Review: "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" is a Sensation

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 55 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
Running time: 161 minutes (2 hours, 41 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images
DIRECTOR: Peter Jackson
WRITERS: Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro (from the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien)
PRODUCERS: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Carolynne Cunningham, and Zane Weiner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrew Lesnie (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Jabez Olssen
COMPOSER: Howard Shore
Academy Award nominee

FANTASY/ACTION/ADVENTURE with elements of drama

Starring:  Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Sylvester McCoy, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchett, and Benedict Cumberbatch (also voice)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a 2013 fantasy film from director Peter Jackson.  The film is the second of three movies which are based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (better known by its abbreviated title, The Hobbit).  Set sixty years before The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is the story of a curious Hobbit who joins a band of Dwarves on a mission to reclaim their homeland from a powerful dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug finds Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) still in The Company of Dwarves, led by would-be dwarf king, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage).  These 13 dwarves are on a quest to reclaim their homeland, Erebor, from the dragon, Smaug (voice of Benedict Cumberbatch).  Their goal is the Lonely Mountain, where Smaug slumbers.

Along the way, Bilbo and the Dwarves are pursued by Azog the Defiler and a party of Orcs.  They also encounter the Wood-elves and their arrogant king, Thranduil (Lee Pace), and are eventually pursued by two elves, Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), who are proficient at killing Orcs.  Meanwhile, the wizard, Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan), investigates the growing evil at the ruins of Dol Guldur.

I gave the first Hobbit film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey a grade of “9” out of 10 on my rating scale, although I had complaints about the movie.  My biggest complaint was that it was too long, with the first hour meandering like a drunken narrative looking for a bottle of plot.

I have no complaints about The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I love it.  I have seen it once, and watched most of it several more times on different HBO channels.  Like the prior films based on the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien,  The Desolation of Smaug is a glowing spectacle.  It is not trapped by the “middle chapter” narrative difficulties that afflict the middle films of some movie trilogies, like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.  [By the way, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was the middle film in a trilogy and did not at all suffer from middle chapter problems.]

Perhaps, for me, The Desolation of Smaug is personal.  I feel for the characters, and I am a champion for their causes, examining the stakes and decisions from every angle.  Director Peter Jackson is in love with The Hobbit, and it shows in this wonderful film.  I cannot pick out particular thing that stands out as great, although I love Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Smaug.  It is as if all elements come together to make a great film.

Over the years, I have read The Hobbit many times, and I am happy that these Hobbit movies, especially this one, are connecting with me in ways I never expected.  If you are already a fan of the previous Peter Jackson Tolkien films, you will be a fan of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  Or like me, you will fall in love with it.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards, USA:  3 nominations: “Best Achievement in Sound Mixing” (Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick, and Tony Johnson), “Best Achievement in Visual Effects” (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, and Eric Reynolds), and “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Brent Burge and Chris Ward)

2014 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Make Up/Hair” (Peter King, Richard Taylor, and Rick Findlater) “Best Special Visual Effects” (Eric Reynolds, David Clayton, Joe Letteri, and Eric Saindon)
Tuesday, December 16, 2014


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Review: Original "Robocop" Still an Amazing Film

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 32 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Robocop (1987)
Running time:  102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Paul Verhoeven
WRITERS:  Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner
PRODUCER:  Arne Schmidt
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jost Vacano (D.o.P.) with Sol Negrin
EDITOR:  Frank J. Urioste
COMPOSER:  Basil Poledouris
Academy Award winner

SCI-FI/CRIME/ACTION

Starring:  Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Robert DoQui, Ray Wise, Felton Perry, Paul McCrane, Jesse Goins, Del Zamora, Steve Minh, Ken Page, and Laird Stuart

Some believe that “standing the test of time” is a mark that a work of fiction, entertainment, art, etc. is of the highest-quality, most important, or just plain good.  Of course, for some people, the best stories get better with age.

Robocop is a 1987 science fiction, crime, and action film from director Paul Verhoeven.  Twenty-seven years later, Robocop is still a fantastic film, and maybe even better now than it was when it was first released.  The film is set in a dystopia, a near-future version of Detroit, Michigan and focuses on a policeman who returns from the dead as a powerful cyborg cop that might be the future of law enforcement.

Robocop opens in the future and finds Detroit beset by crime and on the verge of collapse because of rampant crime and a severe financial crisis.  To keep the city alive, the mayor signs a deal with Omni Consumer Products (OCP).  The deal allows OCP to take over the Detroit Metropolitan Police Department and to also build a high-end real estate development called “Delta City,” by demolishing rundown sections of Detroit.

Meanwhile, Alex J. Murphy (Peter Weller) arrives at Police Precinct Metro West as a transfer from a precinct that is much nicer than the busy and troubled Metro West.  Not long after his arrival, Murphy and his partner, Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), confront a vicious criminal gang.  Murphy is killed in the line of duty, but OCP revives him as a cyborg – part man and mostly machine.  Murphy is now “RoboCop,” the future of law enforcement, but this future is haunted by submerged memories of his past life.

With Robocop, writers Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner wrote one of the smartest and best screenplays in the history of science fiction films.  Robocop includes themes regarding corporate greed and corruption, identity, mass media, urban decay and gentrification, among many.  The film is clever in the way it satirizes a news media that trivializes even the most serious and tragic events (murder, natural disasters, civil unrest), turning them into junk news for “entertainment consumers.”  At the time of Robocop’s release, television news was already coming under heavy criticism for being “infotainment.”  Robocop was dead-on in predicting where television news was headed, as current real-world TV news is, in many ways, like what Robocop depicts.

Watching Robocop for the first time in ages, I noticed that the film is stylistically like a Western.  Thematically, Robocop bears a resemblance to Westerns that focus on the lone lawman, fighting against a corrupt system and the vilest bad guys.  This film is also similar to Westerns that focus on a good guy returning from near-death or grave injury to deliver payback to the evil-doers that hurt him.  Basil Poledouris driving and colorful score for this film is the perfect musical accompaniment for scenes featuring RoboCop when he is man on a mission.

And Robocop is simply a damn good movie.  Compared to his other films, director Paul Verhoeven delivers a film that is clean and straightforward.  He relies on the screenplay to be clever and complicated, while his direction is sparse and matter-of-fact.  The result is a science fiction movie that looks more like a crime film and cop action movie than it does a film about the future.  In fact, Robocop seems less a prediction of the future and more like a message from the actual future.

This film has a number of good performances, but Peter Weller stands out.  He plays Murphy as being barely noticeable as a person, but Weller employs mechanical affectations to turn RoboCop into a magnetic personality.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and Weller left me wanting more of Robocop, the movie and, indeed, the man.

9 of 10
A+

Saturday, July 12, 2014


NOTES:
1988 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win “Special Achievement Award” (Stephen Hunter Flick and John Pospisil for sound effects editing); 2 nominations: “Best Sound” (Michael J. Kohut, Carlos Delarios, Aaron Rochin, and Robert Wald), and “Best Film Editing” (Frank J. Urioste)

1989 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Make Up Artist” (Carla Palmer) and “Best Special Effects” (Rob Bottin, Phil Tippett, Peter Kuran, and Rocco Gioffre)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review "Excalibur" is Epic, Unforgettable (Happy B'day, Liam Neeson)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 77 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Excalibur (1981)
Running time:  140 minutes (2 hours, 20 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER:  John Boorman
WRITERS:  Rospo Pallenberg and John Boorman; from an adaptation by Rospo Pallenberg of Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alex Thomson
EDITOR:  John Merritt with Donn Cambern (no screen credit)
COMPOSER:  Trevor Jones
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/FANTASY/WAR

Starring:  Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, Nicol Williamson, Robert Addie, Gabriel Byrne, Keith Buckley, Katrine Boorman, Liam Neeson, Corin Redgrave, Niall O’Brien, Patrick Stewart, and Clive Swift

The subject of this movie review is Excalibur, a 1981 drama and fantasy film from producer-director John Boorman.  The film is mostly based on Le Morte d’Arthur, the 15th century Arthurian romance written by Thomas Malory.  Excalibur focuses on Merlin the magician, King Arthur, and Morgana Le Fey.  It depicts how Arthur unites a land, creates the Round Table, and builds Camelot, while forces conspire to destroy it all.

