Review: "The Quiet American" Waits Until the End to Get Loud (Happy B'day, Michael Caine)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 51 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Quiet American (2002)
Running time: 101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – R for images of violence and some language
DIRECTOR: Phillip Noyce
WRITERS: Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan (based upon a novel by Graham Greene)
PRODUCERS: Staffan Ahrenberg and William Horberg
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Christopher Doyle
EDITOR: John Scott
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/MYSTERY with elements of a thriller

Starring: Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen, Tzi Ma, Pham Thi Mai, Robert Stanton, and Rade Serbedzija

Michael Caine earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance in Phillip Noyce’s film The Quiet American. It’s an understated, but rich performance by a veteran actor. However, you have to watch closely as you might miss some of the nuances. Caine plays by hook and by crook, taking advantage of visual and spoken opportunities to develop his character.

Thomas Fowler (Caine) is a British foreign correspondent in Vietnam, circa 1952, for the London Times. He’s also an opium addict with a girlfriend, Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen). He’d love to marry his Asian flower, but he can’t because his wife back in England is a Catholic who won’t grant him a divorce. Fowler is also resentful of American colonialist encroachment in Vietnam, a French colony. The French military is steadily losing a war against the communist rebels, and the Americans don’t want the country to “fall” to the communists. Fowler meets Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser, The Mummy), a quiet young American doctor who eventually vies with the older Englishman for the affection of Phuong and creates a rift between himself and Fowler of philosophical, cultural, political, and emotional ramifications.

Caine’s Fowler seems to exist in three phases. Early in the film, he’s quite uninteresting, just another Western dope addict with a Vietnamese sugar mama. Later, he’s a man with a dilemma who is afraid to lose the love of his life to Pyle, a man without his own marital entanglements. Finally, he’s a troubled man, angry at the growing American involvement in Vietnam, at the rising bloodshed and mounting casualties of a civil war, and afraid of what he might do to hold onto what he believes he has. The viewer literally has to watch Caine’s every facial tick and gesture, watch the actor’s eyes, and even scan the flush of his face. The audience also has to comb through the actor’s dialogue and listen to the subtle changes in tone during the voiceovers. Caine’s performance isn’t an obvious powerhouse; it’s straightforward, almost realistic. It’s almost as if he weren’t acting. There’s nothing phony about it, nor is their artifice. Caine’s Fowler is a mystery, and we can never figure him out even when we think we have him pinned. Fowler shifts with the wind and rolls with the punches, and the movie almost entirely belongs to Caine.

The Quiet American can at times seem almost too understated. The film lacks passion and rarely even smolders. It’s the most sedate thriller I’ve seen in years, which is a surprise coming from Noyce who is known for his thrillers and noisy action films like Dead Calm and Clear and Present Danger. Although he allows Caine room to roam, Noyce leaves the rest of his cast very little room in which to play, but they make the most of it. Fraser is an underrated actor who is quite capable of strong dramatic parts as seen in Gods and Monsters. Ms. Yen’s Phuong is too hemmed in, but Tzi Ma and Pham Thi Mai make the most of their small parts.

Caine’s performance makes The Quiet American worth a look, but the movie may be a bit slow for most viewers. Noyce and his screenwriters really underplay the film’s potential for dramatic impact. It’s a good film that has some very nice moments, but Noyce doesn’t really turn up the heat until the end when the implications of the story come to a head and leave us dizzy and shocked. Thankfully, we have a fine actor in Michael Caine to carry us along the slow journey.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Michael Caine)

2003 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Michael Caine)

2003 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Michael Caine)

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"All About the Benjamins" Right On the Money

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 42 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

All About the Benjamins (2002)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence, pervasive language, and brief sexuality
DIRECTOR: Kevin Bray
WRITERS: Ronald Lang and Ice Cube
PRODUCERS: Matt Alvarez and Ice Cube
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Glen MacPherson
EDITOR: Suzanne Hines

ACTION/CRIME/COMEDY

Starring: Ice Cube, Michael Epps, Tommy Flanagan, Carmen Chaplin, Eva Mendes, Valarie Rae Miller, Anthony Giaimo, Roger Guenveur Smith, Anthony Michael Hall, and Bow Wow

Bucum (Ice Cube) is a Miami-based bail enforcement agent (bounty hunter). Reginald “Reggie” Wright (Michael Epps) is a conman and frequent quarry of Bucum’s. Reggie’s failed to show up for a court date, so Bucum is out for him again. Bucum spots Reggie exiting a small market where he’s just picked up a lottery ticket for his girl, Gina (Eva Mendes). During the chase, Reggie ducks into a van to hide. What he doesn’t know is that the vehicle belongs to the brother/sister criminal team of Julian Ramose (Roger Guenveur Smith) and Ursula (Carmen Chaplin). The siblings are involved in a double-cross/heist of $20 million in diamonds for their boss, Williamson (Tommy Flanagan). They discover Reggie in their van, and though he eludes them, he leaves behind his wallet, which, of course, contains the lottery ticket.

When Reggie and Gina discover that the ticket Reggie lost is the winner of a $60 million jackpot, they convince a reluctant Bucum to help them find Reggie’s wallet and the ticket before he brings Reggie to jail for missing that court date. One thing complicates it: Bucum also wants to find the $20 million in uncut diamonds and bring down Williamson for two reason: for his own reputation and to trump the cops.

All About the Benjamins is simply a very good buddy action movie. It doesn’t have the self-referential coolness of The Last Boy Scout, nor is it the trendsetter that 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon were, but it’s an engaging B-movie crime flick complete with violent hoods, sly conmen, and a rebellious bounty hunter out to get paid even if he has to take his cut off the side

Ice Cube isn’t a great actor (or a very good one for that matter), but he always gets an “A” for effort. He plays that belligerent Bucum as not quite an unstoppable badass, but as more as guy whose smartness “the Man” underestimates. Mike Epps does a neat turn as the conman Reggie who never seems to run out of one-liners, though this is not a good acting effort on his part. He overacts, badly at times, but his comic sensibilities somewhat save the performance. This was Eva Mendes’ first shot as an action movie chick, but even here she shows the excellent comic timing, acting ability, and star quality that earned her some nice supporting roles next to big stars (Denzel Washington in Out of Time and Will Smith in Hitch). Also look for the usually small, but nice appearance by Roger Geunveur Smith.

6 of 10
B

Monday, February 20, 2006

Review: "Far From Heaven" is Heavenly (Happy B'day, Julianne Moore)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 80 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Far From Heaven (2002)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content, brief violence and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Todd Haynes
PRODUCERS: Jody Patton and Christine Vachon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Edward Lachman (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: James Lyons
COMPOSER: Elmer Bernstein

DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis, James Rebhorn, Ryan Ward, Lindsay Andretta, Jordan Puryear, and Celia Weston

Last year (2002), a number of people thought that mean old Halle Berry had stolen her Best Actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball from Nicole Kidman for Kidman’s performance in the overblown and somewhat empty Moulin Rouge!. This year, Nicole finally received an Oscar for her performance in the tepid and mediocre The Hours, but she may have been the thief this time. Julianne Moore gives a rich and lush performance as a 1950’s era housewife facing a philandering husband and the era’s strict racial and social mores in Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, a film that may have touched too close to home for many in Hollywood's hypocritical, closed, and bigoted community.

Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is the dream housewife living the dream version of the American dream. Her husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), has a hot advertising executive job, and together, they have a huge two-story home and two adorable children. They fill their lives with the latest consumer goods, and they throw fancy, catered affairs for their ritzy, upper middle class friends. However, Frank has a skeleton in the closet with him; he’s gay, and he is having an increasingly difficult time suppressing his need to press male flesh. As her marital crisis worsens, Cathy turns to her gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), a strapping hunk of black manhood, for comfort. That relationship doesn’t sit well with cracker and spearchunker alike, and racial tensions, which had been on the down low, simmer and threaten to boil over.

Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) made Far From Heaven a kind of homage to the slick melodramatic films of the 1950’s, in particular the work of director Douglas Sirk. Sirk’s work was ignored for years after his heyday, but he always had a cult following. In the last few decades, many have given his films a more critical and careful review, especially his infamous color remake of the old black and white film, Imitation of Life. Far From Heaven apparently borrows liberally from Sirk’s film, All That Heaven Allows, in which a socialite also falls for her gardener.

Heaven magnificently captures the amazingly rich and colorful look of Technicolor films. It’s like watching a movie from another era, from the impressionistic palette of the photography and the opulent art direction to the lavish costumes and Elmer Bernstein’s fabulous score. It is hard to believe that someone could capture the lost look of the Fifties melodrama, but Haynes ably puts it together.

Haynes’s really impressed me with his script. While he manages to capture the social and personal heat that filmmakers hid under the surface of their films in the 50’s, he also writes a story that revels in and openly mocks the hypocrisy of the supposedly enlightened America of that time. By the 1950’s, the United Stated considered itself the greatest nation on the face of the earth, a land awash in freedom and opportunity, when in reality, freedom and opportunity were simply catch phrases for the powerful sold to the powerless.

Although the film is set in the 1950’s and portrays 50’s era prejudices, the film is perfect for this time, as well as a clear reflection of a past time. Watching Frank Whitaker struggle with his sexuality and watching Cathy and Raymond be persecuted for their friendship, you can’t help but realize that things have not changed. Homosexuality is still taboo today, and many well-known political and public figures still refer to homosexuality as the most heinous sin of all. Interracial friendships of any kind are still call attention to themselves and still cause many people to frown. Today, we give the alleged acceptance of the gay lifestyle and color-blind friendships lip service. However, modern American society is still almost as stuck in the mud as the one portrayed in Heaven.

As good as Haynes and his technical cohorts are in recreating a film that looks like it came from an movie era almost half a century gone, the people who make Far From Heaven more than just a grand technical achievement are the actors. Ms. Moore makes Cathy a charming character, a generous woman with an open heart and a good spirit. She easily rides the good times, but she makes it through the tough; she has to, as we know by the title, that all doesn’t end so very chipper. I was amazed by her performance. She made Cathy’s happiness and satisfaction with her life not just a façade, but the real thing.

So often, middle class housewives are played as secretly unhappy, but Cathy is quiet content; in fact, she adores her life, and she does her best to stay happy even when she encounters difficulty. I’m sure many would consider it politically incorrect to portray a housewife as a strong heroine, fighting to save her marriage, family, and lifestyle Julianne Moore makes you believe; she makes you root for Cathy. She even drew me into the character, so that I felt like I was experiencing every joy, every pain, and every slight that Cathy experienced. What more can one ask of a performer other than that she make you believe and feel?

A lot of people always knew that Dennis Quaid was a very good actor; somehow, a fair assessment of his talent kept getting lost because of his good looks and tomcatting lifestyle. It takes a movie like this and The Rookie to show us what an underrated talent he is. Quaid makes Frank both pathetic and sympathetic – quite complex. He doesn’t allow the viewer to always make an easy assessment of Frank. He’s just a man in a complicated situation fighting his own complications within himself.

Next to Cathy, the best character in this film is Raymond the gardener. He’s a noble Negro full of wisdom, and, at first, that might seem so typical – quiet suffering black man, so strong in the face of silly racism. However, that stereotype is a deliberate creation of Haynes, and Haysbert pulls it off with disarming charm and the knack of a skilled movie thespian. In the kind of film Haynes recreates, Raymond would have been noble, like the God-loving housekeeper in Imitation of Life. Here, the point isn’t his nobility; Raymond simply has to be strong, like Cathy, to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous hypocrites. Somehow, the proper acclaim for Haysbert in this role was nonexistent.

Do you realize that of all the post-season film awards, only the Golden Satellite Awards (as of this writing) recognized Haysbert’s performance with even a nomination (which he also won)? What up? Were (dumb) white critics and voters just too color struck (and dense) to notice the subtlety of both character and performance in Raymond’s case? Or do they feel that awards for Halle and Denzel pretty much take care of awarding darkies for film roles for another decade or so?

Give Far From Heaven a viewing. Not only is it relevant, but it’s quite entertaining with beautiful performances; Julianne Moore’s alone is worth a look. It’s also one of the best films about the culture of class and racial hypocrisy that you’ll ever see.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 4 nominations: “Best Actress in a Leading Role” (Julianne Moore). “Best Cinematography” (Edward Lachman), “Best Music, Original Score” (Elmer Bernstein), “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Todd Haynes)

2003 Black Reel Awards: 1 win: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actor” (Dennis Haysbert)

2003 Golden Globes: 4 nominations: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Elmer Bernstein), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Dennis Quaid), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Julianne Moore), “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Todd Haynes)

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The Scorpion King Does the Conan Thing

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Scorpion King (2002)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence and some sensuality
DIRECTOR: Chuck Russell
WRITERS: Stephen Sommers, David Hayter, and William Osborne, based upon a story by Jonathan Hales and Stephen Sommers
PRODUCERS: Sean Daniel, James Jacks, Kevin Misher, and Stephen Sommers
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John R. Leonetti
EDITORS: Greg Parsons and Michael Tronick

ACTION/ADVENTURE/FANTASY

Starring: The Rock, Steven Brand, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kelly Hu, Bernard Hill, Grant Heslov, Peter Facinelli, and Sherri Howard

A group of beleaguered chieftains hire an assassin named Mathayus (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) to kill Cassandra the Sorceress (Kelly Hu), the soothsayer of the chieftains’ mortal enemy Memnon (Steven Brand). Along the way, Mathayus and Cassandra come to a mutual understanding, and a rival of Mathayus, Balthazar (Michael Clarke Duncan) joins their cause. All Mathayus has to do is defeat Memnon to bring peace to the region.

Directed by Chuck Russell (The Mask, Eraser), The Scorpion King is a spin-off from The Mummy 2, in which The Rock played The Scorpion King as a resurrected villain. Russell keeps the energy high, and turns his film into a wall-to-wall chase and rescue, hard-core fight movie. Russell wisely plays up to The Rock’s skills as a professional wrestler with the World Wrestling Federation. Nary a dull moment, King is a pumped up, more visceral version of Conan the Barbarian.

