JOHNNY HANDSOME

Johnny Handsome (1989) dir. Walter Hill
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Morgan Freeman, Lance Hendrikson

***

One of the great directors of the 70’s and 80’s is the muscular Walter Hill, once a protégé of the most muscular of all directors Sam Peckinpah. Hill's career was jumpstarted when he wrote Peckinpah’s great heist flick, “The Getaway” (1972), and from then developed a career influenced by the great master of beautiful violence and masculine fury. "Johnny Handsome" was one of the last good films from the man, a neo-noir/updated Western with a surprisingly sentimental touch.

Mickey Rourke plays John Sedley, also known as Johnny Handsome on account of his facial deformations from birth. Since his broken youth, Johnny has used his innate intelligence for crime and become a sought-after crack heist expert. In the opening, he’s recruited by his lifelong friend and mentor Mikey (Scott Wilson) into doing a bank job with a couple of smarmy hoods, Sunny and Rafe (Ellen Barkin and Lance Hendrickson). The duo indeed double-cross them, leaving Mikey dead and Johnny in prison.

While in the joint a kindly doctor (Forest Whitaker), looking to test his new facial reconstructive procedures, offers Johnny a chance at freedom in exchange for being his guinea pig. The procedure works and Johnny is actually turned 'handsome'. Once out he gets a job working the New Orleans shipyard and even catches the eye of a comely office gal (Elizabeth McGovern). Johnny’s desire for revenge eats away at his soul and decides to take action against Sunny and Rafe no matter what the cost.

Walter Hill was the master of close quarters action, and in this film, as usual, the action bristles with anger and intensity. From "The Driver" to “The Long Riders” to "Extreme Prejudice" Walter Hill loves to stage a good heist scene, but you won't find any Jason Statham tongue-in-cheek wittiness here.

The film, and in particular the opening heist scene, is aided by two of Hill's frequent collaborators, editor Freeman Davies and composer Ry Cooder. The opening credit and heist scenes have the same tight montage-style rhythm which Sam Peckinpah birthed in "The Wild Bunch". Davies' quick cuts to lines of dialogue and moments of action are punctuated with Ry Cooder's distinct blues-inspired slide guitar.

While there's elements of a neo-noir, Hill films the story with a particularly Western genre sensibility. Mickey Rourke’s soft-spoken, big-stick carrying protagonist is lifted right out of the Western template. Equal parts Shane, Tom Destry, Randolph Scott, Johnny Handsome is a classic aloof antihero.

Without being misogynistic Hill uses women as points of conflict for Handsome, pilons for him to maneuver around to get to the end of the journey. Johnny is heroic and distant, a gentle lover and protective, but also too stubborn to accept a new way of life, a distinctly male viewpoint into human tragedy, which Westerns typically explore. When he has to reconcile crime with his lover, he chooses the score and the need to avenge his best friend’s death.

Unfortunately the new DVD reissue from Lions Gate is full screen, and available in standard definition only. But the form doesn't reduce the quality of the content, so try and find it. Enjoy.

CINEMA'S GREAT REVEALS

Part of the job of the film director is to hold back information from the audience, and ‘reveal’ it at the appropriate time and place as to generate maximum impact. Whether it’s the introduction of a character, or a twist in plot, or revealing something about one’s character, with the right camera angle, cut and reaction from an actor can leave a lasting impression.

Here’s 20 of the great ones. Needless to say, this entire feature is a SPOILER:

1. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ("I am your father")

“I am your father” is one of the most famous movie quotes of all time. Obi Wan hinted at the big reveal in the first film when Luke asks about how his own father died. With a slight hesitation Obi Wan gulps and lies to Luke that Darth Vader killed his father. And so when Luke and Darth finally meet for a climatic fight in the second film we understand Luke’s passion to kill Vader and avenge his father’s death. But when Luke is defeated and defenseless Vader reveals his true identity. Because “Empire Strikes Back” is a such a well-directed and intense film this moment will always provide the dramatic emotional punch whether it’s expected or not.




2. THE THIRD MAN (Harry Lime is alive)

For most of “The Third Man” we followed Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martins around Vienna tracing the final steps of Harry Lime, Martin’s close friend who was apparently killed by a trolly. The more Martin stays in Vienna the more he learns about Lime’s nefarious criminal activities. At the second act turn director Carol Reed crafts one of the most surprising character reveals in cinema. Lime’s reveal is wonderfully set-up by his neighbour’s cat which jumps down from the window sill onto the street where it walks up to Lime hiding in the shadows. And Orson Welles’ crafty smirk to his old friend punctuates this classic scene.




3. SIXTH SENSE (Malcolm’s Ring)

This reveal single-handedly generated almost $300million in box office and six Oscar nominations. M. Night Shyamalan masterfully tricks us into thinking Dr. Malcolm and his scared little client Cole have a normal relationship as doctor and patient when really Shyamalan’s brilliant twist reveals that Malcolm has been dead the whole time. Looking back on the picture it’s obvious – the direction of Shyamalan’s character arcs and his themes of redemption and forgiveness feed into this moment, which is more than just an arbitrary twist but a necessary reveal of character.

I could only find the trailer for this one:



4. PLANET OF THE APES ("You blew it up!")

Like “The Sixth Sense” the clues which lead up to George Taylor’s profound discovery are obvious with the benefit of hindsight. Back in 1968, with fresh eyes, perhaps it wasn’t obvious. Most of the clues, which may have tipped some clever viewers, come in the third act when Taylor journeys into the forbidden zone and finds human artifacts. But Franklin Schaffner’s final reveal to us is still a great cinematic moment. We see Charlton Heston walking along a beach from an angle high in the air. When he sees the head of the Statue of Liberty in the sand, we can only see his reaction behind the head which is out of focus. When Schaffner reverses the angle I can only imagine the collective gasp from that audience in 1968, or likely a few giggles.




5. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Andy’s escape)

For two acts of “The Shawshank Redemption” it was a Capra-esque character-driven prison story. Andy Dufresne, a nice guy, wrongly convicted for murder uses his goodwill to improve the prison life of his fellow inmates. If the film continued on as such it still would have been a decent and absorbing character drama. But when the evil prison warden visits Andy’s room discovering he’s gone missing Frank Daramont, with careful direction, editing, sound and camera placement, converts a marvelous reveal of Andy’s surprise escape.




6. JAWS (the shark)

One of the great character reveals is Spielberg’s third act reveal of his mechanical shark which, for most of his shoot, didn’t work, and almost got him fired. As Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) sits on the edge of the boat, sulking for being given ‘chum duty’, he delivers his famous line ‘chum some of this shit’, after which the shark’s massive jaws lift itself out of the water. After that Scheider would utter his most famous adlib "we're gonna need a bigger boat." From then on the film kicks into overdrive toward its suspenseful finale.




7. GODFATHER (Horse head)

Before the horse head scene we only saw the Corleone family discuss business and subtly infer their intimidating criminal activities. But after the Hollywood studio boss Jack Wolz refuses to give comply with Tom Hagen’s request on behalf on Johnny Fontaine Hagan is forced to give Don Corleone the bad news which he ‘insists on hearing immediately’. The bad news is accompanied by Wolz’s prized thoroughbred decapitated in his own bed.




8. WIZARD OF OZ (Transition to colour)

Arguably the most dramatic use of colour in cinema is Dorothy’s entrance into Oz. It’s one of the great transitions ever. Dorothy, whom we have only seen in B&W in her humble Kansas farm house, after a violent tornado storm emerges from unconsciousness into a beautiful technicolour world of primary colours.

Skip to the very end of this clip for the transition:



9. PSYCHO (Norman’s ‘Mother’)

We knew Norman Bates had some mother-issues. For 90mins we saw Norman’s mother brutally kill Marion Crane and Milton the cop. And like a good son he cleaned up his mother’s mess. But it isn’t until the end when Lila hides in the basement from Mrs. Bates do we discover that it's Norman dressed up as his mother. It’s a two-part reveal from Hitch, when Vera Miles spins the taxidermed cadaver around, and Perkins’ in-drag close-up clutching the deadly knife.




10. SEVEN (Gwenyth Paltrow's head)

This entry is perhaps one of the greatest ‘non-reveals’. As the gruesome serial killer John Doe one-by-one puts strokes through each deadly sin, we wonder which one will be last? The tense car ride discussion between Detective Mills and Doe through the desert wonderfully sets up the final confrontation. Though Doe is captured and in handcuffs, he’s still in control. When the courier truck delivers the small cube-shaped package we, as the audience, can guess what it is but don't want to believe it. When Morgan Freeman opens the box, we don’t see inside, just a sliver of blood. Morgan and Brad’s reactions reveal what’s in the box with maximum impact. A powerful moment in cinema.




11. THE MATRIX (Neo wakes up)

When Morpheus sits Neo down in that empty room and gives him the choice of opening up his mind to the true realities of the world, no one could expect what the Wachowskis were about to drop on us. Morpheus' philosophically grandiose explanations of the world seemed just that, metaphors for a slave-like trapped existence of consumerism. But no, Morpheus was literal in describing Neo’s prison of the mind and body. When Neo pops that pill and wakes up nude, with probes attached to his skin, and just one of millions of harvested humans, it becomes one of the great existential reveals in cinema.




12. THE USUAL SUSPECTS (Spacey losing his limp)

Even if Bryan Singer’s byzantine neo-noir ended with Gabriel Byrne’s Dean Keaton being Kesyer Soze, it still would have made a great ending. This clever faux-climax tactic by writer Christopher McQuarrie sets up one of the great double-whammies in cinema history. After Verbal Kint leaves Dave Kujan’s office, Dave and his partner talk shop over coffee, but when Kujan reads all the notes on his corkboard the pieces of Soze’s puzzle quickly come together with a stunning realization. Singer builds and extends this moment before revealing it to the audience. Just when the office fax machine spits out the artistic rendering of Verbal Kint Singer cuts to Kint outside walking away free of his limp. The reveal is then fully realized for us.




13. ALIEN (Chest Burst)

Ridley Scott’s great film holds an impending sense of dread throughout. When the crew of the Nostromo investigates the derelict alien spacecraft, poor Kane (John Hurt) gets a face sucker attached to his head. Then much later, out of the blue, the facesucker releases and dies. Kane is back to normal and everything seems fine. Scott's light tone at the dinner scene is a great set up for the shocking reveal. When Kane starts to choke on his food, the others laugh at him, until they realize its more serious. When the baby alien pops out of Kane’s chest, we get to see the alien for the first time in infant form. Of course, it would quickly grow up into something even more maniacal.

I could only find the Dir. Cut extended version of this scene:



14. OLD BOY (Opening the Box)

After the lengthy journey of Dae-su to track down his former captor, in the film's final earth-shattering climax, Chan-wook Park twists the entire story around with the sick realization of who's exacting revenge to whom. Like "Seven" Park puts the big reveal in a box, which Dae-su opens and discovers that his lover is actually his daughter. Now that's cruel.




15. FIGHT CLUB("you're me" scene in motel room)

Few saw this one coming. Edward Norton’s unnamed character meets Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden in an airplane and strike up a peculiar relationship which involves underground hand-to-hand combat and any kind of anarchist social malfeasance. The second act leads to Tyler’s disappearance, and Norton's desperate journey to find him. A phone call to their mutual girlfriend Marla reveals that he is in fact Tyler Durden.




16. THE SHINING (Wendy reads Jack's manuscript)

We knew Jack was going a little crazy, but the moment when Wendy, baseball bat in hand, wanders near his writing desk and sees the results of Jack's work,  pages and pages of the repetitive line "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy,"  Jack's condition is elevated from a little crazy to certifiably dangerous.




17. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) (Unmasking)

This goes way back but it represents not only a great suspenseful moment, but a benchmark scene in cinema history. The moment when Christine, the Opera singer, hesitatingly removes the Phantom's mask for the first time audiences in the day were said to have screamed in unison with fright at the grotesque face of Lon Chaney. Chaney's elaborate makeup set a new bar for dedication to one's art - a laborious process, Chaney punished himself by actually pulling his eyeballs out of its sockets in order to create the dramatic bulging eyes look of the creature.




18. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Hannibal's skin mask)

Jonathan Demme's suspensful and dramatically intense escape scene for Hannibal Lector is capped off with gruesome impact, when the body lying on the gurney in the ambulence awakens, rips off his facemask of human skin, revealing it's Hannibal Lector.




19. THE PRESTIGE (Multiple Hugh Jackmans)

The final shot of "The Prestige", after over two hours of mindblowing twists and turns, Christopher Nolan shocks us by showing us how Hugh Jackman's Robert Angier character got away with the disappearing man trick night after night. The multiple Angiers floating dead in the water tanks cap off this great cynical beguiling masterpiece.




20. GOODFELLAS (Tommy walking into empty room)

Midway through "Goodfellas' Martin Scorsese is in total command of his audience. Few saw it coming when Joe Pesci's loose-cannon Tommy character gets popped for his murder of Billy Batts. The scene is built up with great misdirection. The characters and the audience are meant to think that Tommy is being 'made'  which would make his colleagues Henry and Jimmy untouchable. But when Tommy is walked into an empty room Scorsese blindsides us with the shocking reveal of his death.

ONE WEEK

One Week (2009) dir. Michael McGowan
Starring: Joshua Jackson, Liane Balaban

**1/2

The Canadian theatrical release of the week, is "One Week", a domestic production given a rare 'wide' release in most major cities up here. Writer/director Michael McGowan puts his character through the Canadian rite of passage, the cross-country road trip from Toronto to Victoria, with its glorious landscape, a few celebs and all the down home hoser quirkiness in between. But it’s really a somber tale of a man dying of cancer and his journey of self-discovery at the end of his life told with ample doses of sentimentality and often excessive profoundness.

McGowan gets right to the point and drops the big C on us in the opening line. Joshua Jackson is Ben Tyler and he gets the worst news of his life. His doctor tells him he has stage four of cancer, the worst kind, which means, even with treatment, he will not likely live past 4 months. It's a devastating blow, the emotions of which are told to us by Campbell Scott, who will go on to narrate Ben's inner thoughts like an omniscient storyteller. Ben runs off with nowhere to go and stumbles upon an old man selling a vintage motorbike. Like fate the two dying souls are meant to be together.

The idea of driving across Canada in a motorcycle is complicated by Ben’s fiancée Samantha (Liane Balaban), who wants Ben to do what’s expected of him, to be with his family, get treatment and hope for the best, however low the odds. Ben’s instinct, visualized by a Tim Horton’s ‘roll-up-the-rim-to-win’ coffee cup, says for him to ‘go west’ and complete his adventure. Set to a soundtrack of indie-rock-pop tunes, we watch Ben go through the rural part of the country stopping at every corny tourist landmark he can find – ‘the big nickel’ in Sudbury, ‘the world’s largest teepee’, the world largest paperclip etc. The longer he becomes separated from Samantha the more he realizes how much he’s not in love with her.

“One Week” is a grim affair, a consistent tone of somber poignant melancholy, rarely wavering off this downward path. McGowan seems so concerned with touching us with heartfelt acoustic campfire songs and perceptive quotations he forgets to distract us with drama and conflict, excitement and exhilaration of the journey. The people he meets along the way - a Calgarian horse rancher, “The Tragically Hip’s” Gord Downie (a Canadian rock god for those unaware) as a pot smoking cancer survivor, an Anaheim Might Duck (remember Jackson was in those Disney Mighty Ducks films) who lets him kiss the Stanley Cup, a folk singing camper who tests his love for his fiance - are equally as self-aware as he.

Campbell Scott’s objective narration, used for the same whimsy effect as the voiceover in “Amelie”, works well against Joshua Jackson’s understated internalized performance. His profound realizations are the same ones typical of that twenty-something mid-midlife crisis when we realize we either a) don’t want to be like one’s father b) we’ve never really accomplished anything worthy of the preciousness of one’s life.

The enjoyment of the film doesn’t come from these realizations, but the act of going on the journey, and not explaining the reason to do it. In the end, it’s McGowan’s tone which could easily be analyzed and picked apart for it’s straightline conventionality, but there’s no point because life’s too precious for that. Just tag along for the ride.

DEAR ZACHARY

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About his Father (2008) dir. Dir. Kurt Kuenne
Documentary

****

By Alan Bacchus

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a young 28-year-old doctor, was murdered, a heinous, premeditated crime that left his infant son, Zachary, without a father. As a gift for Zachary to discover in older age, Bagby's best friend and filmmaker, Kurt Kuenne, embarked on a journey to document Andrew's life and present to the world the criminal case against the murderer, which, during the making of the film, unfolded with remarkable dramatic intensity.

Like Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans" and Jonathan Caoette's "Tarnation", Kuenne uses the medium in such profoundly personal ways beyond mere entertainment. Dear Zachary isn't so much a documentary as it is an experience, a sharp true crime procedural, a damning indictment of a failed criminal justice system and above all, a beautiful, artistically rendered portrait of a man whose life will be paying forward long past his death.

Using old home videos and red-eyed, unflattering point-and-shoot stills, Kuenne shows Andrew Bagby as an accessible everyman, someone anyone of us could have known; he's neither famous nor rich, nor particularly important in any way beyond his immediate family and friends, but within his circle is a very special person. Kuenne tells his story with such emotional honesty that the tragedy that finds Andrew and his family hits home with as much frustrating anger as if it occurred to one's own family or friends.

Kuenne's technique is fuelled with this anger. He edits the film with the pace and excitement of a child describing a monumental experience, trying to get it all out in one breath. We're bombarded with information, voiceovers and imagery overlapping, creating a rhythm of chaotic intensity. In an effort to put us on the emotional rollercoaster of Babgy's family, Kuenne often floors us with monumental shifts in tone that cross from one emotional extreme to the other.

