7/11/14: The Anarchist and the Damage Done

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Alessandro Mario, anarchists, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, based on a true story, cinema, crime film, Daniel Mooney, David Strathairn, Film, film reviews, historical drama, immigration, independent film, J. Edgar Hoover, James Madio, labor unions, Luigi Galleani, mail bombs, movie, Nicola Sacco, No God No Master, Ray Wise, rights of the workers, Sacco and Vanzetti, Sam Witwer, Sean McNall, terrorists, Terry Green, William Flynn, writer-director

Historical dramas walk a pretty difficult line, in many cases: they need to be close enough to the actual historical events to still be recognized as such but they also need to possess enough of the characteristics of fictional dramas to hold their own as actual cinematic narrative. Too much of the history and you might end up with something closer to a documentary, whereas too little history and you wind up with FDR: American Badass (2012).

In many ways, it’s to the credit of writer-director Terry Green’s No God, No Master (2012) that I didn’t realize I was watching something based on a true story until the character of Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Alessandro Mario) made his first appearance. At that point, however, my old high school history class kicked in and I knew that I was actually watching a fictionalized account of the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial from the 1920s. Sneaky move there, Terry.

Up to that point, Green’s film had been a well-made, interesting and rather modest film about the hunt for someone mailing package bombs to prominent political figures. The person doing the hunting is U.S. Bureau of Investigations Agent William Flynn (David Strathairn), a kind-hearted, straight-as-an-arrow lawman navigating the often choppy seas of political self-interest and crooked superior officers. He’s on the case after a young delivery boy is literally blown off his bicycle after dropping one of the package bombs. Together with his partner, Gino (Sam Witwer), William ends up tracing the bombs all the way to an anarchist rabble-rouser by the name of Luigi Galleani (Daniel Mooney). Seems that Galleani wants to bring the system down the old-fashioned way: violence. Hiding within plain sight by allying himself with local labor organizer Carlo Tresca (Edoardo Ballerini), Galleani plans to blow up the various rich and powerful members of a planning commission, including bigwigs like the mayor and John D. Rockefeller.

Politics rears its ugly head, however, when various crooked politicos like Attorney General Mitchell Palmer (Ray Wise) and J. Edgar Hoover (Sean McNall) attempt to use the bombing situation as a way to strike back at not only the anarchists but also at innocent immigrants and labor activists. Soon, William realizes that the people he works for are getting harder and harder to tell apart from the criminals he’s been hired to put away.

Into all of this, then, come the aforementioned real-life historical figures of Nicola Sacco (James Maddio) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti are a couple of idealistic, hard-working immigrants who also happen to be anarchists and end up getting swept up in the turbulent events of the time and ground into powder by the political system. The pair find themselves framed for a crime that they didn’t commit, tried and sentenced with no thought for actual justice and executed so as to “set an example” for any who might follow in their footsteps. This, then, is really no different from the actual historical record: the fictional Sacco and Vanzetti end up the same as their real-life counterparts.

What’s interesting, however, is how Green treats the pair like footnotes in the film. Truth be told, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti might be the weakest part of the film, feeling like more of an extraneous addition than anything actually necessary. It’s abundantly clear from the get-go that our protagonist and primary focus is the character of William Flynn: he’s the “traditional” hero, gets the most screen-time, as a complete character arc, gets a backstory, etc. Sacco and Vanzetti, on the other hand, are more like historical background, similar to the various U.S. Presidents and other historical figures who appear in the margins of films like Forrest Gump (1994) or The Butler (2013). We never learn enough about them to prevent them from seeming more like symbols or plot devices in the film than actual characters.

Minor quibbles aside, however, I genuinely enjoyed No God, No Master. Strathairn is excellent as William Flynn, portraying a character that manages to be tough as nails yet strangely soothing at the same time. In many ways, the film’s look and tone reminded me of a modern TV series such as Copper or Ripper Street and I kept imagining what it would be like to have a serial that followed the adventures of Strathairn’s Flynn. The rest of the cast is suitably good, with Wise doing one of his patented slimy villain roles and Mooney bringing a believably bug-eyed zeal to his portrayal of Galleani. The whole film has a well-made, glossy feel and clips along at an energetic pace: there’s never a point where anything drags and if the film can get occasionally heavy-handed (many of the courtroom speeches in the latter half are hammered home), it never succumbs to melodrama. If anything, Green has a habit of downplaying everything, which works nicely with Strathairn’s laid-back style.

