Reagan

In the demythologizing of the Reagan mystique there was a deliberate campaign perpetrated in the past 10 years by the Republican Party to make the two-term President a beacon of right-wing values. Coming from the director of angry finger-pointing documentaries such as 'Why We Fight', it seems to be a surprise to the filmmaker himself, as well as the audience, that Jarecki’s film is as conventional and reverent to the man as it is.

Reagan (2011) dir. Eugene Jarecki
Documentary

By Alan Bacchus

This is what Jarecki admitted in the Q&A following the Sundance Premiere in 2011. Using the simplified title of Reagan's last name suggests a thorough examination of the man. It's a smart decision for Jarecki to stay on the side of fair play, as a black-white vilification of the man would be as irresponsible as those Republican myth-makers.

Though it’s fair, it’s no less enthralling, tracing back through 100 years of American history - from Reagan's humble childhood in Illinois to his career in Hollywood to his career as a pitch man for GE to his political career as Governor of California and finally to his eight years as President, which saw him preside over an amplification of the Cold War, as well as beginning the process of dismantling it.

Jarecki’s metaphors successfully link the pillars of Reagan's personality to a number of key decisions in his life. Namely his success as a lifeguard in his youth, during which, despite being poorly sighted, he saved over 70 people from drowning in a lake over the course of this job. This desire to protect the innocent cleverly feeds his motivations in the Iran-Contra affair some 50+ years later when he famously broke the law in order to trade guns for the lives of the Lebanese hostages.

Same goes for his career as a pitchman for General Electric, which becomes the prevailing metaphor for his victories in politics. Jarecki demonstrates Reagan’s unquestioned success as a figurehead for the nation while strengthening the American position in the world in place of sound informed decision making.

Like Reagan’s conservative politics, Jarecki sticks to a traditional approach to the story. It's a meat-and-potatoes film for a meat-and-potatoes President. Talking heads from his family and close political advisors paint the picture of the man we saw in office. Reagan comes off as both the shrewd conservative that presided over the controversial and unsuccessful voodoo economic policies, as well as that flag-waving friendly cowboy that patriotically united the country.

Surprises are few. Jarecki confirms some of the tales of Reagan as an aloof simpleton who left much of the decision making to either his wife or his trusted and more experienced colleagues. He also rips through the hyperbole of Reaganites, such as Grover Norquist, who deify him. The truth is Reagan was complex and demonstrated shades of grey in all of his dealings.

Reagan is mostly riveting stuff for its 100 minutes, capturing all the jubilation, optimism, fear and despair from his career in politics. And though the film is undoubtedly impeccably researched, he's still an enigma who no one will really ever know completely.

***½

12 Angry Men

Perhaps the ultimate chamber drama, the celebrated story of a jury of 12 men presiding over a homicide trial, for good and bad, is as much a sociopolitical touchstone film as it is a damn good entertaining yarn. It's a courtroom drama full of clever twists and turns, heated dialogue and showcase acting.

12 Angry Men (1957) dir. Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsalm, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman

By Alan Bacchus

The 1950s was a unique decade in cinema, and 12 Angry Men exemplifies many of the hallmarks of this era in Hollywood. It comes in the post-war era of cinema, a new age influenced by the increasing political activism of the period as much as the need for escapism. As such, there arose the ‘issue’ film, something rare in Hollywood’s Golden Age, a film in which sociopolitical themes were as important as the story itself. While important in the context of the betterment of the world, it also meant often heavy-handed proselytizing and statement-making.

For instance, the films of Stanley Kramer, who made The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, were perhaps the models for this new movement. In 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda, the unnamed central character and the man who is initially the lone proponent of the not-guilty verdict and eventually sways the whole jury his way, exemplifies the theme of social justice, racial harmony and democratization of everyone’s voice within a populace.

At times it all comes out with such aggressive force we have to roll our eyes. The character played by Lee J. Cobb, for instance, brow beats us as the clear antagonizing force to Fonda. His bull-headed prejudice against youth and somewhat less obvious racial bigotry are engrossed by Cobb’s over-the-top performance. However, we’re meant to sympathize with him because of his fractured relationship with his estranged son.

The '50s also saw the influence of television against the big-screen medium. This was Sidney Lumet’s first film, handpicked by producer Fonda based on the strength of his television work. Lumet’s direction is flawless, as he remarkably choreographs his actors and camera to create a visual dynamic mise-en-scene and visual design out of a small undecorated space. Lumet’s wide-angle lenses and crisp black and white photography look as impressive now as they did then.

Fonda’s performance as the social conscience of the picture fits in naturally with his career-long support of the underprivileged and downtrodden in society, complementing his work on John Ford’s films The Grapes of Wrath and Young Mr. Lincoln, as well as the socially conscious classics The Ox-Bow Incident and Mister Roberts.