After a successful festival run, "Dear Zachary" is ripe for discovery by the Blockbuster audience. The DVD contains more interviews and footage for Bagby and his family but after 90 minutes of heartbreaking tragedy, you'll need some time away from the material to recover. Enjoy.

JONAS BROTHERS THE 3D CONCERT EXPERIENCE

Jonas Brothers The 3D Concert Experience (2009) dir. Bruce Hendricks
Documentary

**1/2

by Alan Bacchus

Just why did these moderately talented, averaging-looking dudes get the golden ticket to tweener stardom? Because of that venerable Disney star factory that birthed other moneymaker stars and new matinee idols, Zac Efron and Miley Cirus.

Having established themselves with the Disney Channel TV movie Camp Rock and sold themselves on the teen-rag circuit over the past two years, the Jonas Brothers make their big screen debut with this glossy 3-D slice of Disney propaganda.

For Jonas newbies, the brothers are Joe, the straight-haired lead singer dressed like Tom Cruise from Cocktail, and Kevin and Nick, the two curly hair guitarists whom I couldn't tell apart. They are a straight-ahead pop rock band that, instead of synchronized dancing, play their instruments and channel stage antics like advanced players of Rock Band. To heighten the attention of the girls they can also spin, jump and do tumbles and somersaults around the stage like seasoned acrobats.

Like the Miley Cirus 3-D concert film, the Jonas Brothers are trotted out with maximum exploitation. In addition to a well-produced stadium concert with the big hits belted out, manufactured, "candid" behind-the-scenes footage show the trio revelling in the insane fandom that Disney has created for them.

The theatrical experience of this film is made even more interactive than the kitschy 3-D process. Sitting in an audience of die-hard tweeners who know the words to every song and scream their lungs out whenever Joe Jonas points to the camera is strangely exhilarating. While it's just the latest boy band fad, for this audience it's a seminal event in their young lives. How can you not be fascinated with that?

The first few songs are a struggle to get through — barely hummable pop songs sung with the Brothers' newly broken, squeaky voices. But as the girls screamed their way through these songs, I realized this film is critic-proof, and with ego in check, I let myself go along for the ride.

As the show progresses, the catchiness of the tunes eventually sets in. Well-timed guest performers such as Demi Lavato break the monotony and add a refreshing female perspective. The film reaches its creative high when pop star Taylor Swift (apparently a former girlfriend of Joe Jonas) joins the trio for a song. Far and away a better singer than all the brothers combined, Swift's country pop rock crossover is a fine foot-tapping cap to the show.

No one who is not a fan has any business seeing this film alone but treating that young niece of yours to this is guaranteed to crown you as the favourite uncle. And if you take your cynical cap off you might actually find the Jonas Brothers 3-D Experience an enjoyable one.

Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience Movie Trailers

PONTYPOOL

Pontypool (2009) dir. Bruce McDonald
Starring: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Georgina Reilly

***

If you thought the zombie genre were exhausted of originality, the latest marvelous low budget horror flick “Pontypool” arrives with the same confident attitude associated with all of Bruce McDonald’s films. It’s an intensely idiosyncratic genre film, perhaps more admirable than entertaining, but original and distinct.

We’re in a rural town in Eastern Ontario, a cold winter night, in a small radio station run by a skeleton crew. The morning show radio man, Grant Mazzy, a wayward grizzled veteran goes about his usual boring work. His only respite is the fun pugnacious disobedience he goes through with his stuck-up radio producer, Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle). When his traffic reporter reports a riot of local citizens suddenly Mazzy finds himself at the heart of an international news story.

The crisis is played entirely from within the radio station, and so like Mazzy, we’re never quite sure of its severity or whether it’s all just a hoax. Soon the riots turn violent with dead bodies piling up. When the young production assistant Laurel Ann succumbs to the mysterious outbreak, Mazzy and us, the audience, realize zombies have stricken the town. As the army of soulless deadbeats encroach on the station Mazzy and Sydney scramble to understand the cause of the outbreak. McDonald and his writer Tony Burgess give us an ingenious and particularly peculiar new twist to the zombie genre when it’s revealed that the virus is spread through words, an infection through the English language which causes the person to misinterpret the meaning of words and thus reduce themselves to uncivilized base animalistic behaviour.

Stephen McHattie, one of Canada’s venerable character actors who appears prominently in Canadian-shot American blockbusters (he plays Hollis Mason in a little movie called “Watchmen”), seems to channel his 30 years of grouchy cop, gangster, and drug dealer roles to craft the ornery rebellious protag Grant Mazzy. He plays Mazzy like a Howard Stern in exile, a talented radioman, who’s burned so many bridges in his career he’s relegated to the pathetic traffic-report-reliant small town gig. But in the crisis Mazzy’s gift for gag allows him bring out his inner hero.

As a radioman, the linguistic connection to the zombies, makes for a clever spin on the genre, the explanation of which is detailed through some intense and incomprehensible dialogue. It made no sense to me (neither does Noam Chomsky for that matter either), but the fact that the characters seem to have a grasp on it allows us to suspend our disbelief. It also allows Burgess and McDonald to execute some hilarious gags as well as witty send-up of French-English Canadian relations.

The throughline is this irreverent sense of humour and McDonald’s supreme confidence with the genre. Though McDonald has never made a horror film before, he’s a veteran of this type of low budget, rebellious, independent filmmaking. And there’s no mistaking the presence of McDonald’s trademark hat, which Mazzy wears prominently throughout, as a reminder of whose film this is. Enjoy.

“Pontypool” opens today in Canada, and on May 29, by IFC in the U.S.

I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG

I’ve Loved You So Long (2008) dir. Philippe Claudel
Starring: Kristin Scott, Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Grévill

**

Much acclaim has been heaped on this dreary French melodrama and Kristin Scott Thomas’s performance en Français. And yet, from almost its first moments to its last I felt manipulated with false drama and contrived plotting. Warning SPOILERS contained in this review.

Ms. Scott-Thomas plays Juliette Fontaine who has just been released from prison and picked up by her much younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein). The drive home is awkward, Else hasn’t seen her sister since before she went to prison, and probing questions reveal a sense of shame because of it. The heinous crime is not revealed until later, but we know it was a heinous murder of some kind.

