Sunday. Here Nesbitt is electric. He careens wildly from composed family guy full of charm to raging would-be killer. It's an impressive tightrope that he walks. Equally good in his restrained, sorrowful performance as the repentant killer, Neeson's face, handsome in a slightly broken way, perfectly emulates melancholy and regret and gives Alistair Little a dignified grace that would not usually be afforded a character who has committed his crime. And while the film works as a revenge thriller building towards the two men's reunion, and we are reminded by Neeson that Nesbitt "...doesn't want to hear me say I'm sorry. He's here to confront me!", it evolves beyond the limitations of the genre. Most revenge pictures work on the notion that we all want the hero to kill the bad guy. Look no further than Neeson's recent blockbuster Taken as an example of that, as well as Tarantino's comeback picture Inglourious Basterds, Mel Gibson's Payback (admittedly, good fun), Charlie Bronson's Death Wish, Michael Caine's Get Carter or most of Clint Eastwoods’ films. What sets this apart is that it takes its time setting up the murder, the events preceding it unfolding with the white-knuckle suspense of a great ‘70s thriller, so that we are emotionally invested in the fates of both Alistair and the little boy kicking the ball against the bricks. The film doesn't allow us the luxury of writing the young Alistair off as "the bad guy". We experience his fear, his resolve, his desire to prove himself to his peers and elders. We understand that he thinks what he is doing is right and true. And the killing is all the more horrific for it.

When the smoke clears the ending is more complex and provocative than the revenge thriller aspects would lead you to expect. This is a film that never claims to offer easy answers, nor does it attempt to provide any. In the end we pray for mercy, for both of them, and wonder along with the filmmakers another question, a more difficult one: after so much violence and suffering, "is reconciliation even possible" for men like Joe and Alistair? This question drives the second half of the film with just as much tension as the first but with much deeper drama. We don't root for Joe Griffen's revenge; we wait with knots twisting in our guts for his reckoning.

Further recommended viewing: Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday", Pete Travis' "Omagh", Neil Jordan's "Danny Boy (Angel)" and "Michael Collins", Ken Loach's "Hidden Agenda", Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out", John Ford's "The Informer", Jim Sheridan's "In The Name Of The Father" and "The Boxer", Alan Clarke's "Elephant".

Boyz in the Hood

Boyz in the Hood (1991) dir. John Singleton
Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube. Laurence Fishburne, Nia Long, Angela Bassett,

***½

By Alan Bacchus

John Singleton's landmark slice of South Central gangsta life, which reached international acclaim after its Cannes debut and garnered two Oscar noms for writer/director Singleton in 1991, still stings today. The emotionally powerful morality tale of how youth in the marginalized, poverty-stricken African American "ghetto" of Los Angeles can turn to gang life in place of their absentee parents feels as poignant now as then.


Singleton's point of view into this world is Tre (Gooding Jr.), whom we first see as a naive kid goofing around with his equally impressionable friends Ricky (the all-American athlete star destined for a college scholarship) and Doughboy (the fatherless miscreant). Fast-forwarding, we see how some significant life decisions caused Doughboy to go to juvenile prison for the murder of a fellow homeboy and Tre and Ricky growup up scuff-free. But when the trio are reunited, Tre finds himself inescapably drawn into the neighbourhood gangster wars and drive-by shootings.

Watch the deftness of Singleton's writing. As Doughboy, Ice Cube is more than the aggressive firecracker of violence he could have been characterized as. Instead, Singleton and Cube create a complex, layered young man, both aggressive and spiteful of the world, but also sincere, comforting and understanding of his place in the culture. This can be seen in the final goodbye between Tre and Doughboy, a tearjerker of a scene. Doughboy and his crew drive to the mall to find the rival gang to avenge the death of their friend, but when Tre tells him to stop and let him out, Doughboy puts up no fight, quietly acknowledging that the violent path of revenge is not Tre's job, but Doughboy's. With few words, Gooding and Cube quietly acknowledge this complex, streetwise code of honour.