John Boorman’s Excalibur is the acclaimed director’s lushly filmed take on the Arthurian legend as adapted from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.  Early in the film, we see Arthur’s illicit conception when his father, King Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne), use magical trickery to seduce, Igrayne (Katrine Boorman), another man’s wife, and impregnates her with the child that would become Arthur.  Later, Merlin (Nicol Williamson) claims the infant Arthur as the price Uther must pay Merlin for providing the magical disguise Arthur used to seduce Igrayne.

Later, young Arthur (Nigel Terry) pulls the sword of kings, Excalibur, from a stone, which makes him King Arthur.  The film tells the story of the rise of Arthur’s kingdom and the righteous birth of The Knights of the Round Table.  Then, things go bad when Arthur’s wife, Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi), takes Arthur’s best, bravest, and most favored knight, Lancelot (Nicholas Clay), as her lover.  Arthur’s sister, Morgana (Helen Mirren), a crafty sorceress, connives until the balance of power shifts from Merlin to her.  The film concludes with Arthur’s final battle, this against his son, Mordred (Robert Addie), whom Arthur fathered with Morgana.

Boorman, his screenwriting partner Rospo Pallenberg, cinematographer Alex Thomson (who earned an Oscar nomination for his work here), composer Trevor Jones, and costume designer Bob Ringwood (who earned a BAFTA Award nomination for his work in this film) came together to create an exquisite rendition of the tale of King Arthur and Camelot.  The film is full of Christian symbolism, in particularly dealing with Christianity supplanting the old gods and necromancy in favor of men.  There is also a lot of sexual subtext, much of it is surprisingly gay; there is lots of man love and admiration of the virility, honor, bravery, and skill of men.  Men really admire and love great men in this story, and women, for the most part, are trouble in this film.

Boorman wanted to emphasize the story over the characters in his take on the Arthurian myth, and he uses the stunning visuals to evoke feelings, but to also get the viewer to think about the things for which the stories of King Arthur and his kingdom stand.  However, the actors really don’t surrender and play the role of puppets.  They play up to the symbolism and imagery.  They don’t treat their roles as figurative, but as interpreters of the things that this myth teaches us about the better parts of human nature – humility, charity, bravery, and sacrifice, and an understanding to forgive the trespasses our friends, loved ones, countrymen, and fellow humans make against us and we against them.

In Excalibur, John Boorman composes his scenes and photographic shots as if each were a giant painting, a series of representational works meant to tell a powerful tale about universal ideals.  There is something grand in Excalibur, and in spite of its faults:  some poor dialogue, the tendency for the film to suddenly take big leaps forward in the narrative time, and Boorman’s assumption that we should be familiar with these characters and their motivations, it succeeds.

8 of 10
A

Monday, May 23, 2005

Updated:  Saturday, June 07, 2014

NOTES:
1982 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Cinematography” (Alex Thomson)

1982 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Costume Design” (Bob Ringwood)

1981 Cannes Film Festival:  1 win: “Best Artistic Contribution (John Boorman) and 1 nomination: “Palme d'Or” (John Boorman)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Asphalt Jungle" is a Film-Noir Gem (Remembering Sterling Hayden)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 152 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – B&W
Running time:  112 minutes (1 hour, 52 minutes)
DIRECTOR:  John Huston
WRITERS:  Ben Maddow and John Huston (from the novel by W.R. Burnett)
PRODUCER:  Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Harold Rosson (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  George Boemler
COMPOSER:  Mikos Rozsa
Academy Award nominee

FILM-NOIR/CRIME/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring:  Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Teresa Celli, and Marilyn Monroe

The subject of this movie review is The Asphalt Jungle, a 1950 film noir and crime drama co-written and directed by John Huston.  The film is based on the 1949 novel, The Asphalt Jungle, written by author W.R. Burnett.  The Asphalt Jungle the movie is a caper film that focuses on an initially-successful jewelry heist that turns sour because of bad luck and double-crossing.

There was a time when an urban crime drama didn’t require massively staged shootouts in which by the time the credits rolled literally hundreds of bullet shell casings had hit the ground.  There was indeed a time before painfully loud gunfire and bodies flying backwards from high impact bullet hits.  That was before Hong Kong produced cop dramas and crime thrillers were the gold standard for crime films.  That was a time when all a director needed was a solid script, a large ensemble cast of character actors, and a gritty, urban American setting.

That simple age yielded a film like director John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle.  The actor/writer/director best known for such films as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen could also turn a cool trick with such crime films as the timeless flick, The Maltese Falcon, and the Oscar-nominated Prizzi’s Honor.  Released in 1950, fans of the movie genre, Film-Noir, consider The Asphalt Jungle to be a noir classic.

The film follows a band of thieves who plan and execute a million dollar jewelry store heist.  Fresh out of prison, German-born master thief, Doc Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance), takes into his confidence a wily hood named “Cobby” Cobb (Marc Lawrence) who runs an illegal betting parlor.  Cobb helps Doc assemble just the kind of team he needs to execute his crime:  Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso), a safe cracker; Gus Minissi (James Whitmore), a driver; and Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), a hooligan or thug.

However, they run into complications with the man who is supposed to help them fence (sell) the diamonds on the black market, Alonzo D. “Lon” Emmerich (Louis Calhern), a prominent criminal attorney.  Lon is in deep financial straits.  Broke and desperate for cash, he plots with a shady cohort, to double cross Doc and his gang, which, of course, puts the entire plan on the road to ruin.

John Houston and his crew splendidly create the gritty and grimy world in which skilled thieves and hardened criminals exist.  An underworld, it is indeed as the film’s tagline reads, “The City Under the City,” or at least it is the world behind the backdoors, alleyways, and criminal haunts (like Gus’s restaurant).  The actors superbly play to type the kind of ethnic and poor white characters that fill such stories – career criminals whose jobs or addictions (like Dix’s gambling habit) force them to continue working the streets the same way the needs of a family necessitate that an honest man or woman keep working just about everyday.