What holds up best is the script adapted by Reginald Rose from his own stage play. The narrative is a near-perfect construction which surmounts its own clever concept. Rose expertly lays out the criminal case in the dialogue exchanges among the jury and the twists and turns of the story as each character rethinks each key item of evidence or testimony. The personal backstories of the characters, which are as important as the conflict in the present, while heady and forthright at times, are also expertly woven into the fabric of the fascinating, thrilling and clever criminal investigation.

***½

The Wind Journeys

Ciro Guerra's festival piece from a few years ago is an under-the-radar stunner. The story of a travelling musician looking to unload his cursed accordion makes for a lengthy and epic journey across the stunning landscape of Colombia with allusions to the American Western, the good ol’ fashioned road movie and the familiar literary rites of passage and mythological resonance of an Odyssian journey.

The Wind Journeys (2009) dir. Ciro Guerra Starring: Marciano Martínez, Yull Núñez

By Alan Bacchus

In the Colombian rural countryside that is the setting of this film, the accordion player is characterized, like a doctor or priest, as an important and valued member of society. These travelling musicians, called Troubadours, fulfill a number of roles in society, most importantly bringing light through entertainment to the very poor farmers.

Guerra’s lead character, Ignacio Carrillo, is one such man, an elderly and revered soft-spoken musician as loquacious as Alan Ladd’s Shane. But success in life has come at a price. After the death of his wife, he’s convinced his accordion is cursed, not unlike the blues legend Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. The only way to break the curse is to give the accordion back to its maker – like The Lord of the Rings but with an accordion. Along for the ride is a younger musician who may or may not be Ignacio’s son, but an apprentice who desires to absorb the essence of the type of musician his absentee father might have been.

It’s these familiar and grounded archetypal relationships that give this minuscule Colombian festival art film immense pathos and cinematic gravitas. It’s a stunning piece of cinema, one of those miracle discoveries which falls into one's lap by chance. It’s the July DVD of the Month from the Film Movement – the unique film distributor that essentially chooses and programs these films to its subscribers.

Along the journey the pair encounter a number of situations that make for often stunning set pieces. There’s a lengthy accordion duel in the first half, which features the village champion squaring off against any claimers to the title of champion - a thrilling trash-talking show-off, like an 8 Mile with accordions. There’s also an encounter between two men who duel to the death by machete on a bridge over water. And the young man's baptism by the blood of a lizard after proving his worth on the bongo drums is the stuff masterpieces are made of.

It’s also very arty and thus imposing to mainstream viewers. Guerra sets a ‘deliberately paced’ elegant and almost rhythmic style. Some might also call it 'slow'. But it fits in well with the use of landscape, pastoral widescreen compositions and the controlled pacing of a Carlos Reygadas film (Silent Light or Japon), or even the revered existential films of Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry).

The treasure of this film, though, is Paulo Andrés Pérez’s stunning cinematography. It's one of the best-looking films in international cinema I've seen in a while - rich colours pop out of the dense and textured frames. Fluid camera moves enhance the elegance and beauty of the Colombian landscape. Along the way, Guerra places his characters atop mountains peaks and in frames against stupendous god-like cloudscapes and sharp cliffs, which reminds us of the ethereal Herzog classic Aguirre: The Wrath of God.

Director Ciro Guerra, only 28 when he made this film, shows remarkable maturity and restraint, in addition to some solid chops of cinematic grandeur. He is a major international talent waiting to break out. The Wind Journeys never quite broke through, but with his next film Guerra is poised for Palme D’Or deification.

****

Sparrows

'Sparrows', the silent Mary Pickford-produced masterpiece, features certainly one of cinema’s most despicable villains with a concept even more frightening than the most grotesque from the horror films of today. It's the story of a baby farm run by a diabolical landowner, Mr. Grimes, who steals babies and interns them on his ranch for ransom, sale or anything else he desires. As one of the most celebrated Pickford films, it was a controversial talking piece in the day, a Gothic nightmare of monumental proportions, but also a riveting and inspirational adventure film featuring one of cinema's greatest escape sequences at the end.

Sparrows (1926) dir. William Beaudine
Starring: Mary Pickford, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, Roy Stewart, 'Spec' O'Donnell

By Alan Bacchus

In the middle of a remote and treacherous bayou swamp lives Mr. Grimes (von Seyffertitz), a hunchbacked devil of a man. And judging by his sickly visage and ominous presence, he’s like Fagan meets Nosferatu. Huddled in the barn are a group of seven children who have been kidnapped by Grimes and his wife. The eldest is Molly (Pickford), who tends to the children like Mother Teresa, both sheltering them from the evil Grimes as well as educating them in the eventuality that they may escape or be rescued.

Early on, Grimes receives a doll intended to be given to one of the children, but in the most diabolical fashion he throws the gift into a mud sink hole and gloriously watches it slowly get sucked into the earth – a chilling visual metaphor for the danger these children face. When Grimes breaks into the mansion of one of the local plantation owners and steals their two-year-old daughter it sets in motion his demise and the escape of Molly and the children.

