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| INTOLERANCE: LOVE'S STRUGGLE THROUGH THE AGES (1916) |
| 07.28.04 (7:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]Cast:[/b] All Dead
[b]Directed by:[/b] D.W. Griffith
[b]Written by:[/b] D.W. Griffith, Anita Loos, Frank E. Woods
[b]Distributor:[/b] Kino (US 2002)
[b]Rated:[/b] Unrated, would be PG-13 for violence and mature themes.
As Reviewed by: [b]Martin Scribbs[/b]
D.W. Griffith wants to fight for your right to party. His [b]INTOLERANCE[/b], a masterwork of silent film, couldn't be any clearer on that point. Griffith combs through history, trolling for a good time. In the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Judea, Paris, and LA, Griffith sees medicinal whisky, line dancing, and religious fornication continually put down by know-it-alls and sticks-in-the-mud. An enormous pie in the face of moral authority, [b]INTOLERANCE[/b] signals to the world that Griffith's not going to take it, no, he ain't gonna take it, Griffith's not going to take it...anymore.
***
I haven't seen [i]Birth of a Nation[/i], but after seeing [b]INTOLERANCE[/b], I'm strongly tempted to say that I don't give a damn about Griffith's bad reputation. [b]INTOLERANCE[/b] takes as its touchstone the Walt Whitman poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," a wonderfully endearing selection. First off, using the concept of "rocking" to explain quick cuts to an audience unaccustomed to film editing is genius. It lends a physical feel, a texture to the cinematagraphy. Moreover, Whitman is a perfect artistic double for Griffith here. They are lovers of life, poets unafraid to convert broad, highminded ideals into little orgies of concrete, hedonistic delight:
[i]Yes, my brother, I know;
The rest might not—but I have treasur’d every note;
For once, and more than once, dimly, down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen’d long and long.
Listen’d, to keep, to sing—now translating the notes,
Following you, my brother.
[/i]
--Walt Whitman, "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking."
When switching between storylines, Griffith actually shows a mother rocking her newborn, her face a study in love and concern. Not a Carnivale scene, I'll grant you, but the mother [i]is[/i] Lillian Gish, rumored to be the original MILF.
***
Of the four storylines, only that set in Reformation France kind of sucks. True, the Royal Palace scenery dazzles, and, true, every red-blooded American enjoys seeing a caricatured European dauphin aimlessly stroking his toy poodle. The D.W.'s problem here is that the Catholics and Protestants were BOTH soooo uptight. Aside from the opening wedding festival, the antagonists never do anything more fun than read the Bible... in slightly contrary ways... while wearing slightly different ruffs. It is almost a relief when the bloodshed starts, even if it is.... intolerant.
***
Now Jesus Christ -- THERE'S a guy who knows how to pump up the jam. Griffith cherrypicks the hippie Christ stories, starting with the first miracle, the kegger at Cana. As everyone knows, the tap was broken and rush week almost soured, but J to the C just hit it with a closed fist, intoned "Heeeeey...." and the keg sprung forth the freshest Coors the Bandit ever smuggled into Judea right under Smokey's nose. Griffith has the Pharisees tut-tutting, but we know right away these crusty old deans have nothing on the ball. (In perhaps a harbinger of what I'll find with [i]Birth[/i], the Jewish extras for these scenes are the most blood-lusting, hook-nosed, stringy-bearded stereotypes I've ever seen -- probably the grandfathers of the extras used by Mel for [i]The Passion[/i]). Then Jesus tells Peter to suffer the little children, as the kids are all right, and forgives the adulteress for loving the one that she was with. After all that, the cops come and it's Jesus Christ, mouth taped up like Bobby Seale in a Chicago courtroom, Jesus Christ, tucked away like Nelson Mandela, beat senseless with firehoses by Bull Connors, tied to a fence in a cold Laramie night. And did Griffith, the meglomaniac, as he edited [b]INTOLERANCE[/b] for the thousandth time, forgotten by the world, see something of himself there, perhaps look on enviously at the Dude of Dudes, the perpetrator of the ultimate party trick comeback?
