DaMarco-2 Reviews

Poker Face (2023– )

Murder She Wrote gets an update in a water opportunity

[5/10 · 23 March 2023]

The ads for this looked great and Natasha Lyonne is always a welcome talent. This role is perfect for her. A person who knows when people are lying with a strange instinct living and working in Las Vegas? Why did it take them so long to come up with an idea this great?

Unfortunately, the show doesn't explore this premise beyond the first episode. After the plot twists there, Natasha is suddenly on the lam from the proverbial bad guys. She's out of Vegas and the plot moves away from that clever premise.

Natasha is now on the road while being pursued and uncannily meets up with people who are murdered. She solves the crimes and moves on while still being pursued. It isn't the clever show that explores lies and why people tell them. It's just "Murder She Wrote" crossed with "Route 66." The intrigue of the original concept is lost and we're left with murder mystery of the week.

The show is well-acted and well done but it's just a perfunctory murder mystery instead of an observation of people and the lies they tell.

Fahrenheit 451 (2018)

The Movie Burns Fahrenheit 451

[2/10 · 7 June 2018]

In so many ways this movie strays far from a book that didn't need embellishment or change. It was all right there on the page. So, this movie, adapted from a novel about burning books, uses a script that burns the original text in effigy, with its writer/director missing the irony all the while.

Of course, "Fahrenheit 451" is about more than just burning books. It is really about destroying all sorts of philosophies, artistic expression, free thinking, and sagacious wisdom. The film touches on that but creates a new narrative that has little to do with the lessons of the original story.

The opening starts well enough, with the classic pieces of literature and great art burning away and seemingly setting the tone for the message.

But what happened to the message? From here, the film goes into its own creation of ideas, none of them good. While the novel is set in no particular place, the film chooses Cleveland as the locale for these events. The firemen are heroes whose exploits are all over TV and social media. They practice a military-like brand of machismo and are practically the pro athletes of the future.

Changes from the novel are disastrous choices. While Guy is married to a despondent woman named Mildred in the book, here he is single, which removes one of the many sources of his confused allegiance and some necessary conflict for the story. In the novel Clarisse is a youthful, optimistic, free-thinking girl but in the film she is a gothic, post-college radical about ten years older. It's like taking Dorothy from the "Wizard of Oz" and transmorphing her into Patty Hearst. Clarisse is meant to bring some light into Guy's empty world but here she is turned into a potential lover and one of the reasons he strays from his job of burning books. The film's Clarisse is nowhere near as engaging or likable as the one in the book, despite being on the right side of the political divide.

The second greatest crime in this faulty adaptation is that the film is dull and protracted. While it has exciting and engaging visuals, the pace is slow and the events are dragged out, with little to no character development. And then there are the film's inventions, which border on the absurd. The society of people who memorize books have put their DNA into a bird that is supposed to...what? Fly out into the world and spread it's (and literature's) seed? Does this make sense to anyone?

Moreover, HBO was cheap and lazy with this production, using a very recognizable 2018 downtown Los Angeles as a substitute for futuristic Cleveland. This reminds me of the 1970s, when L.A.'s Bonaventure Hotel stood in as New Chicago for "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century." If they didn't want to spring for a special effects skyline, couldn't they have just used the real Cleveland? Or at least the skyline of another world city that is less recognizable to Americans like Helsinki or Johannesburg?

When I first heard Michael B. Jordan was cast as Guy Montag, I was delighted. I think he's an extraordinary actor and one need only revisit "Fruitvale Station" to see why. But not only do they put him to terrible use in this, I was really uncomfortable watching an African American actor playing a character who struggles to read, given the abhorrent track record our nation has with providing fair and equal education to minorities. Those scenes made an entirely different statement than the what the producers thought they were making.

Worst of all, this was not just a bore but a very dark one at that. It's never daytime, it's never sunny, and there's never any reason to believe people in this film's self-contained society would feel any reason to not join a revolt. There is no joy in this society, and the "bread & circus" of burning books hardly seems like enough to enthrall the inhabitants of this dystopia.

