Summing Up The Cinematic Summer Of 2017

Reportedly this summer was the lowest grossing at the box office in many years. The low turnout can be blamed on franchise fatigue (more ALIENS, APES, CARS, TRANSFORMERS, and PIRATES, anybody?), the abundance of big budget bombs (THE MUMMY, KING ARTHUR: THE LEGEND OF THE SWORD, DARK TOWER, VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS), and all the good TV shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Twin Peaks: The Return, Game of Thrones, and Glow competing for people’s attention. But whatever the case, despite several gems, it’s been an abysmal season crowded with bland blockbuster wannabes.

It started off promising last May with James Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2, a solid sequel to the big Marvel hit from three summers ago. GOTGV2 had a juicy role for Kurt Russell as the father of Chris Pratt’s character, Peter Quill (or Star Lord, if you prefer), a bunch of amusing action sequences and gags, and a stellar soundtrack going for it, and audiences responded by making it the third top grossing movie of the year. Read my review.

The next few sequels that followed - Ridley Scott’s ALIEN: COVENANT, David Bower’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LONG HAUL, and Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES came and went quickly, with only PIRATES turning a profit despite bad reviews (it’s at 30% on the Rottentomatometer). I only saw PIRATES of these three, and I'm pretty tired of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack schtick so I didn’t care for it (read my review: PIRATES 5: DEAD MEN TELL NO NEW TALES), but at least I enjoyed the Paul McCartney cameo.

I wanted to see the latest ALIEN sequel on the big screen, but didn’t get around to it. I’ll probably catch it someday on Blu ray or streaming, but I’m not really dying to.

Early June, the summer was shaken up by the major success of Patty Jenkins’ WONDER WOMAN, the first actually good movie of the new DC Extended Universe. 

The gorgeous Gal Gadot portrays the iconic superheroine in the WWI era adventure, and with the help of Chris Pine, and a supporting cast including Robin Wright, Danny Huston, and David Thewlis, she lassoed up a satisfying piece of entertainment (read my review). Now, I’m just waiting for Zack Snyder to get the franchise back off track with JUSTICE LEAGUE (also featuring Gadot) this November. 

Another superhero favorite, Spider-Man, returned the next month, and restored the character to his former glory after Marc Webb’s forgettable THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN movies with Andrew Garfield. Featuring a likable kid in the form of Tom Holland, who was introduced in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, the extremely fun (and funny) experience of John Watts’ SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING was embraced by moviegoers to the tune of over $300 million, and critics to the tune of a 92 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Read my review.

Another sequel that did well at the box office was Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, and Eric Guillon’s DESPICABLE ME 3 (though not great critically – 61% on Rotten Tomatoes), but not being a fan of the series or the whole Minions thing for that matter, I opted out.

Of the other summer sequels, I took a hard pass on CARS 3 as the CARS series is my least favorite Pixar franchise, but I took in Matt Reeves’ THE WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, and found it to be a good not great entry in the rebooted series. It contains some powerful visuals, the enjoyable comic relief of Steve Zahn voicing one of the few talking apes who calls himself “Bad Ape,” and Woody Harrelson as the villain, a sinister Colonel who wants to kill off Andy Serkis’ ape leader Caesar and his army, but it’s never been one of my favorite franchises, and I’m not really itching to see more APES movies after it. 

As for the fifth TRANSFORMERS movie, which made over $600 million yet is still considered to be an underperformer - I have never seen one of the TRANSFORMERS movies all the way through, and I’m not considering changing that.

One of the worst, if not the worst, movies of the summer was Alex Kurtzman’s THE MUMMY, which was primed to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe series, but its commercial and critical failure (here’s my pan) may cause the powers that be to reconsider things. Tom Cruise is bound to do much better in the Doug Liman’s upcoming AMERICAN MADE, which is getting some early buzz, so don’t worry about him - he’ll be just fine.

The comedy genre fared horribly during the summer months with flops such as Lucia Aniello’s ROUGH NIGHT (saw it - lame waste of a talented cast headed by Scarlett Johansson and Kate McKinnon), Jonathan Levine’s SNATCHED (didn’t see it, but it looked lame - sorry, Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn), Seth Gordon’s BAYWATCH (another I skipped for what should be an obvious reason), and Andrew Jay Cohen’s THE HOUSE (also didn’t see despite being a fan of both Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler) which was savaged by critics and ignored by audiences.