In addition to the race and social issues at hand, Boyz in the Hood also feels like a time capsule of early '90s pop culture that so greatly influenced style and trends throughout the decade. Again, look at Ice Cube, then a hardcore rapper in NWA, with his distinctly curled eyebrow, wearing all black, slurring his n-words with a snarling lip. He's badass L.A.-gangster personified and a walking fashion statement for legions of hip-hop fans.

If the film didn't paint such a vivid picture of a small but fascinating subset of American life, and if it wasn't a pop culture, trendsetting touchstone, it would still work as a universally poignant father-son story. The process of educating one's son to be a "man" is referred to a number of times, but it's more than just corny hyperbole; it's at the absolute heart of the violence. Laurence (then billed as Larry) Fishburne commands the screen, a strong guiding force for Tre, keeping him on the path of righteousness despite everything pulling him the opposite way towards violence. This is the stuff of classic storytelling and when acted with such strong, believable conviction, films like this last forever.

The 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray contains featurettes and commentary from previous DVD versions, but the new stuff, and the treasure of this disc, is the newly produced anniversary documentary featuring the cast and crew looking back on their work and the influence on their careers. Ice Cube, Gooding Jr. Singleton, Fishburne and more provide intelligent, articulate ruminations on the film. Singleton candidly describes the somewhat negative effect his success had on him as a 21-year-old. Being put in the company of Orson Welles can give a cinephile a big ego and Singleton admits this. Sadly, Boyz is still the high water mark for Singleton, as he has yet to match the creative inspiration of this picture, a profoundly mature work from such a young person.

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

The Devil's Double

The Devil’s Double (2011) dir. Lee Tamahori
Starring: Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi

***

By Alan Bacchus

After the very public outing of Lee Tamahori's personal problems, it’s so very gratifying to praise his latest film, The Devil’s Double, a Belgian film made far far away from Hollywood. Though it’s not a return to the tour-de-force form of Once Were Warriors, it’s certainly a giant leap above sell outs Die Another Day or xXx 2. The true story of Uday Saddam Hussein, the spoiled rotten son of the former Iraqi dictator, a sadistic loose cannon, whose rampage of torture, rape, and murder in the pre-Gulf War days made him infamous and legendary.

Tamahori seems to channel his own now very personal hedonistic demons into his portrayal of Hussein. He turns this story into a gluttonously biopic cum action film, striving for the same shamelessly over-indulgence as say, Brian De Palma’s Scarface but grounded in the same absurd realities of The Last King of Scotland.

Dominic Cooper is simply delicious in the dual role as Uday as well as his double Latif, who in real life was an old school friend of Uday’s but was kidnapped from his family and held hostage for years to be his political double.

As Uday, Cooper plays his bombastic psychopath with high energy. And as Latif, Cooper is able to dial down his rage into an nail-biting internalization of his emotions. Though the physical difference in character is represented only by Uday’s buck teeth and combed down haircut, Cooper’s subtle differences in performance is more than enough for us to distinguish each character.

While there’s some astonishingly gory violence displayed on screen, Tamahori cranks it up so far, it spills over for comedic purposes. Mondo sex, drugs, bullets and blood taken to its extreme to counterplay the unbelievable disregard for humanity which occurred in real life. However grotesque Tamahori challenges us to treat Uday Hussein as entertainment and succeeds.

Last Night

Last Night (2011) dir. Massy Tadjedin
Starring: Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Guillaume Canet, Griffin Dunne

**½

By Alan Bacchus

It’s an intriuging start to Last Night, Joanna and Michael Reed (Knightley and Worthington), married, finish off their Manhattan evening party and travel home. Joanna is cold as ice to Michael, so something is up. Joanna is drunk, Michael, only slightly. Once home Joanna proceeds to grill Michael on some dalliances of the evening – specifically some coy flirtations with his female colleague Laura (Mendes).

Though there wasn't any specific funny business, Joanna saw 'something' and she takes serious offence. Michael, of course, claims innocence, after all, nothing happened. Joanna’s drunkenness perpetuates the fight causing a very realistic domestic row, something identifiable probably to most people.

