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BEYOND THE SEA
11.28.04 (11:48 am)   [edit]
BEYOND THE SEA
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, John Goodman, Bob Hoskins, and Brenda Blethyn
Directed by: Kevin Spacey
Written by: Lewis Colick
Distributor: Lions Gate Films (US 2004)
Rated: PG-13 for some strong language and a scene of sensuality

As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks

As the writer, director, and star of the precocious Bobby Darin biopic BEYOND THE SEA, two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) lays bare an evident affection for his subject. Darin, a Rat Pack-era crooner and erstwhile movie star who briefly became a worldwide phenomenon with hits like "Mack The Knife" and "Splish Splash", is given an adoring once-over in Spacey's vision, bravely fighting off a life-threatening illness and a tortured childhood to conquer Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the hearts of millions. The razzle dazzle of Darin's story, however, suffers a rose-colored tinge in Spacey's vision, a flattering take that stutters under the weight of some undeniable truths, not the least of which being that Darin's ambition and drive made up for gaps in talent. With Darin now remembered mainly as a second-tier star of the era (Sinatra is now, as he was then, Darin's idol and his better), BEYOND THE SEA seems like a vain attempt not only to restore Darin's place in history, but to improve upon it.

One can't deny, of course, that Darin's songbook is powerful; featuring a dozen or so production numbers replete with dancing ensembles (and Spacey's velvet vocal mimicry), BEYOND THE SEA reminds us of the catchy hooks and infectious machismo that personified the man and his music. It is probably no accident that the scenes that place Darin in his natural element -- Vegas nightclubs -- are the most successful. Sadly, though, BEYOND THE SEA is not a concert film, and Lewis Colick's underdeveloped screenplay has great trouble placing Darin's life onto a heroic scale. For despite the illness that threatened to prematurely end his life from childhood on, Darin did not suffer greatly to reach his success. Pushed by an eager mother (Brenda Blethyn) towards stardom, young Bobby discovers music, suffers early bad gigs, and hits the jackpot on television...all in the first 20 minutes of the film. With sold-out tours, hit records, and Hollywood beckoning, he quickly garners an Oscar nomination and successfully woos a starlet, Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth). Let me know when you start feeling sorry for the guy.

Whether this stress-free ride to the top was truly the way it was, or whether it is a failing of Colick's writing is a very good question. Often, the most dramatic moments of BEYOND THE SEA seem rushed and impatient; it is as if the book scenes are boring Spacey, who simply wants to get to that great next number. Colick employs an odd framing device, of Darin (Spacey) reviewing his own life story in the company of his younger self (William Ullrich), and the cutesy postmodern theatricality of the device nearly drowns the film in self-absorption. It is interesting that the other major musical biopic of the year, Irwin Winkler's stilted portrait of Cole Porter De-Lovely, employed a similar convention...with similarly disastrous effect. Cinema has always been hard on theatrical leaps of fancy, and when used to cover the gaps in a man's life story, the tonal shifts become almost too much to bear.

As Darin, Spacey exudes brassy self-confidence; his song-and-dance bravura is sure to bring a smile to any viewer's face, and his palpable charm creates a great deal of goodwill in his audience. But like Darin himself, Spacey finds the details of life offstage to be far less clear. The women in Darin's life are clearly intended to be the focus, but Spacey seems unable to tap into what made those relationships so special; indeed, at times it seems as if Spacey and Bosworth are working off of different scripts. The men that surround Darin throughout his life -- his brother-in-law Charlie (Bob Hoskins), his agent Steve (John Goodman) -- have no moments in the film that explains why they've devoted their life to this man, beyond platitudes about 'greatness.' Indeed, there is little in BEYOND THE SEA that argues for the greatness of Darin, or for the halo of fame that history has placed around his head. Perhaps it was all left on the cutting room floor. (There are some edits here that will make your head spin.)