Perhaps what is most chilling is the fact that the film never really tells us why the children are there. Most of them are certainly too young to work on the land. Thus the nebulous purpose of this prison renders the mood and threat even more bone-chilling.

The film is not shy to characterize Molly like the Virgin Mary, a near-deified protector of the children. Her education of them includes quoting scripture and referencing God who watches over them. The most emotionally stunning sequence is the celebrated Jesus scene in which Molly, while nursing a starving baby, imagines Jesus himself entering through the barn to take the child away from her, only to wake up and find the baby dead in her arms. I can think of fewer moments in cinema as powerful and moving as this scene.

The finale is equally stunning, a riveting escape/chase sequence out of the compound and through the treacherous swamp. As Molly and the children climb across branches above the snapping jaws of snarling alligators and avoiding the trappings of the mud sinkholes, it’s one moment of tense jeopardy after another rendered all the more dangerous because of the children’s lives at stake.

If anything, the film pushes the chase one scene too long. After escaping the swamp and after Grimes is sucked into it, it turns into a boat chase between Grimes’ accomplices and the police. But it’s all in aid of the feeling of spectacle, as led by Pickford herself, who championed the film and served as its producer.

So look past the usual Halloween fare and seek out Mary Pickford’s Sparrows for a jolt of spine-tingling Gothic horror from the silent era.

****

Sparrows will soon be available on sparkling Blu-ray in the Milestone Films’ Rags to Riches: Mary Pickford Collection. It includes three Pickford films - Sparrows (1926), The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) and Hoodlum (1919) - as well as invaluable audio commentaries, Pickford home movies and short film accompaniments, which add value to the reverent package.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

The film’s demise among the glut of summer blockbuster fare is not surprising. The idea of a revisionist history story of Abe Lincoln’s alter ego as a Van Helsing-like vampire hunter playing against the historical story of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves should never have been elevated above B-movie production values. Thus, the amount of money spent to make this movie (reportedly $70 million) is staggering. At best this is a Bruce Campbell movie (like Bubba Ho-Tep), an effect which raises our expectations for this idiosyncratic story of alternate history to actually penetrate the mainstream. It’s not all that bad, most of it is watchable, but at the end of the day, all people will remember of this film is its failure at the box office.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012) dir. Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anthony Mackie

By Alan Bacchus

There’s no doubt the mere title of this movie is intriguing, the kind of cross-pollination project screenwriters spitball and discard just for fun. Somehow this one stuck. Well, first it started with Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2010 novel, which he adapted into his own screenplay for this film. Secondly, there was the attraction of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, who also paired on the animated film 9. Presumably on the strength of this power pair it was a good bet for 20th Century Fox, who produced and distributed it.

At its core it’s a superhero origin story, initially introducing Lincoln as a child witnessing the murder of his mother at the mouth and fangs of a particularly nasty blood-sucking vampire. Lincoln spends the rest of his life vowing revenge against this beast of a man. Eventually finding his Jedi-mentor figure in Henry Sturges (Cooper), Lincoln learns the ways of the vampire and the skills to hunt and kill these creatures, which clandestinely have permeated America and are plotting to take over the country.

And thus, while Lincoln is building his career as a lawyer, by night he’s killing vampires one by one with his expertly wielded axe until he reaches the killer of his mother. Years later, after he become President and once again faces the threat of vampires aiding the Confederate military in the Civil War, Lincoln comes out of retirement to kick some more vampire ass in the name of American freedom.

Courageously, Burton/Bekmambetov cast a new face in the role of Lincoln with Benjamin Walker, who wears the Lincoln top hat nicely and makes a good young Lincoln in the opening half of the film. Like most superhero films the origin stories are the most intriguing, and while Grahame-Smith follows the mythological template to the letter, Walker’s fresh-faced performance and Bekmambetov’s flare with the action make it all visually stimulating.

The film loses steam in the second half with the elder President Lincoln (Walker in heavy makeup) dealing with the political ramifications of Emancipation and the Civil War. The use of the historically significant ordeal of black slaves in this uniformly pulpy material is kind of off-putting. The strong feeling of guilt watching Anthony Mackie’s Will Johnson, who becomes a target for the racist Vampire Confederates, was enough to make me uncomfortable. Bekmambetov and Grahame-Smith’s message here is trite and thus too exploitative of the issue of slavery.

But the film fails because of the lazy third act, an unmemorable action scene aboard a train, full of engorged and ridiculously unrealistic green-screen action, most of which is impossible by the laws of physics. And we don’t even get to see the assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth played out in the end – what a gyp!