The strong naturalistic dialogue in this scene plays out wonderfully. We feel Michael’s frustration as the brunt of Joanna’s tirade. Nothing he says is the right thing. As the sober man, he should really just shut up, get some rest and deal with her insecurities when she’s sober in the morning.

This opening is the best part of Last Night, an intimate four-hander which shows the temptations of this couple once they split apart for the rest of the film. The next day Michael has to go on a business trip to Philadelphia with Laura, leaving Joanna at home by herself. But when she runs into an old flame Alex (a dreamy Guillaume Canet), she finds herself the target of the same kind of aggressive flirtation as Michael the previous night.

Laura/Michael’s flirtations in Philly match up to Joanna/Alex’s in NYC in a somewhat contrived morality tale. Unfortunately the dual temptations play out with lesser naturalism than the opening act. Alex’s pursuit of Laura is so deliberate it’s almost hostile. Alex is given little shades of grey or layers to explore. He’s characterized simply as a philandering playboy dead set on getting Joanna into bed. That said, it’s Guillaume Canet, and he’s French and thus romantically disarming.

Same with Eva Mendes, she’s as much eye candy as Canet is. We never really get to know her. As such she comes off as merely a cypher for Michael’s unconscious libidous desires. The narrative progresses much too straight forward, with little turns or bumps. We know where this is going to go, and despite a very slight twist in expectations in the end there's little added drama or emotional weight to anything beyond the first act.

If anything, we can take home Knightley and Worthington’s fine performances and director Tadjedin dialogue in the opening, which is as mesmerizing as Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s tiff in Eyes Wide Shut. Of course in that film Cruise’s journey thereonin involved a cinematic sex orgy for ages. Last Night is more restrained, but too predictable and less stimulating.

Last Night is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Eone Entertainment in Canada

Captain America

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) dir. Joe Johnston
Starring: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones

***

By Alan Bacchus

The announcement that journeyman visual effects guy-turned-director Joe Johnston was attached to this project wasn’t really a cause for celebration. His body of work consists mostly of adequate, though ultimately unmemorable, ‘effects’ films (Jumanji, Jurassic Park 3, Wolf Man). Johnston’s been around the block and so we wouldn’t even get a fresh new voice into the mix.

However, after watching the first few scenes of Captain America I started to come around. The WWII setting of this picture under the faux war effort-style propaganda filmmaking style of Hollywood in the ‘40s brought back memories of the underrated comic book film from 1990, The Rocketeer, which was directed by... you guessed it, Joe Johnston. The pieces of this puzzle were now fitting together.

Captain America is the last of another puzzle, the Avengers Saga, an ambitious undertaking by Marvel Entertainment that began in 2008 with Iron Man to create a series of independent feature films that fed into a ‘super-group’ movie, The Avengers, due out in 2012. Iron Man was a fantastic film. The Incredible Hulk that same summer was decent and a sign that this might just actually work. Next came Iron Man 2 in 2010, which was a dreadful quickie sequel that betrayed the inspiration of the first picture. And then Thor came out earlier this year, which, like IM 2, was mostly awful. But now the series picks up a bit of its mojo with Captain America , a rousing actioner with spirit.

It’s 1941 and America is recruiting soldiers to fight abroad. One of the hopefuls is Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a meek, scrawny weakling who gets denied service, but through perseverance and a bit of cheating he will not take no for answer. After witnessing Rogers’ steadfast patriotic belief and determination to stand up for himself, German ex-pat scientist Dr. Abraham Erskine (Tucci), recruits Rogers into the military to be a guinea pig for his experiments in body enhancement. And at the first act turn, the meek Rogers is transformed into a beefcake ubermench with super strength and lightning speed.

But instead of going to Europe, Rogers becomes a spokesman for war bonds, prostituted in recruitment revival shows, ads and USO concerts. When Rogers’ best friend goes missing in Italy, Captain America goes AWOL and arranges a secret rescue mission. All the while, Dr. Erskine’s old rival, Johann Schmid (Hugo Weaving), is conducting similar experiments on his own with his splinter Nazi group called Hydra. Rogers quickly recognizes Schmid as the real enemy he needs to excise, thus sparking a battle of ages, one which will likely spill over into the present and involve the other superheroes from the other movies in The Avengers.