We watch as Juliette tries to adapt back into society. She gets a job, courts a man and continues to struggle with the pain of the event 15 years ago, which we eventually learn is perhaps the most heinous of crimes, the murder of her own son.

The quiet moments of reflection remind me of the tone of silent anguish and regret Tom McCarthy uses in “The Visitor”. But on closer examination there’s very little honesty in the storytelling. Writer/Director Philippe Claudel destroys all logic of the situations in order to pound us with dramatic plot and information reveals. For example, Juliette’s first dinner conversation with Lea’s family lacks any logic. Lea’s precocious little girls probe Aunt Juliette for answers to why she hadn’t heard of her until now. The parents are surprised by the question and scramble to find palatable answer. It provides some cinematic conflict, but I could only ask, ‘why would Lea not anticipate this and calculate a story beforehand?’ That first night Lea’s husband objects to Juliette staying in the house causing a disruptive conflict. Really? They’re having that discussion now? 

Towards the end Claudel gives us a dramatic reveal of the events which led to the crime. I must expose some plot in order to discuss this. So beware SPOILERS ahead. Claudel reveals to us that Juliette’s son had a terminal disease, and her murderous act was actually meant to save him from the pain of his disease. Except she didn’t tell anybody about this and thus accepted the 15 year sentence without objection. This would appear to negate the entire point of the film- that is, the family coming to grips and foregiving Juliette’s heinous act. With Juliette off the hook all it becomes very easy for everyone to live together in harmony.

Without accepting these plot contrivances, it’s difficult to appreciate Kristin Scott-Thomas' performance fully, but I don’t disagree with her exclusion from the Oscar nominations. The conscious attempt to underplay the emotion which we expect would gush with rivers of tear feels just as unnatural and distracting as going over-the-top.

I appear to be the only one with this reaction, so perhaps I'm out to lunch - but buyer beware.

"I've Loved You So Long" is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

WATCHMEN

Watchmen (2009) dir. Zack Snyder
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson

***1/2

In terms of conceptual grandeur “Watchmen” is like the “Magnolia” is comic-book films - bold strokes of cinematic genius layered with complex yet loose socio-political metaphors which don't quite link together with complete satisfaction.  Zack Snyder gives us as faithful an adaptation of Alan Moore's celebrated comic as is cinematically possible, at times overly reverent to the often obtuse material but on the whole a surprisingly coherent rendering of the complex story.

The setting and environment of Moore and Snyder's revisionist world is difficult to penetrate. Put yourself in a world where masked superhero vigilantes exist with a keen self-awareness of the silliness of such a concept. It's the mid 80's, Richard Nixon is still President and the Soviet nuclear threat against the U.S. has resulted in ticking clock Cuban Missile Crisis-like standoff to world annihilation. The man who holds the ability to deter this event is a blue superhero named Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) who has the ability to change the molecular structure of his body and other objects around him.

When one of his compatriots 'The Comedian' (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is murdered, the masked vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) comes out of hiding to reunite his former league of heroes - the Watchmen - to investigate. Rorschach finds all his old buddies, Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) have all gone straight, leading regular civilian unmasked lives in retirement. When Rorschach's gumshoeing connects the Comedian's murderer with the current political crisis the stakes are raised enough to reinvigorate the Watchmen with the same idealistic fervour they once had.

The opening is a bravura title credit sequence showing the involvement of masked superheroes in many of the pop culturally significant events of the past century. The scene compresses much of the generational backstory of the first half of the book neatly into one package and establishes the story's throughline theme of pop cultural awareness. Snyder compliments the mash-up with a soundtrack of poignant rock tunes including Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, and even some less memorable like the 80’s topper “99 Red Ballons” by Nena. Watch for other fun pop culture references, like the Dr. Strangelove War Room set recreation, all of which add to the self-reflexive cultural complexities.

Perhaps the most astonishing surprise is Snyder's ability to make the obtuse 'unfilmable' elements work. The treatment of Dr. Manhattan as a transformed Jesus Christ-like resurrected God, specifically his trippy journey to Mars which made no sense to me on the page, provides with one of the more elegent detours in the story. His lengthy backstory is aided by cleverly borrowing Philip Glass' great music cue from the final scene of "Koyaanisqatsi".

At this point in the film Zack Snyder reaches an enormously high creative peak. In fact, the entire second act sustains this high through Rorschach's backstory, Silk Spectre/Nite Owl's passionate love affair to Rorschach's breakout from prison.

Like Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City", "The Watchmen" is not a comic book film for kids. Snyder embraces all the naughtiness of the book - Malin Ackerman's Silk Spectre is red hot and her steamy love scenes with Nite Owl retain all the thrusting carnality from Moore's pages. Snyder also has fun showing us all the bone breaks and blood gushing missing from all other super hero films. It's far from hardcore exploitation though, using the hyper slo-mo cine language from his previous graphic novel film "300", the Rated R scenes are graceful and dreamlike.

The film just misses out on greatness. The dialogue, most of which is lifted right off the page, suffers in the translation to screen. What sounds like punchy words designed for each frame comes off as overly-familiar Raymond Chandler noir dialogue. And after two acts of inspired unconventionality, unfortunately the third act resorts to a lazy recycling of the worst conventions of the genre. Snyder wraps up the plotthreads with rudimentary confessionary speeches, revelatory flashbacks and James Bond-like world domination plotting. The same type of ‘Hardy Boys’/Scooby Doo moments I despise in investigative mysteries. It’s a shame that despite the innovative methods of storytelling no one could get around the elementary and rushed plot resolution.

Though not everything Snyder throws at us sticks, "Watchmen" is still a supremely 'watchable' film. The muddied metaphors never distract us from the awesome muscular bravura which will titillate all the senses of your body.

Watchmen | Movie Trailers

THE FRENCH CONNECTION II

The French Connection II (1975) dir. John Frankenheimer
Starring: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Bernard Fresson

**

The idea of making a sequel to “The French Connection” set in Marseilles, with Gene Hackman and Fernando Rey reprising their famous roles and directed by action-auteur/innovator John Frankenheimer is fascinating. But it’s no surprise this film has largely been forgotten in the discussion of sequels made from great films. While it expands on Popeye Doyle’s obsessive vulnerabilities and character flaws, it lacks most of the edge, pace and street-wise intensity for it to stand alongside the original classic.