The acting is, of course, not great, but it perfectly serves the purpose of the movie. Despite a few lapses, The Rock is very entertaining and convincing as Mathayus, and since he does all his own stunts, he lends credibility to his portrayal. When he puts up his dukes or lifts a weapon, you can feel the energy level of the film soar.

The supporting cast is also good. Brand drips menace as the evil Memnon, an intensity he maintains throughout the film. Kelly Hu as the Sorceress is sexy, mysterious, and is more than a female tag along. As Balthazar, Duncan adds an air of credibility to the acting in the film.

As exciting as it is, The Scorpion King is also quite funny. It makes no pretensions; it is a good time, popcorn flick that is quite well made. It delivers by maintaining the action, humor, and excitement. It is one of those movies that is true to the good time it promises to be. It is a good time at the movies, and it will bear repeated viewings on home video.

6 of 10
B

Review: I Love Eminem, But 8 Mile... Not so Much (Happy B'day, Eminem)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 109 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

8 Mile (2002)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong language, sexuality, some violence and drug use
DIRECTOR: Curtis Hanson
WRITER: Scott Silver
PRODUCERS: Brian Grazer, Curtis Hanson, and Jimmy Iovine
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rodrigo Prieto
EDITORS: Craig Kitson and Jay Rabinowitz
COMPOSER: Proof
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/MUSIC

Starring: Eminem, Kim Basinger, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, Evan Jones, Omar Benson, Eugene Byrd, Michael Shannon, Anthony Mackie, and Taryn Manning

8 Mile became the first film to have a rap/hip-hop song win the Oscar for "Best Song." Directed by Curtis (L.A. Confidential) Hanson, the film stars mega popular rapper Eminem, and the film went on to be an enormous hit, much to many people’s surprise. It’s a strange film, part Rocky, part Flashdance, and part Purple Rain, with a star who is very controversial musical figure and who has angered any number of easily offended groups, including gay rights advocates and feminists. 8 Mile also seemed like a strange film for Hanson to direct, considering he’d won an Academy Award for co-writing L.A. Confidential and had also directed the critically-acclaimed, but largely ignored Wonder Boys. Besides, Hanson’s prior work had been so stunningly white bread, one had to wonder if he could direct a film with a very large black supporting cast and set in urban and hip-hop culture.

Eminem plays Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith, Jr., a down-on-his-luck blue-collar worker trying to find his place in the rap game. When he leaves his girlfriend (Taryn Manning), he moves into his mom Stephanie’s (Kim Basinger) trailer, but Rabbit doesn’t exactly see eye to eye with mom’s boyfriend, Greg (Michael Shannon), who went to school with Rabbit. Meanwhile, Rabbit’s homeboy, Future (Mekhi Phifer), is trying to get Rabbit to participate in the MC battles he hosts at a rundown club. MC battles pit two rappers against each other, each rapper getting under a minute to out rap and embarrass his opponent in front of an audience. Rabbit, determined to succeed at his dream, is caught between Future’s ideas about their respective paths to hip-hop glory and the plans of a smooth taking and ambitious hustler (Eugene Byrd) who promises Rabbit that elusive industry connection.

8 Mile is really a dark and depressing film. Rabbit and his friends are mainly poor, young men barely getting by each day; to a man, each one lives with his mother. They have bad jobs, and their neighborhoods are falling down around them. It’s quite stunning how Hanson went the direct path in depicting the squalid living conditions and the sense of hopeless that pervades their environments. Even when Rabbit and his friends are together having a good time, you can’t help but notice how decrepit their city around them is or how everyone seems to own old, rickety automobiles that last saw better days in the 70’s.

Hope seems strangled in this movie, and the film’s very dry story doesn’t help matters. The script is tepid and plotless, and the characters are shallow and simple-minded character types: the violent rivals, the mean boss at work, the pitiful alcoholic parent (Kim Basinger in a performance destined to become a camp classic), the underdog, etc. I especially despised Brittany Murphy as Rabbit’s ho friend, Alex; it’s a bad performance. All Ms. Murphy does in primp and preen, trying to make her character sly, knowing and witty, but only arriving at being whorish, cheap, and dishonest.

The film is decent, but it’s mostly listless and tiresome. Even if real life is like this, art plays with ideals, and a plot would have helped this film seem like it was going somewhere. Even if Rabbit doesn’t reach his goals in the movie, the film should end with a sense of hope, and here, the sense of hope is at best ambiguous. I like Eminem, but I found 8 Mile only somewhat entertaining. If you’re not a fan of his, there’s no reason to see this listless movie. The rapper doesn’t act; he simply pretends to be a character that sulks all the time.

If there’s one reason to see this film, then it’s the rap battle near the end when Rabbit decides to face down his rap enemies on stage. Finally, Eminem seems at home in this picture. He springs to life, smiling, grimacing, frowning, and leering, as the delivery of his arsenal of lyrics requires it. Although the MC battles are fairly energetic and quite hilarious, by the time they arrive, the film is so mired in dreariness that I’d really be reaching if I told you that rap music redeems this film.

4 of 10
C

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Music, Original Song” (Eminem-music/lyrics, Jeff Bass-music, and Luis Resto-music for the song "Lose Yourself")

2003 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Eminem-music/lyrics, Jeff Bass-music, and Luis Resto-music for the song "Lose Yourself")

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Review: "Panic Room" is a Sweet Thriller

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux

Panic Room (2002)
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
MPAA - R for violence and language
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
WRITER: David Koepp
PRODUCERS: Ceán Chaffin, Judy Hofflund, David Koepp, and Gavin Polone
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Conrad W. Hall (D.o.P.) and Darius Khondji (D.o.P.)
EDITORS: James Haygood and Angus Wall
COMPOSER: Howard Shore

THRILLER

Starring: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakum, Jared Leto, and Patrick Bauchau

Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) has left a messy divorce and is looking for a new home for her and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart). She finds a beautiful mansion style brownstone/townhouse with a panic room, a sort of safe room or medieval keep with cameras, monitors, and supplies in which one can hide from and hold up against intruders. When three men (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and Dwight Yoakum) break in her home, Meg and Sarah barely escape into the panic room only to learn that what the three men want is inside room with them.

Directed by David Fincher (Seven, The Fight Club), Panic Room is the kind of adult thriller of a quality that is truly scarce. It is the kind of movie that relies on the skill of a capable and talented director, which Fincher continually proves himself to be with each film. He begins to build levels of intensity, layer upon layer, from the film’s opening shots (with a beautiful and evocative opening credit reel over the New York City skyline) to the closing shots that only barely lets up as the film fades.

Fincher puts the actors through the paces, but they are up to whatever the task at hand. Jodie Foster in insanely intense and intensely dramatic. Of all the cast, she has to not only sell this movie, but a successful execution of the premise relies on her. From fear to bravery, from delirium to determination, Ms. Foster is the face of Fincher’s dramatic exercise. The rest of the cast is also quite good. Ms. Stewart plays Sarah as definitely being her mother’s daughter, mirroring a range of emotions similar to her mother’s. Although Leto’s Junior is the criminal mastermind of the operation, Whitaker’s Burnham and Yoakum’s Raoul carry the show, both quietly mixing a sense of dread and fear that makes their characters more desperate and more dangerous.