**½

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is available on Blu-ray and DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Safety Not Guaranteed

This soft and unambitious indie hit from this year’s Sundance Film Festival arguably overachieves from its aspirations as a low-rent love story with a sci-fi bent. Executive produced by the Duplass Bros., the story of a lowly magazine intern who falls for a batty backwoods loner who thinks he can travel in time, with mild doses of humour, science fiction and romance, fits into the organic roots of the Northwestern brand of indie cinema.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) dir. Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Mark Duplass, Jenica Bergere

By Alan Bacchus

By design, director Colin Trevorrow begins his story with a pair of extremely unlikable characterizations of his co-leads; Darius (Plaza), a magazine intern introduced doing the dreck work for a glossy Seattle magazine, an underachiever due to her extremely cynical Gen-X viewpoint on life; and Jeff (Johnson), an arrogant and monumentally annoying writer who ropes Darius into helping him write a story on a curious classified ad in a local paper. The ad states that a man is looking for a partner to travel back in time with him, with the cautionary warning, 'Must bring own weapons, safety not guaranteed’.

Venturing out of the big city, Darius, Jeff and tag-along intern IT nerd Arnau (Soni), embark on a road trip of sorts which has them bonding over their strange assignment. The trio seek out and stalk the owner of the ad who turns out to be Mark Duplass as Kenneth, a shy recluse with delusions of grandeur.

Going undercover, it’s up to Darius to cozy up to Kenneth to digest the man’s idiosyncrasies and find the information and back story through which to mock and shame this poor man publicly for the trite urban magazine.

At this point it’s a typical romcom set-up, a lie which begins the relationship then changes from observe-and-report to romantic love, at which point the lie from the beginning will bite back as true identities become revealed. Indeed Trevorrow, working from Derek Connolly’s script, moves in this direction, but it’s his evolving characterizations that break through these worn-out genre conventions.

As much as we hate the egocentric writer Jeff, there’s some talent in crafting such a despicable douchebag who self-identifies himself by his cool condo and his Cadillac Escalade. Trevorrow gradually reveals a soul beneath Jeff’s bravado. When he reconnects with a female lover from the past from whom he states he ‘once got a blow job,’ we see a fragile man deeply in love with this brief memory and the elusive figure from the past.

While Darius’s attraction to Kenneth and his savant-like afflictions are telegraphed clearly, it’s Jeff’s transition from grade-A urban asshole to a soul-bearing romantic opening his vulnerable heart to the woman he’s always loved which blindsides us. That said, there’s still an air of subdued emotion purposely avoiding melodrama in favour of cinematic disaffection. And so the tragedy of Jeff’s life is only a minor emotional blip reconciled by his encouragement and guidance of Arnau’s first foray into manhood.

A minor twist at the end pays off the time travel scenario, opening up the possibility that Kenneth wasn't a crackpot after all. While somewhat delightful and humorous Safety Not Guaranteed ends up being a satisfactory but unmemorable addition to Sundance’s alumni.

**½

Safety Not Guaranteed is available on DVD from Alliance Films in Canada.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I like musicals, but don’t much care for rock operas, that is, the brand of song and dance motion picture which emerged in the '70s and featured reworked pop rock tunes instead of traditional Broadway-style numbers. So this is not really my cup of tea. But if there was one film I could appreciate in this subgenre it would be this gleeful, irresponsible and audacious cultish schlockfest.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) dir. Jim Sharman
Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O’Brien, Meat Loaf

By Alan Bacchus

Susan Sarandon is Janet Weiss, a virginal small-town girl betrothed to the equally nerdy and virginal Brad Majors (Bostwick). On the night of their engagement they find themselves with a flat tire and stranded in heavy rain. Their nearest respite is an old haunted castle-like mansion off the beaten path. They are quickly welcomed to a group of Transylvanians singing the Time Warp song.

The leader of this cooky gang of strange and swinging group of men, women and trannies is the ultimate tranny, Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), who has just finished creating his own gay version of Frankenstein’s monster, an Apollo-like beefcake figure named Rocky, who will serve as his own personal sex slave. After Frank beds both Janet and Brad while in disguise, Janet discovers her own repressed carnality and goes sexual haywire. Then Janet's and Brad’s old high school teacher, Dr. Everett Scott, shows up only to get killed and served for dinner to Frank’s guests. Then it turns out the Transylvanians are actually aliens from another galaxy and eventually blast off into space in the castle-cum-spaceship.

Predictable is not the word to describe the effect of watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show - fucked up Quaalude trip or ecstasy bomb might be more appropriate. The plot seemingly gets made up as the film goes along, but mostly it’s a parody of classic b-movie sci-fi from the '50s with a lot of gay sex.

I forgot how gay the film actually was. And I forgot how liberal the '70s were in comparison to the '80s and '90s when material like this would have been scared off by the AIDS epidemic. Few commercial or even remotely mainstream films are as graphic and shamelessly explicit.

For straight dudes, we get to at least marvel at the stunning beauty of Susan Sarandon, including her saucer-cup eyes and ample bosom, which is featured prominently in that white cross-your-heart bra she wears through most of the film.