[i]The poets tell how Poncho fell and Lefty's living in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold and so the story ends we're told
Poncho needs your prayers it's true but save a few for Lefty too
He only did what he had to do and now he's growing old[/i]
-- Ballad of Poncho and Lefty (Towne vanZandt)
***
But the twin hearts of [b]INTOLERANCE[/b] are the modern story (elsewhere known as "The Mother and the Law") and the Fall of Babylon. In the modern story, the rough pleasures of the working classes (parties, games, beer) are denied them by a group of rich meddlers ("Uplifters"). Why, these modern Pharisee even close the whorehouses! Griffith editorializes at length on how these must be ugly women who can't get men, and so turn to reform out of bitterness and spite. While the misogyny is repugnantly Ayn Randish, there's a lot to be said for the root sentiment that a parentalistic society can be its own worst enemy. And for the notion that if the rich want to help the poor, they can start by paying living wages.
If the Uplifters are a little cartoonish, the priests of Bel are Bugs Bunny's idle doodles. They betray Babylon, and its emporer, "an apostle of tolerance and religious freedom," to a foreign horde. The priests of Bel hate Ishtar, the god of love and tolerance, like the Grinch hates the Whos down in Who-ville. Except that, unlike the Whos, Ishtar's Babylon has hot-and-cold running temple prostitutes. If you've heard of [b]INTOLERANCE[/b], it's probably for the sets of the Babylonian scene, which are massive and jaw-dropping, even by modern CGI-ennuied standards. But even more breathtaking is the chilling sense, during Babylon's unbeknownst last day, that Griffith imparts of the party being almost over...
"This geranium will bloom... tomorrow," the temple girls tell each other.
"I will build you a new city... tomorrow," the emporer tells his beloved.
"Our marriage will be announced....tomorrow," one man confides in his lover.
Meanwhile the hordes of ignorance, intolerance, and no fun are whirling towards the open gates. There will be no tomorrow. Two thousand zero zero party over, oops, out of time.
'Cos life is just a party, and parties aren't meant to last.
***
And, in a scene filmed just outside Burbank and beyond belief, D.W. shows us the end of the world. And it is all Love, Love, Love, the great heavenly host ending all strife. Men with guns becoming children playing in a field. The ultimate circuit is to come back to the same party and recognize it for what it was all along -- your home.
[b]LIC[/b]
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| I, ROBOT |
| 07.18.04 (3:01 pm) [edit] |
I, ROBOT
Cast: Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Chi McBride, Bruce Greenwood, and James Cromwell
Directed by: Alex Proyas
Written by: Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman
Distributor: 20th Century Fox (US 2004)
Rated: PG-13 for intense stylized action, and some brief partial nudity
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
As any furniture dealer knows, no amount of polish can ever hide a broken crack in an antique; it's there, and ultimately there's nothing one can do about it. It's a lesson the makers of I, ROBOT might have benefited from. Despite some superb imagination and a superlative effort on the part of its creative team, this new technological thriller is fundamentally broken, at odds with itself from the very first moments. What might have been a gripping sci-fi mystery suffers from pre-production miscalculations that dampen the premise -- and the promise -- of this man-versus-machine actioner.
The man who originated technological paranoia, Issac Asimov, wrote the original novel that I, ROBOT is "suggested by", but the film only cherry-picks Asimov's source material in fashioning what is an almost completely new story. Director Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) has a stunning visual sensibility, which he applies to an imagined future that bears some resemblance to the tense Spielbergian world of Minority Report. The detail is astonishing, and the director's passion and energy are palpable. It is a fictional universe as complete as one is likely to see this year, ripe with drama and a vague unease floating beneath its streets and buildings.