Fincher also puts his camera through the paces. It weaves, dodges, and chases, making surprising discovers in a mad dash to create intensity. However, the film itself isn’t a reckless, mad dash. It is evenly paced, and though Fincher uses some of his pictorial and stylistic quirks needlessly, he creates a drama with a sense of terror in the tradition of Rear Window. That, in an era of hyped up SFX films, in refreshing. The genre elements of a thriller: terror and suspense are but beautiful window dressing to the drama.

In Panic Room, every character has a story that makes them more than stock characters. This is a testament to veteran screenwriter David Koepp’s skill in making three-dimensional characters. Whatever fate a thriller has in store for its characters holds more thrill if the characters are more than paper cutouts. If we care for them, we don’t want them in danger. If the villains have real motivation, there are more dangerous.

Kudos to Fincher above all else. Panic Room is that proverbial edge of your seat thriller, but he doesn’t eschew the meat of the story to serve his style. He remains visionary because he can turn the story into powerful visual images. He’s patient and allows the camera, our eyes to survey the scene of the brilliant cat and mouse game. Instead of choppy and quick editing, Panic Room is deliberate, almost sexy in the suspense that it unveils before us. This is the kind of special film that you know you want to see.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2003 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actor” (Forest Whitaker)

 

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Review: "The Pianist" Simply Superb

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 30 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Pianist (2002)
Running time: 150 minutes (2 hours, 30 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence and brief strong language
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
WRITER: Ronald Harwood (based upon the novel by Wladyslaw Szpilman)
PRODUCERS: Robert Benmussa, Roman Polanski, and Alain Sarde
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Pawel Edelman (director of photography)
EDITOR: Hervé de Luze
COMPOSER: Wojciech Kilar
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/WAR

Starring: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, Julia Rayner, Jessica Kate Meyer, and Michal Zebrowski

Director Roman Polanski, writer Ronald Harwood, and actor Adrien Brody all won Oscars® for their work on The Pianist, a film based upon the memoirs of Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish Jew who survived for five years in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. It’s arguably the best non-documentary film about the Holocaust and Jewish oppression at the hands of the Germans after Schindler’s List.

Stylistically, The Pianist is similar to Schindler’s List in that both films visually have an atmosphere of classic cinema from the Golden Age of Hollywood film – the late 1930’s and 1940’s. From a technical aspect, the film is beautifully photographed with a gorgeous color palette that looks luscious even when melancholy gray tones are omnipresent. Also of top caliber are the art direction and set decoration, the costume design, and the original music by Wojciech Kilar.

What else can I say? This film, because of its subject matter, is difficult to watch, but from a filmmaking point of view, The Pianist is near perfect. Everyone deserved their awards and nominations, and Polanski cemented his place as a daring filmmaker willing to take chances and making great films when he succeeds.

If there must be one main reason to see this film, Adrien Brody’s performance is it. He plays Szpilman as both an eternal optimist and as a survivor, and the thing that is most uplifting about this film (which is filled with sorrow and tragedy) is that Szpilman survives. When he’s beaten down to being little more than a pitiful animal and a pathetic human skeleton, he nimbly skirts death’s every blow. Add the beautiful musical performances of Chopin and Beethoven, each one exquisitely staged and shot by Polanski and his cinematographer Pawl Edelman, and a great film is even greater.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 3 wins: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Adrien Brody), “Best Director” (Roman Polanski), and “Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay” (Ronald Harwood); 4 nominations: “Best Cinematography” (Pawel Edelman), “Best Costume Design” (Anna B. Sheppard), “Best Editing” (Hervé de Luze), and “Best Picture” (Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde)

2003 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Film” (Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, and Alain Sarde) and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Roman Polanski); 5 nominations: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Wojciech Kilar), “Best Cinematography” (Pawel Edelman), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Adrien Brody), “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (Ronald Harwood), and “Best Sound” (Jean-Marie Blondel, Dean Humphreys, and Gérard Hardy)

2003 Golden Globes: 2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama” and Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Adrien Brody)

Review: "Resident Evil" is a Top Notch Zombie Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 179 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Resident Evil (2002)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong sci-fi/horror violence, language, and sexuality/nudity
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Paul W.S. Anderson
PRODUCERS: Jeremy Bolt, Bernd Eichinger, and Paul W.S. Anderson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David Johnson
EDITOR: Alexander Berner

SCI-FI/HORROR/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes, Colin Salmon, and Jason Isaacs (uncredited)

The almighty Umbrella Corporation has a top-secret facility called the Hive where they conduct illegal viral and genetic experiments. A laboratory accident unleashes a terrible virus that transforms hundreds of resident scientists into ravenous zombies (hungry for flesh, of course) and the lab animals into mutated hounds from hell. A special military unit answers the Hive’s alarm summons; they are however not prepared to fight the flesh-eating creatures or the Hive’s diabolical and out-of-control super computer. When they disable the computer, they inadvertently release the zombies, allowing them to roam the entire complex, and all hell breaks loose. It’s up to Alice (Milla Jovovich), a Hive security officer who has suffered recent short term memory loss, and Rain (Michelle Rodriguez), a member of elite military task force to contain the outbreak, but they only have three hours to do so before the pathogen is released into the outside world.

Resident Evil is based upon videogame giant Capcom’s very popular video game of the same title. Although he isn’t a critical darling and many movie fans don’t like his work, director Paul W.S. Anderson has helmed some very entertaining sci-fi thrillers, and Resident Evil is another example of his skill at making excellent popcorn SF shockers. And Resident Evil is by no means a “good, dumb movie;” it is actually a very effective and amazingly well done (for a film adaptation of a video game) horror film. Night of the Living Dead creator George A. Romero was originally slated to direct this film, but left over creative differences. Anderson does the master proudly, as Resident Evil is a zombie movie that is just about as creepy and as scary as any other zombie picture.

The acting is mostly stiff, modern B-movie material, but the characters make excellent chess pieces in Anderson’s game plan. Fans of horror films, especially zombie films, will love this. The flesh-eating residents of the lab are some topnotch walking dead.

7 of 10
B+

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Review: Christopher Nolan's "Insomnia" Remake Offers Good Performances

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 2 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Insomnia (2002)
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – R for language, some violence and brief nudity
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
WRITER: Hilary Seitz (based upon the screenplay by Nikolai Frobenius and Erik Skjoldbjaerg)
PRODUCERS: Broderick Johnson, Paul Junger Witt, Andrew A. Kosove, and Edward L. McDonnell
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Wally Pfister (director of photography)
EDITOR: Dody Dorn

CRIME/THRILLER with elements of drama

Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Martin Donovan, Hilary Swank, Paul Dooley, Nicky Katt, and Maura Tierney

Christopher Nolan, the director of the fantastic Memento, follows his breakthrough masterpiece with Insomnia, a remake of a 1997 Swedish film of the same title. Which is better? One is foreign film, and the other is big budget Hollywood production; although the plot is basically the same, they’re two different films.

