Review: "Up" as Good as it Gets (and Belated Happy B'Day, Ed Asner)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 7 (of 2009) by Leroy Douresseaux

Up (2009)
Running time: 96 minutes (1 hour, 36 minutes)
MPAA – PG for some peril and action
DIRECTORS: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
WRITERS: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson; from a story by Thomas McCarthy and Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson
PRODUCER: Jonas Rivera
COMPOSER: Michael Giacchino
Academy Award winner

ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY/DRAMA/FANTASY

Starring: (voices) Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, John Ratzenberger, and Donald Fullilove

Pixar Animation Studios’ 10th computer-animated feature-length film is entitled Up. This visually and emotionally beautiful film is also the 10th example of how a group of animators and filmmakers can use their tools and workstations to create fully rounded stories with depth of character and storytelling. And Pixar does it better and more consistently than live action film studios. Up tells the story of a sour old man, a lonely boy, and an old house that sails through the air powered by thousands of balloons tied to the structure.

The story centers on a grouchy widower, Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), a squat old fellow with a box-shaped head and square glasses parked on his bulb of a nose. A retired balloon salesman in his 70s, Carl mourns the loss of his wife, Ellie. Once upon a time, the couple dreamed of traveling to the mysterious South American locale of Paradise Falls. At age 78, life seems to have passed Carl; that is until it delivers two twists of fate.

First, a misunderstood confrontation threatens Carl’s home and freedom. He decides that he will take his home to Paradise Falls by floating the house there with the help of thousands of colorful balloons tied to it. Life’s second surprise comes in the form of a persistent, 8-year-old Junior Wilderness Explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai). Russell becomes an accidental stowaway on the floating house – one that is not welcomed as far as Carl is concerned. However, the lad – himself round, buoyant, and bouncy as a balloon – proves to be an invaluable, loyal, and trustworthy pal, especially once the house finally lands.

Shortly after landing, Carl and Russell encounter a large flightless, ostrich-like bird, which Russell names Kevin. Kevin is being hunted by a vicious pack of dogs, led by a Doberman named Alpha (Bob Peterson). However, one of the dogs, Dug (Bob Peterson), the nerd of the pack, befriends Carl and Russell. Dug, like the other dogs, can speak because of a translating collar on his neck. But things really get hairy when Carl meets his boyhood idol, famed explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), who is obsessed with the mystery bird, Kevin.

Pixar’s films are always grounded in real emotion – whether it is a desperate father searching for his lost son (Finding Nemo), a marooned star determined to win again (Cars), or, as in this film, a grieving husband lost without his wife. Of all those films, Up seems to be the one best established on substantive ideas and themes. That might sound strange when considering (1) that Up is about a house that travels across continents by balloon power and (2) that for most of the movie, an old man with a lame hip and an eight-year-old kid drag the still floating house across rough terrain as if it were no more than a large and troublesome kite.

Yes, as is usual for a movie from Pixar (the gold standard in 3D/computer animation), the animation is superb. The sense of space (to say nothing of the composition, movement, and storytelling) in this 3D animation is superb. I’m starting to believe that 3D is the high-tech replacement for stop-motion animation. High-quality computer-animation gives the viewer the sense of watching something taking place on a stage, which is similar to the visual illusion stop-motion creates.

Yes, as is usual for a Pixar movie, the characters are also great. Only Pixar could make a animated feature that has as it star a widower who is almost 80-years-old, walks with a limp, and looks like a cross between Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau, a great lead. But one superb character isn’t enough for a Pixar film. Up also gives Russell, a misfit boy who is braver than he’d believe himself to be; Charles Muntz, a man made dangerous and pathetic by his obsessions; and Dug, an adorable canine who personifies all that is good in a loyal dog. Even the weird bird Kevin manages to be something we’ve never seen before.

As I stated earlier, however, Up is about substance and not just flights of fantasy. In Carl and his former idol Charles, Up posits that obsession can drain away the will to truly live, and before the obsessed knows it, he is old and alone. The creators of Up dare to deal with the issue of loved ones dying and loved ones leaving us, and the film implores its viewers to have an adventure with the ones we have – the people who are with us and the people who want to be with us. The impressive thing is that this movie is hugely entertaining, but the escapism can’t cloud Up’s strong and clear messages.

10 of 10

Sunday, July 05, 2009

NOTES:
2010 Academy Awards: 2 wins: “Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score” (Michael Giacchino) and “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year” (Pete Docter); 3 nominations: “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Michael Silvers and Tom Myers), “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Jonas Rivera) and “Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen” (Bob Peterson-screenplay/story, Pete Docter-screenplay/story, and Thomas McCarthy-story)

2010 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Animated Film” (Pete Docter) and “Best Music” (Michael Giacchino); 2 nominations: “Best Screenplay – Original” (Bob Peterson and Pete Docter) and “Best Sound” (Tom Myers, Michael Silvers, and Michael Semanick)

2010 Golden Globes: 2 wins: “Best Animated Feature Film” “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Michael Giacchino)

2010 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Voice Performance” (Delroy Lindo)

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Review: Third Time is Not a Charm for Washington/Scott in "Deja Vu"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 251 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Déjà vu (2006)
Running time: 128 minutes (2 hours, 8 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images and sensuality
DIRECTOR: Tony Scott
WRITERS: Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio
PRODUCER: Jerry Bruckheimer
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Paul Cameron
EDITOR: Chris Lebenzon
Black Reel Award nominee

SCI-FI/THRILLER/MYSTERY with elements of action

Starring: Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Adam Goldberg, and Jim Caviezel, Bruce Greenwood, Erika Alexander, Matt Craven, and Elden Henson

Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington), ATF agent, is investigating a cataclysmic explosion of a New Orleans ferry that is possibly a terrorist attack. Carlin also happens upon the homicide of a young woman named Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) that may be tied to the ferry bombing, and that’s when Carlin begins to believe that he has some kind of emotional connection to Claire. It’s déjà vu – that unsettling feeling that he knows someone he’s never met and recognizes a place he’s sure he’s never been.