As a character-driven political mystery, No God, No Master is quite good, although I’m not sure how the film stands on a strictly historical level. Certainly, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti feels tagged on, as if Green wanted to attach yet one more layer of relevance to the project. He needn’t have bothered: on its own, No God, No Master is an above-average drama and well worth a watch. If you’ve come strictly for the tale of Sacco and Vanzetti, however, you might be at the wrong place.

 

5/13/14: The Gary and Harrison Show

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Amber Heard, Angela Sarafyan, auteur theory, based on a book, cinema, Con Air, corporate intrigue, David Tattersall, Die Another Day, Embeth Davidtz, evil corporations, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford, industrial espionage, Jock Goddard, Josh Holloway, Junkie XL, Kevin Kilner, Killers, Legally Blonde, Liam Hemsworth, Lucas Till, Monster-in-Law, movie, Nicolas Wyatt, paranoia, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Luketic, spies, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, tech-thriller, technology, voice-over narration, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton

Ever gotten the faint idea that you’ve already heard or seen something even if you’re pretty sure you haven’t? Similar to deja vu, I’ll often get the nagging notion that I’ve already watched a particular film, even to the point where I’ll begin to “remember” scenes. I tend to have a very strange memory: it preserves some things in amber and tosses out quite a bit without hesitation. As such, I frequently find myself asking: have I already seen this before? It happened with John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (2005), a film which I ended up watching “for the first time” at least twice, if not three times: it’s a great film, don’t get me wrong, it just managed to pass unimpeded through the sieve of my mind on multiple occasions. As I watched Robert Luketic’s most recent film, Paranoia (2013), I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d already seen this before. Turns out I hadn’t but I had, in a way: I’d never seen this particular iteration of the formula before but I’ve seen plenty of soulless, created-by-committee, commercial product in my time. If there’s one thing that can be said about Paranoia, it’s that it features Harrison Ford…and he seems mostly awake, for a change.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a young, principled and ambitious go-getter gets tangled in the messy webs of corporate intrigue, leading him/her further down the rabbit hole as temptation, double-crosses and ulterior motives begin to fly fast and furious. Yeah, me too. It’s almost a tale as old as time…or at least as old as stories about the avarice and evil of the corporate world. Handsome, principled and ambitious young go-getter Adam (Liam Hemsworth) works at Wyatt Corp., doing the kind of vague tech stuff that everyone in tech-related films seem to do. He runs afoul of head ogre, Nicolas Wyatt (Gary Oldman, shoveling scenery down his gullet as fast as it’ll go) when he can’t come with a cool, innovative new idea: “You have everything at your disposal and come up with social networking on a TV?” Be nice, Wyatt: the filmmakers had quite a bit at their disposal, too and yet: here we are.

Adam and his “quirky” friends, Kevin (Lucas Til) and Allison (Angela Sarafyan) get canned but Adam’s still got the company credit card: who wants to par-tay? $16K (and one drunken hook-up with a mysterious blonde, played by Amber Heard) later and Adam’s up shit-creek with Wyatt. Good ol’ Nicolas, of course, has something up his sleeve: he’s Gary Oldman, after all, and that dude is just untrustworthy. He wants Adam to infiltrate the tech company, Eikon, run by his former partner, and current bitter rival, Jock Goddard (Harrison Ford). Adam is to insinuate himself in the group and steal the plans for Goddard’s newest “genius” invention, some sort of a spiffy new iPhone. When Adam balks, because he’s got principles and stuff, Wyatt reminds him of his position: “Are you a horse or a dog, Adam? Horses are motivated by fear, dogs by hunger.” Since Adam needs to pay $40K in medical bills for his ailing father (an utterly, absolutely, completely wasted Richard Dreyfuss), he doesn’t have a lot of choices: Cue up “Who Let the Dogs Out,” cuz Adam’s on the payroll.

After meeting with Goddard’s hiring agent, Tom Lungren (Kevin Kilner), Adam also gets to meet his assistant: if you guessed Amber Heard, reward yourself by tagging out of the film. His former bed-partner, Emma, is super suspicious of Adam but, then again, the film is called Paranoia…whatcha gonna do? Adam gets a job and ends up wowing Goddard with his ability to take other people’s ideas and repackage them: he’s the perfect corporate guy! As Adam gets deeper and deeper under cover, things begin to get more dangerous: Wyatt’s sinister right-hand man, Miles (Julian McMahon), is always lurking in the shadows, Goddard seems to be on to something and Emma is falling hard for Adam (who wouldn’t? Guy’s got abs for miles.). When FBI agent Gamble (Josh Holloway) enters the picture and lets Adam know that the feds have Wyatt in their cross-hairs and need Adam’s help to snare him, what’s a young, principled and ambitious go-getter to do? Many double-crosses and needlessly complex back-and-forth later, we find out.