Into this universe, I, ROBOT sends Will Smith, the genial comic who catapulted to leading man status by starring in several successful science fiction blockbusters (Independence Day, Men In Black). Smith is a game performer and a terrific onscreen presence, endowed with a natural charm and playfulness. However, in I, ROBOT's uneasy technological future, Smith is helplessly adrift. Almost all of his jokes fall flat, and there's rarely a moment to let his natural congeniality shine through. Proyas, savvy director that he is, seems to be aware of this; his first scene in the movie tries to transform Smith into a sexy, smoldering antihero (a haunting nightmare, followed by a nude shower scene). Try as they may, however, it's just a bad match. Smith, saddled with an emotion-free leading lady (Bridget Moynahan), can do little but plod from location to location, waiting patiently for the inevitable robot attack to remind us that he is indeed an action star. I, ROBOT is a victim of casting, first and foremost.
The story (which anyone should be able to discern in its entirety from the trailers) is exciting in its last half-hour, but never cathartic -- despite its detailed twists and turns, the screenplay (by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman) still ends up a bit vacuous, missing the weight and the depth of its more fully-formed predecessors A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sadly, the most engaging presence onscreen may be the computer generated one -- Sonny, the unconventional robot voiced by Alan Tudyk. There's clear talent at work in I,ROBOT, but it's the wrong talent, the wrong team, and the wrong mix...the film equivalent of the Tower of Babel.
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| TOUCH OF PINK |
| 07.18.04 (2:54 pm) [edit] |
TOUCH OF PINK
Cast: Jimi Mistry, Kyle MacLachlan, Suleka Mathew, Veena Sood, and Kristen Holden-Reid
Directed by: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Written by: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics (US 2004)
Rated: R for sexual content and brief language
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
The title of TOUCH OF PINK is a not-so-clever play on the title of the classic comedy That Touch of Mink, but evidently, the filmmakers are hoping that audiences will see echoes of the earlier classic in their modern update. (Since the two films share almost nothing in terms of narrative or atmosphere, it's highly unlikely. Although both films do star Cary Grant...more on that later.) More importantly, though, the title is also a coy way to describe TOUCH OF PINK's not-particularly-witty gay twist on ethnic family comedy. Like the arthouse hits Bend It Like Beckham and East Is East, TOUCH OF PINK revolves around the comedic clash of strict non-Christian religions (in this case, Islam) and Western decadence (in this case, homosexuality).
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'd like to believe that the world has moved past being scandalized by otherness -- Those nutty Indians! Those outrageous gays! -- but TOUCH OF PINK doesn't seem to think so. Or perhaps they do, and the comedy (what there is of it) is predicated on the idea that audiences will laugh knowingly at tenderhearted bigotry, but not participate in it. I'm not sure which idea is more insidious. If you buy into this ridiculousness, the terrorists win (the kind in the White House).
The setup and execution of this particular version of aren't-those-brown-people -wacky is pretty standard and obvious, and TOUCH OF PINK tends to roll aimlessly downhill from there. Only Cary Grant seems to get in the way (as I said, more on him later). Jimi Mistry (The Guru) is Alim, the closeted Canadian Indian prone to depression (or is that just an acting style?), living in London with his partner Giles (Kristen Holden-Reid). His traditionalist mother, Nuru (Suleka Mathew), comes to visit in order to get Alim set up with a bride. The couple moves Giles to the guest room, removes all the gay stuff from the house...honestly, it's so cliched, I get tired just writing about it.
There are two distinguishing features to TOUCH OF PINK that keep it from becoming a total loss. The first is Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), who does a remarkable impression of Cary Grant. Cary is Alim's guardian angel, if you will, and follows Alim around creating havoc and confusion. MacLachlan is terrific, playing each comic moment without ever drifting into parody. The screen seems to light up every time he is onscreen...a quality he shares with Suleka Mathew, who plays Alim's mother with an unexpected level of complexity, intensity and profundity. Mathew is constantly surprising and ingratiating, turning deftly on a dime in every scene (even though she shares most of then with the vacuous Mistry and the dreadful Holden-Reid). Despite the dreariness of the screenplay's dialogue, Mathew and MacLachlan stand outside chances at some recognition come awards season.