One of the flaws of the novel was its climax, the nuclear bomb destruction of the principal city by an unnamed enemy. To the reader it comes as a complete surprise and plays as a deus ex machina. Also, Bradbury wrote it just a few years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there was very little knowledge about nuclear fallout, so his characters go back into the city afterwards with the limited information of the 1950s. Nonetheless, this was a central point about the self-destruction of society, and an update of that idea could easily have been used here. It isn't and the film is the lesser for it.

As a fan of the novel, I am truly disappointed. Like so many others, I appreciate the Truffaut's 1966 film made in Great Britain with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner, but it always had a very British personality. I'll grant the story has a universal theme but I did want to see what an American production could do with this material. Based on this film, I am still waiting.

Call Me by Your Name (2017)

The Un-Gay Gay Movie

[3/10 · 18 May 2018]

As a gay man myself, my approach to this film is that of someone who is happy to see a mainstream(ish) movie about a gay relationship. What a shame they didn't make one.

The public embrace of this film by movie audiences, and especially by gay filmgoers, is completely baffling to me. This is not a gay film. This is a movie about two straight men, who inexplicably have a gay experience.

The movie takes place in Italy during the violent Years of Lead, but there is no mention of those historic events. Instead, an American professor and his Italian wife and their family are living in one of those idyllic Italian homes in the middle of an apricot orchard. Mind you, these people have none of the responsibility of the orchard's upkeep or harvest. They are just the family of a gentleman farmer, which is a phrase that means "one who enjoys the benefits of a farm but does none of the hard work."

The family's oldest son, Elio, played wonderfully by Timothée Chalamet, is in the middle of a summer that requires nothing of him. And like so many misguided filmmakers who think ennui is a substitute for atmosphere and action, the writer and director have us following Elio through the boring pattern of his life. It's just a series of lingering shots that never even bother to capture the beauty of a region deserving of breathtaking cinematography. During this summer, Elio has a girlfriend, Marzia, with whom he has sex and evidently with no qualms or problems.

Enter the tall, beautiful, blond graduate student Oliver, played with equal aplomb by Armie Hammer, in the kind of performance we knew he had in him but that Hollywood has avoided allowing from him in dreck like "The Lone Ranger." Oliver is under the tutelage of Elio's professor father and he is likable and friendly, though he possesses the cavalier air of a carefree middle-class American. Elio observes that Oliver fails to say a proper goodbye, but simply substitutes a casual, "Later" for partings.

After a far too protracted period of more ennui, Elio and Oliver strike up a friendship that has them going swimming, riding bikes, traversing the countryside, and taking in the proverbial local color. And then, suddenly, they have sex.

For no apparent reason, these two have sex. They haven't exchanged a single furtive glance, a moment of seduction, a tempestuous conversation, or playful touching of skin. Imagine you're watching the wine country film "Sideways" and in the middle of the 2nd act, Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden-Church, completely sober, just jumped into the sack and had sex for no apparent reason. There are equal amounts of flirting and sexual energy between both pairs of men in both films.

It is understandable that gay men, living in a place and time when homosexuality was still considered taboo, would conceal their attraction to each other. What is not understandable is that when they are alone or in private moments (before the sex scene), they never share a single smile or longing expression. If you went into this movie cold, with no publicity telling you it was a gay film, their sex would catch you by surprise. Oliver is always with a beautiful woman and did I mention Elio's much too successful sex with his girlfriend? Sure they're gay, evidently, but they sure as hell seem to need a beginners guide to understanding and communicating their attraction.

Reviews and synopses of this film explain the events that we are told happen but they really don't. They will say that Elio has a sexual relationship with Marzia and brags about it in front of Oliver to gauge his reaction, but nonetheless finds himself increasingly attracted to Oliver.

Um, really? Who told you that? Because nothing in this film tells us that at all. This is a film about two men ignoring each other while not pretending to be straight, but just flat out BEING straight....until suddenly they're not. Trolls and defenders will argue that anyone wanting more cues of their affections need everything spelled out for them. But you can't have a film that is constantly spelling out S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T and then suddenly shift into gay gear. It's misleading not only to the audience but to far too many straight people who already think two gay men in a room with each other will eventually have sex.