Stylistically, Jim Sharman’s direction and camerawork embrace all the shlockiness the film is trying to parody. There’s little aesthetic continuity going on. Sharman moves between extreme camera lenses to rough handheld work to traditional locked off photography. As with the story, anything goes.

Though the Blu-ray looks sharp on my 42-inch screen, the small screen is just too small and insular to really capture the magic of this film. Rocky Horror should be a shared experience, preferably at midnight, in a dingy old rep theatre on Halloween night in full regalia and chemically enhanced. Happy Halloween!

***

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

In the Mood For Love

Significant for a number of reasons, 'In the Mood for Love' is not only a great film, routinely voted in polls as one of the best movies of its decade, it also completes Wong Kar-Wai’s decade-long examination of the barriers to human connectivity, a series of now-iconic and influential HK films which includes 'Chungking Express', 'Happy Together', 'Days of Being Wild' and 'Fallen Angels'. It also comes at the end of the millennium, which has the impression of being cinema’s last word on the theme of love and romance in the 20th Century.

In the Mood for Love (2000) dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung

By Alan Bacchus

Part of the allure of the cinema of Wong Kar-Wai is it’s relation to the prevailing action genre in Hong Kong at the time. After the proliferation of John Woo/Jackie Chan-inspired action and kung fu extravaganzas in the '90s, Kar-Wai seemed like the supreme antidote to these overly produced, emotionally excessive exports. In the Mood for Love is like a delicate porcelain doll. With a wisp of a story, the film coasts on the constrained angst of the characters, but always with a supreme cinematic eye, as cool, stylized and memorable as those engrossed action movies.

It’s 1962, and here Kar-Wai’s frequent collaborator Tony Leung plays Chow Mo-wan, a journalist looking for an apartment for him and his wife. Same with Su Chan (Maggie Cheung), his comely neighbour, alluring and gorgeous in her 60s bees nest hairdo and form-fitting pattern dresses. But Su’s also married to a man as busy and unavailable as Chow’s wife. Conscious efforts are made not to see the faces of Chow's or Su’s spouses, a commonality the audience subliminally recognizes, thus connecting the two characters together.

Gradually through a series of impressively edited montage scenes we learn of an affair between the two spouses. The sequence ends in a magnificent restaurant scene, in which Chow and Su question each other about their respective accessories - Chow’s tie, which resembles the same tie Su gave her husband from abroad, and Su’s bag, which resembles a bag Chow gave his wife.

A love affair develops between the two without consummation. Together they vow not to ‘become like their spouses’ and betray their marriages. Kar-Wai turns these screws extra tight as Chow gradually grows fonder of Su, subtly inviting her to consummate their relationship. Thus, Su’s increasing apprehension and teasing love furthers the sadness of their forlorn love. And after a series of time shifts forward into the late '60s where we see a downtrodden Chow return to the same apartment years later looking for Su, Kar-Wai elevates his drama to near-Odyssey-like tragedy.

Before In the Mood for Love, Kar-Wai was celebrated for a unique fluid visual style, his camera seemed free to float in and around the busy HK streets at will. But here Kar-Wai consciously sequesters himself in the tight spaces of the cramped apartment space. Even with these limitations he manages to find evocative compositions in which to frame his characters. We never see Chow’s wife but immediately identify her by the semi-circular window overlooking her office. And the frequent meeting place for Su and Chow in the early days of their courtship is simply the landing of the building’s staircase. Kar-Wai maximizes these repeated and simple slow-motion shots with help from the indelible music cue from Shigeru Umebayashi, and of course Christopher Doyle’s lauded cinematography and lighting.

It took four years for the follow-up, 2046, to come out and three years after that came his English-language film, My Blueberry Nights. These lengthy intervals suggest perhaps, much like the effect Apocalypse Now had on Francis Coppola’s career, In the Mood for Love exasperated Wong Kar-Wai's remarkable creative juices. I hope this isn't true.

****

In the Mood for Love is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

James and the Giant Peach

Looking back, 'A Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'James and the Giant Peach' represent a remarkable double-shot of painstaking, onerous, yet thoroughly delightful stop motion animated features from Henry Selick/Tim Burton. While the stop motion animation holds up remarkably well compared to the best animation of today, the live action sequences, and in particular the musical numbers, backdate the film to 16 years ago.

James and the Giant Peach (1996) dir. Henry Selick
Starring: Paul Terry, Joanna Lumley, Pete Postlethwaite, Miriam Margolyes

By Alan Bacchus

This time ‘round Selick adapts Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book James and the Giant Peach for the big screen. Dahl’s story features a young boy, James, saddened by the death of his parents in a violent storm, who now lives an oppressed life under the guardianship of his two nasty aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Then a mysterious stranger appears with a solution to his problem - a bag of crocodile tongues, which have the power to make his dreams come true. This comes in the form of a giant peach that grows in his yard, which James uses to sail to New York City and complete the unfulfilled dream of his parents.

