Changeling

“Changeling” is one of the award season’s heaviest hitters.  Directed by and starring Oscar winners Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, respectively, it has all the ingredients to put statues on mantles.

But sometimes the right ingredients don’t taste all that great in the finished product.

Single mom Christine Collins (Jolie) returns home from work one evening in 1928 to find her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) missing.  She calls the Los Angeles police, who offer no help at all.  When the police later begin to work the case, they find nothing until, months later, they return a boy they claim is Walter.

Christine, of course, knows the child is not hers and begins to wage battle with the L.A. police.  She receives much help from radio evangelist Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), who has made it his mission to uncover the pervasive corruption among the city’s law enforcement.  Christine’s plight does just that, and the police inflict one vile ploy after another on her to smear Christine and exalt themselves in the public eye.

Jolie plays the tragic heroine very well (see “Girl, Interrupted” and “A Mighty Heart”), and she carries much of this film.  Oscar moments abound.  “Changeling” isn’t her best leading role, but she might receive this year’s big award in return for being overlooked in the past.

All the acting, notably a star-making turn for Jason Butler Harner as a serial child killer and Amy Ryan as Christine’s fellow victim of L.A. cops, is outstanding. 

The most devastating aspect of “Changeling,” though, is that it’s a true story.  During Hollywood’s Golden Age, and before every city police department had an internal affairs unit, the depravity of the L.A. police reached legendary status.  Collins’ plight is merely one among many stories to be told from this era.

But the story might have been better served by a documentary.

The writer, J. Michael Straczynski, has worked mostly in television, and there are several moments when that background is painfully clear.  Straczynski forces melodramatic moments rather than sticking to what’s plausible.  At one point, police officers leave Christine alone in a room to confront a man who may have killed her son.  She shoves the man against a wall and screams in his face.  And we’re supposed to believe this happened?

This is also an oppressively sad movie, which would be okay if it ended up saying something profound.  I want to feel a like there’s a payoff for the two hours of emotional drain.

But “Changeling” doesn’t offer much we haven’t covered before.  Tragic as it is, we’ve seen many films about parents enduring child abductions, and scores of movies about corrupt L.A. cops (“L.A. Confidential,” just for starters).

The only things “Changeling” does offer are what we expect: a strong performance from the lead actor and solid work from a veteran director.

Eastwood has directed an amazing string of either very good or great films, and ironically, that hot streak may work against him.  He has reached a point at which it’s a let down when one of his films is merely “good.”

In the end, Eastwood tries very hard to play on our emotions, just for the sake of doing so.  If you need a good cry, this is your movie.  If you’re looking for much more, you will probably be disappointed.

 

Bottomline: Dramatic and well made, but a bit unsatisfying

Brilliant Web Campaigning

Look, forget about your personal political views.  This is one of the smartest, funniest uses of the web I’ve ever seen from a political organization.  Courtesy of my friend Mark, here is a Democrat’s version of a doomsday election video, personalized to blame Obama’s loss on me.

Obama’s Loss Traced to Jeff Marker

blogpost about blogs being obsolete

Apparently, I’m ramping up posting on this blog just as the blog thing is dying. That’s me, finger on the pulse and whatnot. Paul Boutin writes this in a recent Wired article:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

It does seem as if everyone around me has migrated to Facebook. I don’t yet know what the hell Twitter is. The rest of the article is very interesting. Here’s the link:
Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004

Waltz with Bashir

An early plug for a film called Waltz with Bashir.  It’s a combination of cel, flash, and computer animation, to tell the realistic story of a former soldier’s memories of combat.  It has had brief runs in NY and LA (I think), just to qualify for Oscar consideration (however, they apparently didn’t meet some deadline set by the Academy, so it might not qualify).  It will hit theatres in early 2009.  But it looks stunning.  It’s also a nice break from conventional animation.

Take a look at the trailer…

Soderbergh to make 3-D ‘Cleopatra’

This is one of the stranger pieces of movie-under-development news I’ve seen in a while, from a guy who’s becoming a fountain of strange movie projects.  This from Variety:

For his next directing effort, Steven Soderbergh is plotting a 3-D live-action rock ’n’ roll musical about Cleopatra.

He is courting Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the Egyptian queen and Hugh Jackman to play her lover, Marc Antony.

The $30 million “Cleo” will be shopped for financing and distribution within the next two weeks. Greg Jacobs is producing with Casey Silver.

The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices, and the script is by James Greer, a former bass player for the band and an author.

While Soderbergh has recently done a spate of wildly different projects, this one will be his first full-blown musical.

Soderbergh, who’s about to release the Benicio Del Toro starrer “Che” and wrapped Matt Damon starrer “The Informant,” is also prepping a Richard LaGravanese-scripted Liberace film at Warner Bros., with Michael Douglas attached to play the entertainer and Damon to play his companion, who sued him for palimony.

Before “Cleo,” Soderbergh’s directing “The Girlfriend Experience,” setting porn star Sasha Grey to play a $10,000-a-night call girl in a film that will be simultaneously distributed in theaters, on DVD and on the HDNet movie channel by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s HDNet label.