In many ways, Captain America feels like the G.I. Joe movie that never was – a rousing story of triumph over adversity with a strong American patriotic spirit that actually works for the picture. The origin story, like the beginnings of Iron Man, contains the best moments. Chris Evans' digitally enhanced underweight alter ego is a fine bit of invisible CGI. We know it’s not Evans' body. In fact, we know it’s 'face replacement technology' used by Fincher in Benjamin Button and The Social Network, but it works so wonderfully, especially when acted with such earnestness by Evans. Stanley Tucci also does a wonderful turn as Rogers' kindly mentor

Unfortunately, what fails the pictures is Joe Johnston’s action scenes. Once Cap’n America gets to Europe and is engaged in Nazi-fighting, Johnston curiously chooses to show much of this action in montage form. We’re deprived of a few set pieces, full-length scenes with a build-up and payoff. Instead, we see a series of random shots of jumping, punching, motorcycle riding and explosions without anything tying it all together.

Johnston, thought a special effects expert, uses too much of it. As such, we get the feeling that during most of the action Evans is in front of a green screen on soundstage, and NOT in the forests of Western Europe or the snow-capped Bavarian mountains. This takes us out of the anchored reality in which we were placed in the first act.

But what Captain America does better than Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk is set up The Avengers movie and tie together some threads from the other pictures. Dominic Cooper's Howard Stark character, thus Robert Downey Jr.'s father, is a clever link-up. It’s the same with the other worldly motivation of Hugo Weaving's character, which suggests a link-up with the alien gods of Thor. And with the Easter egg clip and trailer at the end of the credit I'm sufficiently teased. That's all I wanted and Captain America delivered.

People on Sunday

People on Sunday (1930) dir. Robert Siodmak
Starring: Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen, Christl Ehlers, Annie Schreyer

****

By Alan Bacchus

What a pedigree of talent behind this remarkable landmark in experimental independent cinema. It’s a silent German film at the end of the famed ‘Weimar period’ of German cinema, directed by future ex-pats Robert Siodmak and his brother Curt, and co-written by Billy Wilder. The film was produced by Edgar Ulmer, who was the set designer for Metropolis and M and himself a future Hollywood emigrant. Look closely and you’ll find the great Fred Zinneman (High Noon, From Here to Eternity) as cameraman. All of these guys were hopeful filmmakers in the ‘20s, unable to break into the German film industry themselves and thus, like any young emerging filmmaker today, they were forced to make it on their own with guile.

The result is a film that meets the mark we’d expect from such young and talented collaborators, a freeform kind of neo-realism combining non-actors in an unsecured real-world setting with only a semblance of a narrative script. And it's intoxicating.

The vague title is an indication of the unrestrictive nature of the story at play. A taxi driver, a model, a film extra and a wine dealer, all young Berliners who float about the city as strangers, eventually meet up for a relaxing double date involving a paddleboat on the river on a Sunday afternoon.

The sexual tension between the four of them is palpable. Edwin, the taxi driver, for example, is engaged to Annie who spends her days moping around the house. On the day of their date he finds her sleeping on the bed, but he leaves anyway to meet up with Wolfgang. Together they pick up Christl and Brigitte for said 'double date'. Siodmak and his colleagues never pass judgement on Edwin for possibly cheating on his girlfriend. A carefree 'swinging' attitude is something we’d see in New Wave film or British kitchen sink dramas of the ‘60s.

The sexual liberties can also be seen in a number of suggestive metaphors with creative editing. At one point Wolfgang chases after Brigit, where they make out on the grass. The next scene begins with a shot of a nude mannequin implying they just had casual sex. Wolfgang, in fact, freely flirts with both women in an astute and playful battle of sexes.

Zinneman’s camera is always in a state of flux, capturing the flavour of the city with the same laconic style as the characters in the film. Siodmak’s placement of the 'actors' in real locations with unrehearsed real background crowds lends a remarkable production value to this very small film. And look out for the sharpness of the editing (which is not credited). The brisk pace from the variety of camera angles feels thoroughly modern, arguably taking some strong influence from the famed Soviet editing techniques. In fact, in the Criterion Collection liner notes, Dsiga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera and the Eisenstein films seem to be the filmmakers’ prime influence.