BEYOND THE SEA is pleasant enough as musical drama, but the gnawing feeling that major story elements are missing becomes a Chinese water torture by the final, predictable moments. What is left is a showy bauble of entertainment that masks its own insubstantiality, a slick and catchy collection of tunes performed with gusto...and separated by weak plotting. The question one is left with: does BEYOND THE SEA enhance Bobby Darin's legacy, or do it unwitting harm? For whatever one feels about Spacey's dream project or Darin's checkered career, one thing is sure...this film makes both of them seem smaller in our memory.
 
THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON
11.25.04 (8:50 am)   [edit]
THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON
Cast: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Don Cheadle, and Michael Wincott
Directed by: Niels Mueller
Written by: Niels Mueller and Kevin Kennedy
Distributor: ThinkFilm (US 2004)
Rated: R for language and a scene of graphic violence

As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks

The platitudes collectively known as "The American Dream" are one of the most powerful forces in the world. The dream holds immense promise, a potent affirmation of a country's belief in equality, free enterprise, and the human capacity to better oneself. However, the dream's idealism places the country's failings in stark relief; all men may indeed be born equal, but soon after that birth, America's social and economic realities prove that all men are NOT equal. The Constitution allows all Americans the opportunity to be its President, but only its white, rich, straight male members have attained that position.

The unavailability of the American Dream to many Americans creates a problematic social paradigm -- its promise, in effect, becomes a lie, and its esteem-building subtext builds a cultural impotence instead. For although the founding fathers were clear about guaranteeing only the pursuit of happiness, the American Dream seems to demand it...and if one is not happy, conversely, then it is America that is broken, not the individual. This sense of entitlement, many might argue, is America's biggest problem. We feel we have the 'right' to happiness, to success in our work, in our private lives, in our families. And when -- for whatever reason -- that happiness eludes us, it creates an impotent rage that can explode with a frightening force.

Sean Penn brings one such explosion to the screen by inhabiting the scabrously nervous soul of Sam Bicke, who in 1974 attempted to hijack an airplane and fly it into the White House. The film's title, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON, explains Bicke's intention. Clearly, Bicke failed in his plot, and his place in history has been relegated to the dusty corner reserved for would-be assassins. But Niels Mueller's claustrophobically compact debut film retrieves Bicke from history's dustbin to explore how one man's sense of American entitlement went awry...with dismayingly torturous consequences. Bicke was certainly a victim of his own devising, but the question remains...did Sam do it to himself, or did America let him down?

Stammering, nervous, and tightly wound, Penn's evocation of Bicke is the most fascinating character study of the year. The details of Bicke's life slowly reveal themselves in Mueller and Kevin Kennedy's screenplay: a failed marriage, a dead-end job, a ruined relationship with his brother, and a foolhardy get-rich-quick idea. These elements, taken separately, might be just dismissed as bad luck; their combined weight, however, cracks Bicke's fragile psyche, which is constructed upon the fatal belief that Americans are entitled to success. A victim both of his times and of the patriarchal society in which he lives, Bicke cannot accept that his marriage has ended...a family is his birthright, in his mind. A telling moment (and a rare comic scene) occurs when the frustrated Bicke decides to join the Black Panther Party. Only by stepping outside of his race can Bicke accept the wrongs done to him, as if his failures are at odds with his Caucasian skin.

Surrounded by remarkable supporting performances -- Naomi Watts as Bicke's weary ex-wife, Don Cheadle as his business partner, and in one blistering scene, Michael Wincott as Sam's stern and exasperated elder brother -- Sean Penn is given wide latitude by his director in crafting this character study. Unlike other great actors who lost their edge in middle age (DeNiro and Hoffman, please pick up the white courtesy phone), Penn remains a deft and challenging performer, invoking a thinly-capped frustration with startling passion and garish brutality. Bicke is one of the greatest creations in an already-distinguished career. While THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON doesn't attempt to find greatness in its very small hero, Bicke’s story is revealed to be a moving, poignant parable of another America, one where the dreams aren't quite so rosy, and the country is significantly less than it imagines it to be. It is a bracingly cold slap of water in our collective faces.
 
THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS
11.24.04 (10:03 pm)   [edit]
Directed By:  Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier
Written By:  Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier
Starring:  Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier
Playing Shortstop:  Jorgen Leth & Lars Von Trier
Distributed By: Films Sans Frontieres (USA 2004)
Rated:  Unrated, would be PG-13 for nudity

Imagine you had the power to make Mel Gibson reshoot The Passion with sock puppets instead of actors.  And then in 3D and shot in Iraq.  And then without subtitles but with a calypso score and green blood.  And then with a female Christ.

Now imagine nabbing your favorite director and getting her to agree to the same ground rules.  Your purpose is (at least in part) to progressively educate her through these trials about some aspect heretofore missing in her approach.  As members of an industry where prestige determines opportunity, few directors would consent to such a tutorial.  But as people and as artists, the few who tried would surely benefit. 

That's why I hope that Lars Von Trier's THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS will prove the first of many such experiments. 

I have not yet decided what to make of noted Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier.  But I value his radical insight that film ought to be a moral endeavor.  In THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS, Von Trier tries to save his mentor, Jorgen Leth, from what Von Trier perceives to be the elder director's spiritual failings.  Leth, Von Trier determines, has not sufficiently empathized with his own subjects.  Leth, tall, handsome, a cool customer, clings to the artifice that he hovers above the frey he films.

The film to be remade is Leth's 13-minute 1967 short, The Perfect Human.  In The Perfect Human, a luminous black-and-white faux documentary, Leth opines on the Perfect Man and the Perfect Woman.  We see them eat, snap their fingers, play, fret.  In all things, the Man and Woman are elegant, ideal, too good for the world.  They would walk between raindrops, if the sky would dare rain on them.  It's a funny short, affectionate to the Man and Woman, but also gently ribbing our intuitive acceptance of and satisfaction with the genial idols. 

Von Trier has Leth remake The Perfect Human five times, each time trying to draw the filmmaker into a more personal involvement with the subject.  The film changes in startling ways through each incarnation.  Our imagination starts to hum, thinking of how we could break apart and repackage, or redesign, other classics.  And despite his own pessimism, I think that Von Trier does change Leth as an artist, a little, through these chastisements. 

While I normally have no compunction about lobbing spoilers into my reviews, I won't discuss the individual compositions that comprise THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS.  The experience, for those of you who will embark on it, is too gratifying to prematurely reveal.

Everything in this world is as sacred or as profane as we choose to make it.  Take film.  It can be a commodity, like pork bellies or steel ingots, measured strictly by worldwide gross.  Or, when hallowed by patient effort, fidelity to ideals, and receptive viewing, film can be a vehicle of grace.  Our deepest self stirs in these screen dreams.  The cheers for Jorgen Leth -- To educate oneself in public on matters of such importance is no source of shame.

LIC
 
THE POLAR EXPRESS
11.20.04 (5:34 pm)   [edit]
[b]Directed by[/b]: Robert Zemekis
[b]Starring[/b]: Tom Hanks
[b]Written by[/b]: Chris Van Allsburg (book); Robert Zemeckis (screenplay) &
William Broyles Jr. (screenplay)
[b]Distibuted By[/b]: Warner Bros. (US 2004)
[b]Rated[/b]: G for... well, nothing.

[i]Dispatch From The People's Republic of North Pole News Agency[/i]:

A praiseworthy new film has been awarded highest honors from Puissant Guide and All-Fertile Giftgiver Kris Kringle. To hide from one's revolutionary fellows the name of this film would be an act as foolish as trying to hide a gimlet in a bulging sack. Transparently, it's honey-spackled name is [b]THE POLAR EXPRESS[/b].

In an historic letter with far-reaching implications for cheery, cheery happiness of workers in this Holiday Season, "The Will of Tom Hanks is the Will of Americans Not Yet Pubescent," Kris Kringle informed the Tenth Elfin Congress on Film Administration that [b]THE POLAR EXPRESS[/b] "overcomes the maniacal doubt-mongering of the United States government and secures forcible and covert toy redistribution as the admirable goal of all peoples of good will."