Folks, unless this is one of the first films you’ve ever seen (which is entirely possible, what do I know?), there is absolutely, positively nothing here that you haven’t seen before, probably in much more interesting ways. The story is moldy and features so many gaping holes that I’m guessing they were on purpose: if you thought the “heroic” T-rex in Jurassic Park was a deus ex machina, wait until you get to the part in Paranoia where the whole success of Adam’s plan hinges on the fact that his cellphone won’t be fried after getting dunked in a pitcher of water. There’s no reason it should keep working but it has to, to further the plot, and so it does. The final doublecross is equally ludicrous, requiring so much suspension of disbelief that we’re pretty much in Space Jam land: I believed everything Bugs did in that movie way more than I believe anything that these idiots do in this film.

The acting is what it is: Hemsworth is handsome and bland; Oldman is both ridiculously over-the-top and strangely deflated, as if he were coming down from a week-long crack bender; Ford, as mentioned earlier, actually seems awake and aware, for a change. I’m not saying that anything in his performance will make people forget his iconic roles (or even forget the fact that, nowadays, he seems higher than Doug Benson whenever he makes public appearances) but he definitely seems aware and there’s a tiny (a minuscule, smaller-than-a-pinprick) bit of his old chutzpah here. Watching Paranoia strictly for Ford’s performance would be a fool’s errand, of course, but he’s definitely not the worst thing in the film.

Director Luketic is something of a middle-of-the-road, paint-by-numbers auteur, since he was also responsible for Legally Blonde (2001), Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (2004), Monster-in-Law (2005), 21 (2008), The Ugly Truth (2009) and Killers (2010). The one common thread in Luketic’s canon is his polished, bland style, so airbrushed that everything looks like it was poured from a mold. Veteran cinematographer David Tattersall handles the camera for this one: his previous films included the Star Wars prequels, Con Air (1997), Die Another Day (2002), XXX: State of the Union (2005) and Speed Racer (2008). Tattersall specializes in big, glossy productions and Paranoia is no exception, albeit a much shallower one than even State of the Union. Paranoia is technically proficient, sure, but it’s also hollow.

Basically, you have a director and cinematographer that specialize in big, empty images; a cast that phones the whole thing in; copious slo-mo and pounding techno music (courtesy of Junkie XL) to show how badass the whole thing is; a vague, unsatisfying message about bringing down “the man” while lining your own pockets; and enough dumb coincidence to drive any other film into the ground. Even as a time-waster on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Paranoia comes up short. I can almost guarantee that this isn’t the worst film you’ll see this year: it can’t even make that commitment. Instead, Paranoia is just another lazy example of how truly artless modern action films can be. There’s nothing here to offend but there’s also not much to remember, either.

3/12/14: Like? Perhaps. Love? Not quite.

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American Civil War, Angels & Airwaves, astronauts, Capt. Lee Miller, cinema, confusing, film reviews, films, Gunner Wright, history of the world, humanity, insanity, instrumental score, International Space Station, isolation, Love, movie, music-based films, outer space, sci-fi, space station, stranded in space, stylish films, William Eubank, writer-director

I watch films for a lot of different reasons but one of the simplest (and most frequently disappointing) reason is out of curiosity. Sometimes, I’ll see box art, a title or a concept that just seems too intriguing to pass up, if definitively less than “must-see.” Over the years, my curiosity has led me in the direction of some genuinely great films (Lo, Botched, Stitches, Taxidermia) and some genuinely wretched films (Shuttle, The Hamiltons, The Hunt, Primal, The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, ad infinitum), along with a slew of films that I can’t even recall watching. Recently, my curiosity finally got the better of me and I watched Love, the sci-fi film featuring a musical score by Angels & Airwaves. I suspected a vanity project but was hoping there might be something here for a non-fan. In the end, this ended up being one odd film.

At its heart, Love is actually a few different films jammed together. The most interesting (and most cohesive) is the story of an astronaut (Gunner Wright) who ends up stranded on the International Space Station by himself. There’s also some sort of documentary in here, featuring lo-fi talking head interviews with various people about such fascinating topics as making the best of bad situations, how important communication is and how environment can affect relationships. There’s a bit of high-end music videos here, as well, as certain scenes are merely silent collections of images scored by instrumental Angel’s & Airwaves songs. There’s also something about the Civil War here but that part is so confusing and disjointed that is might actually be part of the astronaut story-line: I was never quite sure. Taken separately, only one of the disparate threads (the astronaut) one is actually worth anything: mixed together, it’s a bit like someone making a stew out of lamb, spaghetti and Mylar balloons.