As we remember from the first film ‘Frog #1’ escaped the clutches of Popeye Doyle’s chasing. In the final titles we were told that the real Alan Charnier escaped to France without ever being caught. In this sequel Frankheimer departs from the true-life story and uses Doyle and Charnier strictly as characters based on fiction. We see Doyle arriving in Marseilles and meet up with his French equivalent Barthélémy who has summoned Doyle to assist in their investigation. But immediately Doyle’s treated like second class, and revealed to be no more than a pawn used as bait to entrap Charnier.

Doyle just can’t hide his wild 'Ugly American’ go-for-broke, fuck-the-authorities personality as he quickly rubs the French the wrong way. In one of the most audacious and intense character obstacles I’ve ever seen written into a genre film, Doyle is kidnapped by Charnier and tortured by injecting him with heroin for 12 days in an attempt to get him addicted. Doyle eventually escapes, and after recovering from the ordeal, becomes even more maniacal in his desire to get Charnier. Like an unchained mad dog Doyle torches Charnier’s hotel literally smoking the man out of hiding for a final confrontation.

John Frankenheimer is no hack and, in 1975, had an impressive body of work – a unique mix of artistically-rendered mainstream films. The second act kidnapping scenes have Frankenheimer's distinct touch. We’re reminded of the mind-bending torture Frank Sinatra’s character is exposed to in “The Manchurian Candidate” and even Rock Hudson’s psychedelic headtrips in “Seconds”. Its placement smack in the middle of the second act and its near 15mins running time make it a laborious hump for audiences to cross over. It stops the film dead in it’s tracks unable to recover.

The Marseilles setting was a fresh way for Frankeheimer to distance himself from the original version and create his own vision. Frankenheimer retains Friedkin’s on-location shooting methodology though and even shoots the film with unaware bystanders freely roaming the streets. On a number of occasions we can even see the onlookers blocked off in the background and often catch the odd pedestrian looking right down the barrel of the camera.

Frankenheimer's action and chase sequences are adequate but never come close to topping the original. If “The French Connection II” were not a sequel to the greatest cop flick ever made, then we perhaps would not be as disappointed.

“The French Connection II” released by 20th Century Fox in Blu-Ray contains two commentaries, including one by the late Frankenheimer himself. Frankenheimer’s dialogue is interesting, as he describes his trepidations in filming a sequel to such a successful film and his relationship with Hackman who was one of the driving forces of the sequel.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

The French Connection (1971) dir. William Friedkin
Starring: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony La Bianco

****

I’ve been going through the five seasons of “The Wire” lately, which is arguably the best police show ever made for television. The antecedent of “The Wire” and all other realist police procedurals is William Friedkin’s “The French Connection”. Thirty-eight years later it’s astonishingly fresh, relevant, timeless, and shows absolutely no wear or age - still the greatest cop flick ever made.

The film begins in Marseilles, France. We meet Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), a shipping stevedore under surveillance by the French authorities. He lives a classy and luxurious lifestyle on the sea side. But he’s a drug smuggler and plotting a transfer of heroin into the U.S. with the help of a French television star who will move the goods hidden in his car.

Charnier’s opponent is Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), the typical cinematic rogue cop - a tough as nails, blue-collar detective, always on the clock, a life of perpetual antagonism resulting in an emptiness devoid of family or friends. The film parachutes us into the middle of Doyle and his partner Buddy Russo's (Roy Scheider) undercover sting of street-level narcotics policing. While out for a drink Doyle and Russo decide to tail a new high roller to the drug pusher scene. Wiretapping and other street level surveillance reveal the connection between Doyle's drug peddlers and their legendary French sources of NYC heroin. As the cat and mouse games progress so does Doyle’s obsessiveness with catching Charnier.

Friedkin’s background in documentary and a unique style of street-wise naturalism is applied to a story which, in the hands of another director, could easily have been sanitized and made melodramatic. And what a risky and bold stroke of Friedkin’s to depart from years of familiarity in the cop genre. Friedkin creates pace in front of the camera and challenges himself to keep up. DOP Owen Roizman's dynamic camera is always moving. Whether its handheld, or panning around in the alleyways and tight spaces in the NYC bars, tracking behind Doyle and Russo as they walk, run, drive through the streets, the sounds and smells of the streets are palpable – run and gun cinema at it’s best.

In addition to a sweep of the major Oscar hardware, Gene Hackman won well-deserved Best Actor honours. Popeye Doyle is as complicated a character as ever written in the cop genre. Though we know little about Doyle’s background, and with little exposition, or dialogue, Doyle's complexities are expressed by Hackman's instinctive reactions. Friedkin nor Doyle have the time to stop and reflect on the past, his character is defined by action. In the famous chase, Friedkin’s camera angles on Hackman driving recklessly underneath the L-Train show him as a wide-eyed, near psychotic in his pursuit of his subject –a sharp contrast to say, Steve McQueen’s reserved heroic demeanor in his chase scene in “Bullitt”.

With very little dialogue Friedkin is very precise with his class metaphors. It’s never explicit but part of Doyle’s obsessiveness stems perhaps from his working class self-loathing, contrast against Charnier’s sophisticated facade. All of this is said with Fernando Rey’s sly wave to Doyle after the lengthy street and subway chase.

Hackman’s performance is unheroic. The final confrontation in the abandoned building is uncompromising and powerful and rounds off a downward arc of obsessiveness for Doyle. He shoots and kills his police chief, with little regard or remorse, and then runs off into the unknown with vulnerable abandon in pursuit of Charnier. It's a supreme anti-climax for an action picture, typical of the cynicism of 70's cinema, but which retains the integrity of the story.