However, in the world of independent film, there was a comedy this summer, a rom com no less, that did great business, and got critical acclaim to boot: Michael Showalter’s THE BIG SICK. The film, starring Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan is the story of how Nanjiani met his later wife, and stuck with her while she was in a coma, while dealing with her worried parents played by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter. It’s a real witty charmer that has now played for over eight weeks at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh where I work part time. I haven’t seen a movie connect with audiences at our local indie arthouse like it has in a long time. My review.

A few other indies that didn’t connect as well: Trey Edward Shults’ IT CAME AT NIGHT and David Lowery’s A GHOST STORY. Of these, the former, starring Joel Edgerton as a man whose family is holed up in a house in the country while a plague ravages the land, had its edgy moments but was far from fully fleshed out, while the later, featuring Casey Affleck as a ghost - in a white sheet with eye holes, mind you – was just plain weird as I wrote in my review.

In the non franchise department, there’s Edgar Wright’s BABY DRIVER, a crackling crime thriller, with a great cast including Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm, and Jamie Foxx, and an even better soundtrack. It wowed crowds and critics, including me as I declared in my review that it was the best film of the summer.

Another non sequel that I enjoyed was David Leitch’s ATOMIC BLONDE, starring Charlize Theron as a kick ass MI6 field agent on a mission in West Berlin during the waning days of the cold war. It’s a bit uneven and wonky at times, but has some excellent set pieces including a stunning fight in a stairwell, a sharp lead performance by Theron, and a well chosen ‘80s soundtrack. Hmm, that’s three films this summer with great soundtracks – not bad.

Up there with BABY DRIVER in quality is Christopher Nolan’s DUNKIRK, an immersive war epic that I’m glad I saw in 70 mm. I had a few issues with its structure, which I discussed in my post, Notes on DUNKIRK, but was overall impressed by Nolan’s work, his best since INCEPTION. I bet we’re going to hear a lot more about it come Oscar season.

Lastly, I hate to say I was disappointed in Steven Soderbergh’s late summer entry, LOGAN LUCKY, which many critics have praised.

I loved its premise – a hillbilly heist centered around robbing the Charlotte Motor Speedway in my homestate of N.C. – and its cast including Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and especially a bleach blond Daniel Craig – but the job is pulled off with very little conflict, the stakes don’t feel very high as folks can be broken out of and back into jail for the caper with ease, and none of these people are believably related to each other – Driver and Tatum sure don’t look or act like brothers, nor do Craig and the two hayseeds (Brian Gleeson and Jack Quaid) who are supposed to be his kin. Still, there were some amusing moments, and I appreciate the effort by Soderbergh to do a variation on his OCEAN’S ELEVEN movies, even if I’m not a fan of those either.

So that’s the summer of 2017 at the movies. One could argue that a season that boasts the likes of BABY DRIVER, DUNKIRK, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, WONDER WOMAN, and THE BIG SICK can’t be completely written off, but that’s only six films out of over 40, so sadly they weren’t enough to save the summer from sucking. The fall, where historically the films get better, can’t come soon enough.

More later...

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 9/17/13

Marc Forster’s summer hit WORLD WAR Z heads the crop of Blu ray and DVD releases this week, available in a 2-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy package or a single disc DVD. The film, which as the front cover art displays, features Brad Pitt single-handedly saving the world from a global outbreak of zombies. After months of hype leading up to its theatrical release, the film was pretty disappointing (read my review from last June), but maybe it will have more of an impact on the small screen. Special Features: a couple of featurettes (“Origins” and “Looking to Science”), and a four part “Making of” documentary that explores in detail how such money shots as the masses of zombies scaling the tall fortress walls in Israel were pulled off.

Another film to which I gave a lukewarm review, Sofia Coppola’s THE BLING RING, also comes out today on both Blu ray and DVD. Coppola’s satirical true crime film, her fifth as director, is based on the story of a group of fame-obsessed teens who broke into the Los Angeles houses of celebrities such as Paris Hilton (who has a brief cameo), and stole millions of dollars worth of clothing, jewelry, cash, and swag. It’s interesting for about a third of it, but there’s not much substantial takeaway as you can read in my review: “THE BLING RING: As Superficial And Empty-Headed As The Girls It Depicts” (6/21/13). For folks that find it more fascinating than I, there are a few substantial Special Features including the almost 23 minute featurette “Making THE BLING RING: On Set with Sofia, the Cast and Crew,” the almost 24 minute “Behind the real ‘Bling Ring’,” and the over 10 minute “Scene of the Crime with Paris Hilton.”