If the astronaut story-line mimics the essential beats of the far-superior Moon a bit too much, at least it’s aping superior source material. This portion of the film, on its own, would actually have made a pretty interesting, modest little sci-fi flick. Wright is decent as Capt. Lee Miller, although his gradual progression into insanity doesn’t quite work and his eventual residence there, consisting of shameless mugging and eye-rolling, is pretty idiotic. Aesthetically, Love owes a lot to Kubrick’s 2001, as well as newer sci-fi films like Moon. Love’s astronaut sections exist in a very sterile, antiseptic, hospital-white environment: most of this is quite beautifully shot, particularly one gorgeous section where Miller goes to repair some equipment while encircled by lights. This scene actually reminded me (favorably) of things in 2001 and my only complaint was that it didn’t have more company. Nonetheless, the astronaut portions are definitely watchable, particularly for space fans looking for an easy fix.

However, one must also sit through the pretentious interview portions, a conceit which doesn’t even bear fruit by the film’s admittedly ambitious finale. The interviews are poorly staged, tedious and only occasionally relevant to anything that we’ve seen or heard. Only slightly more relevant, though vastly more confusing, are the Civil War segments. I never fully understood their relevance, although I have a few educated guesses. My honest opinion? I think that writer/director William Eubank’s ambition far-outweighed his ability to deliver a cohesive script. Ambition is great but an ambitious miss is still a miss, no matter how you look at it.

Ultimately, Love is a wildly ambitious but, unfortunately, rather unsuccessful film. The filmmakers have great reference points and, from what I could tell, the best of intentions. The film looks pretty good, especially in the space sections, and the finale is quite thought-provoking. On the other hand, the film is wildly fractured, due to too many disparate elements and story-lines and Gunner Wright isn’t quite up to the task of carrying the astronaut portions almost solely on his shoulders. With a tighter script and more focus, Love might have actually been able to approach the realms of a lesser Moon. As it is, however, the film feels less like a musical vanity project and more like a first-time director’s attempt to get on the board. It’s a good effort but I’m guessing that we’ll see better from Eubank in the future.

 

The VHS Graveyard is Alive!!

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Arts, Film, Hollywood, horror, horror films, movie, VHS, Westerns

Welcome, one and all, to my first attempt at this thing they call blogging. As with most things, I like to be as behind the curve as possible: hence, I figured I would flog this dead horse for awhile. Since this is my first attempt at an official blog, I would imagine that (visually) this will probably look like a small child’s attempts at same. As long as the small child has something to say, this shouldn’t be a problem.

What wonders and/or annoyances will await brave readers within these cyber-walls? For the most part, you’ll probably see lots of film reviews, as well as ruminations on film topics. I don’t really have any hobbies aside from watching movies, so I wouldn’t expect to see many posts about my scuba trip to Aruba (Spoiler: I didn’t go).

There might be the occasional aside on music here and there, since that tends to be my only other field of interest but, for the most part, you’ll be receiving one thing and one thing only: a spot next to me on the couch as I attempt to watch every film ever made. As a rule, I tend to watch 2- 3 films a day, although weekends are virtual film festivals. Therefore, there will be alot of film discussion flying around here.

What do I watch? Anything and everything, although I tend to specialize in horror films and value foreign over domestic in almost every other category. I will watch, although don’t prefer, big Hollywood “tentpole” pictures and tend to despise remakes and their sneaky cousins “re-imaginings” with every fiber of my being. I have a particular affinity for Westerns (especially spaghetti westerns), old Hollywood musicals, documentaries, “grindhouse” films and, of course, horror films of all shape and size. I tend to seek out the obscure and strange, although just about anything will draw my attention.

As a rule, I don’t turn a film off, no matter how bad the thing gets. I have broken this rule, of course (some films are so wretched as to serve as forms of mental torture and should be treated as such) but I try to follow this as much as possible. I’ve often seen a mediocre (or bad) film take an abrupt shift into glory and these are often my favorite finds.

And there you have it: The VHS Graveyard (named for my lifelong long of video) will feature opinionated film reviews from a lifelong cinema junkie. Discussions are, of course, welcome and encouraged. I enjoy arguing as much as the next person (that’s a complete lie: I enjoy arguing more than any person who ever walked this green earth) and think that film is as good a thing to debate as anything else.

So, welcome to my humble abode. Feel free to stop in anytime. VHS may be all but dead, but in 2014…the Graveyard is alive!