The Asphalt Jungle isn’t glossy or shiny noir.  Houston’s film is as matter-of-fact and as tough as Hayden’s Dix Handley – mistrustful of those who might befriend him and ready to put a big hurt on anyone in his way.  The Asphalt Jungle seems not to really care if someone likes it, and that makes this coarse little film truly a gem of a crime film and a gritty Film-Noir treat.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1951 Academy Awards:  4 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Sam Jaffe), “Best Cinematography, Black-and-White” (Harold Rosson), “Best Director” (John Huston), and “Best Writing, Screenplay” (Ben Maddow and John Huston)

1951 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination:  “Best Film from any Source” (USA)

1951 Golden Globes:  3 nominations: “Best Cinematography - Black and White” (Harold Rosson), “Best Motion Picture Director” (John Huston), and “Best Screenplay” (John Huston and Ben Maddow)

2008 National Film Preservation Board, USA:  National Film Registry

Monday, July 17, 2006

Updated:  Friday, May 23, 2014


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Review: Emma Thompson Saves "Saving Mr. Banks"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 21 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Running time:  125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for thematic elements including some unsettling images
DIRECTOR:  John Lee Hancock
WRITERS:  Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith
PRODUCERS:  Ian Collie, Alison Owen, and Philip Steuer
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  John Schwartzman (D.o.P.)
EDITOR:  Mark Livolsi
COMPOSER:  Thomas Newman
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/HISTORICAL with elements of a biopic and comedy

Starring:  Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Rose Buckley, Colin Farrell, Ruth Wilson, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Bigham, Melanie Paxson, Ronan Vibert, Rachel Griffiths, and Kathy Baker

Saving Mr. Banks is a 2013 drama from director John Lee Hancock and is an American, British, and Australian co-production.  The film is a fictional account of author P.L. Travers’ trip to America, as she considers selling the film rights to her Mary Poppins books to Walt Disney.

Walt Disney is really a supporting character in Saving Mr. Banks, as the movie focuses on Travers as she reflects on her childhood and on her relationship with her troubled father.  The parts of the film that focus on Travers’ childhood are melancholy.  The parts of the film that take place in the film’s present (1961) are lively and colorful, and I wish all of the movie were set at Walt Disney Studios.

The film opens in the year 1961 in London, where it finds author, Pamela “P.L.” Travers (Emma Thompson), experiencing financial troubles.  Travers does have a way out of her money woes.  She can sell the film rights to her Mary Poppins books to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who has been pursuing Travers for the rights to the books for 20 years.  Travers travels to Los Angeles, where she is whisked to the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.

In America, Travers meets a kind limo driver, Ralph (Paul Giamatti). She meets Mr. Disney.  She meets the creative team assigned to adapt Mary Poppins to the screen:  screenwriter, Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford); and musical composing brothers, Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak, respectively).  For two weeks, Travers plans on working with the team to get Mary right – at she sees it.

However, everything about her Mary Poppins book may be too personal for her to accept anyone else’s vision of Mary Poppins, especially Walt Disney’s version of Mary Poppins.  As she works on the film, Travers’ mind goes back to her life in Australia as a girl (Annie Rose Buckley) and she recollects her relationship with her troubled father (Colin Farrell).

I have to admit that I like Saving Mr. Banks because of its fanciful and real-life complication-free look at Walt Disney, his employees, and life at Walt Disney Studios.

I will grant that Emma Thompson gives a fantastic performance, one that is worthy of the Oscar nomination Thompson did not receive.  I will also grant that the story of Travers’ past is heartbreaking and fairly well-executed by director John Lee Hancock and his collaborators.  I will finally admit that I don’t think Hanks deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance as Walt Disney, especially not as a lead actor.  His Disney is clearly a supporting character in this story… and this is not close to being one of Hanks’ better or memorable performances.

Mostly, I think Saving Mr. Banks is a soapy television movie with big name actors trying to be a prestige motion picture.  I think the film sometimes portrays P.L. Travers as a contrary old kook and also glosses over her legitimate concerns about how her characters will be translated to film.  After all, she clearly knew that more people would see a Mary Poppins movie than would ever read her Mary Poppins books.  Because of that, many people would know Mary Poppins only through the film, so she had right to be concerned that the screen Mary Poppins be as close as possible to her Mary Poppins.

After all that granting, I am back to what I like about this movie. Saving Mr. Banks presents a… well… Disney-fied version of some of the events surrounding the production of the 1964 Mary Poppins film.  That is okay by me, but I realize that there is much more to the real story than is in Saving Mr. Banks.

6 of 10
B

Monday, May 05, 2014


NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score” (Thomas Newman)

2010 Golden Globe:  1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Emma Thompson)

2014 BAFTA Awards:  5 nominations:  “Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film” (John Lee Hancock, Alison Owen, Ian Collie, Philip Steuer, Kelly Marcel, and Sue Smith), “Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music” (Thomas Newman), “Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer” (Kelly Marcel), “Best Leading Actress” (Emma Thompson), and “Best Costume Design” (Daniel Orlandi)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "My Beautiful Laundrette" Tackles Social Issues (Happy B'day, Daniel Day Lewis)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 16 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  United Kingdom
Running time:  97 minutes (1 hour, 37 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR:  Stephen Frears
WRITER:  Hanif Kureishi
PRODUCERS:  Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Oliver Stapleton
EDITOR:  Mick Audsley
COMPOSER:  Ludus Tonalis
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/ROMANCE with elements of comedy

Starring:  Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gordon Warnecke, Derrick Blanche, Rita Wolf, Souad Faress, Richard Graham, Shirley Ann Field, Dudley Thomas, Winston Graham, and Garry Cooper

The subject of this movie review is My Beautiful Laundrette, a 1985 British comedy-drama directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi.  The movie, which was originally intended for television, was one of the first films released by Working Title Films.  My Beautiful Laundrette focuses on an ambitious Asian Briton and his white male lover as they strive to find success with a glamorous launderette (Laundromat).

In My Beautiful Laundrette, director Stephen Frears (The Hit) and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi don’t tackle issues, so much as they present a story that involves the entanglement amongst class, economics, family, politics, race, and sex.  My Beautiful Laundrette subtly presents the issues, but presents them nonetheless.  Because the issues of the film tie everyone together, every character is a legitimate player, and the viewer has to always pay attention to all the characters.  That’s heady stuff in a world where the most popular and publicized pictures are glossy films with lots of throwaway appendages.

Omar (Gordon Warnecke) is an ambitious young Asian Briton of Pakistani decent who convinces his uncle to let him manage his uncle’s laundrette.  He convinces Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis, The Bounty), an old school chum and his gay lover, to join him.  They convert the dilapidated business into a colorful and glamorous establishment as they strive for success amidst familial and social politics – Omar’s mostly immigrant family and Johnny’s racist thug friends.

Warnecke and Lewis are excellent as the young businessman who leaps at every opportunity and the disaffected youth at odds with the world respectively.  In this early role, Lewis smolders, as he would so often in the future, showing the audience that there is more, much more, beneath the surface of his character, unseen and real – the window to the character’s soul.  However, the best part belongs to an actor seldom seen in film since My Beautiful Laundrette, Derrick Branche as Omar’s cousin Salim.  Every bit as racist as Johnny’s buddies and as ambitious as any of his relatives, he is the ruthless and blunt looking glass of this story.

My Beautiful Laundrette takes a while to get going, but its documentary approach to storytelling in which the characters are like real people and not actors acting like people is worth the wait.  Much of the love and romance is tepid, probably because the filmmakers wished to convey how difficult love can be amongst people straddling the borders between warring social groups.  Perhaps, the film could have been a bit more emotional, but maybe the filmmakers wanted to play down the passion of love in favor of presenting a broader picture of the societal pressures weighing upon the characters.  The viewer can decide for himself, especially if he likes films that focus on the common everyman.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
1987 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Hanif Kureishi)

1986 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Saeed Jaffrey) and “Best Screenplay – Original” (Hanif Kureishi)

Updated:  Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Remembering Clyde Geronomi: "Lady and the Tramp"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 62 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lady and the Tramp (1955) – animation
Running time:  76 minutes (1 hour 16 minutes)
DIRECTORS:  Clyde Geronomi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske
WRITERS:  Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright, and Don DaGradi (based upon the story Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog by Ward Greene)
PRODUCERS:  Walt Disney with Erdman Penner
EDITOR:  Don Halliday
COMPOSER:  Oliver Wallace
BAFTA Award nominee

ANIMATION/COMEDY/MUSICAL/ROMANCE with elements of drama

Starring:  (voices) Peggy Lee, Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Bill Thompson, Bill Baucom, Stan Freberg, Verna Felton, and Lee Millar

Lady and the Tramp is a 1955 animated romantic film from Walt Disney Pictures.  It was the 15th full-length animated feature film from Disney.  The film is based in part on "Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog" by Ward Greene, a short story originally published in Cosmopolitan Magazine.  The film centers on the growing romantic relationship between two dogs, a female American Cocker Spaniel, who is from an upper middle-class family, and a male mutt who is a stray.