Al Pacino is Will Dormer, a famous and an acclaimed homicide investigator with books to his credit. He and his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are dispatched to Nightmute, Alaska, a town where the sun doesn’t set during the summer, to investigate the shocking murder of teenage girl. While in pursuit of the killer (Robin Williams), Dormer makes a horrible mistake (which he later learns the killer witnessed) and he compounds his error by covering it up. Suddenly, Dormer engages himself in a terrific juggling act. He has to deal with the killer, a wily fellow. Also, a bright, young detective, Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry), is assigned to investigate the crime scene of Dormer’s “error,” and there are stars in her eyes, as she’s a huge fan of his. Further complicating matters, the lead, local detective, Fred Duggar (Nicky Katt) is a young stud who doesn’t like the big city investigator sniffing around his territory.

Pacino is good, and Robin Williams is very good. The film seems to be about the invasion of the societal demands, influence, power, and roles into the personal space of individuals - what they believe and desire to be their roles, needs, and responsibilities. The constant flood of daylight causes Dormer to lose sleep, and the lack of sleep causes his world to blur. Suddenly, his desire to solve the case is in conflict with his checkered past, with his errors in judgment regarding this case, and with his sense of right and wrong and crime and punishment. Williams plays it quiet; his character’s conceit is his wish to control the outer world the way he controls and manipulates the inner worlds of his creativity. There’s a nice test of wills and battle of sanities between Pacino and Williams' characters that could have been lost in the glare of their star power – credit to Nolan for keeping these bright lights in check.

However, I really liked the supporting roles. Donovan’s Hap Eckhart is a nice counterweight to Pacino’s Dormer; Dormer’s high wattage as a famous investigator simply does not faze Eckhart, a by the book, straight laced cop. Donovan correctly plays the character so that Eckhart immediately reveals the cracks in Dormer’s armor, so we know that Dormer’s not so perfect even if that is the public perception of him. Nicky Katt stares Pacino in the eyes and doesn’t blink; his character Duggar keeps Dormer and check so that when Dormer runs amok, he doesn’t completely control the investigation, even if his activities complicates it.

Hilary Swank is all good. Her character Ellie, in a sense, mirrors the victim, except that she survives her mentor and might become a better policeman for it. Perhaps, she won’t be as famous, but her quality and honesty will likely surpass his. She’s the quiet wild card in this movie, and really, she’s the axis. In a world of shifting realities, half-truths, lies, and masks, she strips away the facades to reveal the bare bone facts.

While not great, Insomnia is better than a lot of hackneyed thrillers. Nolan continues to prove that he is already a great director on the strength of just a few films, and the photography by Wally Pfister (Nolan’s partner in crime on Memento), from the opening panorama to the claustrophobic interiors, is gorgeous and perfectly sets the tone. Besides Nolan’s work, this film is certainly worth seeing for its performances, which include one of Robin Williams’s less manic, but still good, performances.

6 of 10
B

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Review: Creepy "Signs" Dances with Fate and Faith

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 127 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Signs (2002)
Running time: 106 minutes (1 hour, 46 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some frightening moments
WRITER/DIRECTOR: M. Night Shyamalan
PRODUCERS: Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer, and M. Night Shyamalan
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tak Fujimoto
EDITOR: Barbara Tulliver
COMPOSER: James Newton Howard

DRAMA/SCI-FI/THRILLER with elements of horror

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan, and Patricia Kalember

Farmer and pastor Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) lost his faith when his wife Colleen (Patricia Kalember) was killed in an auto accident, but when he discovers intricate patterns of circles carved into his corn fields (called “crop circles”), he embarks on an path that will alter his life. The mysterious markings cause a media storm and worldwide panic; trapped in his farmhouse with his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and his son (Rory Culkin) and daughter (Abigail Breslin), Graham must discover if the crop circles are the signs of an impending invasion or are they part of a larger pattern of fate and predestination.

Signs was hit-making director M. Night Shyamalan’s third big-time studio film, and it was a huge theatrical hit. It’s a very entertaining film, although it is also a bit too serious and moody. In fact, Signs is so somber that it’s almost a chamber music version of solemnity. Still, like Shyamalan’s other best-known films (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable), Signs is a superbly creepy suspense thriller, a brilliant stroke of quiet, edge-of-your-seat thrills.

The performances and the mood of the film go a long way in dictating how an individual viewer will feel about Signs; those two elements decide the “fate” of the film, as it is. Gibson and Phoenix’s performance are too low-key, so much so that it seems as if they’re stuck in the mud. The children, however, are very good in the film, and young Ms. Breslin manages to be super cute and precious without being annoying; she delivers each of her lines and gives each one maximum impact on both the film and audience reaction. Signs is also an excellent rumination on fate and faith and on how often people mistake the “signs” and the important incidents in life as coincidences. If the film wasn’t so stiff, stuck in the mud, and so deathly deliberate and formal, I’d call it brilliant.

7 of 10
B+

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"Die Another Day" Mixes Bond Tradition with Loud Action

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 35 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux


Die Another Day (2002)
Running time: 133 minutes (2 hours, 9 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for action violence and sexuality
DIRECTOR: Lee Tamahori
WRITERS: Neal Purvis and Robert Wade
PRODUCERS: Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David Tattersall (director of photography)
EDITORS: Andrew MacRitchie and Christian Wagner
SONG: “Die Another Day” by Madonna-music/lyrics and Mirwais Ahmadzaï-music
Golden Globe nominee

ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune, Judi Dench, John Cleese, Michael Madsen, Will Yun Lee, Kenneth Tsang, Samantha Bond, and Madonna (no screen credit)

Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan’s fourth outing as James Bond, Agent 007, is the twentieth film version of Ian Fleming’s classic secret agent/super spy, and many think that the venerable character is showing his age and signs of wear. The issue is merely one of competition. Over the years stunt coordination and computer technology advanced so much that Bond’s low-fi action looked dated next to bigger and louder explosions of other action heroes, secret agents, and troubleshooters.

By the late Eighties, pumped up action thrillers had run Bond out of town; The Living Daylights and License to Kill were not hits and Bond needed a makeover. Post James Cameron’s True Lies, Brosnan became Bond and his first outing, Goldeneye, exploded out of the gate. It wasn’t very good, being more action movie cum video game than secret agent/spy thriller. Maybe the concept is dated and the character a bit long in the tooth, but the producers can still find away to make an exciting action hit.

Die Another Day is high-octane action movie, and it is better than The World is Not Enough and almost as good as Tomorrow Never Dies, the third and second Brosnan Bond films respectively.

The first half is closer in tone to the old Bond. North Korea captures and tortures Bond for 14 months. After his captors work a deal to free him, his masters at M6 cut him loose because they believe the North Koreans broke him during interrogation. Separated from his future tech arsenal and his agency, Bond has to rely on his wits, his smarts, and his experience. The viewer gets to see just how good Bond is and how dangerous a rogue he can be even without an agency to back him. Brosnan was always convincing as Bond. He could be the suave lover and charming chameleon that he needs to be in order to get into places and into people’s heads. Brosnan could also instantly become the ruthless killing machine that is the mark of an agent with a double “O” license.

Bond also meets a mysterious American, Jinx, played to full sexual tilt by Academy Award winner Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball). Together they pursue the pompous Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), a wealthy jetsetter with the usual world beating schemes. Graves is actually a very good and charming villain, and he has a dangerous sidekick, Zao (Rick Yune).