Then, Carlin meets FBI Agent Andrew Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) and a small team of physicists who have apparently opened a window through which they can view the past. That’s when Carlin falls down the rabbit hole (or through a wormhole, so to speak) that will point him to the identity of the bomber and bring he and Claire closer. But by tampering with the past, will Doug Carlin save Claire’s life or will he cost them both their lives?

Déjà Vu is the third collaboration between Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott (after Crimson Tide and Man on Fire), and because they have such a good rapport, this preposterous sci-fi, mystery thriller manages to be a tasty popcorn flick in spite of the holes in the plot. The film is by-the-book Scott and Washington. Déjà Vu looks like Scott’s usual work, complete with burnished photography and lots of fancy editing and camera cutting. Washington does his usual determined, confident, cocky-but-sensitive law enforcement/military type. This movie isn’t Oscar bait; it’s a Denzel Washington action/thriller vehicle helmed by a director and producer (Jerry Bruckheimer) who both know how to do action/thriller vehicles for A-list movie stars.

As for the science fiction (time travel) behind Déjà Vu: it’s the kind material we get from movies on the Sci-Fi Channel. The difference is Déjà Vu has a bigger budget and big Hollywood names behind it instead of the usual Sci-Fi Channel suspects: some minor character actors and a team of filmmakers that generally works on the periphery of the movie industry. Déjà Vu gives lots of thrills and edge-of-your-seat suspense, but it all seems so predictable and ill conceived that it might well be a made-for-TV sci-fi movie that got lucky and received a theatrical run. In the end, this movie may be remembered for its absurd and outlandish sci-fi concept and not much else. Otherwise, Déjà Vu is a Denzel Washington movie that even Washington fans can wait for on DVD.

5 of 10
C+

Saturday, December 16, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Paula Patton)

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Review: "Guess Who" Laughs to Get Along (Missing Bernie Mac)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 147 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Guess Who (2005)
Running time: 106 minutes (1 hour, 46 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sex-related humor
DIRECTOR: Kevin Rodney Sullivan
WRITERS: David Ronn and Jay Scherick and Peter Tolan, from a story by David Ronn and Jay Scherick (based loosely on the screenplay, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner by William Rose)
PRODUCERS: Jason Goldberg, Erwin Stoff, and Jenno Topping
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
EDITOR: Paul Seydor

COMEDY with elements of drama and romance

Starring: Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher, Zoë Saldaña, Judith Scott, Hal Williams, Kellee Stewart, Robert Curtis-Brown, RonReaco Lee, Niecy Nash, Kimberly Scott, Denise Dowse, and Mike Epps

In the famous 1967 film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, a young white woman (played by Katharine Houghton) brings her black fiancé (famously played by Sidney Poitier) home to meet her parents, the mother played by Katherine Hepburn and the disapproving father played by Spencer Tracy.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (Barbershop 2: Back in Business) updates this classic of interracial (a tired, archaic term) dating in Guess Who. This time, Theresa Jones (Zoë Saldaña), a young black woman, brings her fiancé, Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher), a young white man, home to meet her parents, Percy (Bernie Mac) and Marilyn Jones (Judith Scott). Percy has already had a credit check done on Simon and knows that he has a high-powered job at an investment firm, but Percy doesn’t know two things about Simon: (1) he quits his job the day he’s supposed to meet Theresa’s parents who may end up being his in-laws and (2) Simon is white. Complicating matters is that Simon and Theresa plan on announcing their engagement on the very weekend that Percy and Marilyn are holding a big and expensive ceremony to renew their vows after 25 years of marriage. Percy is upfront and blunt with his disappoint in Theresa’s choice of Simon, and Simon tries his best to make friends with Percy. Will Percy ever learn to like… or at least tolerate Simon?

Guess Who is more funny than smart, and it’s actually very funny when it deals with tense issues of interracial dating and race relations in an off-handed way. Several times the films seems as if it wants to deal with America’s proverbial elephant in the room (race), but most of the time it has to awkwardly limp away from that after fumbling the ball at the 20-yard line and getting injured. Guess Who is a film about race relations that never uses the word “nigger,” but feels safe using the ineffective racial slur, “honky.” That is the best Guess Who could do as far as walking the tightrope between what is acceptable and offensive. It avoids discussing what people have in common (humanity) and what divides us (skin color, ethnicity, religion, etc.), so it certainly isn’t a daring film. In the end it’s also about as glib as Meet the Parents and, to a lesser extent, its sequel, Meet the Fockers, in terms of dealing with the conflicts that result when an outsider marries into the family and when two really different groups of people come together because of a marriage.

On the other hand, the film is funny, very funny. Mac and Kutcher have excellent screen chemistry; in fact the script gets that right, so much to the point that it could be a text book example of how to make interpersonal dynamics in screen narratives in which a screen duo or couple are of different skin colors work. The drama does seem a little leaden and forced, but if a viewer goes in expecting a typical comedy of errors and misunderstandings, he’ll get one that has a lot of laughs. There is deep fun in watching Mac’s Percy Jones and Kutcher’s Simon Green dance awkwardly around each other for a long time, each graceless meeting helping each to learn about (if not understand) the other.

That makes the inevitable hug of real friendship seem so… well, real, and rewards us with a happy moment to top of a truly funny film. You see, every movie about us (all of us) learning to get along shouldn’t involve cursing, screaming, tears, and finally a tragic incident that brings us together to appreciate life. Sometimes, we can all laugh our way to getting along, or so says Guess Who.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2006 Black Reel: 1 nomination: “Best Actress” (Zoe Saldana)

2006 Image Awards: 1 nomination: “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Zoe Saldana)

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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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Strong Acting Helps "Half Nelson" Overcome Half-Ass Directing (Happy B'day, Anthony Mackie)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 38 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Half Nelson (2006)
Running time: 107 minutes (1 hour, 47 minutes)
MPAA – R for drug content throughout, language, and some sexuality
DIRECTOR: Ryan Fleck
WRITERS: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
PRODUCERS: Anna Boden, Lynette Howell, Rosanne Korenberg, Alex Orlovsky, and Jamie Patricof
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrij Parekh
EDITOR: Anna Boden
2007 Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie, Monique Curnen, Deborah Rush, and Jay O. Sanders

In the independent film drama, Half Nelson, an inner-city schoolteacher and one of his students form an unlikely friendship that just might help him pull it together and stop her from following her brother into prison.

Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is anxious to help his students learn outside the parameters of what is accepted in public schools, but each day that he’s in front of his class, it is clear that his mind is elsewhere. Dunne is a frustrated novelist and a drug addict who knows he’s in trouble but won’t stop using illegal drugs. Drey (Shareeka Epps) lives in a small apartment with her divorced mom, and her father chooses to live outside of her life. Her brother is doing a stint in prison, apparently for his dealings with Frank (Anthony Mackie), the neighborhood drug dealer. Now, Frank is trying to recruit Drey into his service. As Dunne spirals downward, he is surprised to find Drey acting as his conscience, when he plans on being hers.

Co-writer/director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden are so intent on not offering easy answers and pat resolutions in their film, Half Nelson, that they almost ruin it. They’ve made an underwritten, slice-of-life movie. Instead of giving Half Nelson a beginning, middle, and ending, they instead act as if they’re making a docu-drama and are presenting just the facts – thank you very much and can’t (and perhaps shouldn’t) make judgments.

Luckily, at the heart of their film sit two outstanding acting performances. First, Ryan Gosling, who seems to be on the cusp of greatness (or is at least still a simmering “next big thing”), delivers a sharp and heartrending performance as a druggie teacher that is as harrowing as it is quiet and graceful. Gosling doesn’t glamorize drug addiction, nor does he play teacher Dan Dunne as some kind of trashy lowlife always dressed in filthy rags. Dunne is woefully in denial and, therefore, helpless against his addiction. We can feel sorry for him, while simultaneously being tired of his self-destructive ways.

Meanwhile, Shareeka Epps as the inner city, almost-lost girl Drey offers a stout and stoic face to the world. It’s as if Epps realizes that the only way that Drey survives her life of sorrow and loneliness is to keep a stiff upper lip, so Drey offers a facial expression that might make Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry blink. Still, Epps allows us to see underneath to the vulnerable girl who isn’t so sure that she isn’t destined to end up an incarcerated drug dealer like her brother.

Anthony Mackie, as the neighborhood drug kingpin, also offers Half Nelson a fine performance. Mackie’s Frank is a sly salesman who wears his dishonesty and predatory ways on his sleeve as if they were banners of personal pride. Mackie makes Frank dangerous without grandstanding or scene stealing, which is what most actors do when they play drug lords and dealers.

What Gosling, Epps, and Mackie offer is substance to Fleck and Boden’s faux and cheapie realism. They make Half Nelson a standout film when it could have been just another pretentious, underwritten independent drama.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 nomination for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Ryan Gosling)

2007 Black Reel Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Shareeka Epps) and “Best Supporting Actress” (Shareeka Epps)

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Review: George Clooney, Jeffrey Wright Shine in "SYRIANA"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 178 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux

Syriana (2005)
Running time: 126 minutes (2 hours, 6 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence and language
DIRECTOR: Stephen Gaghan
WRITER: Stephen Gaghan (suggested by the book See No Evil by Robert Baer)
PRODUCERS: Jennifer Fox, Michael Nozik, and Georgia Kacand
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Elswit, A.S.C.
EDITOR: Tim Squyres
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring: Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet, Christopher Plummer, Alexander Siddig, Mazhar Munir, Akbar Kurtha, Sonnell Dadral, Nadim Sawalha, and William C. Mitchell

In 2000, Stephen Gaghan won the “Best Adapted Screenplay” for the 1999 film, Traffic, which took a look at drug-trafficking through several different points of view, each one a sub-plot in the film, making Traffic not only one film, but a movie composed of several mini-movies. Gaghan, now as both writer and director, tries that method again with the film, Syriana, a politically-charged thriller about the international oil industry, oil trading, and the politics as seen through the eyes those personally involved in the business and politics and those affected by business and politics behind energy.

Syriana, even more so than Traffic, is a riveting, but cerebral political thriller that demands that the viewer pays attention, rather than “turn his brain off” as he or she would in a sit-back-and-enjoy, special effects-laden thriller. The film follows characters from the brokering rooms and halls of power in Washington D.C. to the oils fields of the Persian Gulf, and weaves multiple storylines that look at the human consequences of the decisions of the wealthy and powerful oil players.

A murder plot that he is initiating in Beirut, Lebanon goes bad for Bob Barnes (George Clooney), a career CIA operative. Suddenly, circumstances beyond his control mark him as a failure, and Barnes becomes the subject of an FBI investigation. Relegated to a desk job, he begins to wonder about the disturbing work to which he’s dedicated his life.

The target of Barnes’ assassination plot was the handsome and charismatic Prince Nasir Al-Subaai (Alexander Siddig). Nasir makes a deal with a Chinese company for his country’s natural gas drilling rights, a arrangement that will bring more money to the nation than a similar deal with an American oil company, Connex Killen. He finds a kindred spirit in Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon), an oil broker/energy analyst, who discovers that an horrifically painful family tragedy has given him a lucrative deal with the idealistic Gulf prince. Nasir is the apparent heir to the throne of his country, and his father, the Emir Hamad Al-Subaai (Nadim Sawalha) is ill. However, Nasir’s younger brother, the callow and not bright Prince Meshal (Akbar Kurtha), is more amenable to American interests, so the Americans, in particular Connex Killen, are angling to have the Emir (king) chose Meshal as his successor.

The American oil company Connex Killen is the result of a recent merger of two energy entities – Connex, a Texas energy giant, and Killen, a smaller Texas oil company. Killen and its owner, Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper), also used shading dealings to land drilling rights to coveted oil fields in Kazakhstan, which also lands them under an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) is a quiet, but highly ambitious Washington attorney at Sloan Whiting. It is his job to get the Connex Killen merger through the Justice Department. Holiday, subtle and very smart, must give the federal investigators enough material to make their case against Killeen for its shady dealings in Kazakhstan without jeopardizing either the deal or the merger with Connex.