Because of drama and turmoil in her owners’ home, Lady (Barbara Luddy), a pampered and sheltered cocker spaniel, wanders away from the safety of her neighborhood and meets Tramp (Larry Roberts), a jolly, freedom-loving, and streetwise mutt with a heart of gold.  They share romantic adventures that occasionally imperil their safety while they move towards an inevitable union.  Memorable songs (written by Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee) and memorable characters including the twin Pekingese cats, Si and Am (Peggy Lee), highlight this classic, Disney’s fifteenth animated feature.

Lady and the Tramp remains Walt Disney’s signature romantic animated film; although romance often plays a part in their full-length animated films; this is the Disney animated love story.  It exemplifies two particular elements that really stand out in a Disney animated features – the art of beauty and technical skills.  The character animation is beautifully drawn making even characters meant to be ugly or villainous quite gorgeous and handsome eye candy.  The background art, backdrops, and sets are also elegant, even stunning.  The technical virtuosity on display is simply dazzling; this is text book work on animating animals.  Characters move with such grace and precision that the film looks, on one hand, like museum quality high art, and, on the other hand, has such striking realism in terms of movement and rhythm.

Lady and the Tramp is probably best known for its romantic heart.  A melodic score, charming and adorable songs, and the star-crossed pair of Lady and the Tramp make this an animated film that captures the romantic in the hearts of young and old viewers.  That’s why this film is so memorable and also well-remembered by adults who first saw it as a child – a true Disney classic.

9 of 10
A+

Sunday, April 2, 2006

NOTES:
1956 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Animated Film” (USA)

Updated:  Thursday, April 24, 2014


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Review: Visually Splendid "The Merchant of Venice" is Soft on Story (Happy B'day, Shakespeare)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 93 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Merchant of Venice (2004)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: U.K., Italy, Luxembourg
Running time:  131 minutes (2 hours, 11 minutes)
MPAA – R for some nudity
DIRECTOR:  Michael Radford
WRITER:  Michael Radford (based upon the play by William Shakespeare)
PRODUCERS:  Cary Brokaw, Michael Lionello Cowan, Barry Navidi, Jason Piette,
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Benoît Delhomme
EDITOR:  Lucia Zucchetti
COMPOSER:  Jocelyn Pook
BAFTA Awards nominee

DRAMA with elements of romance

Starring:  Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins, Zuleikha Robinson, Kris Marshall, Charlie Cox, Heather Goldenhersh, and David Harewood

The subject of this movie review is The Merchant of Venice, a 2004 romantic drama from writer-director Michael Radford.  The film is based upon the comedy play, The Merchant of Venice, written by William Shakespeare around 1596.  Radford’s film adaptation is apparently the first full-length, theatrical, sound film version of The Merchant of Venice.  The Merchant of Venice the film is set in 16th century Venice and finds a merchant having to pay a gruesome price after he must default on a large loan he borrowed from a Jewish moneylender for a friend.

William Shakespeare is once again brought to the screen, this time in The Merchant of Venice, another film adaptation of his play about passion, justice, and anti-Semitism.  Set in late 16th century Venice, the story finds Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) lacking money to woo an heiress, Portia of Belmont (Lynn Collins), because his lavish lifestyle has left him deeply in debt.  So he turns to his merchant friend, Antonio (Jeremy Irons), for the money.  Antonio, however, has his cash tied up in ships and overseas trade, so he secures a loan of 3,000 ducats from Shylock (Al Pacino), a Jew.

In Venice, Jews cannot own property, and they are forced to live in a “geto” (a walled-off section of the city), having only limited access to the city.  Antonio has publicly abused Shylock and other Jews for the practice of usury – money lending.  Spiteful and bitter, Shylock is glad to have Antonio in his debt.  In order to secure the money he wants to give Bassanio, Antonio promises that if he defaults on the loan, he’ll pay Shylock with a pound of flesh – literally.

Bassanio leaves with his friend Gratanio (Kris Marshall) to woo his love, but finds that Portia and her lady-in-waiting, Nerissa (Heather Goldenhersh), have been entertaining other suitors.  Like them, Bassanio must engage in a game of chance (blindly choosing which of three caskets holds the prize that earns Portia’s hand).  However, Jessica (Zuleikha Robinson), Shylock’s daughter, elopes with Bassanio’s friend, Lorenzo (Charlie Cox), and takes a large amount of her father’s personal wealth with her.  Wounded to his very soul, Shylock focuses on Antonio’s debt to him, and when Antonio does default on the loan, Shylock demands his pound of flesh.

I’ve never seen a previous film version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (such as the 1973 version starring Laurence Olivier), and I’m only familiar with the text in passing, having never read the entire work.  Thus, I can only judge this film on its contents or merits.  Michael Radford’s version is a somber narrative with occasional explosions of passionate arguments about prejudice, bigotry, and discriminations, and only a few moments of genuinely harmonious scenes of romantic love.  Despite a diverse range of elegant and sumptuous costumes (for which costume designer Sammy Sheldon earned a 2005 BAFTA Award nomination), evocative sets, and stunning locales set on sunny isles (Venice, Italy), Radford’s film is marred by mumbled dialogue, dour characters, and an air of mean-spiritedness that permeates even the most pleasant moments.

The performances are adequate for transforming Shakespeare to the screen, but only Pacino gives a memorable performance as the righteous and wronged Shylock.  If you, dear reader, need to cheat for an English lit class, Cliff Notes would be better than this.  The film merits as a visual treat, but limps as a narrative.

5 of 10
C+

Saturday, May 06, 2006

NOTES:
2005 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Costume Design” (Sammy Sheldon)

Updated:  Wednesday, April 23, 2014

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Review: "High Fidelity" is Endearing, Refreshing (Happy B'day, Nick Hornby)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 68 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

High Fidelity (2000)
Running time:  113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for language and some sexuality
DIRECTOR:  Stephen Frears
WRITERS:  D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack, and Scott Rosenberg (based upon the book by Nick Hornby)
PRODUCERS:  Tim Bevan and Rudd Simmons
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Seamus McGarvey
EDITOR:  Mick Audsley
COMPOSER:  Howard Shore
BAFTA Award nominee

COMEDY/DRAMA/ROMANCE

Starring: John Cusack, Iben Hejejle, Todd Louiso, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins, Shannon Stillo, Joelle Carter, Lili Taylor, Alex Desert, and Bruce Springsteen

The subject of this movie review is High Fidelity, a 2000 comedy, drama, and romance from director Stephen Frears.  The film is based on the 1995 novel, High Fidelity, from author Nick Hornby.  High Fidelity focuses on a record store owner, who is a compulsive list maker, as he recounts his top five breakups, including the one that just occurred.