Selick employs both live action and stop motion – live action to show the world of James at home on land and in the real world, and animation once he is inside the peach and on his journey toward the Big Apple – a clever cinematic pun, which may or may not have been intended.

The live action world doesn't hold up as well as Selick’s glorious animation process. The opening 20 minutes or so before James enters his peach fantasy world is adequate but not inspired fantasy stuff. Once he is on his journey, the film comes alive. James’ new friends, Old Green Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Mr. Earthworm, Miss Spider, Mrs. Ladybug and Glowworm are distinct and quirky characters reminiscent of the skewed townsfolk of Nightmare’s Halloween town - and for fun, Jack Skellington even has a cameo as the captain of a sunken pirate ship.

Like Nightmare, the narrative is peppered with a dozen or so musical numbers, most of which are unmemorable, and at least from these cynical adult viewer’s eyes, don’t add much. They may even detract from the enjoyment of the picture. Unfortunately, it dates the film badly, back to the Disney classically animated period of the '90s when everything was animated as a song and dance movie. Now, as evidenced by Selick’s Coraline and most of the CG animated films of today, these sequences of characters digressing into song and dance are a rarity.

Selick/Dahl present a number of well constructed and resonate themes which arc throughout the action. After being subjugated by his aunt via the peach, James is allowed to become a leader, accept responsibility and commit his boyhood rite of passage. There’s also a bit of cold revenge in there as well, as the second act climaxes with his confrontation with the evil storm marvellously transformed into the form of a charging rhinoceros.

Overall, while Nightmare exploded with action, comedy, music and that dark edge of Tim Burton, James and the Giant Peach is light, fluffy and satisfying but no classic.

***

James and the Giant Peach is available on Blu-ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

The Killing

Like most of Kubrick’s films, 'The Killing' is absolutely impervious to time. While the film is one of his most ‘conventional’ films, it is remarkable for his forward-thinking narrative structure, showing the mechanics of a crime from multiple points of view in different spaces of time. Jim Thompson’s hard-boiled dialogue and Kubrick’s youthful cinematic flare with the camera still pulsate with a different kind of energy than the more formal and stolid works he’s most known for.

The Killing (1956) dir. Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Jay C. Flippen, Timothy Carey

By Alan Bacchus

There’s a strong sense of aggression in this picture. Starting with the score by George Fried, a loud and almost angry music cue opens the picture and helps to create momentum for the film as it snowballs throughout. There’s also the supremely imposing figure of Johnny Clay (Hayden), the ring leader of the racetrack heist who speaks with a larger-than-life deep voice, oozing confidence. Clay’s barely even a movie character, but more a caricature of someone like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and the Hollywood crimesters of the past.

We don’t care that Clay exhibits no other emotions other than his devotion to the job and supporting his dutiful wife. We may just be meant to identify with the affable George Petty (Cook Jr.), who is manipulated by his overbearing wife, Sherry (Windsor). But even then, his characterization as the ‘patsy’ is written to the extreme, an indulgence of Kubrick’s which doesn't really fit into his body of work, but within the rules of the crime/noir genre it is completely acceptable.

While most of the visual hallmarks we associate with Stanley Kubrick were birthed in his next film, Paths of Glory, we can see some stylish commonalities incorporated here. The omniscient voiceover, which tells us exactly what we see going on in front of us, is featured again in Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. And while the information presented seems unnecessary to help us understand the story, Kubrick uses the narration to convey a distinctly documentary-like realism to the film. Kubrick’s staunch adherence to real location flavour and almost consciously un-cinematic newsreel-like imagery of the racetrack adds to the unique procedural qualities.

There’s also the mask used by Clay during the heist, a recurring visual motif used so dramatically in Alex Delarge’s home invasion in A Clockwork Orange, as well as during the costume party flashback in The Shining and the infamous sex party in Eyes Wide Shut.

Rashomon was Kubrick’s cited influence in this regard, but as applied to the stone cold film noir/American heist genre it resembles little of Kurosawa’s rigorous technique. While the idea of showing a heist from the different perspectives of the participants often doubling back on each other was clearly in Lionel White’s original source novel (titled Clean Break), it was Kubrick’s confidence as a filmmaker which made it work for cinema, thus influencing later filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and Atom Egoyan, who regularly use this approach.

Kubrick may have also looked to Europe for this influence in tone. We can’t help but see the connection to the cool, emotionless fetish for details in the great crime films of Jules Dassin (Rififi), Robert Bresson (Pickpocket) and Jacques Becker (Le Trou). It’s no surprise because these three films are some of the best heist/escape pictures of all time, with The Killing lining up proudly beside or arguably even above them.

****

The Killing is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

As the pinnacle of print journalism, the New York Times sits at a precipice of change in the media industry. With the gatekeepers of news now spread out a thousand-fold given the proliferation of the Internet, how will the Times adapt and reclaim its status as the ‘newspaper of record’? While the mere fact of watching the absolute best-of-the-best in journalism working on a daily basis is indeed compelling and watchable, a lack of focus and discernable ‘ending’ prevents the film from successfully moving us emotionally or engaging in the journalistic crisis.

Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011) dir. Andrew Rossi
Documentary

By Alan Bacchus

This is the fundamental purpose of Andrew Rossi’s documentary, which attempts to bring audiences inside the revered establishment and show the inner turmoil that has been rocking the paper for the past few years. Rossi’s activist and ideological style gives the film some urgency and the feeling that American culture, and society in general, would suffer from the loss of this great paper.

It’s a gigantic institution, but Rossi’s entry point is the Media Desk, a newly created department reporting specifically on the changing landscape of media, including the Times’ place in the new world order. David Carr quickly emerges as the ‘star’. He’s a forthright and opinionated reporter, as well as a former crack cocaine addict who emerged from addiction in his 20s and 30s to become one of the world leaders in media journalism.

Carr’s gravelly throat, which crackles from years of abuse through smoking and drugs, gives him the right kind of working class authoritative edge we associate with journalists of old. His confrontations with young, hip bloggers attempting to denigrate the institution result in some fine verbal ass-kicking from Carr himself. With that said, Rossi also features a number of younger hot shots who have cracked the Times through their media savvy and youthful energy.

The spectre of WikiLeaks looms over most of the film as well. The breakthrough of that site into public consciousness provides a thought-provoking contemporary contrast to where the NY Times used to be. Rossi connects the influence of the NY Times on breaking the Watergate scandal in the ‘70s with Julian Assange’s modus operandi with his controversial whistleblower.

But what about the integrity of journalism, a moral foundation that WikiLeaks seemingly has broken down over the past year? Rossi’s question about the Times’ potential obsolescence in comparison to WikiLeaks is never successfully answered. But then again, this story has not ended and continues to be written.

So while Page One lacks closure, it’s indicative of how journalism works today – a self-sustaining, rapidly evolving organism challenging everyone, including the most entrenched newspapers such as the New York Times, to keep up with the Joneses.

***

Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times is available on DVD from Alliance Films in Canada.

Trouble the Water

'When the Levees Broke', Spike Lee's comprehensive and definitive third-person documentary of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, is a damned near-perfect film. Thankfully, Deal and Lessin's film doesn't compete with this, instead offering the ideal companion piece: a uniquely personal Ground Zero account of the Katrina disaster that goes beyond the harshness of Mother Nature, past the deep-rooted governmental inefficiencies and exposes the bright light of America's spirit of ambition, competitiveness and survival.

Trouble the Water (2008) dir. Carl Deal & Tia Lessin
Documentary

By Alan Bacchus

Kimberly Roberts and her husband Scott were invisible to American society before Katrina - a couple of poor, black, struggling, lower-status citizens living day-to-day. In August, 2005, before the storm hit, Kimberly, sensing the gravitas of the situation, grabbed their cheap consumer DV Camera and started shooting. And so Rivers, the entrepreneur, opportunist and now documentarian gives us a tour of her near-poverty-stricken Ninth Ward district of New Orleans. When the storm hits we become witness to Mother Nature's aggressive wrath and the heroic acts of ordinary people fighting to survive.

As we all know, the storm was only the beginning, and Rivers continued to film the sad aftermath, eventually linking up with another documentary crew, who combine and merge their stories into what would become Trouble the Water. Kimberly goes from camera operator to documentary subject and continues to guide us with an astonishing ground-level point of view through the absurdities and bewildering, discombobulated bureaucracy that embarrassed America in front of the world. The botched rescue effort is exemplified by the one-on-one conversations with the military personnel who refuse to let the starving and homeless citizens into their base for shelter.

Trouble the Water succeeds because of the infectious personality of Ms. Rivers, an affable and candid subject whose anger and fury are tempered with warm Southern charm. But in the end, it's the realization that her steadfast determination to make good on the American dream is what allowed her to survive and make the best of the disaster.

The DVD features some worthy deleted and expanded scenes, and offers us a chance to see Kimberly and the filmmakers revel in the success of the film. A Q&A with Richard Roeper at the Roger Ebert Film Festival and a one-on-one meeting with the New Orleans Mayor at the Democratic National Convention show the effect of the documentary on Kimberly and her husband as advocates for social change in the country.

***½

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

The Game

Looking back on David Fincher's two early films 'Seven' and 'The Game', which were made two years after one another, they have more than proximity of time in common. Both clever genre films seem to be like two sides of the same coin, both overachieving in execution, transforming what could have been generic indistinguishable and unmemorable thrillers into enthralling psychological examinations of our human character.