A film I missed in its brief theatrical run (not even sure if it came to my area), Henry Alex Rubin’s 2012 thriller DISCONNECT is out this week in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. A sold ensemble including Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Andrea Riseborough, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, and Alexander Skarsgård star in what IMDb tells me is about “searching for human connections in today's wired world.” Special Features: Commentary with Direct Rubin, an almost 30-minute documentary “Making the Connections: Behind the Scenes of DISCONNECT,” a 4-minute featurette “Recording Session of “On the Nature of Daylight,” and the theatrical trailer.

Steven Soderberg’s terrific HBO telefilm from earlier this year, BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his young lover Scott Thorson, is out today in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The glitzy biopic (well, not really a biopic as it only covers a few years of Liberace’s life), which was rejected by every major movie studio because it was “too gay,” has been nominated for 15 Emmy Awards, including nominations for Douglas and Damon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes home a bunch of them this coming Sunday night. There’s only one Special Feature, a 13 minute “Making of” featurette, but it’s an entertaining mix of interview snippets, archival footage of the real Liberace, and insights into how the costume and set designers were able to so convincingly pull off all the lavish surroundings of late ‘70s Las Vegas.

Also releasing today is Zal Batmanglij’s THE EAST, starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård (man, he gets around!), and Ellen Page as eco-terrorists. It’s a pretty decent thriller that’s at least worth a rental. A few other new films out today: Kyle Killen’s psychological thriller SCENIC ROUTE, Morgan O'Neill’s Australian surfing drama DRIFT, and Uwe Boll's thriller SUDDENLY, starring Ray Liotta, Dominic Purcell, and Michael Paré. That last title, a remake of Lewis Allen’s 1954 film noir thriller of the same name, is actually dumb fun, which is something, considering it’s, you know, a Uwe Boll production.

On the older film new to Blu ray front there’s a nice handful of horror and classic monster movies such as George A. Romero’s 1985 zombie classic DAY OF THE DEAD (Collector’s Edition), the 1931 Bela Lugosi classic DRACULA, Hammer Film’s 1966 Christopher Lee classic DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, the 1935 Boris Karloff classic THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic THE WOLF MAN. I also can’t leave out the TREMORS Attack Pack which contains all 4 TREMORS movies (there were 4 of them?). Now, that’s a lot of scary classics that are now all Blu rayed-up!

TV season sets releasing today: Nashville: The Complete First Season, Leverage: The Fifth Season, The Mentalist: The Complete Fifth Season, Grimm: Season Two, Arrow: The Complete First Season, Bates Motel: Season One, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - The 13th Season, and Golgo 13: Complete Collection.

More later…

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 5/21/13

Today’s releases feature a plethora of titles that I missed when they were released theatrically early this year. 

First up, former California Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role in a decade (THE EXPENDABLES movies? Consider those cameos.), Kim Ji-woon’s THE LAST STAND comes out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The action flick about Schwarzenegger as a small town Sherriff battling a Mexican drug lord, which looks like it could possibly be big dumb fun, comes with a smattering of Special Features including a nearly half hour featurette entitled “Not In My Town: Making THE LAST STAND,” a few shorter featurettes (“Cornfield Chaos: Scene Breakdown,” “The Dinkum Firearm & Historic Weaponry Museum Tour”), Actor-Cam Anarchy: with Johnny Knoxville and Jaimie Alexander, and over 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes.

Another I missed, and barely noticed the existence of, Richard LaGravenese’s TWILIGHT-wannabe BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, starring Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, hits the shelves in a double disc Blu ray package and in a single disc DVD. Special Features a 24-minute collection of behind-the-scenes Featurettes, 8 minutes of deleted scenes, trailers, and a TV spot. I seriously doubt I’ll be queuing this up.

A few films I’m actually interested also drop on Blu ray and DVD today: Fisher Stevens’ STAND UP GUYS and Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS. 

Available in 1-disc Blu ray and DVD editions, STAND UP GUYS stars the awesome trio of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin as old school gangsters who get together to pull off one last job. Sure, it sounds clichéd as Hell, but I heard good things here and there and will likely give it a whirl this week. Stevens provides a director’s commentary, and other extras include a few featurettes, and a few minutes of deleted scenes. 