Part of the joy of the film is the contention between all these great filmmakers about who the true author of the picture is. Robert Siodmak denies Wilder had any involvement at all, and Ulmer (the credited producer) worked just a handful of days on the film. In his older age Billy Wilder would once tell Cameron Crowe that ‘they all directed it.’ Much of these speculations are storied in the fine documentary produced in 2000, as well as the comprehensive liner notes included on the Blu-ray disc.

As usual, Criterion outdoes itself by introducing the cinema world at large to a rare gem featuring some of the greatest filmmakers – young, ambitious, carefree and passionate artists looking to make their mark in the great medium of film.

People on Sunday is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Crooklyn

Crooklyn (1994) dir. Spike Lee
Starring: Delory Lindo, Alfre Woodard, Zelda Harris, David Patrick Kelly

****

By Alan Bacchus

After Do the Right Thing, Crooklyn is Spike Lee’s next best fiction film, a nearly forgotten stylish masterpiece. It’s a foot-tapping fast paced colourful jaunt through the memories of Spike Lee’s childhood in Brooklyn in the ‘70s. This is Spike Lee at his most inspired. Watching the technical bravura of Crooklyn is like watching a confident Martin Scorsese at the height of his creative abilities.

Sadly, most people have either never heard of this film or they’ve simply forgotten about it. After all, when Spike Lee is mentioned, people seem to think about Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, his great documentary work and maybe his mid-career commercial renaissance with Inside Man and a bunch of other films.

In the magnificent opening credit sequence, Lee kick-starts the film was a superbly shot and edited montage of various childhood games played by street kids. Before video games, we all played hopscotch, freeze, handball, jump rope, etc. Instantly, a swell of nostalgia overcomes us. These were simple days when time seemed to stand still and kids didn’t have a care in the world. The only thing on these kids’ minds was how to get candy or ice cream, pulling pranks on each other and sneaking around on their parents to watch Soul Train or the Knicks game late at night.

Lee’s point of view into this world is nine-year-old Troy (Zelda Harris), the sister to four rambunctious brothers. Her parents, Woody (Lindo) and Carolyn (Woodard), like everyone, struggle to make ends meet. Carolyn is a teacher with a comfortable income, but the family is burdened by Woody’s more tenuous career as a freelance musician, an artist with integrity but with little means of providing support. While her parents put food on the table, Troy and the other kids do what kids do – run around getting into all kinds of trouble like they own the neighbourhood.

There’s not much of a traditional throughline in the film. Instead, nostalgia and the episodic set pieces push the movie forward. Lee’s technical hallmarks are in full force, including the pathetic glue sniffers, one of whom is played by Spike Lee himself. The film also features wildly spinning camera moves and his signature tracking shots, which have the stationary actors being carried through a scene by the camera dolly. Cross-dressing diva RuPaul even gets a wild set piece in a raucous slow motion dance sequence during which (s)he seduces the diminutive local convenience store owner.

One of the most inspired sequences of Lee’s career is when Troy is sent to the suburbs in the South for the summer. The culture shock of living in the middle-class white picket fence environment is visualized with a distorted and stretched picture effect. Like watching an anamorphic movie stretched on a full-screen television, it creates a disorientation that complements Troy’s alienation.

Like the more celebrated works of Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights), Spike Lee uses pop music of the era to help drive the film. Wall-to-wall soul and funk anthems are sharply edited with the camera whips, pans, crawls, climbs and dances so the movement is in step with the bouncing soundtrack.

Lee brings in some rather serious plot turns in the third act, which threaten to put a damper on the whole affair. But even in death Lee finds humour and the joy of life. Perhaps this is why Crooklyn never became remembered as fondly as Boogie Nights, Goodfellas or even Do the Right Thing. However, even in the dark moments Crooklyn is a celebration of black urban youth, a rare commodity in cinema these days. Please go out and rediscover Spike Lee's sorely under-appreciated Crooklyn.

Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole (2011) dir. John Cameron Mitchell
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Weist, Miles Teller, Tammy Blanchard, Sandra Oh

****

By Alan Bacchus

There's no doubt that Rabbit Hole is a painful film. It's about a couple dealing with the absolute worst kind of pain – the loss of one’s son, a toddler. Despite the pain and stress between Becca and Howie, we so desperately yearn for them to get through it. Miraculously, the film manages to humanize every character, creating organic conflict without melodramatically exploiting the tragedy. It’s a great film, which received some decent coverage during awards season but sadly not nearly enough.

Nicole Kidman plays Becca, who is in the middle of a grieving period after seeing her 4-year-old son tragically killed in a car accident. She and her husband, Howie (Eckhart), are doing their best to deal with it. It’s been eight months, and the stress is weakening the joints of their marriage. For Howie, coping means going to group therapy, watching old videos of his son and maintaining their domestic lifestyle. On the other hand, Becca needs change. Packing up the baby clothes, removing the car seat and mocking the therapy sessions seem like spiteful reactions to Howie.

Writer David Lindsay-Abaire purposefully evens the scales between the two. No one is right and no one is wrong, yet their marriage is crumbling. They quickly start to lead more independent lives. Becca finds comfort in meeting Jason, the young man who drove the car that killed her son, and Howie quietly flirts with Gaby (Sandra Oh) from group therapy.

Director John Cameron Mitchell rings out some remarkable austere tension in these moments. The chemistry between Howie and Gaby is palpable, and we’re never quite sure what he should do. Though the interactions between Becca and Jason are innocent, there is some sexual tension there. We understand both of their reactions, and the fact that we’re not told who to side with propels the story forward with a surprisingly aggressive thrust.

Eckhart and Kidman are fantastic as Becca and Howie – it’s some of the best work either actor has ever done. But the discovery is the young actor playing Jason, Miles Teller, who is simply astonishing. His mesmerizing and earth-shatteringly real reactions to such extreme sadness are spot-on perfection.

Mitchell satisfies our needs as the audience and hits those strong emotional buttons. Scenes of infinite sadness and loud shouting matches are the stuff Academy voters love to see. But the power of this movie is what keeps the couple together – an inexplicable bond of their love for each other and the love of their son. This is what makes the film so compelling, hopeful and celebratory of life.

Skateland

Skateland (2010) dir. Anthony Burns
Starring: Shiloh Fernandez, Ashley Greene, Heath Freeman, Brett Cullen

***

By Alan Bacchus

Skateland plays like a more genuine Adventureland. The similarities are there, as both films have amusement parks as their key locations. Both films also use the early ‘80s as the time period to express pivotal life changing moments of the lives of young people stuck between youth and adulthood and between freedom and responsibility. Yet, Skateland is able to capture a genuine poignancy about the era and thus deliver a surprisingly satisfying and lingering coming-of-age drama.

It’s the early ‘80s and Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez) is a customer service manager at the local Skateland roller rink in Austin, Texas, which, like in The Last Picture Show, is about to be shut down. Ritchie spends his days rollerskating, drinking, hanging with friends and doing all the other activities people do during their senior year in high school. But Ritchie has graduated, and he’s still without a distinct path in life. He’s a great writer though, and even with encouragement from his supporting little sister, he still won’t commit to his future.

Arriving back in town after a shortened career racing motorcycles is Ritchie’s old buddy Brent Burkham (Heath Freeman), a big man on campus – he’s a confident and cocky playboy and the supreme guys’ guy. But he’s been courting a new girl, who happens to be the ex of the leader of a group of dickwad assholes. Periodically, this group called the Four Horseman confronts Brent and Ritchie looking to start a fight. Meanwhile, Ritchie develops a relationship with Brent’s sister, who encourages him to make plans and realize his full potential. Over the course of the summer Ritchie weighs his options and ponders life’s new possibilities.