After seeing Identity, I decided to go back and see some John Cusack movies that I hadn’t seen.  I can call them “John Cusack movies” in the sense that Cusack’s personality pretty much dominates almost any film in which he stars.  He’s presence is simply quite dynamic and magnetic.  When he first came on the scene, many predicted that he’d be a huge star, and for some reason, his star isn’t as big as it should be.  However, few actors of his generation have a combination of tremendous acting talent and the sense about him that the camera loves.  Some have one or the other, but having both is rare.

In High Fidelity, John is Rob Gordon, owner of Championship Vinyl, a record store the specializes in collectible LP’s, emphasizing vinyl over compact disc, although the store does have a selection of hip and cool cd’s.  As the movie begins, his current girlfriend, Laura Lydon (Iben Hejejle) is leaving him.  So Rob, the film’s very dominate character and a compulsive list maker recounts his top five breakups, all the while trying to regain Laura’s companionship.

The film is based on a novel by Nick Hornby (the film About a Boy is also from one of his novels) and co-written by four writers including Cusack.  Although the film has a director with a pedigree, Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters), and a Hollywood hotshot as one of its screenwriters Scott Rosenberg (Con Air), this is John Cusack’s show.  In the beginning, the character Rob is a little hard to take.  It’s easy to see why he’d have problems with women, although Rob seems to think that his problems stem from his girlfriends.  Cusack builds Rob Gordon slowly, layer upon layer, before our eyes.  Rob talks a lot, and quite a bit of him is a mystery, but Cusack brings us in really close.  He totally breaks the mythical fourth wall between fictional character/performer and viewer, and though Rob remains something of an enigma, we learn enough about him to love him and to root for him.

There are quite a few interesting characters in the film that we don’t see more of because this is Rob’s show.  They might strengthen the story, but the storytelling is still excellent solely because of Cusack’s Rob.  Laura remains as elusive as Rob is, so we might need her version of High Fidelity to get her side of the relationship.

The film is funny, touching, and in its own quirky way, very romantic.  The supporting performances give Cusack’s Rob room to do his thing and give us enough to make Rob’s environment beyond his musings interesting.  High Fidelity could have been a disaster because in many ways, Rob ain’t going anywhere.  He doesn’t have any plans, and he is unsatisfied with his life, but not enough to do something – to act, so we could have brushed him off as a loser.  I didn’t because I want to hear every word he has to say.  Kudos to Cusack for making Rob so endearing and this film so refreshing.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2001 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical” (John Cusack)

2001 BAFTA Awards:  1 nominations:  “Best Screenplay – Adapted” (D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack, and Scott Rosenberg)

2001 Black Reel Awards:  1 nomination: “Theatrical - Best Supporting Actress” (Lisa Bonet)

Updated:  Thursday, April 17, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Oscar Nominee Review: "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a Howler

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 18 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Running time:  180 minutes (3 hours)
MPAA – R for sequences of strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language throughout, and for some violence
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
WRITER: Terence Winter (based on the book by Jordan Belfort)
PRODUCERS: Riza Aziz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joey McFarland, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, and Martin Scorsese
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rodrigo Prieto (D.o.P)
EDITOR: Thelma Schoonmaker
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/COMEDY/BIOFILM

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti, Shea Whigham, P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, Ethan Suplee, Bo Dietl, and Johnnie Mae

The Wolf of Wall Street is a 2013 drama, bio-film, and black comedy from director Martin Scorsese and writer Terence Winter.  The film stars actor Leonardo DiCaprio and is the fifth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio.

The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort (the 2007 book, The Wolf of Wall Street).  The Wolf of Wall Street the film dramatizes the true story of Belfort:  how he rose to become a wealthy stockbroker, how he lived the high-life, and how he fell into the clutches of the FBI.

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) breaks the fourth wall of the movie screen and narrates The Wolf of Wall Street.  He gives a tour of his incredible financial wealth, which includes a lavish house on Long Island’s Gold Coast and his trophy wife, Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie).  He then goes back to the beginning of his career in a low-level job at an established Wall Street firm.  Although he soon moves into a job as a real stock broker, the firm soon goes bankrupt.

Belfort then tells us of his less glamorous job selling penny stocks.  However, his aggressive pitching style makes him a huge success in penny stocks.  Eventually, Belfort opens his own brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont, Inc., and hires his low-rent pals to be his first employees.  His controversial style earns him the moniker, the “Wolf of Wall Street.”  Belfort makes more money than he can spend, and he leads a decadent lifestyle of sex-filled, drug-fueled parties.  However, all that money and his reputation earn Belfort the attention of the FBI and an ambitious agent, Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who begins investigating Belfort and Stratton Oakmont.

The Wolf of Wall Street is a box office success and earned many accolades, including five Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe award win for Leonardo DiCaprio.  Still, the film is controversial, mostly for its moral ambiguity, sexual content, the presence of drugs, and/or its vulgarity, among many complaints.

I don’t see the film as morally ambiguous.  The filmmakers are clear in the storytelling and the depiction of the characters and their actions that Jordan Belfort and his cohorts are crooks and scam artists, and they are certainly depraved and lecherous.  Belfort may be a sociopath, and he is at least self-centered and narcissistic.  Wall Street did not make him the way he is; it is simply the perfect place for Belfort to be what he is.

Director Martin Scorsese, writer Terence Winter, and lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio offer a black comedy that is timeless in its focus.  They hold the mirror up to us and make it clear that people never change and they never learn.  People chase money and some money chasers prey on other money chasers.  They are the predators that clean up and rake in the dough every time.  As this kind of predator – this wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio gives a performance that deserves to be described as a tour de force.

Some predators live it up on their ill-gotten gains.  The Wolf of Wall Street shows us the ribaldry and depravity of those who live it up to the extreme.  And this film is a blast because of that.  If you stop yourself from thinking about the real-life Jordan Belfort’s victims, you might find this film dynamic and irreverent.  Scorsese isn’t glorifying Belfort’s excessive lifestyle.  Instead, the director offers a great character study of a larger-than-life American archetype; this is a randy version of that archetype.  This version simply spends more time with his pants down and blow up his nose than most.

You can hate both the player and the game, but it is hard to hate The Wolf of Wall Street, at least it is for me.  This fifth Marty and Leo film makes me eager for the sixth.

9 of 10
A+

Friday, April 04, 2014


NOTES:
2014 Academy Awards, USA:  5 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Joey McFarland, and Martin Scorsese), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Leonardo DiCaprio), “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (Jonah Hill), “Best Achievement in Directing” (Martin Scorsese), “Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay” (Terence Winter)

2014 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Leonardo DiCaprio); 1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical)”

2014 BAFTA Awards:  4 nominations: “Best Adapted Screenplay” (Terence Winter), “Best Leading Actor” (Leonardo DiCaprio), “Best Editing” (Thelma Schoonmaker), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Martin Scorsese)

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Seven Samurai" is One of the Best Films Ever (Happy B'day, Akira Kurosawa)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 81 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Shichinin no samurai (1954) – B&W
Seven Samurai (1954) – USA title
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Japan
Running time:  206 minutes (3 hours, 26 minutes) - USA restored version
DIRECTOR/EDITOR:  Akira Kurosawa
WRITERS:  Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni, and Akira Kurosawa
PRODUCER:  Sojiro Motoki
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Asakasu Nakai
COMPOSER:  Fumio Hayasaka
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA/HISTORICAL/MARTIAL ARTS/ACTION

Starring:  Takashi Shimura, Toshirô Mifune, Yoshio Inaba, Seiji  Miyaguchi, Minoru Chiaki, Daisuke Katô, Isao Kimura, Keiko Tsushima, Kamatari Fujiwara, Yoshio Kosugi, Bokuzen Hidari, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Yukiko Shimazaki, and Kokuten Kodo

The subject of this movie review is Seven Samurai (original Japanese title: Shichinin no samurai), a 1954 samurai drama and period adventure film from director Akira Kurosawa.  Set during Japan’s Sengoku period (warring states period), the film focuses on a poor village, the bandits that attack the village, and the seven unemployed samurai that the villagers recruit to help defend themselves.