Soderbergh’s psychological thriller SIDE EFFECTS, available in a double disc Blu ray set or a single disc DVD package, once said to be one of the director’s final projects before retiring (he’s since said he’s only taking a film-making sabbatical), stars Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Channing Tatum in a tale about a young woman (Mara) who gets prescribed an experimental new medication called Ablixa. Special Features are pretty paltry: a 3 minute behind the scenes featurette, and a couple minutes of fake commercials for the fictional drugs depicted in the film. 

True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season, right in time for the upcoming 6th season of the wildly popular HBO series (premiering on June 16th) is also out today in a spiffy (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) box set. I’ve not been a regular view of the show before, but the fine folks at HBO sent me a review copy of the nicely packaged season so I’ve been making my way through it. I usually like to watch shows from the very beginning, but I’ve gathered bits and pieces about what’s been going on in the Southern sometimes ultra-trashy world of Sookie Stackhouse, played with punchy energy by Anna Paquin. Since I don’t know all the back stories, and my grasp on the mythology is far from formed, I can get a bit lost, but the show moves fast and has a lot of sordid sex scenes so it’s pretty damn watchable. 

5 commentaries featuring cast and crew members are included, as are such extras as something called “advanced viewing mode,” in which gives viewers the options of getting 4 different angles on each episode along with trivia, production notes, character bios, and histories (hmm, maybe that’ll help me get up to date). There’s also an “Autopsy” of episode Six “Hopeless,” “Authority Confessionals,” and a few more featurettes.

Also from HBO, a film I reviewed when it premiered on the premium cable channel last November, Brett Morgen’s Rolling Stones documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE is now out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The doc, which I considered a “purposeful primer of their formative years” although it adds little new for long-time fans, is enhanced by bonus material made up of of live and TV performances from the mid ‘60s (9 songs in all), an interview with director Morgen, and the theatrical trailer.

Notable retro-tinged releases today are PBS’s American Masters documentary about the legendary comic actor/writer/director Mel Brooks (Robert Trachtenberg's “Mel Brooks: Make A Noise”), the Criterion Collection edition of Haskell Wexler’s 1969 cult classic MEDIUM COOL, and Warner Bros. celebrates the 30th anniversary of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION with a new special edition Blu ray (also 1997’s VEGAS VACATION, which wasn’t from National Lampoon incidentally, makes its Blu ray debut today).

Paul Borghese’s gritty crime drama ONCE UPON A TIME IN BROOKLYN, starring Armand Assante William DeMeo, Cathy Moriarty, and Ice T comes out on DVD today. Its plot sounds a bit like STAND UP GUYS – guy gets out of prison and gets back into illegal activities – but I bet that there’s a distinctly different tone happening. Director’s commentary, interview with Borghese and DeMeo, and deleted scenes. 

Lastly, a few horror titles drop on DVD this week: H.P. LOVECRAFT’S COOL AIR, directed by Albert Pyun is out now only on DVD with no Special Features other than a trailer gallery, and AFTER DARK ORIGINALS: DARK CIRCLES, the full length directorial debut of Paul Soter, one of the Broken Lizard comedy team who brought you SUPER TROOPERS and CLUB DREAD. Soter appears with actor Johnathon Schaech, and blogger Ryan Turek on an audio commentary, and the sole other extra is a DARK CIRCLES behind-the-scenes featurette.

More later...

Gina Carano owns Steven Soderbergh's HAYWIRE

HAYWIRE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2012)



Although I had not seen a trailer or read anything about it going in, I caught on quickly that this film is simply an excuse to string together a series of acrobatic fight scenes showcasing the mixed martial arts skills of Gina Carano.

Thing is, it’s a pretty good excuse.

The plot, something about the CIA trained Carano getting set up and betrayed on a mission, really doesn’t matter, because this movie is all about the kinetic, extremely well choreographed, and superbly shot fight scenes.

Surrounding Carano is a cast of familiar faces: Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, and Michael Fassbender, but I believe had those same roles been played by a bunch of unknowns, it would have the same effect, because, again, it’s all about Carano’s game.

On the run from an international manhunt, Carano hijacks the car of the scruffy Michael Angarano in upstate New York, and she tells him (and us) how she got there, so we get flashbacks of set pieces in opulent settings.

For instance, a hotel suite in Dublin in which Carano and Fassbender have a brutal scuffle; it’s polished violence with class as the couple is outfitted in expensive evening wear.

With its snazzy jazzy soundtrack by frequent Soderberg collaborator David Holmes, HAYWIRE bops along enjoyably from brawl to brawl. It’s a durable diversion especially compared to its competition (*cough* CONTRABAND) in this January dumping ground.

From 1989’s SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE to last year’s CONTAGION, Soderbergh has dabbled in just about every genre (can’t wait for him to tackle Westerns), so why not an espionage revenge thriller with a kick ass hottie, who actually can kick ass in real life?

Here Soderbergh throws his new heroine into the ring with Laura Croft, “The Bride” from KILL BILL, and Lisbeth Salander (either Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara - it doesn't matter), and by the end of it you’ll be convinced that Carano would be the last one standing.

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Full Frame Documentary Film Fest 2010: Days Three & Four

I believe that for this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival at the Carolina Theater in downtown Durham, NC (in case you haven't tuned in lately) I made much better picks of what to see than in previous years - all of the movies I saw out of the available 101 that were worthwhile. 


Some, of course, more than others as this round-up of films from the last 2 days should tell you. Oh yeah - please visit my recaps of Day One and Day Two. 


Films I Saw On Saturday - Day Three:

WASTE LAND (Dirs. Lucy Walker with Co-Directors Karen Harley & João Jardim)



The old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure" is taken to new limits with the art of Vik Muniz. Muniz, a Brazilian sculptor and photographer, is captured by the film makers as he embarks upon a new project involving Jardim Gramacho - the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. His plan is to create massive portraits of the individual pickers who work at the landfill out of the recyclable materials they gather.

Muniz's subjects appear to be lifted, albeit briefly, out of the squalor they live in through the process. It would be tempting to say that this film roots around in the garbage too much, but it's actually a very measured and inspiring break-down of unique artistic methods rounded out by the moving stories of the "catadores." The moments of creation are enhanced by absorbing time-lapse shots and a pulsating soundtrack mostly composed of Moby tracks.

STONEWALL UPRISING (Dirs. Kate Davis & David Heilbroner, 2010) Despite having no footage and only 6 photos of the incident, one gets a good sense of the 1969 Stonewall riots' vast importance to the gay rights movement. As one of the interviewees posits, it was actually more of an uprising than a riot when a large group of patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York, fought back against police raids. Recreations and era period pictures help get us there visually, but it's the anecdotal evidence given by people who were there, surprisingly including former NYC Mayor Ed Koch (then a congressman), that makes the thing tick.


 t's an essential educational experience - from the disturbing yet funny anti-homosexual propaganda films of the 50's that set the suppressed scene to the first gay pride parades that stemmed from Stonewall, there is much to take home from this well crafted documentary.

AND EVERYTHING IS GOING FINE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2010)



Another highly anticipated film of the festival featuring the work of Spalding Gray - an actor, monologist, and performance artist who committed suicide in 2004. Gray tells his own story here in this collection made up largely of transferred videotape recordings edited together expertly in the stream of consciousness style of his acclaimed spoken word pieces.

THE INFORMANT!: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE INFORMANT!
(Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2009)


In a piece of inspired casting, Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, the pudgy mustached toupee-wearing former President of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), who was an FBI informant in the early to mid '90s.

However his heroic whistle-blowing stance was fairly jeopardized by the fact that he was defrauding his company of 9 million dollars during the same period.

At first, he seems a decent plain spoken sort, a straight-laced family man with a loving wife (Melanie Lynskey) comes through in an opening voice-over extolling the virtues of corn in his chosen industry.

As he goes on shifting from corn to the German name for pen ("kugelscheiber"), and back again, it becomes apparent that this is less an inner monologue than an unstoppable stream of consciousness that runs throughout the film sometimes obscuring important info that folks around him are trying to parlay.

Damon's Whitacre sees himself as a character in a Crichton novel; a good guy going up against a corrupt corporation. Initially we do too as his company is indeed guilty of price fixing and the film comes from the director of ERIN BROCKOVICH, but its take on the character zippy comic style places it more accurately somewhere between the OCEAN'S movies and OUT OF SIGHT Soderbergh-wise.

A couple of FBI agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) are stupefied by Damon's stories yet still wire him up to get the evidence against ADM.

Damon makes hundreds of tapes, narrating them as he goes, and the case gets stronger but after a raid of his company the operation rapidly unravels with facts fudged and forged documents piling up to expose Damon's dementia.

While the film at times over-estimates the wackiness of its plotting, the tone is pleasingly punchy with a groovy score provided by the master of groovy scores: Marvin Hamlisch. Matched with colorful AUSTIN POWERS-ish titles, Hamlisch's brassy '60s pastiche, including a parody of John Barry's "James Bond Theme," suits the material marvelously as if it's as much the product of Damon's psyche as the voices in his head.

The supporting cast is curiously made of a roster of comic actors (the before mentioned McHale, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tompkins, Tony Hale, and Allen Havey) who you'd more likely expect to be present at a roast on Comedy Central than as button down "suits" with almost no funny lines in a slick Soderbergh satire.

That they provide a sober stone-walling counterpoint to the delightfully off kilter Damon gives the THE INFORMANT! a cunning comic gravity.

And now for no other reason than that the film featured in this post has an exclamation point in its title, here's:

10 More Movies With Exclamation Points In Their Titles:

1. AIRPLANE!

2. ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES!

3. FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

4. ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL

5. WIN A DATE WITH TAD HAMILTON!

6. OH, GOD!

7. 18 AGAIN! (Another George Burns movie! How about that?)

8. BEWARE! THE BLOB

9. TORA! TORA! TORA!

10. TOYKO!

More later...

CHE: PART TWO: The Film Babble Blog Review

CHE: PART TWO (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2008) It would be easy, if too simplistic, to label CHE: PART ONE as "The Rise" and CHE: PART TWO as "The Fall" of the infamous Cuban Guerilla leader. The arc established between these two halves is, of course, much more layered and densely imposed to support such Ziggy Stardust-style titling. PART ONE concerned itself with Che - the man, in its Oliver Stone-ish news footage framing of his successful revolution in Havana. Not to say that it was merely set-up; it told a sound story satisfyingly ending on a resounding note of triumph. PART TWO (subtitled "The Guerrilla") sets a decidedly different spookier tone from beginning with a SCARFACE-ean scroll telling us that Che (Benicio del Toro) has gone into hiding. It is 1966 and Che is first shown in a remarkably unrecognizable get-up as a Uruguayan businessman with thick glasses, a shaved head, and a stiff suit - an image nobody would ever put on a T-shirt. This disguise gets him through customs into Boliva and he sets about meeting his men - fellow Guerillas in the mountains. Unfortunately there is trouble in Guerilla city (sorry) and the ragged fighters find they may be no match for the Bolivian Army. As Che assimilates into the groups of scrappy soliders, Soderbergh shoots del Toro mainly from behind reminding me of Aronofsky's presentation of Rourke in THE WRESTLER but focusing more on Che being engulfed by his surroundings rather than that of a personal POV. Another film that came to mind was Woody Allen's BANANAS during the many jungle warfare scenes. In that 1971 classic comedy, New York loser schlub Allen becomes a revolutionary when on vacation in the fictional Central American country of San Marcos to impress his activist girlfriend (Louise Lasser). Since it was closer to the actual time period it had the grainy home movie look that Soderbergh was going for so maybe that's not such a silly satirical reference point. Maybe it is though - I've been on a diet of Woody Allen movies since before I could walk so of course my mind would go there. This is not exactly to say, of course, that CHE: PART TWO is BANANAS without the laughs but I couldn't resist the comparison. That comical footnote aside, CHE: PART TWO is strongly involving and possibly superior to its other half. The deaths are more piercing and the pace is like a rapid heartbeat leading to one of Che's asthma attacks. Even when shown sparringly, del Toro owns the screen again making my head shake at the failure of award recognition. A solid troop of actors fights fiercely alongside del Toro including Damián Bechir (again dead on as Castro), Rodrigo Santoro, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Joaquim De Almeida. For some unknown reason the theater I work at part time is showing CHE: PART TWO nightly at 7:00 with CHE: PART ONE following at 9:30. While that may not be the ideal order to see them, it won't hurt because they have distinctly separate feels despite being one long movie split in two. Whatever the order I implore folks to see them both; they are major movies that deserve a much bigger audience - especially on the big screen. More Later...