“The French Connection” is now available in a well-transferred and produced Blu-Ray edition from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment complete with new documentaries hosted by Friedkin himself discussing how he made the film. It’s early, but possibly the Blu-Ray release of the year.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008) dir. Robert Weide
Starring: Simon Pegg, Kirstin Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson

**

A British gossip writer desperately wants to get past the rope and into the exclusive red carpet world of celebrity journalism. An opportunity to skewer the current trend of Perez Hilton celebrity paparazzism comes off as a messy and onfocused episode of “Ugly Betty.”

Simon Pegg plays Sidney Young whom we first see narrating his own tale in aN obligatory flash-forward opening scene – that lazy, overused writer’s tool which starts with a scene in the future, and then goes back in time to show how the character got to that point in his life. The opening is Young at an awards ceremony, in a tuxedo sitting next to a gorgeous actress who just won a major award. It seems like the top of the world he desires to be in.

Flashing back...Young starts off in England doing whatever it takes to get past red carpet security and get the insider scoop for his small independent gossip newspaper. After being courted by a People Magazine-like super-rag in NYC Young makes the journey to the big apple where he immediately doesn’t fit in with the power-hungry ubermensch world of the big city. He just can’t seem to do anything right and continually makes an ass out of himself in front of his boss (Jeff Bridges). Gradually Young rises through the ranks and gets to the place we saw at the beginning of the film, at which point he has to decide whether it’s worth selling out his integrity or make it on his own terms.

Starting with the silly title the film never finds its sea legs as it feels like a series of randomly placed scenes or gags. At times it’s a satire, at times a romantic comedy, at times a juvenile slapstick farce. The list of impressive actors are great but either poorly miscast or just never mesh together – Jeff Bridges, wearing a ridiculous long grey wig, is all wrong as the bombastic Anna Wintour-type boss. And Danny Huston and Gillian Anderson in comic roles seem out of place and distracting.

A number of overextended scenes of physical comedy feel like desperate attempts to pull out cheap laughs. We even get two separate scenes involving animals - the introductory scene with a pig which Young uses to get into a movie premiere, and a lengthy bit with a little Chihuahua dog which Young accidentally kills, borrowed shamelessly from “There’s Something About Mary”.

It all makes for an extremely shallow satire of Hollywood and journalism – as shallow and superficial as the magazine Young works for. The film plays upon old clichés about ego-driven Hollywood directors, soul-sucking publicists, and the general cutthroat behaviour it takes to succeed in the industry.

A romantic comedy emerges in the third act, which is the only natural element in the film. Kirstin Dunst and Simon Pegg make a neat couple. Unfortunately it comes too late and doesn’t erase the previous two acts of meaningless chaff.

The film makes a grave error of referring to “La Dolce Vita” – Fellini’s classic about Italian Paparazzi – on a number of occasions. When your film makes reference to another better film about the same subject, it makes the difference between the two seem even larger. Go and rent the Fellini classic, or even Alexander Mackendrick’s ruthless “The Sweet Smell of Success.”

“How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” is available on DVD from MGM Home Entertainment

LAST MAN ON EARTH

The Last Man On Earth (1964) dir. Sidney Salkow and Ubaldo Ragona
Starring: Vincent Price

***

Guest Review by Greg Klymkiw

Let’s get this out of the way – Richard Matheson is one of the great American writers of the 20th century and his impact upon popular culture, literature and the art of writing is, perhaps, as insurmountable and important as the impact of someone like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Raymond Carver. The difference between Matheson and the aforementioned scribes is that he gets very little in the way of egghead (academic) respect (save, no doubt, for the likes of screenwriter extraordinaire George Toles and uber-menschian-pop-culture-guru Will Straw) – probably because his genres of choice were horror, sci-fi and fantasy and much of his writing was at the (supposedly lowly) level of screenplays and teleplays. There are, however, few great living and working filmmakers who do not owe a lot to the ground broken by Matheson. His genres of choice are pulp and it is pulp that often does not get the reverence it truly deserves.

That said, Matheson not only wrote some of the best movies and television (the monumental “Incredible Shrinking Man”, classic episodes of the original Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” series, and a number of the Roger Corman big-screen Poe adaptations – among many others), but his astounding novel “I Am Legend”, first published in 1954, still has the power to chill and provoke. Matheson’s terse prose style captures the voice of his central protagonist so expertly that the horrifying, lonely journey taken by Robert Neville, the last man on an Earth populated by vampires, is so simple, yet so complex in its exploration of life in an apocalypse – an apocalypse that can be seen as both the end and a new beginning for mankind.

It’s a great book, and has spawned three film versions. The most recent is the execrable Will Smith action vehicle that takes the novel’s title and premise and does little besides providing a handful of visceral shocks. 1971 brought us Boris Sagal’s supremely entertaining and seriously, almost-hilariously dated Chuck Heston vehicle. And then there is “The Last Man On Earth” – an oddball 1964 film adaptation produced by schlockmeister Robert Lippert and made in Italy with a cast of dubbed-in-English Italians and a very odd, but also very compelling Vincent Price in the title role.

While the picture veers, on a number of fronts, from Matheson’s novel, it manages – more than the other versions – to come the closest to the spirit of this strange, terrifying tale of one man battling post-apocalyptic vampires. Moodily shot in black and white, we watch as Robert Morgan (inexplicably renamed as such in the movie, and played by Price) spends his days bombing around the city in a station wagon, killing vampires and burning their corpses while alternately taking care of mundane errands like shopping (in eerily-empty shops).

As dusk approaches, our hero locks himself in his secured suburban dwelling to calmly sip wine and listen to jazz LPs while roaming hordes of vampires call tauntingly to him from outside, threatening to kill him before he kills more vampires. Luckily, his home is secured with all the anti-vampire accoutrements including clusters of fresh garlic hanging on every possible entrance – the smell of which repels the vampires. (I must admit this particular bit of lore always confused me when it came to Eastern European vampires – you’d think all those bloodsucking Bohunks would be attracted to the aroma of garlic. But, I digress.)