Not only do I consider Seven Samurai to be one of the ten best films every made, but I also love it as one of my all-time favorite movies.  I was surprised to learn that the film is believed to have contributed structural narrative innovations to film storytelling or was among the first to use those innovations.  That’s great, but I don’t need that information on innovations to know that Kurosawa’s film overwhelms me.

Late 16th century, Japan:  a small farming village finds itself annually besieged by bandits, who usually arrive just after harvest so that they can steal the villagers’ crops.  Tired of being beaten into starvation, a small group of farmers leaves the village and heads for a town in hopes of convincing a large number of samurai to defend their village from the encroaching bandits.  The farmers happen upon a scene wherein a master samurai, Kambei (Takashi Shimura), disguises himself as a monk in order to save a child kidnapped by a madman.

Impressed by his bravery, the villagers convince Kambei to help their village, although the only payment that the farmers can offer the samurai is enough rice to eat.  Kambei and the farmers make the same offer to a number of samurai, many of whom are greatly insulted by the offer.  However, six others eventually accept, including a scruffy ronin (Toshirô Mifune) and a novice samurai.  The seven samurai and the farmers return to the village, where together they build the rest of the villagers into a militia, while the bandits lurk in the nearby forest.  Eventually, the bandits’ raids on the village begin, and it culminates in an epic, bloody battle pitting the samurai and villagers against the bandits.

Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is one of the ultimate auteur films, coming from a director, who like Stanley Kubrick, is an ultimate auteur.  It’s hard to believe that there is anything on the screen that Kurosawa didn’t want, and everything is so carefully considered:  the composition of scenes, the cinematographer, the execution of the action, the editing, the lighting, etc.  The film filled my senses, controlled my emotions, and had my mind on overdrive as I tried to figure out the next move, the next scene, or the narrative flow.  I have found very few films to so move me with such power, exhilaration, fear, anticipation, and Seven Samurai even has a few laughs.

If you’re looking for flying, super powered samurai, this isn’t it.  If you want an epic film about honor, sacrifice, and duty set in a romantic past, Seven Samurai is it.  This is easily one of the ten best motion pictures ever made.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1957 Academy Awards:  2 nominations:  “Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Takashi Matsuyama) and “Best Costume Design, Black-and-White” (Kôhei Ezaki)

1956 BAFTA Awards:  3 nominations:  “Best Film from any Source (Japan), “Best Foreign Actor” (Toshirô Mifune of Japan), and “Best Foreign Actor” (Takashi Shimura from Japan)

Friday, April 21, 2006

Updated:  Sunday, March 23, 2014


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Review: "Labyrinth" Gets Better with Age

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 118 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Labyrinth (1986)
Running time:  101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)
MPAA – PG
DIRECTOR:  Jim Henson
WRITERS:  Terry Jones; from a story by Dennis Lee and Jim Henson
PRODUCERS:  Eric Rattray
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Alex Thompson, B.S.C.
EDITOR:  John Grover
COMPOSER:  Trevor Jones
SONGS:  David Bowie
BAFTA Awards nominee

FANTASY/FAMILY with elements of adventure

Starring:  Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, Toby Froud, Shari Weiser (Hoggle costume)/Brian Henson (Hoggle voice), Rob Mills (Ludo costume)/Ron Mueck (Ludo voice), David Goelz (voice), David Shaughnessey, Frank Oz (voice), Danny John-Jules, Shelley Thompson, Christopher Malcolm, and Kevin Clash

The subject of this movie review is Labyrinth, a 1986 British-American fantasy film directed by the late Jim Henson.  The film was written by Terry Jones from a story by Henson and Dennis Lee, although various writers contributed without receiving screen credit, including George Lucas (who was also an executive producer of the film), Elaine May, and Laura Philips.  In the film, a teen girl wishes her baby brother away and is then forced to travel through the Goblin King’s Labyrinth in order to save the infant.

Four years after the groundbreaking film, The Dark Crystal, appeared in theatres, Labyrinth was released early in the summer of 1986.  It was the last film directed by famed puppeteer and creator of “The Muppets,” the late Jim Henson’s (1936-1990).  Met with a cool reception at the box office, Labyrinth has gone on to find a large audience on home video, where children who were born long after the film first played in theatres can watch and enjoy it.

Tired of babysitting on yet another weekend night, Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), a teenager with an active imagination who loves to envision herself in fantasy worlds, calls on the goblins from her favorite book, Labyrinth, to take her baby stepbrother, Toby (Toby Froud) away.  What she doesn’t know is that goblins do exist in another world, and they hear her plea.  They take Toby, and Sarah finds herself face to face with Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) in her home.  He tries to dissuade her from following him back to his world, but she realizes that she must rescue her brother.

Following Jareth, she discovers that the Labyrinth itself guards Goblin City, in the middle of which sits Jareth’s castle.  Sarah must navigate the twisted maze of deception, full of strange, kooky, and menacing characters if she is to save Toby before the end of 13 hours or he will become a permanent resident of Goblin City.  To save Toby and outwit Jareth, Sarah befriends some of the goblins to aid her on her quest.  Can Sarah and her friends save Toby in time?

Labyrinth doesn’t have The Dark Crystal’s production values, but the creature costumes, makeup, and effects are very good.  In fact, the Goblins (designed by Brian Froud, the father of Toby Froud) are some of the most vividly imaginative creatures to populate a fantasy film.  The performances are good, not great; David Bowie sings the songs he composed for the film, and the tunes have the feel of most music and songs composed for fantasy films of the 1980’s, which is to say they work well enough for the film, even if they’d sound funky on the radio.

The film seems to meander quite often; the filmmakers obviously have the kind of ideas that would fit an epic film, but not enough of them.  Thus, Labyrinth at times feels like a wandering film; the filmmakers are just biding time until the stage the final confrontation between Sarah and Jareth, but to get a full-length film, they had to stretch the middle.  In fact, Labyrinth, because of the quality of its filmmaking, would today be a TV movie.  Still, this is fun to watch just to see the Jim Henson Company’s fabulous puppetry in action – always a good enough reason to watch any Jim Henson production.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
1987 BAFTA Awards:  1 nomination: “Best Special Visual Effects” (Roy Field, Brian Froud, George Gibbs, and Tony Dunsterville)

Updated:  Friday, March 21, 2014


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Amazon wants me to inform you that the affiliate link below is a PAID AD, but I technically only get paid (eventually) if you click on the affiliate link below AND buy something(s).

Review: "Tsotsi" a Familiar Tale from Another Place

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 168 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tsotsi (2005)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  South Africa and the U.K.; Languages:  Zulu, Afrikaans, and others
Running time:  95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for language and some violent content
DIRECTOR:  Gavin Hood
WRITER:  Gavin Hood (based upon the novel by Athol Fugard)
PRODUCER:  Peter Fudakowski
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Lance Gewer
EDITOR:  Megan Gill
COMPOSERS:  Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring:  Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto, Kenneth Nkosi, Mothusi Magano, Zenzo Ngqobe, Zola, Rapulana Seiphemo, Nambitha Mpumlwana, Jerry Mofokeng, Ian Roberts, Percy Matsemela, and Thembi Nyandeni

The subject of this movie review is Tsotsi, a 2005 South African drama adapted for the screen and directed by Gavin Hood.  The film is based on the 1980 novel, Tsotsi, from author Athol Fugard.  “Tsotsi” is apparently a slang word in Johannesburg, South Africa that can be translated to mean “thug.”  Tsotsi the film follows six days in the violent life of a young Johannesburg gang leader.

Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is a ruthless hood living in an impoverished township in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he leads the trio of miscreants that make up his gang.  One night he shoots a woman (Nambitha Mpumlwana) in a well-to-do suburban neighborhood and drives off in her car, but he discovers that he isn’t alone.  The woman’s infant son is in the backseat, so he grudgingly takes the infant to his humble abode.  Through his efforts to care for the baby, Tsotsi (his nickname is urban slang that loosely translates to “thug”) rediscovers compassion, self-respect, and the capacity to love, but he still struggles with his old ways.

Tsotsi won the 2006 Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” as a representative of South Africa. The film is sturdy and earnest, and maybe a little too melodramatic in its too obvious determination to spend a yarn of moral redemption.  Still, the film is powerful and the emotions run deep and are raw, primarily because of the lead character’s hardened criminal life.  It’s kind of hard to be sympathetic towards Tsotsi because his decisions lead to the murder of an innocent man and the wounding of several others.

What makes Tsotsi rise above preachy, well-meaning social drama is that this is basically a familiar tale, but set in an unfamiliar place with strange and exotic characters.  In that way, Tsotsi engages the viewer to discover a new way of looking at a familiar premise.  The performances are good, though not great.  Presley Chweneyagae, however, is a solid actor and carries the film like a veteran movie star.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” (South Africa)

2006 BAFTA Awards:  2 nominations:  “Best Film not in the English Language” (Gavin Hood and Peter Fudakowski) and the “Carl Foreman Award for Most Promising Newcomer” (Peter Fudakowski-producer)

2006 Golden Globes:  1 nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film” (South Africa)

2007 Image Awards:  1 nomination: “Outstanding Independent or Foreign Film”

Monday, August 07, 2006

Updated:  Thursday, March 06, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "House of Flying Daggers" is a Martial Arts Spectacle (Happy B'day, Ziyi Zhang)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 71 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Shi mian mai fu (2004)
International English title: House of Flying Daggers
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  China/Hong Kong; Language: Mandarin
Running time:  119 minutes (1 hour, 59 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sequences of stylized martial arts violence and some sexuality
DIRECTOR:  Zhang Yimou
WRITERS:  Feng Li, Bin Wang, and Zhang Yimou
PRODUCERS:  William Kong and Zhang Yimou
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Xiaoding Zhao
EDITOR:  Long Cheng
COMPOSER:  Shigeru Umebayashi
Academy Award nominee

MARTIAL ARTS/DRAMA/ROMANCE/FANTASY

Starring:  Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, Ziyi Zhang, and Dandan Song

The subject of this movie review is Shi mian mai fu, a 2004 Chinese and Hong Kong wuxia film that is known in English as House of Flying Daggers.  A romantic drama and martial arts-fantasy, the film is directed by Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern).  House of Flying Daggers follows a police captain and the beautiful member of a rebel group he breaks out of prison.

China, 859 A.D. – it is near the end of the Tang Dynasty, and corrupt leaders rule over the country.  However, a revolutionary faction known as the Flying Daggers challenges authority, robbing from the rich to give to the poor.  Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau), two police detectives, believe Mei (Ziyi Zhang), a blind dancer, is a member of the group.  They hatch a plan for Jin to pretend to be a rebel-of-sorts who rescues Mei from jail.  He then accompanies her to the north country in the hopes that she will take him to the House of Flying Daggers.  However, Mei’s beauty bowls over Jin, and he finds himself determined to protect her on their perilous journey; on the other hand, it seems as if no one is who he or she says he or she is.

As a follow up to his internationally acclaimed film known as Hero (2002, but released wide theatrically to U.S. audiences in 2004), director Zhang Yimou once again delves into China’s legendary martial past in Shi mian mai fu or House of Flying Daggers.  House of Flying Daggers is similar to the 2002 film except that House is more like a musical poem with romantic trappings, with romance having both the modern connotations and its 19-century literary and artistic meanings.  Hero was an epic tale of espionage, romance and revenge that looked at China’s mythical past as a celebration of Chinese nationalism.  Flying Daggers is more emotional; the stunning cinematography (by far the best of 2004), the luxuriant costumes, the abundantly colorful back drops are meant to evoke feelings more than to get the viewer to think about the film’s surprising plot twists and turns.

Action choreographer Tony Ching Siu-Tung, who worked with Yimou on Hero, once again turns in some delicious fight scenes that are different from his work in Hero and meant to fit the mood and impressionistic flavor of Flying Daggers.  The cast is also quite good, and it’s a shame that Ziyi Zhang was once again ignored by Oscar, as she was for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  She has a wonderful talent for playing dualities:  coy to aggressive, innocent to beguiling, weak to strong, and helpless to fully capable.  Her face is a small mask, capable of a seemingly endless array of subtle shifts that embellish both the character and the story.  Takeshi Kaneshiro, who almost gets lost next to Ziyi Zhang, plays Jin with his heart on his sleeve and his soul open for the audience to see the conflicting emotions within him, a performance that really drives this film’s tricky plot.

House of Flying Daggers is a visually arresting film (frame after frame of breathtaking, mind-bending beauty), maybe more so than Hero.  However, the film does seem to dry up on several occasions, and the script is careless with some of the character motivation.  Still, the film’s intense and overwhelming visual beauty makes it a must see for lovers of cinema, and fans of Asian cinema and hot martial arts will also certainly like this.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Updated: Sunday, February 09, 2014


NOTES:
2005 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Cinematography” (Xiaoding Zhao)

2005 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination: “Best Foreign Language Film (Hong Kong)

2005 BAFTA Awards:  9 nominations: “Best Film not in the English Language” (William Kong and Yimou Zhang), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Ziyi Zhang), “Best Cinematography” (Xiaoding Zhao), “Best Editing” (Long Cheng), “Best Production Design” (Tingxiao Huo), “Best Costume Design” (Emi Wada), “Best Sound” (Jing Tao and Roger Savage), “Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects” (Angie Lam, Andy Brown, Kirsty Millar, and Luke Hetherington), and “Best Make Up/Hair” (Lee-na Kwan, Xiaohai Yang, and Siu-Mui Chau)

2005 Image Awards: “Outstanding Independent or Foreign Film”

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "Zero Dark Thirty" is History as a Great Story

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 5 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Running time:  157 minutes (2 hours, 37 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence including brutal disturbing images, and for language
DIRECTOR:  Kathryn Bigelow
WRITER:  Mark Boal
PRODUCERS: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, and Megan Ellison
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Greg Fraser (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor
COMPOSER:  Alexandre Desplat
Academy Award winner

WAR/DRAMA/ACTION

Starring:  Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Reda Kateb, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, Harold Perrineau, Jeremy Strong, J.J. Kandle, Lauren Shaw, Jessica Collins, Fredric Lehne, Joel Edgerton, Nash Edgerton, Edgar Ramirez, Mike Colter, Yoav Levi, Mark Strong, and James Gandolfini

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 war film and suspense thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, the creators of The Hurt Locker.  Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, leading up to his death at the hands of Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6.  In my estimation, it is one of the best films of 2012 and one of the few truly great films about war in the 21st century.