Ultimately, the machinations of all these men play a part in the life of Wasim Kahn (Mazhar Munir), a young man from Pakistan who works in the Gulf oil fields with his father. After being laid off because of Nasir’s deal with the Chinese, he becomes angry and disillusioned. The Pakistani teenager and his friend Farooq (Sonnell Dadral) join a madrassa, where they fall under the sway of The Cleric (Omar Mostafa) a mysterious blue-eyed Egyptian. He is the same man who took possession of one of the Stinger missiles Bob Barnes sold to arms dealers in Tehran, Iran at the beginning of the film.

Syriana lacks the shaky camera work and rapid editing director Stephen Soderbergh used to give intensity to the Stephen Gaghan-penned Traffic. Gaghan’s film is subtle and eschews the documentary style atmosphere Traffic had. Syriana’s labyrinthine plot and convoluted script snake through a massive ensemble of players, of which very few are more important than others. Even someone with only a little screen time impacts the narrative, shaping the paths of other characters.

Although all the characters are interesting and the performances of them are nice, only two stood out to me. First, Alexander Siddig’s Prince Nasir is a driven man, and Siddig tells as much about the character through his face as he does through the script. Nasir is clearly a man of ideas, a leader and a charming and captivating one at that, but Gaghan only gives Nasir one scene in which he gets to show his ability to lead. That one scene, with generals and other leaders of his country, actually strikes as a bit hollow because there was never any indication prior to that that Nasir would go so far to assure his ascendancy to Emir. Nasir is essential to Syriana’s concept and more of him would have solidified the film’s ideology, but Gaghan ultimately leaves him bare (at least in this cut of the film, which apparently existed in a longer version before it hit U.S. theatres).

The other stand out character is Bennett Holiday, and in the role of Holiday, Jeffrey Wright gives Syriana’s best performance. Like the film, Wright’s Holiday is quiet, but determined. Delicately and with restraint, Holiday will achieve his means. Holiday is actually more successful in his venture than the film in which he exists. Wright makes Holiday Syriana’s focal point; basically, he is the point at which all sub-plots meet or he determines the resolution of others. Holiday, like Syriana, is pragmatic and not very judgmental. Clearly he knows right and wrong, and Syriana obviously believes that much of what people and nations do for the wealth and power that oil and natural gas gives them is harmful to their own long term interests and the immediate well being of many humans, but Holiday is pragmatic, and, to a lesser degree, so is Syriana though the creators might not admit that.

Still, Syriana is about how the world is than about how the world should be. Sometimes, the film’s tagline, “What is the price of oil?” seems like a rhetorical question. We can agree that the actions of many of the film’s players (and there real life counterparts) are selfish, harmful, and wrong, but things are what they are. Perhaps, Syriana is asking us to consider the ramifications of how we get our energy, but a lot of the film’s message and action are to the imagination. Gaghan is clearly sending his message to a more thoughtful film audience. He doesn’t expect the rank and file Joe Blow to give a hoot how the fuel gets to his four-wheeler, or what the ultimate cost of getting it there is. He does expect people who claim they care and are interested, regardless of their political affiliations and ideologies, to take this and create action. What that action is and how it benefits all of humanity is not answered, but I can guess it involves humans being less dependent on oil.

Sadly, the film is too short, sometimes oblique, and occasionally vague. The film’s star, George Clooney, is actually the star of a truncated sub-plot in Syriana. If given more screen time, Bob Barnes’ storyline would have been an edge-of-the-seat international thriller – the dessert portion of Syriana’s gourmet meal. I couldn’t help but leave the theatre wondering about what could have been. Still, what we do get is damn good.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, December 10, 2005

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (George Clooney); 1 nomination: “Best Writing, Original Screenplay” (Stephen Gaghan)

2006 BAFTA Awards: 1 nominations: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” (George Clooney)

2006 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Supporting Actor” (Jeffrey Wright)

2006 Golden Globes: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (George Clooney); 1 nomination: “Best Original Score - Motion Picture” (Alexandre Desplat)

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"Black Dynamite" is Dy-No-Mite!

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 55 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

Black Dynamite (2009)
Running time: 84 minutes (1 hour, 24 minutes)
MPAA – R for sexuality/nudity, language, some violence and drug content
DIRECTOR: Scott Sanders
WRITERS: Michael Jai White, Byron Minns, and Scott Sanders; from a story by Michael Jai White and Byron Minns
PRODUCERS: Jenny Wiener Steingart and Jon Steingart
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Shawn Maurer
COMPOSER/EDITOR: Adrian Younge

ACTION/MARTIAL ARTS

Starring: Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Tommy Davidson, Kevin Chapman, Byron Minns, Richard Edson, Myketli Williamson, Kim Whitley, Tucker Smallwood, Cedric Yarbrough, John Salley, Brian McKnight, Bokeem Woodbine, Miguel Nunez, Roger Yuan, James McManus, Nicole Sullivan, and Arsenio Hall

Mel Brook’s 1974 comedy, Blazing Saddles, was a successful spoof of Hollywood Westerns because it looked and acted like a real Western. Black Dynamite, the recent parody of blaxploitation movies, ends up being brilliant because it acts like a blaxploitation movie and still manages to skewer every convention of the violent action movies featuring African-American anti-heroes that appeared in the 1970s.

The film focuses on the title character, Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White), a gun-toting, nunchuck-wielding street hero. This self-styled ladies man and soul brother is also a Vietnam veteran and former CIA agent. After his brother Jimmy is murdered, Black Dynamite is reinstated into the CIA to keep him from seeking revenge by himself. After learning that local orphanages for black children are being filled with heroin, he goes after the drug dealers to clean up the streets. However, Black Dynamite discovers a more diabolical conspiracy against the Black man that will take Black Dynamite from the ghetto streets to Kung Fu Island and finally to the Honky House (the White House).