Matheson himself wrote much of the screenplay adaptation for “The Last Man On Earth” and I suspect this is why the picture feels very close to the tone of the source material. In spite of this, Matheson was not satisfied that his script was rewritten by a number of other writers at the behest of Lippert and his pasta-slurping co-producers and he removed his name and had it replaced with the nom-de-plume of Logan Swanson. Oddly enough, looking back over all the film adaptations of his novel, this is still the best of the lot.

In spite of this, the picture is not perfect. The Italian locations look great, but are weirdly masked in the dialogue to be American instead of European. This is especially disconcerting since the locations contribute so much to the eerie quality of the movie. The standard dubbing into English of actors who are clearly not speaking English was de rigeur in the 60s, but seems a bit wonky in a contemporary context. The flashbacks employed feel shoehorned in rather than wended expertly and seamlessly into the narrative (Sagal’s “Omega Man” actually did this rather well – in spite of the kitsch factor of most everything else in the picture).

These are minor quibbles, however. “The Last Man On Earth” captures Matheson’s dark, nasty tone and for much of the picture’s running time, it is a truly creepy and scary sci-fi horror thriller. Especially worth regarding is how this version captures the whole notion of how vampires (creatures of legend) become the new mundane humanity and how the mere mortal becomes the legend. It is this very thematic layer that takes Matheson’s “pulp” into the realm of worthy literature and thankfully, this particular picture is respectful of the theme.

“The Last Man On Earth” is as fine an adaptation of Matheson’s novel that we’re likely to see for some time. Sadly, the Will Smith version will put the kibosh on any future attempts to remake the film. In the meantime, see this version and be sure to read Matheson’s original “I Am Legend” and then you, like I, can dream of a remake in a generation or two that tackles this classic and universal work with EVERYTHING it deserves.

“The Last Man On Earth” is available on many DVD labels, but the best ones are the Legend Films release (that includes an odd, but rather pointlessly colorized version in addition the B/W original) and MGM’s terrific version that is double-billed with “Panic in Year Zero” and appears to be re-mastered from truly pristine elements.

RELIGULOUS

Religulous (2008) dir. Larry Charles
Documentary

***

Anyone who has seen Bill Maher’s talk shows knows his opinion on religion. This travelogue documentary, in which he attempts to ‘discover’ how and why most of the educated world still clings to seemingly obsolete notions of religion, serves as a 90mins one-sided forum for Maher’s extreme opinions. Alas, it's often uproariously funny.

From the trailer parks of red state America to absurd evangelical compounds to the offices of ultra right wing Washington the Evangelical Christian movement are like ducks in a barrel. All religions are on target too. Extreme Judaism, Islam, Scientology all get shit upon as well.

Often Maher and his subjects are talking at cross purposes. No one makes the simple argument to combat Maher that the purpose of religion is not to follow it to the letter, but, in the case of Jesus, to use the example his pious life to improve one’s own. Maher concentrates on battling with zealots who refuse the word of science and make blockhead arguments for the real life existence of the mythological aspects of Christianity.

Like it or not, the film is as much about Bill Maher as it is about religion. Maher carries himself with an impenetrable confident swagger. He arrives at each interview armed with the weapons to battle any argument for religion. Most of the time he’s debating with people with less intellectual skills than himself, and so it’s easy-pickings.

If the film were about an honest and fair debate about religion we could fault Maher and Charles for their carefully-chosen subjects, but the film is about comedy. In fact, it could be argued that Maher’s global tour arguably is a standup routine masquerading as documentary. Like when comedians appear as guests on the Tonight Show, they can disguise their gags in the form of answers to interview questions, the wacky evangelists and zealots serve as sounding boards for Maher’s well rehearsed jokes.

Larry Charles is perhaps too blunt to intercut the absurd ridiculousness of his cooky crazies with bizarre retro videos to pull a few laughs. It’s a cheap tactic from the dirty book of propaganda 101, but with a certain degree of shame I found myself laughing.

If Maher weren’t so damned funny and articulate “Religulous” would be easy to dismiss. With a degree of guilt and maybe a confession at the end, we are given permission to laugh. Enjoy.

“Religulous” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Religulous Movie Trailers

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (Blu-Ray)

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin

***1/2

“Little Miss Sunshine” that delightful, comedy/road picture was a hit in all stages of its life - starting off as a Sundance hit, then a mild box office success, multiple year-end awards/nominations and now a successful DVD release. It arrives on Blu-Ray for the first time, an ideal title for the crisp picture and sound of the new medium.

Like "Slumdog Millionaire “Little Miss Sunshine” brightened the cinema world through the often downtrodden seriousness of usual Oscar-fare. It still serves as an antedote to Oscar’s self-loathing. LMS is a film to lift one’s spirits - a little piece of joy to get you through your day.

Based in part on the writer’s own personal experiences, a dysfunctional family travels the country so their precocious 7 year old can compete in a children’s beauty pageant. Each member of the family holds his or her own in terms of laughs. It’s a true ensemble, with neither one stealing anyone’s thunder. Greg Kinnear plays Richard, the ultra-competitive-motivational-speaker wannabe Dad, Steve Carell is a depressed suicide-attempting gay intellectual scholar Uncle. Alan Arkin is an “I don’t care because I’m old”, porn-loving, heroin-snorting grandfather. Paul Dano is the disaffected Nietzsche-reading teenager who has taken an oath of silence. Abigail Breslin is the Jonathan-Lipnicky-cute- but-not-gorgeous naïve daughter and Toni Collette is the rock, the mother who has to take up smoking to survive the chaos in the family.

It was the first feature film from Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris. Their “Bottle Rocket,” from which, hopefully, they can build a fruitful feature film career. (Wes Anderson, time to step back up to the plate). The film follows a well-trodden formula of road movies, but told with such genuine sincerity it trumps any familiarity. There are half a dozen brilliant scenes and moments of genuine hilarity. Dayton and Faris, whom we expect to ‘know their music’ based on their extensive music video work, adds pitch perfect songs to the soundtrack (a good way of introducing Sufjan Stevens to the mainstream).

Each actor in the impressive cast supports the film in equal measure. As such “Little Miss Sunshine” remains one of the great ensemble films in recent years.

“Little Miss Sunshine” is available on Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment