BURIED: The Film Babble Blog Review

BURIED (Dir. Rodrigo Cortés, 2010)

After cool retro Saul Bass-style opening titles a pitch black screen greets us. We hear heavy breathing and thudding. Finally Ryan Reynolds lights a zippo lighter and we're right there with him - trapped in a wooden coffin buried underground.

Reynolds panics, sweats profusely, claws at the wall, etc. A cell phone at his feet rings. He retrieves it with some difficulty to find that its an Arabic language model. Reynolds calls every number he can think of mostly getting answering machines before getting somebody on the phone from the Hostage Working Group in Iraq voiced by Robert Patterson.

That's right - Reynolds is a non-military working stiff truck driver buried alive in a war-torn Iraq in 2006.

Reynolds is told on the cellphone by a man (José Luis García Pérez) who denies being a terrorist that he has until 9:00 PM (just a few hours) to get his embassy to pay $5 million dollars for his release.

There are some abstract shots through the darkness surrounding our protagonist but the bulk of the entire film takes place inside the coffin.

We never see any other face but Reynolds but there are few recognizable voices on the other end of the phone besides Patterson including Samantha Mathis and Stephen Tobolowsky.

It would be tempting to joke that Reynolds couldn't act his way out of a sealed coffin because years ago I would've loved seeing Van Wilder get buried alive, but his performance is truly excellent here.

It's a convincing and emotional tour de force that kept me riveted from start to finish. It's also admirable that he chose this project as a welcome change of pace from rom coms like THE PROPOSAL and action tripe like WOLVERINE that has been dominating his career.

As chilling a scenario as could be imagined, BURIED is a grueling unpleasant experience in a lot of respects but its such a vital and gripping minimalist nightmare of a movie that it really shouldn't be ignored. It's the right time of the year for a fright and here director Cortés's Hitchcockian thrust really delivers.

"Buried" is now playing at the Colony Theater in North Raleigh. Consult the theater's website for show-times.

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A New Documentary Asks WHO Is HARRY NILSSON?

WHO IS HARRY NILSSON (AND WHY IS EVERYBODY TALKING ABOUT HIM?) (Dir. John Scheinfeld, 2006)

The long silly title of this film obviously pokes fun at the fact that these days not many people are likely to know who Harry Nilsson was.

But if you are a fan of the Beatles, the Monkees, or Monty Python you are likely to have at least a tiny inkling of the late semi-legendary singer songwriter.

Also you may know his Grammy winning cover of Fred Neil's “Everybody’s Talking” (the theme song for MIDNIGHT COWBOY) or his hit singles “Without You” and “Coconut.”

Nilsson’s soundtrack for Robert Altman’s POPEYE (1980) may also be familiar.

This fascinating and fast paced documentary tells Nilsson’s story extremely well taking us from his impoverished beginnings through flirtations with fame and sadly concluding with his despondent later years when his voice was shot and his stock at an all time low.

It was a career doomed by drinking and drugs as well as his being terrified to sing his songs live.

A roster of famous friends including Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees, the Smothers Brothers, Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Terry Gilliam and many others appear in interview segments to praise Nilsson as well as bury him with their frank depictions of the unruly talent.

But it’s the music that makes the movie roll. We get a good sense of how Nilsson was a one man Beatles – a notion confirmed in the late ‘60s when a “White Album” era John Lennon named him as his favorite “group”, not “performer” mind you.

Hundreds of photographs and lots of juicy archival footage are hauntingly serenaded by Nilsson’s smooth croon and even in lip synched appearances on TV shows such as “Beat Club” Nilsson’s charisma shines through.

Nilsson’s rowdy friendship with ex-Beatle Ringo Starr is given a lot of weight - their projects SON OF DRACULA and the popular children's cartoon "The Point" are touched upon nicely.

With its conventional narrative WHO IS HARRY NILSSON doesn’t break any new musical bio doc ground, but with its wealth of great material, focused scope, and loving detail, that’s fine by me.

It’s a purposeful portrait of a jewel in the rough – a tortured artist with an affecting spirit even when he was scrapping the bottom of the barrel.

Sadly this film never made it theatrically to the Raleigh area. Fortunately it is now available on DVD and streaming on Netflix Instant.

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THE TILLMAN STORY: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE TILLMAN STORY (Dir. Amir Bar-Lev, 2010)

The square jawed intensity that one of this documentary’s participants describes of its subject Pat Tillman is seen in the very first shot after the opening credits.

It’s a video close-up of Tillman for some sort of promotional football spot for his team, the Arizona Cardinals.

In it Tillman takes direction from a voice off camera and he is clearly uncomfortable yet performs the task with confidence.

As narrator Josh Brolin tells us, Tillman left a multimillion-dollar football contract to join the military in 2002. He was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. This was covered up by higher ups who wove a complex web of distortion of the real circumstances.

Tillman’s family, including his youngest brother Richard who was on the same tour of duty, weren’t satisfied with what they were being told. A wealth of documents and other soldier’s recollections painted a far different picture.

Through the media Tillman became a symbol of the Bush administration’s bogus Iraq war narrative as details of his character were trotted out for their own ends. He was a Noam Chomsky reading, all religion tolerating atheist, All American sports star, so, of course, he was an image to be manipulated into a tool of propaganda.

The man’s mother Mary “Danni” Tillman, dives into investigating her son’s death, calling every single person involved and trying to decipher 3,000 pages of redacted documents with the help of Stan Goff, an ex-military man turned activist blogger.

“The Tillman Story” is as incredibly moving as it is angering in its exploration of a massive spin operation. In its use of archival footage, photographs, and interviews there’s not a wasted moment in its masterful construction.

When evidence suggests that the tragic event was the result of not “the fog of war” but what Tillman’s mother calls “the lust of war” – Tillman’s fellow soldiers’ gun crazy thirst for combat – the film has us firmly in its grip and doesn’t let go.

Director Bar-Lev, whose previous doc MY KID COULD PAINT THAT was also a winner, shifts from development to development in a highly engaging manner. The obligatory ominous background music never intrudes in a Michael Moore manner, and the film never indulges in anything but the facts.

And the facts as presented are overwhelming.

The governmental gaps in the facts not only disrespect Tillman, his family, and the public record, they insult the entire system for which he lost his life.

THE TILLMAN STORY is by far one of the best, if not the best, documentaries of the year. As unpleasant and sickening as the story it tells often is, its power comes from the courage and strength of the family left behind, which no doubt will touch and inspire many movie goers.

That is if the masses that normally ignore modern war documentaries actually give it a chance.

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