Like Keenen Ivory Wayan’s I’m Gonna Get You Sucka (1988), Black Dynamite is a mock blaxploitation movie that also works as a black action movie, although Black Dynamite is the more convincing of the two as an action movie. Because he is apparently a professional martial artist and has a big muscular body, Michael Jai White can pull off the moves, attitude, and looks of an ass-kicking black superhero. Using his pumped up star, Black Dynamite director Scott Sanders constructs an action movie built on the physicality of his star, and it works. Black Dynamite is like Shaft meets Bruce Lee.

Comedy is Black Dynamite’s calling card. It minds blaxploitation films for laughs more than it makes fun of genre. The filmmakers are nostalgic for those black action movies of the 1970s. How else could they and Michael Jai White capture the language and the feel of blaxploitation so well? Plus, there are several appearances by comic actors in small and cameo roles (Arsenio Hall, Reno 911’s Cedric Yarbrough, MadTV’s Nicole Parker, among them) that add to this movie’s many delights.

Black Dynamite has also given me a new appreciation of Michael Jai White. This actor, who had the title role in the comic book movie, Spawn, and a flashy small part as a crime boss in The Dark Knight, has genuine screen charisma. Hopefully, we’ll see him more often. In the meantime, we have Black Dynamite. Maybe, many people won’t get this flick if they aren’t well versed in the characteristics of black exploitation films, which is unfortunate for them. Those of us who get it get a really good time.

7 of 10
A-

NOTES:
2010 Black Reel Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Director” (Scott Sanders) and “Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted” (Scott Sanders, Michael Jai White, and Byron Minns

2010 Image Awards: 1 nomination: “Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television)” (Scott Sanders)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

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Review: "Tears of the Sun" Offers Sentiment with Military Action

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 30 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tears of the Sun (2003)
Running time: 121 minutes (2 hours, 1 minute)
MPAA – R for strong war violence, some brutality and language
DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua
WRITERS: Alex Lasker and Patrick Cirillo
PRODUCERS: Ian Bryce, Mike Lobell, and Arnold Rifkin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mauro Fiore
EDITOR: Conrad Buff IV
COMPOSER: Lisa Gerrard and Hans Zimmer

WAR/ACTION/DRAMA with elements of a thriller

Starring: Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Eamonn Walker, Charles Ingram, Tom Skerritt, and Malick Bowens

Is Tears of the Sun a good movie? Well, the boy parts: the action, the blood and guts, the special ops intrigue, the shootouts, the male camaraderie, etc. are good There’s lots of that and it’s as good, in that respect as, say, Black Hawk Down. The parts of the film that’s supposed to pass for girl stuff: concerned foreign doctors, martyred priests and nuns, and defenseless refugees are negligible. It’s not that you won’t feel sympathetic to the plight of natives being hunted by genocidal soldiers because there are some touching moments and some very riveting, frightening moments, but they get in the way of a very good movie about a group of brave soldiers.

A special operations commander, A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis), leads his team into remote Nigeria to rescue an American doctor (Monica Bellucci). However, Dr. Lena Hendricks refuses to leave without her village friends whom she calls “my people.” When Waters gets to feeling that he can’t leave Lena’s people behind to be slaughtered by vicious rebel troops, he puts himself and his men on a perilous journey through the thick Nigerian jungles to bring the doctor and her people to safe harbor. Not only does escorting civilians slow the team down, but there’s a horde of vicious killers on their trail.

Director Antoine Fuqua has a deft touch with the military scenes. They’re exciting and invigorating; he has the infinite patience to let his camera soak in the special operatives stealth work and also the vigor to grasp the sudden and rapid violence of a firefight. In Training Day, Fuqua wasn’t good with the film’s few sentimental and romantic moments. They might have been important in establishing Training Day’s characters, but the sentiment took a back seat to the conflict between the lead characters.

Here, the soft moments, those moments when the film focuses on the plight of the refugees and the hideous, soul wrenching horror of post-colonial Africa, are boring and they hamper the film. Unlike Training Day, sentiment is important to Tears. I just didn’t care about that in this film, although I do care when I’m not busy demanding blood and gore from my entertainment. The special ops guys mesmerized me: their camaraderie, their bravery, their sense of humanity and kindness even in the face of long odds, and their believe in the team that makes them do even the things upon which individuals disagree. All this machismo in a movie makes for effective war propaganda.

The quality of the acting ranges from very good to average. Willis is himself, a bit of ham at the most inopportune moments, and Ms. Bellucci’s succeeds in making an annoying character quite annoying and self-righteous. The actors who make up Waters team including Cole Hauser are excellent; they carry the film and make it worth seeing. And that’s the recommendation, Tears of the Sun is an entertaining film with edge of your seat action and scenes that skirt your nerves along the razor’s edge, very similar to Black Hawk Down, albeit a lower rent version, but still a good film.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2004 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Film: Best Director” (Antoine Fuqua)

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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)

"The Pursuit of Happyness" a Sterling Debut for Jaden Smith

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 252 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)
Running time: 117 minutes (1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some language
DIRECTOR: Gabriele Muccino
WRITER: Steven Conrad
PRODUCERS: Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch, James Lassiter, and Will Smith
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Phedon Papamichael, ASC
EDITOR: Hughes Winborne, A.C.E.
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Thandie Newton, Kurt Fuller, Dan Castellaneta, Brian Howe, James Karen, and Takayo Fischer

If an actor is going to star in an important, inspirational film that is based upon a true story of triumph over adversity, and that film is also bait for an Oscar nomination (or two), then, the least that actor can do is give a knockout performance. Will Smith does just that in his new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness.

In this fictional version of a true story, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a family man struggling to make ends meet as a marginally employed salesman. Linda (Thandie Newton), the mother of his five-year old son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith), is struggling to keep the family afloat by earning income in a dry cleaning factory. When Linda finally buckles under the constant financial pressure, she leaves for New York, but Chris won’t let her take their son with her.

Bright, talented, and ambitious, Chris wins a spot as an intern at a prestigious San Francisco stock brokerage firm, but the internship doesn’t come with a salary. However, the internship might land Chris a coveted, high-paying position as a broker at the firm. In the meantime, without a paying job, Chris and Christopher are soon evicted from their apartment and later from a motel. Forced to live and sleep in shelters, bus stations, bathrooms, etc., Chris remains a committed and loving father to his son while working hard to be the one intern out of the six-month program who gets a job.

Will Smith gives a stinging performance in The Pursuit of Happyness (the misspelling of “happiness” is deliberate and relates to a pivotal scene), one that is free of the genial, cocky, smart-mouthed guy that usually shows up in a Smith performance. It’s rare to see a subtle performance that embodies in equal measure hope and despair or confidence and resignation. Smith is clearly as hungry to be taken seriously as an actor as his character Chris is hungry to get a good job, and that’s the obvious hook of the movie.

The Pursuit of Happyness is directed by a foreigner, Gabriele Muccino, an Italian who has received good notices for his recent films. Because Muccino is not an American, he probably understands the spirit of the American dream better than many Americans, but he also understands the universal elements of the tale, which Chris Gardner’s wants and desires and he and his son’s plight – homelessness and financial struggles are. Muccino and writer Steven Conrad quietly but decisively compare the way Chris lives to that of the people with whom he starts to associate once he begins his stockbroker internship. Muccino even gets in a few digs at America for being so wealthy, yet having so many homeless people that there aren’t enough shelters for them.

Still, in the end, any claim to greatness that this film has rest on Will Smith. Yes, his real life son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith is very good as Christopher Gardner. Thandie Newton also takes the small, almost throwaway part of Linda and makes it stick for as long as she and the character are in the story. But this is Smith’s show, and he makes the pain of a man trying to crawl out of the nightmarish cracks that riddle the American dream authentic.

If the audience isn’t paying attention, they’ll miss the best part of Smith’s performance – that even a man with nothing in terms of material wealth can still honor his commitment to his children and just be a great dad. Chris Gardener wants to have a really good job so that he can provide his son with the finer things in life. He doesn’t need to love his son any more than he already does, and his son says quite firmly at one point during their homelessness that Chris is a “good papa.” That makes the triumph of The Pursuit of Happyness even sweeter.

7 of 10
A-

Sunday, December 17, 2006

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role” (Will Smith)

2007 Black Reel Awards: 3 nominations: “Best Actor” (Will Smith), “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Jaden Smith), and “Best Film” (Will Smith, Teddy Zee, Steve Tisch, James Lassiter, Todd Black, and Jason Blumenthal)

2007 Golden Globes: 2 nominations: “Best Original Song - Motion Picture” (Seal-music/lyrics and Christopher Bruce-music for the song "A Father's Way") and “Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Will Smith)

Review: Sandra Bullock Shines in Winning "The Blind Side"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 27 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Blind Side (2009)
Running time: 129 minutes (2 hours, 9 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references
DIRECTOR: John Lee Hancock
WRITER: John Lee Hancock (based on the book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis)
PRODUCERS: Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, and Gil Netter
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alar Kivilo (director of photography)
EDITOR: Mark Livolsi
COMPOSER: Carter Burwell
Academy Award winner

DRAMA/SPORTS

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Lily Collins, Ray McKinnon, Kim Dickens, Adriane Lenox, and Kathy Bates

Michael Oher is a professional football player for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL), and he was also a college All-American at Ole Miss. Oher spent much of his youth living in foster homes or being homeless. During his high school years, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a couple with a daughter and a son at Oher’s school, took Oher into their home and eventually adopted him. Oher’s story became a book by Michael Lewis, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, which was adapted into the 2009 Best Picture nominee, The Blind Side. This film will likely be remembered as the movie for which Sandra Bullock won her “Best Actress” Oscar.

Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) is a homeless African-American youngster who has lived with different foster families. The father of one of his friends gets Oher enrolled in an exclusive Christian school. There, Michael, called “Big Mike,” befriends a younger boy named Sean Tuohy, Jr. or SJ (Jae Head). SJ’s mother, Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), a fiery interior designer, takes notice of Michael with her son. After a pre-holiday Thanksgiving school event, Leigh Anne sees Michael walking in the rain and offers to let him spend the night at her home. That leads to Michael spending Thanksgiving with Leigh Anne, her husband, Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw), her daughter, Collins (Lily Collins), and SJ.

Michael begins to thrive in his new environment with the Tuohys, and his presence leads the Tuohys to some insightful self-discoveries of their own. However, this new life offers a new set of challenges for Michael. Leigh Anne also decides to make her and Sean Michael’s legal guardians, but that means delving into Michael’s troubled past. Suddenly Leigh Anne, her family, and their latest addition, Michael, find road blocks on the way to their happy ending.

I imagine that most viewers will feel very good after watching The Blind Side. This movie is the real deal because it is more than just another heartwarming story about Black people and White people coming together. Writer/director John Lee Hancock makes The Blind Side different from most inspirational sports drama by actually not contriving phony explanations for why the characters make the peculiar and surprising choices they do in relating to other people. He simply dazzles us with the Tuohys’ stunning generosity and the spirit of Christianity displayed by many of the characters. We don’t have to ask why they do it, but accept on faith that they are doing it for the right reasons.

As the spitfire Leigh Anne Tuohy, Sandra Bullock is certainly deserving of her Academy Award. Bullock not only embodies the fierce stubbornness of a modern Southern woman; she also personifies the inscrutable nature of humans. Sandra allows us to see Leigh Anne’s care and concern for Michael’s well-being and future, as well as her don’t-stand-in-my-way attitude, but shuts us out of what really goes on in Leigh Anne’s head. In reality, neither Bullock nor the audience knows why the real or fictional Leigh Anne does what she does, but in this movie that is not important. We’re supposed to be blind sided by people’s actions, especially Leigh Anne’s, because we don’t see them coming, as Leigh Anne is blind sided by her own feelings for Michael.

While much is made of Bullock’s performance (and rightfully so), Quinton Aaron gives a calm, but powerful performance as Michael Oher. In his quiet way, Aaron actually makes “Big Mike” that much more interesting, attracting the viewer to the character. Every time Aaron is on screen, he has the viewer trying to dig into Oher. As SJ, young Jae Head is a lovable scene-stealer, and the young actor makes SJ solidly the third most interesting character after Leigh Anne and Michael Oher. Consider him the adorable extra in The Blind Side, one of the great sports movies and fine family drama.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2010 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” (Sandra Bullock); 1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Gil Netter, Andrew A. Kosove, and Broderick Johnson)

2010 Golden Globe: 1 win for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” (Sandra Bullock)

2010 Black Reel Awards: 4 nominations: “Black Reel Best Actor” (Quinton Aaron), “Best Breakthrough Performance” (Quinton Aaron), “Best Film,” and “Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted” (John Lee Hancock)

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Review: "Coraline" a Deeply Flawed Jewel

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 13 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux


Coraline (2009)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – PG for thematic elements, scary images, some language, and suggestive humor
DIRECTOR: Henry Selick
WRITERS: Henry Selick (based upon the book by Neil Gaiman)
PRODUCERS: Claire Jennings, Mary Sandell, Bill Mechanic, and Henry Selick
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Pete Kozachik (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Christopher Murrie and Ronald Sanders
Academy Award nominee

ANIMATION/FANTASY

Starring: (voices) Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey, Jr., Ian McShane, Aankha Neal, Harry Selick, Marina Budovsky, and Carolyn Crawford

I am a fan of stop-motion animation films, so I was excited to hear that Henry Selick, the director of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas, was making a stop-motion version of Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novel, Coraline. At one 1 hour and 40 minutes, director Henry Selick’s Coraline is the longest stop-motion animated feature in movie history, and it certainly seems even longer. More often than not, watching Coraline feels like a dreary chore instead of an eerie delight.

Coraline Jones (voice of Dakota Fanning) is a curious and adventurous 11-year-old girl who is also feisty beyond her years. Coraline and her parents, Mel and Charles Jones (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) have just relocated from Michigan to Oregon. Coraline misses her friends, and her parents are too distracted by their work as writers to entertain her. Coraline tries to find some excitement in her new environment, the Pink Palace, a boarding house on top of a hill. Her neighbors include the eccentric British actresses, Miss April Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Miriam Forcible (Dawn French), and an even more eccentric Russian acrobat, Mr. Sergie Alexander Bobinsky (Ian McShane). The only local close to her age is an annoying boy named Wyborne “Wybie” Lovat (Robert Bailey, Jr.) and his equally annoying semi-pet, The Cat (Keith David).

Coraline seriously doubts that her new home can provide anything to interest her – that is until she uncovers a small, secret door in the house. She crawls through the door and into an eerie passageway, which takes her to an alternate version of her life and existence. On the surface, this parallel reality, called Other World, is similar to her real life, but it is much better. The adults are cool, especially Other Mother (Teri Hatcher), a version of Coraline’s mother who pays more attention to Coraline and actually cooks delicious meals and tasty sweets. Coraline thinks that she could stay there forever, but when Other Mother starts to make shocking demands, Coraline wants no part of this off-kilter world. With the help of the mysterious Cat, Coraline makes a bid for freedom, but it will take all her bravery, grit, and ingenuity to save her real family and get back home.

Coraline is the first 3D stop-motion animated film, and for the most part, its ideal audience would be people who admire the art of stop-motion animation. Like Selick’s collaboration with Tim Burton (The Nightmare before Christmas), Coraline is darkly inventive, but not as snappy and clever. In fact, the first half of this film is practically a disaster. The plodding narrative and flat voice performances suggest that Coraline was a short film disastrously stretched to a feature-length film. Even the animation is listless. It is more jerky-motion than stop-motion animation.

It is not until the Other Mother (also known as Beldam) shows her true nature that Coraline’s eerie nature really comes to life. This film has a creepiness that is so unsettling (perhaps because it deals with child abduction), but even then, this story, with its Venus flytrap and spider web allusions, can only limp through a somewhat exciting resolution and last act.

Coraline has the makings of being an exciting cross between the classic fairy tale and a spooky horror story with a contemporary sensibility, but it mostly fails to reach its potential. The only really good characters are Coraline, Other Mother, and the Cat, and the others are feeble, which could be a result of Selick’s surprisingly anemic screenplay. This movie even manages to waste Keith David’s exceptional talents as a voice actor. I admire what the filmmakers tried to do more than I actually like this film. I cannot quite embrace this clunky, clumsy riff on Alice in Wonderland. Still, I can’t dismiss Coraline, because I am one of those people smitten with the art of stop-motion animation.

5 of 10
C+

Saturday, March 13, 2010

NOTES:

2010 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Animated Feature Film of the Year” (Henry Selick)
2010 BAFTA Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Animated Film” (Henry Selick)
2010 Golden Globe: 1 nomination: “Best Animated Feature Film”
2010 Black Reel Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Voice Performance” (Keith David)

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Review: "Bamboozled" is Clever and Truthful, But Too Angry

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 121 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Bamboozled (2000)
Running time: 135 minutes (2 hours, 15 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong language and some violence
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
PRODUCERS: Spike Lee and Jon Kilik
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ellen Kuras
EDITOR: Sam Pollard
COMPOSER: Terrence Blanchard

COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: Damon Wayans, Savion Glover, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Paul Mooney, Sarah Jones, Mos Def, Al Sharpton, Mira Sorvino, and MC Search, Cameron Diaz, meet Jada Pinkett-Smith. Jada, meet Cameron. There but for the grace of God.

Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is a frustrated African-American television writer, tired that the television industry and entertainment in general ignores the cultured (he thinks) taste of the black middle class in favor of lowbrow and stereotypical so-called ghetto entertainment. Determined to show up his crude boss Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rapport, Deep Blue Sea), Delacroix, with the help of his able assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett-Smith, Set It Off), develops a blackface program, The New Millennium Minstrel Show. Blackface shows were crude forms of entertainment in which whites wore black face paint to imitate blacks, and Delacroix and Hopkins create their blackface TV program in a secret pact to protest the way white media bosses disrespect black viewers. Sure that the show will fail and get him fired, Delacroix watches the show become a huge sensation.

Bamboozled is writer/director Spike Lee’s (Malcolm X, Summer of Sam), most incendiary and most passionate film since his heralded Do The Right Thing. It is a biting satire with razor teeth and an unrelenting surrealistic farce. Lee aims the satirical portion of his film, the behind the scenes making of the minstrel show, squarely at the entertainment establishment and the audiences for American entertainment. Lee severely heightens the farcical nature of the minstrel show beyond what one would expect of a “real” minstrel show. He does it make his jabs at blackface, tom shows, minstrel shows, and other forms of drama that belittle minority groups hit that much harder.

As passionate as the film is (and as well intentioned as it may be) it is horribly inconsistent. I’m not sure if the inconsistency is deliberate, a means to show how complex issues of race and culture in America are, or if that’s just a sign of poor screenwriting (of which Lee has been accused on a few occasions). Bamboozled is at times uneven, mean-spirited, and confusing; at other times, it is hilarious, pointed, intelligent, and witty. The main problem is that those two sides jumble the film’s messages. The viewer may have an idea of what the film is about, but the viewer may have a difficult time figuring out what exactly Lee wants to say or what he is actually saying.

Some of the acting is very good. Tommy Davidson as Womack, one half The New Millennium Minstrel Show’s star team, Sleep’n Eat, is a fine comedian and a very funny, but underutilized comic actor with some strong dramatic chops. Savion Glover, both as Manray and as his minstrel alter ego Mantan, is known for his work on Broadway, but he is very good here, and the camera loves him almost as much as the lights of Broadway love him. Wayans as Delacroix swings from funny to unbelievable; his character’s mannerisms and speech patterns are so mocking that the character is unbelievable and, at times, too unsympathetic to watch. The waste in the film might be the under use of Ms. Pinkett-Smith: sympathetic and intelligent, the story could well have revolved around her, as she is the only character connected to all the main players.

This is a missed opportunity to make a point about the exploitation of black entertainers, past and present, and about the stereotypical portrayal of African-American in the media and in popular culture. As a film, it is daring in its subject matter, and that’s worth points in its favor. However, movies tell stories and entertain. Lee fills Bamboozled with so much ire while seemingly ignoring his story. The movie is too disjointed for many viewers to follow and too angry and preachy to be entertaining.

It is good that Spike Lee uses film to communicate daring subject matter, even if when get a mixed bag like this. He hit it right on the head with Do The Right Thing, I’m hopeful and sure that he’ll get it right again.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2001 Black Reel Awards: 4 nominations for best director-theatrical, screenplay-theatrical, supporting actor-theatrical (Tommy Davidson) and supporting actress-theatrical (Jada Pinkett Smith)


2001 Image Awards: 1 nomination “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” (Jada Pinkett Smith)


2000 National Board of Review: Freedom of Expression Award

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Review: Hughes Brothers Made a Documentary Classic with "American Pimp"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 25 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

American Pimp (1999)
Running time: 87 minutes; MPAA – R for pervasive sexual content including dialogue, strong language, and some drug related material
DIRECTORS: The Hughes Brothers (Allen and Albert)
PRODUCERS: Kevin J. Messick and the Hughes Brothers.
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Albert Hughes
EDITOR: Doug Pray with Dan Lebental
Black Reel Awards nominee

DOCUMENTARY

The Hughes brothers are perhaps the most politically incorrect African American filmmakers as seen in their work, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents. They solidify their positions as the infante terribles of “black cinema” with their documentary film, American Pimp. It’s about the pimps, men (mostly black men in this film) who sell the bodies of women to other men for sexual intercourse.

In this study of “pimpdom,” street pimps discuss their lives and work: getting started, influences, technique, their style, handling their ho’s (whores, prostitutes), making money, pimp philosophy or their personal philosophy. Listening to the pimps, the viewers might get the idea that the Hughes just let the pimps take control of the film. The brothers do allow them total freedom to express themselves, and that’s what makes the film so bracing. From one pimp after another, the viewer gets a wall of information dressed in slang, profanity, and politically incorrect speech. It’s like the Hughes gave them the ultimate freedom in which to sell themselves, their lives, and their ideology.

Still, the Hughes control the tone of this film. They use film footage to illustrate some myths about pimps and prostitution, and they include a lot of personal photographs from the “archives” of the pimps. The Hughes frequently reference blaxtiploitation films, and for many of the pimps, so-called black exploitation films are how-to-manuals for pimps, and for some, maybe the films merge to become some kind of holy text. The Hughes also use the camera to really give the viewer a sense of the environment of the pimps, or players, as they like to call themselves. Bringing in the pimps’ surroundings gives the film an ambience so that the movie is more than just talking heads.

This film will offend many viewers. It’s non-judgmental when it comes to the pimps, and the Hughes really allow the pimps to by hyper verbal, to speak their minds even in the foulest terms. The filmmakers don’t seek to judge them; they leave that to the audience. American Pimp is a document about how the pimps see themselves, not really about how others see them, although the film features many ho’s talking about pimps and, to a lesser extent, their own lives.

I really like this movie, and I’ve seen it several times. I didn’t think I’d like it. Sometimes I laugh, and sometimes I find some of the material to be pretty rank. However, I was kind of sad when it ended. I was really curious about a lot of these men’s futures. I think most people who really like documentaries will be fascinated and, maybe, repulsed by this, but I think American Pimp is a testament to the power of film to communicate everything from the broadest cultures to the smallest, ugly corners of human life, both of which have been with us forever. You might not like that this film exists because you think it “glorifies” pimps, but you can’t deny the blunt force of its story.

8 of 10
A

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