The Game (1997) dir. David Fincher
Starring: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger, James Rebhorn, Peter Donat

By Alan Bacchus

Games are at play in both Seven and The Game. In Seven, the reigns are held by a psychopathic serial killer testing the will and unwilling victim played by Brad Pitt. John Doe (Kevin Spacey), upset with the world, forces the perfect-specimen of society to see the evils of the world in the most horrific way possible. In The Game, Nicholas Van Orten is somewhat complicit in his game, but he enters into his harrowing journey under false pretenses. For Van Orten, the problems with his life are visualized elegantly in a beautifully morose opening sequence, shot in earthy and haunting 8mm film, fake home movies which show the wealthy but depressed life of Nicholas’s father. The sequence ends with his father jumping off his balcony to his death,

As a result, Van Orten’s lifestyle is typically cold. His relationship with his co-workers and ex-wife are unemotive two-word sentences at most. And as a ruthless capitalist, he's introduced firing one of his father’s older colleagues (Armin Muehler-Stahl) in order to save some falling stock, but perhaps subconsciously to finally exert his authority of the ghost of his father. If anything, Van Orten is an on-the-nose caricature of Douglas’s Gordon Gekko, the '80s shark, perhaps updated for the '90s – devoid of the enjoyment of the corporate game, now simply numb to everything around him.

Enter Nicholas’s brother (Sean Penn), who gives him a CRS (Consumer Recreation Services) gift card as a birthday present. He’s not interested in any games, but through some cleverly placed covert clues Nicholas is subliminally persuaded to participate.

Fincher takes his time with the mechanics of the game. The initial adventures Van Orten finds himself in are overly telegraphed, feats of physical strength, a chase here and there, or, as Nicholas himself puts it, ‘elaborately staged pranks’. All of this is either an illusion to mask the true and devious goals of CRS to scam Van Orten out of his money, or to gradually put the man into a hallucinogenic daze in order to push him through the other side of consciousness. At all times throughout, in the back of our minds, we know that it's possible that it's all fake, all part of the game. And so the genius of this film is Fincher’s ability, through shear awe-inspiring cinematic skill, to put us in the mind of Van Orten and have us think from his point of view every step of the way.

This was my experience upon first viewing, as malleable as the puppet Van Orten finds on his driveway, pulled and push at will by Fincher into every dark corner he wants us to go. Thus making every twist a surprise or a shock, and in the case of the impressive climax, a complete revelation.

Seven had the same effect, but while that film bludgeoned its audience with a cold hard dose of cynical reality in the climax, The Game subverts these expectations by taking another direction, transforming its main character into a new person, Van Orten free of the lifelong shackles of his father and able to make his life thereafter his own.

***½

The Game is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Keep the Lights On

This emotionally explicit odyssey of two gay men and the ups and downs of their relationship over the course of 10 years could just be a landmark film for queer cinema. With the amount of coverage and praise this 'gay' film made without any semblance of 'straight' sensibilities, it could be the first of its kind to crack the mainstream. Unfortunately, when all is said and done there's more to admire than truly fall in love with.

Keep the Lights On (2012) dir. Ira Sachs
Starring: Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth, Julianne Nicholson, Paprika Steen

By Alan Bacchus

Erik (Lindhardt) is a documentary filmmaker living in New York, introduced to us as he is calling some kind of phone sex hook-up line. Though he desires the pleasures of sex, his soulful eyes want more, a lasting and loving relationship. He finds this in Paul (Booth), whom he meets in one of those one-night-stand encounters. But Paul is in a straight relationship and not fully out of the closet. Despite the challenge, Erik can't abandon his heart and chases after him. Paul finally commits to switching sides and enters into a relationship with Erik.

It doesn't take long before cracks start to show, as Paul's drug addiction taints their sex life, and his demands as a workaholic lawyer conflict with Erik's more flexible freelance lifestyle. Over the course of the 10 years Paul moves in and out of Erik's life, sometimes just disappearing without a word of notice. And yet Erik continues to want his affection, something Paul continually refuses to give. At several points in the relationship ultimatums are given, eventually forcing Paul and Erik to make a full-stop decision to be with each other or not.

Despite the intertitle cards that signify the change in time, we never get the feeling of time passing. Their haircuts certainly don't change, but neither do the characters. And apart from the graphic sex they engage in frequently there's not much chemistry. Erik, the documentarian, is the more passionate of the two, constantly evaluating the relationship and looking to express his feelings. Paul, whom we see less of, is conservative, mostly aloof and independent.

Their conflicts over the period seem to be a continuous struggle between Erik's emotional needs and Paul's independence. Their descent is as tragic and frustrating as the doomed love story in Blue Valentine.

More subtly, we notice time pass through the gradual change in visual palette. Early in the film, Sachs filters his world through a grainy verite look, a wonderfully textured cinematography, though unpolished and rough, but still artful and rich. Gradually, the graininess disappears over time and, by the end, without being noticeable, the film is clean and spotless.

But the honesty in Sach's storytelling breaks through the narrative deficiencies, achieving a mood and feeling of heartbreaking sadness without the bleakness of Blue Valentine.

***