CHE: PART ONE: The Film Babble Blog Review

CHE: PART ONE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2008) The prospect of an over 4 hour historical epic spread over 2 separate contained movies will no doubt be daunting to most moviegoers, but the first half of CHE is incredibly involving despite its murkiness and powerful despite its sometimes plodding pace. Originally released last December for it to be eligible for the years Oscars (it didn’t get nominated for anything) in a limited release as one combined film, it now hits the rest of the country in a “special roadshow edition” with PART TWO following close behind PART ONE's release. PART ONE mostly takes place in the late 50’s with an asthmatic Ernesto “Che” Guevara, portrayed with fierce grace by Benicio del Toro (also one of the film's producers), joining Fidel Castro’s (a dead on Demian Bichir) movement in Havana, Cuba. It has a flashback framework serving as semi narration from a 60’s interview with TV journalist Lisa Howard (Julia Ormond), later cutting between Guevara’s United Nations address and intense street warfare. These non-Cuban set-pieces are presented in grainy black and white, while the gritty yet vivid color of the exteriors enforces the implication that all that isn’t in the heart of the jungle for Che is simply artifice and not real life. With the subtitle “THE ARGENTINE” (and Spanish subtitles to boot), this film works well on its own yet still leaves one wanting for a follow-up. Soderbergh successfully structures a docu drama feel in which real footage and photographs blend beautifully with the immacualte recreations. It is indeed a shame that the Academy snubbed this film, particularly del Toro whose precise performance is definitely in the league of Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk potrayal that took home the award. Penn himself was shocked and pondered over the lack of award nods for CHE suggesting that: “Maybe because it’s in Spanish, maybe the length, maybe the politics.” None of those factors should deter folks from taking the plunge into CHE: PART ONE; it may be tough going at times but it’s impossible to ignore its soaring sense of purpose. Several satisfying though viciously violent sequences save the film from inaccessibility and in moments like when del Toro answers interviewer Ormond’s question about what is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess by saying “love” he is utterly convincing. Here’s hoping PART TWO: GUERILLA lives up to PART ONE’s mighty promise. More later...

Coming Soon To A Film Babble Blog Near You...

The next few months are going to be very busy for me so I thought I’d give readers a preview of some upcoming attractions:

Coming Soon - Reviews of:

CHE: PART ONE (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2008) So epic it had to be cut into 2 separate movies (THE ARGENTINE and GUERILLA respectively), PART ONE opened last Friday at the local theater I work part-time but I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. Expect a write-up shortly because I’ve been really looking to this sweeping biopicalious looking opus that I'm planning on approaching as if it was a TV miniseries. CHE: PART TWO opens on the 20th so I better get to it.

TWO LOVERS (Dir. James Gray, 2008) Yes, my area is usually late getting indie fare like this so my list of films from last year I need to catch up on is endless. Whatever the deal with Joaquin Phoenix and his possibly fake hip hop career *, there has been considerably favorable buzz around this title. I’ll let you know when I see it. * Now I don't have to mention any of his off screen shenanigins in my actual review. And on the horizon: WENDY AND LUCY (Dir. Kelly Reichardt) GOMORRA (Dir. Matteo Garrone) The trailer for this is fantastic! I hear the movie is too. ADVENTURELAND (Dir. Greg Mottola) And also coming soon: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of REPO MAN (Dir. Alex Cox, 1984) An undeniable 80’s cult classic and a favorite from my youth. Thanks to Cool Classics @ The Colony I'll be able to see if it still holds up. If you're in the Triangle area you really ought to consider coming out for the Wednesday (the 18th) showing at 8:00 PM in North Raleigh. A 35 MM print of this dusted off punk flick with vintage trailers for $5.00 is impossible for me to pass up.

A Film Babble Blog Soundtrack Special - I've been working on this off and on for a while. A blogpost tribute to the soundtracks of my life. This will include another patented Film Babble Blog list about soundtracks that think outside the box office, i.e. albums that consist of more than just songs or pieces of music from said film. Works of audio art that are distinct in their use of film dialogue and purposeful re-editing of movie material. Any suggestions for this piece please send them on!

Coverage of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2009 (April 2nd-5th) A wonderful annual event in Durham, N.C. that I'm eager as Hell to blog about. Currently I'm going through the schedules trying to figure out which films I will attend - again, if you have any recommendations, please send them on! More later...