But mainly, TOUCH OF PINK is a weak addition to the pantheon of gay/ethnic dramas; certainly, anyone looking for such tales would be better served by renting My Beautiful Laundrette or The Wedding Banquet. There's a wealth of possibilities when East and West interact. The question audiences may rightly ask is...why are only the most basic ones being committed to celluloid?
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| ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY (2004) |
| 07.10.04 (2:51 am) [edit] |
[b]Starring[/b]: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate
[b]Director[/b]: Adam McKay
[b]Writing Credits[/b]: Will Ferrell & Adam McKay
[b]Distributor[/b]: Dreamworks SKG (US 2004)
[b]Rated[/b]: Rated PG-13 for sexual humor, language and comic violence.
Reviewed by: [b]Martin Scribbs[/b]
[i]"Suffer the little man-children to come unto me."[/i] -- Will Ferrell
All hail Will Ferrell, King of the man-children! His Majesty stands at 6 foot 3 inches, is 37 years old, and is a graduate of one of California's finest universities. But after [i]Elf[/i], [i]Old School[/i], [i]Dick[/i], and [i]Night at the Roxbury[/i], our rajah of regression has been typecast as a confused little boy. In [b]ANCHORMAN[/b], Ron Burgundy is so juvenile, his love interest should probably be investigated for statutory rape.
Oh, there are pretenders to the man-child throne, which comes with a monogrammed dunce cap, a 128-color pack of Crayolas, and a stable of D-girls to throw whoopie cushions in front of you wherever you walk. Ben Stiller, the Little Prince of [i]Zoolander[/i] and [i]Dodgeball[/i]. Jack Black, knight errant of [i]School of Rock[/i]. Some even speak, in hushed tones, of the now-deposed man-boy maharajah Adam Sandler of [i]Every Crappy Film Imaginable[/i]. Pay these masqueraders no mind! When you see Ferrell compelled to tell San Diego to "go fuck yourself" just because someone wrote it on his teleprompter, or threaten to hit his female co-anchor "right in the babymaker," or crank call her pretending to be her doctor with a pregnancy report, you know who's REALLY Home-Alone-at-Middle-Age.
What Ferrell doesn't get enough credit for is the range of his man-children. At almost 40, he can play anywhere from 10 ([i]Elf[/i]) to 12 ([i]Dick[/i]) to 15 ([b]ANCHORMAN[/b]) years old. It's undeniably funny to see a big, obviously intelligent man play S-T-O-O-P-I-D again and again. Ferrell evokes Charlie Chaplin, investing his characters with a certain amount of misguided self-regard and dignity, from which their comic pratfalls are all the more hilarious. Chaplin conveyed a reserve by way of his fastidious clothing and tiny movements; Ferrell does the same with the eddies and swirls of his impeccable diction. The Little Tramp is the patron saint of man-children, wanting simple things: to get the girl, or some food, or a job, and being complexly thwarted in the pursuit of even these modest desires. There's no huge difference between Chaplin and Ferrell's M.O.s. So why is Chaplin venerated and Ferrell pooh-poohed? If I may be so bold, sometimes our overlord's man-children aren't childlike enough.
Man-children are funny; swarmy man-adolescents aren't. Wide-eyed innocents like Chaplin in [i]Gold Rush[/i] or Ferrell in [i]Elf[/i] bring with them a certain good-natured magic, a goofy charm that's impossible to resist. They are, as Kurt Vonnegut said of Laurel and Hardy, "bargaining in good faith with the universe." Man-adolescents, like Ferrell in [b]ANCHORMAN[/b], are just overripe jerks, persons who biologically could have become men, but never got around to it. There's nothing funny about that.
Consider those scenes of [b]ANCHORMAN[/b] that are really funny: During an intimate moment, Veronica (Applegate) asks Ron to "take [her] to Pleasuretown" and we go into a cartoon montage of a carnival ride Ron and Veronica take through a land of rainbows and teddy bears; when asked what "diversity" is, Ron replies it's "an old wooden ship they used during the Civil War times;" Steve Carell as badly-addled weatherman Brick Tamland steals scene after scene, casually putting mayonaise in Ron's toaster, opining on his love of slacks, riding a Kodiak bear like a show pony. These laugh-out-loud moments were funny-stupid, not stupid-funny. We can laugh at anything offered up by a truly childish mind, but when the intelligence level starts to creep up to that of an adolescent, we start to expect plausibility, decent behavior, and, yes, San Diego, class.