Much of the second half of the film is borderline, pure sci-fi, but in the hands of Lee Tamahori (Along Came a Spider), the action is intense and has the wall-to-wall ferocity of anime (Japanese animated films) and mania of a comic book. The script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, the screenwriters of The World is Not Enough, is well written and does a good job straddling two film genres – espionage and action. Though the movie runs a bit long, the thrills of the second half are well choreographed and relentless.

Die Another Day has some excellent small parts: John Cleese, in his best outing as Q, Judi Dench as the dour M, and Michael Madsen, always a welcome sight as a tough guy, who should have had a bigger part.

The movie is part secret agent thriller and part loud cartoon. I would like to see more of the former, but, on the whole, it is a very entertaining film and a near perfect film for people who just love loud action movies.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2003 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Madonna-music/lyrics and Mirwais Ahmadzaï-music for the song "Die Another Day")
2003 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actress” (Halle Berry)

Review: "Gangs of New York" Was the First Scorsese-DiCaprio Joint

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Gangs of New York (2002)
Running time: 167 minutes (2 hours, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for intense strong violence, sexuality/nudity and language
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
WRITERS: Jay Cocks, Steven Zallian, and Kenneth Lonergan; from a story by Jay Cocks
PRODUCERS: Alberto Grimaldi and Harvey Weinstein
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Ballhaus (director of photography)
EDITOR: Thelma Schoonmaker
COMPOSER: Howard Shore
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Jim Broadbent, John C. Reilly, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Gary Lewis, Stephen Graham, Eddie Marsan, and Larry Gilliard, Jr.

Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Gangs of New York begins in 1846 with a bloody battle between rival New York gangs that Scorsese films with enough majestic splendor and power to rival an epic battle in one of The Lord of the Rings films. This is an auspicious opening to a wonderful film that just happens to run on a little too long.

Young Amsterdam Vallon watches his father Priest (Liam Neeson, K-19: The Widowmaker), leader of the Irish Dead Rabbits, fall under the knife of William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis, The Crucible), leader of the Nativists. The Nativists, whose parents and grandparents were Americans and who are white Anglo Saxon New Yorkers, look upon the new immigrants, especially the Irish, as foreign invaders, garbage whom must they must subjugate. Truthfully, they’re all poor folks living in the slums in filth and hunger.

In 1863, the adult Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic) emerges from a juvenile home ready to avenge his father’s death. He finds that many of his late father’s colleagues have joined ranks with Cutting’s gang and that Cutting now reveres Priest Vallon as the last great man. Amsterdam hides his identity and joins Cutting’s crew, where he becomes like a son to him, until Amsterdam’s identity is revealed and he has his first bloody confrontation with Cutting.

For most of Gangs, one can’t help but be taken in by the breathtaking and dazzling filmmaking, possible Scorsese’s most invigorating work since Goodfellas. Superb camerawork by Michael Ballhaus and excellent film editing by Thelma Schoonmaker (both long time Scorsese cohorts) combine their talents with the master’s brilliant sense of design, pacing, and storytelling to form a perfect film. Then, it suddenly goes on past the point where it should have ended – the first confrontation between Amsterdam and Bill the Butcher. Their continued rivalry isn’t boring, but some of other subplots that went with it seem extraneous.

The script, by former Scorsese collaborator Jay Cocks, the talented Steven Zallian (Academy Award winner for Schindler’s List), and Kenneth Lonergan (writer/director of the beautiful You Can Count on Me) is Shakespearean in its approach to character, plot, and dramatization. The story, however, tries to cover all the important national issues of 1863: The War Between the States, immigration, conscription, class conflict, ethnic conflict, racism, slavery, political corruption, police corruption, violence, hunger and poverty, religious conflict, and loyalty and how all these issues intermingle into further conflict. Sometimes, it all seems like so much crap thrown against the wall to see what sticks. All these subplots require a longer film, and Gangs is already two hours and 48 minutes long. This obese screen story is the blemish on what could have been a great film.

Still Scorsese tackles this beast of a script and turns it into a wonderful movie, in part because he draws some great performances from his cast. Day-Lewis is always a pleasure to watch, and he turns Cutting into a complex man worthy of everything between outright loathing and sincere admiration. DiCaprio is the youthful and seething hero and proves, once again, that the screen loves him; you can’t take your eyes off him. He’s the perfect movie star: dazzling, boyish beauty and talent to burn, but envy will deny him the accolades that Day-Lewis will get for this film. Other stellar performances include Cameron Diaz (stop hatin,’ she can really act), the chameleonic Jim Broadbent (always on his game), and Henry Thomas (all grown up since E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial). Gangs of New York is not to be missed; the only regret one can have is how close they all came to getting making perfect.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 10 nominations: “Best Picture” (Alberto Grimaldi and Harvey Weinstein), “Best Director” (Martin Scorsese), “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Daniel Day-Lewis), “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration” (Dante Ferretti-art director and Francesca Lo Schiavo-set decorator), “Best Cinematography” (Michael Ballhaus), “Best Costume Design” (Sandy Powell), “Best Editing” (Thelma Schoonmaker), “Best Music, Original Song” (Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. for the song "The Hands That Built America"), “Best Sound” (Tom Fleischman, Eugene Gearty, and Ivan Sharrock), “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Jay Cocks-screenplay/story, Steven Zaillian-screenplay, and Kenneth Lonergan-screenplay)

2003 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Daniel Day-Lewis); 11 nominations: “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Howard Shore), “Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects” (R. Bruce Steinheimer, Michael Owens, Edward Hirsh, and Jon Alexander), “Best Cinematography” (Michael Ballhaus), “Best Costume Design” (Sandy Powell), “Best Editing” (Thelma Schoonmaker), “Best Film” (Alberto Grimaldi and Harvey Weinstein), “Best Make Up/Hair” (Manlio Rocchetti and Aldo Signoretti), “Best Production Design” (Dante Ferretti), “Best Screenplay – Original” (Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan), “Best Sound” (Tom Fleischman, Ivan Sharrock, Eugene Gearty, and Philip Stockton), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Martin Scorsese)

2003 Golden Globes: 2 wins: “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Martin Scorsese) and “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. for the song "The Hands That Built America"); 3 nominations “Best Motion Picture – Drama” “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Daniel Day-Lewis), and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Cameron Diaz)

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Movie Review: "Brown Sugar" Was Much Needed

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 62 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


Brown Sugar (2002)
Running time: 109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexual content and language
DIRECTOR: Rick Famuyiwa
WRITERS: Michael Elliot and Rick Famuyiwa, from a story by Michael Elliot
PRODUCER: Peter Heller
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Earvin “Magic” Johnson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeff Barnett and Enrique Chediak (director of photography)
EDITOR: Dirk Westervelt
Black Reel Award winner

ROMANCE with elements of drama

Starring: Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Mos Def, Nicole Ari Parker, Boris Kodjoe, and Queen Latifah

National Basketball Association legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson entered the world of filmmaking as executive producer in what 20th Century Fox billed as a hip-hop romance, Brown Sugar. The truth of the matter is that the hip-hop has very little to do with the romance other than being window dressing. The fact of the matter is that Brown Sugar is actually a nice romance.