Calls to Soderbergh’s reps went unreturned.

So to review, here’s a list of Soderbergh’s most recent work: 2-part biopic about Che Guevara (okay, I’m with you, Steven), The Informant with Matt Damon (right on), biopic about Liberace with Michael Douglas (hey, Steven why are you stepping out of that high window?), a movie starring a porn star with weird distribution (Steven, step down off the ledge.  You’ve got so much to live for), and a 3-D, Cleopatra rock musical (Steven, don’t jump!).

Soderbergh’s done unconventional before, but this is a dangerously off the wall string of films.

Pride and Glory

“Pride and Glory” is a solid cop corruption yarn and a compelling family drama, if only you can wade through the macho noise that covers up its better qualities.

Two generations of the Tierney family are New York City cops. They put family first, with the police force a close second. But the killing of four cops initiates a chain of events that puts the Tierney family values to the test.

Ray Tierney (Edward Norton) has been away from active duty for two years, ever since a police scandal made him question the righteousness of the police force. His brother Francis (Noah Emmerich) is now a sergeant, and their brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell) is a beat cop who serves under Francis.

The murdered policemen were part of Jimmy’s unit, so Francis Tierney Sr. (Jon Voight), patriarch of the family and bigwig in the NYC police department, pushes Ray into helping with the investigation so he can protect his brothers.

When Ray discovers that the evidence points to corruption within Francis’ division, and specifically to Jimmy’s men, the investigation threatens to tear apart both the Tierney family and the police force to which they have devoted their entire lives.

This is ground well covered by the movies already, but it’s a promising scenario and cast nonetheless.

Unfortunately, much of the movie is utterly ruined by bad dialogue.

It isn’t even a sports movie, but five minutes in, “Pride and Glory” tosses off the most clichéd line in the sports movie genre. During a football game between New York and Detroit cops, Jimmy tells his teammates, “I love you guys.”

Only, in “Pride and Glory,” it’s “I f!@#ing love youse guys.”

That’s the tone of the first act. F-bombs and clichés are more abundant than Yellow Cabs. Farrell and Emmerich both sound like they’re doing bad impressions of Robert DeNiro in “Taxi Driver.”

Long stretches of the opening are so bad I would have yanked the DVD out had I been watching it at home. I would blame no one for walking out of the theatre. But alas, I am paid to stay until the end credits, regardless how bad the movie is.

In this case, I’m glad I stayed. Once Ray’s investigation begins, Norton and Voight rescue the movie. We also meet the rest of the Tierney family, and the film finally finds its stride.

Ironically for a movie crowded with macho leading men, “Pride and Glory” succeeds most when the women enter the scene. We see a handful of quiet, touching moments between these tough cops and the women who love them. That’s where the real drama of the story lies, and that’s when we get drawn into this world.

Even when we leap back into tough guy mode, the movie works better because now it all matters.
“Pride and Glory” takes a long, long time to show us the goods, but the final act does come through with some genuine surprises and weighty moments.

If you are willing to tolerate the mess that is the first thirty minutes, the pay off is worthwhile.

Bottomline: Uneven but enjoyable cop drama

In the Can!

Yesterday was the big shoot, and it went incredibly well.  Our actors, Joelle Re-Arp Dunham, Brent Maddox, and Chelsea Dunham, were amazing.  Every take, every angle gave us something to use, and more than once, Joelle and Brent carried out the scene further than I had planned.  I let them go as long as they were comfortable, and a few times they did about twice the pages I asked them to do in one take.  I was blown away by their talent and ability to jump into a scene at any point I asked them to.

And my cinematographer, David Smith, was right on the money all day.  We were lucky enough to have two cameras, and David, with much help from Joshua Crisp, gave me exactly what I wanted at all times.  It took a lot of juggling, and David handled it all extremely well.

All of our crew members contributed.  No one took away; everybody added.  I probably had 7 people on the crew who are capable of leading productions of their own.

I’m gushing, but that’s the kind of day it was.  I wanted badly to start looking at footage last night, but I don’t want to tamper with the tapes at all until they are digitized and backed up.  I can’t wait.

Quarantine

There are all sorts of reasons I should have hated “Quarantine.”

It’s a remake of the Spanish film “[Rec],” (released less than a year ago!), making it yet another American redux of a foreign horror movie. It cops “The Blair Witch Project” by presenting the story as if we’re watching found footage that is the only record of mysterious killings. And it takes its handheld, real time camera style straight out of “Cloverfield.”

Despite all that, most of “Quarantine” works surprisingly well.

The fun begins when television reporter Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) spend the night at a Los Angeles fire station to capture what it’s like to be a firefighter. We watch Angela interview several firemen and generally witness the camaraderie among men who work 48 hour shifts together.

It all seems off the cuff and it’s trivial enough to create a nice sense of realism. It’s also in the form of unedited video footage that includes gaffes and behind the scenes moments, as if someone had taken the tape directly out of a camera. Again, nothing new, but effective nonetheless.