Zero Dark Thirty begins with a brief audio recount of the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks.  The film moves to the year 2003 and introduces Maya (Jessica Chastain), a young officer in the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency).  Since graduating high school, Maya has spent her entire career focused solely on gathering intelligence related to al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.  Assigned to Pakistan, Maya witnesses the torture (including water-boarding and humiliation) of detainee prisoners.

Eventually, Maya begins to focus on a mysterious figure known as Abu Ahmed, who is allegedly working as a personal courier for bin Laden.  Maya sifts through masses of data and information, using a variety of technology and her own hunches and insights, but the years pass without her finding Ahmed or bin Laden.  Back in the United States, the political climate changes; a new U.S. Presidential administration arrives, and Maya’s CIA superiors stop believing in her work.  Now, this one agent has to battle the system if she is going to remain on the trail of clues that will lead her to bin Laden.

Fascinating, intriguing, thrilling, and suspenseful:  I could go on, but I’ll simply say that Zero Dark Thirty is truly a gripping film narrative.  It grabbed a hold of my imagination and my heart, and I was practically endlessly captivated by this truly unique film.  It is a testament to the filmmaking and storytelling skills of director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal.

Boal has the ability to take a decade’s worth of intelligence activity:  the good, the bad, the boring, the important, and the inconsequential and to summarize that into one story.  He uses the most interesting and important information as subplots – all on the way to creating a riveting screen story.

Much has been made of the fact that Bigelow is a woman film director who makes action movies and other types of films that are usually aimed at men.  The truth is that she is a highly skilled director whose films are like no one else’s.  Her success is that she makes movies that absorb the viewer into the story by creating action scenes that not only matter to the drama, but are also sometimes the drama.  Not all of Bigelow’s movies are great; it is simply that for most of the time in all of her movies, she occupies the viewer’s imagination.  When watching a Bigelow flick, it is not often that I find myself thinking about what I will be doing after the movie.

In Maya, Jessica Chastain fashions a female character that is truly a heroine.  Zero Dark Thirty turns on the idea that one woman fights the system to lead the hunt for Osama bin Laden.  So Chastain has to not only create a female lead that can carry a CIA movie, but also create a female lead that the audience will believe is capable going into the dark places she goes and doing the contentious things she must do.  In a world of exceedingly dangerous times, of deceitful men, and of alpha males, Maya has to be a stubborn mule, fierce lioness, and the smartest guy in the room, all at the same time.  It seems as if she must also lose something of herself in certain situations and at certain times.  There are scenes in Zero Dark Thirty in which Maya seems like nothing more than a wraith, a human turned into a shadowy leftover by her cause.

I believe that Jennifer Lawrence, as Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings Playbook, won the best actress Oscar over Chastain as Maya because Tiffany, complicated though she is, is girl-next-door likeable.  Maya is a complicated personality and is morally comprised, and her dedication to her job hunting bin Laden is like an affliction.  What’s to like about that?  A lot actually, but it is easier to like wounded duckling Tiffany.

I am glad that Zero Dark Thirty had people questioning the filmmakers’ intentions.  That means that people thought the movie was worth the mental effort to engage it.  It is a great film, nearly perfect.  I think the raid on bin Laden’s compound, which takes up the film’s last half hour is a little clumsy in its staging.  Bigelow’s effort to “keep it real,” took something away from the drama and intensity of that raid.  Still, Zero Dark Thirty will stand the test of time.  It may occasionally be forgotten, but as soon as something causes people to remember Zero Dark Thirty, people will be ready to engage the issues it raises again.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2013 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Paul N.J. Ottosson – tied with Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Skyfall); 4 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow, and Megan Ellison), “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Jessica Chastain), “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Mark Boal) and “Best Achievement in Film Editing” (William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor)

2013 BAFTA Awards:  5 nominations: “Best Film” (Kathryn Bigelow, Megan Ellison, and Mark Boal), “Best Leading Actress” (Jessica Chastain), “Best Original Screenplay” (Mark Boal), “Best Editing” (Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg), and “David Lean Award for Direction” (Kathryn Bigelow)

2013 Golden Globes, USA:  1 win: “Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Jessica Chastain); 3 nominations: “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” Best Director - Motion Picture” (Kathryn Bigelow), and “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Mark Boal)

Friday, January 31, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Review: "The Hunt for Red October" Still a Goodie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 3 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Running time:  134 minutes (2 hour, 14 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some intense action/violence and language
DIRECTOR:  John McTiernan
WRITERS:  Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart (based on the novel by Tom Clancy)
PRODUCER:  Mace Neufeld
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Jan De Bont (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Dennis Virkler and John Wright
COMPOSER:  Basil Poledouris
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/ESPIONAGE/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring:   Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, Richard Jordan, Peter Firth, Tim Curry, Courtney B. Vance, Stellan Skarsgard, Jeffrey Jones, Fred Dalton Thompson, Daniel Davis, Gates McFadden, and James Earl Jones

Advertisements for the upcoming film, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, tout it as the return of the Tom Clancy thriller to the big screen.  That little bit of hard-selling made me want to see the first Tom Clancy thriller to hit movie theatres, again.

The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 naval thriller and action movie from director John McTiernan.  The film is based on The Hunt for Red October, a novel by the late author Tom Clancy that was first published in 1984.  The Hunt for Red October the movie focuses on a rogue Soviet submarine captain and the young CIA analyst who is trying to figure out his every move.

The Hunt for Red October opens in 1984 in the USSR and introduces Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery).  He commands the Red October, a ballistic missile submarine that is virtually undetectable.  The ship’s first mission is to be part of USSR war game exercises, but early in the mission, the Red October disappears.

In the United States, a young CIA analyst, Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin), gets an assignment from Vice Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones), CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence.  Ryan must discover Ramius’ intentions before a war breaks out between the Americans and the Russians over the missing Red October.  Is Ramius trying to defect, or to start a war?

Tom Clancy’s intrepid CIA agent, Jack Ryan, makes his first big screen appearance in The Hunt for Red October.  Actor Harrison Ford would play the character in 1992’s Patriot Games and 2004’s Clear and Present Danger.  Ben Affleck would play Ryan in The Sum of All Fears (2002), which I have not seen as of this writing.  Clear and Present Danger is one of my all-time favorite movies, and honestly, I can’t say if I like Baldwin or Ford more as Ryan, because both are among my favorite actors.

The Hunt for Red October is not a great movie, but it is greatly entertaining.  It is skillfully directed by John McTiernan, who, for a time from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, was one of the supreme directors of big, masculine, and loud action movies.  The expert film editing in this movie reveals McTiernan’s efficiency at creating a story that is part clever and deceptive game and part espionage thriller – all wrapped inside the mechanics of a military film.

Sean Connery as Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Ryan are convincing and proficient, and while this is not their best work, they create characters we want to be next to and follow into adventure.  I had not seen this movie in years, but it is as good as or maybe even better than I remember.  The Hunt for Red October is the techno-thriller that does not require the viewer to be smart to watch it.  That is not a slap at the audience; that’s a compliment to say that The Hunt for Red October is a smart movie that is also successful at entertaining.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
1991 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing” (Cecelia Hall and George Watters II); 2 nominations: “Best Sound” (Richard Bryce Goodman, Richard Overton, Kevin F. Cleary, and Don J. Bassman), and “Best Film Editing” (Dennis Virkler and John Wright)

1991 BAFTA Awards:  3 nominations: “Best Actor” (Sean Connery), “Best Production Design” (Terence Marsh), “Best Sound” (Cecilia Häll, George Watters II, Richard Bryce Goodman, and Don J. Bassman)

Friday, January 17, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.