Dre (Taye Diggs) and Sidney (Sanaa Lathan, Love & Basketball) have been friends since childhood. Dre is a successful record executive and Sidney wrote articles on hip-hop music for the Los Angeles Times before moving on to run XXL magazine. They’re each other’s best friend, sharing the good times and the bad and sharing gossip and the intimate secrets of their lives. They only once came close to consummating their deep friendship as serious love, but avoided it. However, when Dre rushes into marriage with Reese (Nicole Ari Parker, Remember the Titans), a high society money girl that he hasn’t known very long, Sidney has mixed feelings, and her deeper love for Dre begins to surface.

Director Rick Famuyiwa (The Wood) and co-writer Michael Elliot seemed determined to make a film that’s simply about romance in which hip-hop is as important to the story as the romance is. Both characters are obviously big fans of hip-hop; both their careers are built around it. The writers even have the characters mouth platitudes about how great hip-hop is. But no matter how much they talk about hip-hop, rap music, or whatever you want to call it, the story of the film is about two friends finally succumbing to the love they have for each other that they both denied for so long, a denial that has one in a bad marriage and the other about to enter into one. The hip-hop love jones is strained and forced, and it severely hampers the romantic center of this movie; the love story is natural and flows.

This film may not be as well known as more “mainstream” and “traditional” romantic films like Sleepless in Seattle or When Harry Met Sally, but Brown Sugar is good. It’s not perfect, but when I was growing up, films like this simply didn’t exist. They couldn’t; racist Hollywood didn’t want to make them, and the beast always claimed that there was no audience for such a film. Well, there’s always an audience for good films; it may not be as large as the audience for Titanic, but people will find a good movie.

I must say that the performances outshine the film. Taye Diggs is a good actor, and he has the stature and emotional range to play a leading man. Can’t you just see how much fun he would have been in something like Boomerang? Ms. Lathan is new to me, but I like what she has to offer. She easily skates through her character of this soft script, managing to be a comedian, a heroine, and a lovelorn professional gal just looking for true love. Queen Latifah adds spark to this film, although her part is quite small, but her hip-hop colleague, Mos Def, is another find. He played the sidekick very well, and he manages to be “real” as a hip-hop artist without once calling a bitch a ho or threatening to peal a nigga’s cap back. He’s a natural, quite comfortable on screen, and I hope to see more of him.

If Magic Johnson has more films like Brown Sugar up his sleeves, by all means, he should go to fewer Laker games and more studio briefings.

6 of 10
B

"The Rookie" is a Warm Family Sports Drama

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 37 (of 2002) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Rookie (2002)
Running time: 127 minutes (2 hours, 7 minutes)
DIRECTOR: John Lee Hancock
WRITER: Mike Rich
PRODUCERS: Mark Ciardi, Gordon Gray, and Mark Johnson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Schwartzman (director of photography)
EDITOR: Eric L. Beason
COMPOSER: Carter Burwell

DRAMA/SPORTS

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rachel Griffiths, Jay Hernandez, Beth Grant, Angus T. Jones, and Brian Cox

Jimmy Morris’s (Dennis Quaid) perennially losing baseball team made a bet with him. If they won district, he would give his dream of being a Major League Baseball player another shot. Of course they won, and he did try again.

Director John Lee Hancock, a television director and screenwriter (A Perfect World), and writer Mike Rich (Finding Forrester) take the ideas of dreams and wish fulfillment and force them into the harsh light of day in the film, The Rookie. They remind the viewer that getting what you want isn’t always easy, but they have a bigger surprise in store for the viewer. It’s how this film deals with what happens when you get what you want.

In the case of Morris, he does make it to the big leagues (no big spoiler), and the majors is what he expected it to be. It’s just that he had a life and responsibilities before he got his dream job, and now the two conflict. He also discovers that being a big leaguer is a little more complicated than just “playing ball.” Director and screenwriter weave a story and create characters that seem real, because, not only is the story based on real events, the Morris struggle is universal – the desire to do what you want to do and the need to do what you have to do. This is the most intense and heaviest G-rated film in history. The creators still manage to make it fun and uplifting because they encourage us to identify with Morris’s quest.

Quaid gives a very good performance as man navigating his life, between the responsibilities and the dreams. It’s the performance that endears us to him, and Quaid sells us on a story that could have been very down beat. His every gesture, each look into his eyes and his face sells us that the reward at the end is worth the struggle along the way. In Quaid’s Morris, we see that there are rarely ever any pat resolutions to the problems we face in life.

The movie does seem a bit long, and some of the other characters (Morris’s wife and father) should have had more screen time, as they are obviously important to the growth of the character. There’s also a religious element in the film that’s clumsily underplayed. However, The Rookie does deliver both a message and fine entertainment. One other nice thing that it is subtly played throughout the film – regardless of how tough it is to achieve a dream and no matter how lonely one might feel, there are a lot of people around the dreamer supporting him along the way.

6 of 10
B

Review: "Spirited Away" is Pure Magic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 45 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

 

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) – animation

Running time: 125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes) COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japan

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki

PRODUCER: Toshio Suzuki

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Atsushi Okui

EDITOR: Takeshi Seyama

 

Spirited Away (2002) – USA English dub

MPAA – PG for some scary moments

WRITERS: Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt – English script

PRODUCER: Donald W. Ernst

Academy Award winner

 

ANIMATION/FANTASY/ADVENTURE 

 

Starring: (voices) Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers, Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis, and Tara Strong

 

The world’s best director of animated films is Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke), and even the masters at Disney represent with Miyazaki. In 2001, his film Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi became the all-time highest grossing film in Japan, and in 2003, Spirited Away, the English language version of the film, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

 

While moving to their new home, a ten-year girl named Chihiro (voice of Daveigh Chase) and her parents get lost on an overgrown stretch of road. At the end of the road, they find a lonely building that her father surmises was part of an abandoned theme park. Continuing to track through their discovery, the parents wander into the park where they catch the smell of cooking food. The parents begin to chow down on a veritable feast that they find in an empty restaurant. They don’t know that the food is enchanted and meant for the spirits. Within minutes, the magic transforms Chihiro’s parents into pigs.

 

Chihiro meets a boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) who tells her than the theme park is actually a rest haven for spirits. Haku tells her that he will help her and her parents, but she must wait. Meanwhile, Chihiro indentures herself to Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), a greedy and devious she-creature who runs the bathhouse that is the centerpiece of this magical world. Yubaba changes Chihiro’s name to Sen and forces her to work in the bathhouse while the girl struggles to find a way to free herself from slavery and her parents from the spell.

 

Whereas Miyazaki’s previous film Princess Mononoke was an epic tale of magic versus modern with the threat of a great war as the backdrop, Spirited Away is a magical fantasy in which the level of magic reaches epic proportions. From beginning to end, Miyazaki fills every frame of the film with an eldritch charm that defies comparisons to any other movies, including his own work. It’s a dazzling display of the supernatural that held me spellbound. Witches, monsters, phantasms, spirits, creatures, mythical beasts, and wondrous landscapes populate the world of Spirited Away. It’s part Alice in Wonderland, part faerie tale, and part Japanese myth. Every frame is pure wonder and fantasy.

 

All of the magical creatures seem so real and so much real part of their environment. Miyazaki has a variety of fantastical beings for almost every scene, and it never seems like too much or too phony. So many filmmakers cheat now because of computer-generated imagery and throw anything on the screen just because they it pops into their heads. The wondrous people and things of Spirited Away seem natural and purposeful, a part of a divine order, not forced, but correct and part of a circle.

 

The film’s story and script, also by Miyazaki, isn’t so much about plot as they are about the imagination, the magic of the film’s world, and, in the end, about growing up and losing the magical corners of youth where ethereal, unreal, and surreal things exist and happen. Chihiro/Sen’s adventure is a wonderful one, and Miyazaki so draws you into Spirited Away that you feel the presence of the supernatural as much as Chihiro does, and like her, you hurt from the loses that come with growing up and getting older.

 

This is more than just a great animated film; this is simply a great film. There are times when it did seem a bit long, and Miyazaki’s craft seemed too polished, too perfect, but a master like Miyazaki can’t help but be overbearing at times. He’s a filmmaker and a magician. Spirited Away has to be seen on the big screen; it’s the only way to truly feel the awe-inspiring enchantment of the most fantastical film since Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

 

There are a lot of fantasy films and films about magic, but only once in a generation is one so resonant with the mysterious of power miracles, magic, and fantastic beings that the film itself feels other worldly. Spirited Away is the supra fantasy of this time.

 

9 of 10

 A+ 

 

NOTES: 2003 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Animated Feature” (Hayao Miyazaki) 

 

2004 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki)

 

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Review: Academy Award Winning Documentary "Bowling for Columbine"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 171 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Running time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
MPAA – R for some violent images and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Michael Moore
PRODUCERS: Charles Bishop, Jim Czarnecki, Michael Donovan, Kathleen Glynn, and Michael Moore
EDITOR: Kurt Engfehr
Academy Award winner

DOCUMENTARY/COMMENTARY

Starring: Michael Moore, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Manson, Matt Clark, and Dick Clark

After passing over his Roger and Me in 1989, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) handed out its Oscar for “Best Documentary, Features” to filmmaker Michael Moore for his 2002 feature Bowling for Columbine. The Writers Guild of America also awarded Moore “Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen,” one of many American and international awards the film won.

In the film, Moore explores the roots of American’s predilection for gun violence. He also takes a look at the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado where two students killed 13 people with guns and an incident in his hometown where a six year-old boy killed a six year-old girl with a handgun he found at his uncle’s home. Moore also examines American’s culture of fear and bigotry; he especially focuses on the bigotry against young, black men that marks them as violent predators. Moore also goes after powerful, elite political and corporate interests that directly make money by fanning a culture of bigotry, fear, and violence.

Bowling for Columbine is exacting in the detail to which it pursues its topics, although Moore seems as stumped as anyone to provide answers. It is as if he’s pointing at the symptoms or results of our culture, but can’t find out why things are as they are. It’s a fair and mostly balanced look because Moore gives people a chance to speak. Some, in particular, Charlton Heston (then president of the National Rifle Association or N.R.A.) seem simultaneously proud and embarrassed of their very vocal support of guns and tacit support of gun violence.

The film is often very funny. Its issues are perplexing – especially the examination of Canada, a country with a lot of guns, but very few gun deaths. BFC is also quite heartbreaking and dramatic; the segments on Columbine and the murder of the schoolgirl in Michigan are heartbreaking. Moore knows just how to push buttons when he reveals that the mother of the small boy who shot the girl works two very low paying jobs because of Michigan’s “welfare for work program.” Even with the two jobs, she couldn’t pay her rent and was evicted from her home. She moved in with her brother, and that’s where the child found the weapon.

The film is a little over the top at times. The Heston interview doesn’t go well, and in the segment, Moore seems to be picking on this elder statesman of acting, who was later revealed to be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Oh, God must not like ugly.

Some may find BRC unbalanced, and though that makes it almost as much commentary as documentary, the film is important. Someone had to document the horrors of this violent, bigoted, and greedy leader of the free world in a form that would force its way into pop culture and into the popular conscience. This excellent film only makes people mad because it is both real and truth revealing.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2003 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Documentary, Features” (Michael Moore and Michael Donovan)

Review: "The Bourne Identity" is Classic Secret Agent

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 112 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Bourne Identity (2002)
Running time: 119 minutes (1 hour, 59 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violence and some language
DIRECTOR: Doug Liman
WRITERS: Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron (from the novel by Robert Ludlum)
PRODUCERS: Doug Liman, Patrick Crowley, and Richard N. Gladstein
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Oliver Wood
EDITOR: Saar Klein

ACTION/THRILLER/MYSTERY

Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Julia Stiles

There really aren’t any bad Matt Damon movies, just bad movies in which Matt Damon is an actor or a star. He has boyishly good looks, but there’s also something in his character that suggests a solid stand up guy upon which one can rely – probably the two big things needed to make a great male star of the screen. Doug Liman is a rising star as a director. I haven’t seen his film Swingers, but I did see his rave scene version of Pulp Fiction, Go, which is an utterly fantastic fun ride of good music and loopy violence. If you put Damon and Liman together and give them a Robert Ludlum novel to make into a film, you might get the fantastic thriller, The Bourne Identity.

A French fishing vessel finds a man (Matt Damon) floating in the middle of the stormy Mediterranean Sea, whom the crew promptly rescues. He has two bullets in his back, and when he awakes, he doesn’t remember his name. Documents reveal his identity as Jason Bourne, but Jason doesn’t remember any special significance attached to his alleged name. As he follows the few clues he has in hopes of recovering from his amnesia, he must escape a web of international intrigue and a cadre of assassins bent of killing him.

I think a lot of people were surprised that this film became a fairly big hit, and many more were surprised that it was actually so good. The key players in this film are, of course, Damon and Liman. Damon’s Bourne is for all practical purposes, almost the only important character in the film. The rest of the characters are decent, but there is nothing to them beyond their role in a paper-thin shadowy conspiracy. The presence of veteran characters like Chris Cooper and Brian Cox are delightful, but I assume that their characters would have been richer characters if Ludlum’s novel from which this is film is adapted had been made into a television mini-series. A slight supporting cast could have been a liability, but Liman has this deft touch of making his film move briskly and with such vibrancy and life. The viewer hardly has time to focus his attention on story holes. Like a good book, you can’t walk away from The Bourne Identity. You don’t want to walk away, and there are many times when the only reason I finish a boring movie is because I think that I might as well finish what I started.

In Damon, Liman has star with screen presence, and he takes full advantage of it. Although we know only a little more about Bourne that the character himself, as the camera follows Damon, the actor makes us interested in Bourne. With so many run-of-the-mill action flicks, it’s good to see the occasional action/thriller (a genre primarily aimed at older audiences) like Ronin or The Negotiator that engages the thinking and the feeling. The Bourne Identity is a bravura performance by a director and his star that’s worth seeing. It’s a moment in film history when two people come together with utter determination to take what is meant to be slight entertainment and make it into something that goes to the top of the heap. It’ll leave you wanting more.

8 of 10
A

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