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| THE CLEARING |
| 07.01.04 (7:25 am) [edit] |
THE CLEARING
Cast: Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, and Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Pieter Jan Brugge
Written by: Justin Haythe
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures (US 2004)
Rated: R for brief strong language
As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks
Imagine, if you will, that you're Pieter Jan Brugge, the Academy-Award nominated producer ([i]The Insider[/i], [i]Glory[/i], [i]Bulworth[/i]) who has, after a long and distinguished career, decided to step behind the camera for his first directorial effort. And as Pieter, you want everything to be perfect for [b]THE CLEARING[/b], the kidnapping thriller you've chosen, based on an idea you've been kicking around in your head for decades. And being an excellent producer, you know how to get things perfect. All the pieces are in place.
Great cast? Check: Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, and Willem Dafoe, three of the best film actors of their respective generations. Great designers? No problem there, with everyone from cinematographer Denis Lenoir ([i]Monsieur Hire[/i]) to composer Craig Armstrong ([i]Moulin Rouge[/i]) standing with you. Locations? The Appalachian Mountains, as perfect a setting for your claustrophobic forest scenes as can be. What could possibly go wrong?
Ah, Pieter. As you know, the road to hellatiously bad movies is paved with good pre-production. And here, you've made the classic mistake that producers-turned-director s have made since cinema was born: you forgot that movies aren't just a sum of their parts, but are a larger story, a tale told by one group of human beings to another (albeit on a big screen). And as story goes, [b]THE CLEARING[/b] simply doesn't have much of one...it is a thriller nearly devoid of thrills. Despite having great actors and a beautiful visual sensibility, [b]THE CLEARING [/b]offers no foundation to wrap them around.
Wayne and Eileen Hayes (Redford and Mirren) are a wealthy suburban couple whose marriage is slowly unraveling, hampered by old age and trust issues. (Better to let you discover those on your own, it's about the only excitement you'll get.) This disintegrating relationship is uprooted, however, when Wayne is kidnapped by Arnold (Dafoe), a lonely man in a frustrated marriage of his own. [b]THE CLEARING[/b] splits its time between the long forest hike undertaken by Arnold and Wayne to the rendezvous site, and Eileen's fractured existence as her home and her life are invaded by the press, the FBI, and her own fears.
While Brugge has proven to have a sharp producer's eye for detail, [b]THE CLEARING[/b] shows little evidence of directorial insight. The film has a disconcerting sense of time and place, jumping back and forth without much reason or warning. Most of the film, however, is spent waiting for something to happen; while the journey structure gives everyone time to pontificate endlessly about how difficult his or her situation is, it is not powerfully suspenseful. Moral conflicts plague Wayne, Eileen, and Arnold, but these conflicts are revealed early and simply beaten like dead horses. (Novice screenwriter Justin Haythe, who doesn't seem to understand the difference between characters and personality quirks, isn't much help either. Most irritating, perhaps, is Brugge's attempts at atmosphere; what is probably intended to be a dreamy neutrality often just ends up being interminable slowness. While Helen Mirren is at the top of her game -- Eileen begins with a steely forcefulness that slows disintegrates into little slivers of doubt and pain -- Dafoe is merely adequate and Redford seems to be on autopilot.
It's probably interesting to note that the titular "clearing" the characters are headed for is a muddy hill...or a muddy relationship, depending on which metaphor you think Brugge is aiming for. Perhaps [b]THE CLEARING [/b]would have been better if he had titled it THE PRUNING, or THE EDITING, or THE WRITING. All could have been done better.
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Welcome to Mixed Reviews Single Servings. Here you'll find short reviews of current and past movies for people too busy to read a full review.
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