We’ve been bombarded with ‘80s nostalgia throughout this past decade, and so Skateland would appear to have jumped the shark as yet another attempt by the filmmaker to ‘write about what he knows’. But somehow Burns manages to surmount all the clichés inherent in his conventional plotting.

Burns’ biggest aid is newbie lenser Peter Simonte’s luscious super 35 mm cinematography. It’s so well lit and shot we expect to see high profile and recognizable actors underneath the beautifying light. But nope – Burns has a bunch of no-namers, all of whom do more than just hit their marks, as they bring a kind of freshness we didn‘t get from Adventureland.

What‘s refreshing is Burns’ classical composition and minimalist editing philosophy, a style harkening back to the 1960s when scenes would play out in wide shots without cutting in for traditional coverage. Burns trusts his actors to play a scene and get the proper timing and rhythm of the picture without the need for excessive editing. As such, our eyes are allowed to relax and our brains are less strained, which contributes to the laid back, languid enjoyability of the film.

Burns’ score, as expected, belts out a mix of ‘80s pop classics from Blondie to Queen, as well as some lesser known one-hit wonders to get your foot tapping. He’s not afraid to overload his music on us if it accurately expresses the inner emotional state of the character. Take the finale for instance, as Burns holds for a lengthy walking steady cam shot of Ritchie walking through the mall to find Michelle. The Modern English song ’I Melt With You’ expresses the foot tapping excitement of Ritchie as he’s about to give Michelle the good news.

Admittedly, by the mid-point of the film I questioned what it was about with its paper-thin narrative with little forward movement and minimal conflict. But I was never bored, and I cared deeply for Burns’ characters. Much like The Runaways, Skateland admirably coasts full steam ahead on a full tank of genuine nostalgia and enthusiasm for its bygone era.

Another Earth

Another Earth (2011) dir. Mike Cahill
Starring: William Mapother, Brit Marling

**½

By Alan Bacchus

A great ending goes a long way in cinema, and especially in Another Earth, Mike Cahill’s low budget love story cum sci-fi film. Most of the picture is an uninspired brooding two-hander only to be buoyed by the remarkably intriguing high concept and the puzzling finale.

The premise is as follows – one day scientists discover a second earth in the sky. It’s the exact same earth inhabited by earthlings just like us. Doppelgangers maybe? Alternate versions of ourselves maybe? The possibilities are absolutely fascinating.

This premise is left in the background, ineffectual to the plot, until the ending. In between, it’s the story of Rhoda (Brit Marling) and John (William Mapother), who are connected by a tragic car accident of which John’s family was the victim and Rhoda the assailant. Four years after serving time Rhoda is free and finds herself drawn to and eventually connecting with John by posing as a house cleaner. Meanwhile, Rhoda enters a contest to be on the first crew to travel to the other earth, called Earth 2; a journey she hopes will help reconcile her mistakes of the past.

Another Earth does what sci-fi does best – it opens up the spiritual qualities of the human heart that are indefinable by science. In this case, the other version of earth serves as a form of an afterlife. It’s a perfect metaphor both thematically and visually, as the other earth sits prominently in the sky at all times, looming over our characters at home.

Ordinarily, with such a confined story, films like these often benefit from their low budgets – filmmakers maximizing story, substance, and theme. Moon and Primer are primary examples of this. Unfortunately, Cahill uses a low rent video camera to shoot the film, which looks as if it was dusted off from 1999. This makes the picture ugly to the point of distracting us from the story. Flat lighting and uninspired camera work and composition don’t do justice to the sparkling story revealing itself.

Brit Marling and William Mapother are adequate, though mostly unmemorable, as would-be lovers. And the guts of this film – Rhoda’s deception and eventual love story with John – are just as clunky. The second act slows down to a crawl, and the director’s rudimentary visual style wears the film thin.

Cahill’s wild card is the stunning final shot – a shot so powerful and holding such immense dramatic gravity that it legitimizes the entire movie no matter how banal. I certainly won’t spoil it here, but it’s clear the film has been reverse-engineered from this point. If only Cahill had the same level of inspiration in the 85 minutes preceding this miraculous moment. I can’t think of another film tearing me two different ways in such extremes.