The tone changes abruptly when the firemen respond to a call at an apartment building. They find all the residents in a stir because of screams coming from an elderly woman’s apartment.
The firemen, two cops on the scene, and Angela all assume the woman is having major health problems. We viewers know better.

The woman is actually the first monster of our little scream fest. She is inflicted with some sort of virus (so “Quarantine” also knocks off “28 Days Later” and lots of other movies), which spreads rapidly throughout the building.

SWAT teams and the CDC lock down the building, putting everyone inside under (say it with me) quarantine. So the uninfected people fight off the bloodthirsty infected people, all captured by our news cameraman.

Up to a point, “Quarantine” is like walking through a good haunted house: we know the tricks about to be played on us, but we scream and laugh anyway, because that’s why we’re there. It’s all in good fun, and we appreciate how the minimum wage earners and volunteers in the place are trying so hard to show us a good time.

If only the movie didn’t end as it does. No spoilers here, but viewers will be extremely divided on the final act.

The most impressive thing about “Quarantine” is that in order to maintain the sense that we’re watching raw video footage, much of the film had to be shot with long takes. Most shots last for several minutes. Once the scary stuff begins, each shot includes chases up and down stairs, running into and out of rooms, and multiple attacks, all done without the aid of editing. Any filmmaker knows these things are very hard to pull off, and “Quarantine” does it well enough to compensate for most of its weaknesses.

Horror fans should enjoy the movie almost as much as they will enjoy debating which is better: “Quarantine” or its source material, “[Rec].”

Bottomline: Solid, entertaining horror film

Swing Vote and Joe the Plumber – UPDATED

This past summer, I reviewed a movie called Swing Vote, which no one saw, probably because Kevin Costner + politically themed movie does not = box office $.

The movie is admittedly not great, but I’ve read more than one blog or review about it that railed on its portrayal of American voters as rather stupid. Funny: I’ve been following political campaigns my whole life, and I thought the movie captured the group idiocy and mania of an American presidential election dead on.

Sorry to be a tad pompous, but the real election is proving the movie, and me, right.

Some Ohioan (woohoo!) dubbed Joe the Plumber became a centerpiece of the debate Wednesday night. So the media have tracked him down and shoved him in front of a camera about 100 times during the past 2 days (hyperbole becomes me). Good Morning America interviewed him in the wee hours of the Midwestern morning, having him stand just in front of the doorway to his modest home. It looked EXACTLY like a scene in Swing Vote! And they’re treating him as if he speaks for the entire working class, translated into Main Street, translated into the average American. Swing Vote takes it a couple of steps further and literally places the outcome of the election in one man’s hands.

I’ve been hesitant to recommend Swing Vote, because I like to be relatively sure people will enjoy a movie before I recommend it. But now, I say rent that sucker. But before you start the DVD, go online and watch the interviews with Joe the Plumber. That ridiculous movie won’t seem so ridiculous any more. And tell me afterward that those idiotic voters in the movie don’t look disturbingly similar to the real idiots who are presently whipped into hysteria over two men who probably shouldn’t still be in congress, let alone the White House.

**UPDATE:

Turns out, Joe the Plumber is not a licensed plumber and owes just shy of $1,200 in back taxes.  This makes the real situation even more like the movie!

Battling the Serpent, Part 1

Mowing has become an adventure into the wild kingdom lately (apologies to Marlon and Jim).

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a snake do something I didn’t know snakes could do.  A 2-foot long green snake (beautiful color), had gotten itself stuck on the downslope of our curb.  Surprisingly, the curb was too tall and steep for the little guy to surmount.  So there it was, slithering frantically to no avail.  I tried to pick up Mr. No Neck by the hind end to carry him to…somewhere (more on that in a second).  My hand got close, and as wild things do, Greenie turned and tried to give me a bite.  Now, I know a little green snake can’t do me any serious harm, but I’m just not into being bitten by snakes.

So I paused for a moment to figure out, first, how to pick up the thing with no harm to myself, and second, where I would take it.  As I was standing there contemplating, Greenie begins twisting and writhing around, as if in distress (cue the voice of Marty Stouffer).  It was so badly off, in fact, that it appeared to turn onto its back, open its mouth, and rattle its last breath.

Surely, I thought, this snake didn’t just die as I was standing here.  I nudged it gently.  No response.  By all indications, it had passed on.  So I picked it up by the very end of its body.  It hung limply, like a rope.  The head was only slightly lifted.  Poor thing.  I carried it to the back of our lot, thinking I would just toss it into the drainage ditch that borders our lot.  Still, something didn’t seem right.

I got to the tall grass and weeds at the back of our lot, and I stopped.  I had become suspicious.  I knelt down to let it go, and when its body was about a foot off the ground, the devious s.o.b. curled around and lunged at me.  I reflexively let it go, and it slithered a few feet away, where it coiled and kept its lying little eyes trained on me.

The snake had played possum!  It wasn’t hurt; it had outsmarted me.  However, neither the snake nor I knew how soon I would get even with him and his kind.

Stay tuned for part 2.