The head of the Congress in-no-way excessively thanked the Greatly-Pouched One, saying that his poetic epistle had solved vexing problems of film theory and distribution and would signal triumphs in film programming over the next several months at the North Pole Regal 23. "How can the virginal ice of the Mother Pole be sullied with [I]Christmas With the Kranks[/i] when the Munificent Chimney-Stuffer has so noticed the superior Zemekis film?" It cannot, resounds the voice of the people!

This admirable [b]THE POLAR EXPRESS[/b] illustrates the dire fate which will await all doubters of Klaus. We see a fey lad and learn he has a pronounced lack of solidarity with Polar ideals. This mockery of the predominant brow and assertive forearm of Klaus cannot go unpunished. The boy is hustled onto a train in dark and cold to confront Klaus himself.

Woe to the boy! One could imagine execrable fates which might befall an opponent of the Frigid Friend, such as would lightly singe one's inner thighs in terror. Indeed, the boy frequently tries elaborate hijinx to derail his Train to Justice, but the implacable Tom Hanks grimly pushes proceedings along even as though he were Joe contesting the volcano. Even when the boy begs for the sweet release of death from a hobo ghost, his succour is lacking.

Along with other condemned, the boy is given only hot chocolate. His will starts to sag. But only when the boy can hear the Bell That Is Clear Party Ideology does Kris Kingle bring forth from his mouth a deluge of mercy and not impale the child on industrial hooks, as Justice Unalloyed might dictate.

The people celebrate in traditional mass-dance movement fashion. All the condemned children are returned to their homes. They will now hear the bells ring forever.

[i]*intercepted by*[/i]
[b]LIC[/b]
 
SIDEWAYS
11.14.04 (7:58 am)   [edit]
SIDEWAYS
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh
Directed by: Alexander Payne
Written by: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures (US 2004)
Rated: R for language, some strong sexual content and nudity

As Reviewed by: Gabriel Shanks

SIDEWAYS, the perfectly inoffensive and completely forgettable new film by Alexander Payne, is about a week in the life of nerd-elegant Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti), a wine lover and connoisseur of the grape. Wine is the major metaphor of the story, but not wine as life, or vitality -- rather, wine serves here as a symbol of cultured refinement, of the aspirations to all that is right and perfect in the world. Wine in Payne's world is wish fulfillment; when drinking a good wine, one can imagine our life better than it is: serene, rewarding, and complete. Of course, it is a fleeting vision, dependent on the buzz one gets. The search for the perfect glass or vintage is never-ending, and self-critical folk like Miles would rather stay on the journey than actually get anywhere.

But forget all this: despite all the banter about pinot noirs, syrahs and chardonnays, the real subject of SIDEWAYS is the male superego. In a world that no longer revolves around masculinity, Miles and his horn dog buddy Jack (Thomas Haden Church) -- whose imminent wedding is the cause of their pre-event week jaunt to California's wine country -- are the kind of vaguely emasculated males one finds sitting alone at cultured bars, wondering how their lives turned out less than perfect. The desperation Miles and Jack share is one peculiar to middle-aged white men, an anxious angst that somehow combines a search for life's meaning and the need to get laid at all costs. Miles, who is still smarting over his divorce two years prior, has the petulant crabbiness that only comes from intellectual self-doubt. As a character, he is not especially likeable or sympathetic (unless you happen to be middle-aged, in which case you may commiserate), although Giamatti's natural amiability counters the vitriol somewhat.

The two men meet two beautiful, oddly unattached women on their journey, and the requisite emotional struggles are executed without any mistakes (or surprises). SIDEWAYS is a more mature film for Payne than his previous efforts, with palpable elegance in the dialogue and refinement in the camera work. The performances by Giamatti and Church (and Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh as the objects of their affection) are understated and assured. But if SIDEWAYS is more accomplished, it is also less interesting. It is missing those unusual quirks of that made Election such an unexpected joy, the craggy edges of Citizen Ruth, or the radiant lilt of About Schmidt. It is, in almost every way, less than it could or should be. Perhaps if we all had a glass of wine first...
 

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