Spelling out their attraction could only have helped this movie because they do nothing interesting. They're in Italy in a tempest-tossed period of history but they don't seem to know it. Like all those films where Americans or Brits buy houses in Tuscany or Umbria or whatever, it's impossible to relate to their plight of being rich and bored.

Adding to the complexities of this film's failings is how the men look as though they are about two decades apart in age. Elio is 17 but Chalamet looks for all the world like he is 13, with his hairless, skinny, undeveloped body. Meanwhile, the dashing Hammer's character is 24 but looks every bit of 34.

In a movie year when Kevin Spacey was literally removed and replaced from the movie "All the Money in the World" for being grabby and inappropriate with young men while he was still in his 20s, this movie plows right ahead with this coupling and audiences and critics offered nary a word about how this MAN is suddenly having sex with this post-adolescent.

And then there's the absurd title. Take this moment to ponder what I am going to ask you. Contemplate the nature of someone you love. What is it that makes them special?

You know the answer immediately. It is their whole sense of "otherness," their particular blend of quirks and charm that delight you and fills you with their energy. Now, what sums up all that person is that captivates you? His or her name. You love saying it. You love hearing it. You love being reminded that this person exists in the world by hearing their name aloud. So, who in their right mind thought it would be charming for lovers to call each other by their own names? And not only that, but the moment in which these two start shouting their own names is just ridiculous! They appear to be unable to forget themselves and celebrate each other. It plays as badly timed narcissism.

That all being said, there are three lovely performances in this despite the enervated direction and content of the film. Timothée Chalamet earned his Oscar nod for inhabiting Elio so comfortably and playing him so smartly. Armie Hammer possesses all the physical gifts along with the self-entitled air that makes for the privileged American. One hopes this is the beginning of a career of great performances in the right material. As usual, Michael Stuhlbarg delivers a wonderful performance as Elio's father, and he delivers a lovely speech near the end of the film that will pull you in.

The ending of the film is beautiful and baffling at the same time. It is December and Oliver has returned home. He calls from the United States and talks to Elio's parents before talking to Elio himself. Oliver and Elio discuss their summer fling, about which Elio reveals his parents know about it. Then Oliver casually tells Elio that he is marrying a woman in the U.S.

Watching Elio's heart-rending reaction is the beautiful part. Chalamet finally gets to break free and emote and show how he feels about Oliver.

The baffling part is Oliver's complete ease after learning Elio's parents know about the relationship. Granted the parents are liberal and open-minded, but all parents stop being so liberal when they learn that one of their pre-adult children had sex with an adult houseguest. From the viewpoint of liberal or prude, the fact remains that Oliver betrayed the trust of his hosts. So if he is pent up with fear that he would be found out as gay that he is marrying a woman (or the alternative version that he wants an open relationship that can't had with a man in 1980s America), then why isn't he appropriately scared? Instead he is unbothered to learn Elio's parents know about their relationship, so there is a contradiction afoot: Either he is such a slave to society's thinking that he is marrying a woman, and, hence he would be alarmed at the news of Elio's parents' knowledge of their affair, or he isn't constrained by such fears, which means he wouldn't be wasting his time marrying a woman. At the very least, his Oliver's affair with Elio wouldn't be considered proper behavior for a grad student in the eyes of parents if not the letter of the law.

Yet this conundrum sums up the whole film. It is constantly removing conflict, hence removing any reason to watch it. The closest to a disagreement anyone comes is a playful spat between Elio and Oliver about how the former plays the piano. It's a good enough moment to make you think the movie is going to kick in but, of course, it doesn't. It never does. It's just one boring moment of non-conflicting ennui after another.

The movie was made from the source novel by the same name and a friend encouraged me to read it. I did and....WOW! What a great book. The very first pages tell us about Elio's longing and attraction for Oliver...you know...the way human beings function by revealing their desires. It's a great book that is heartfelt and open and explains why so many people had an idea of what to expect when they saw this film. It would make a great movie. What a shame this movie isn't it. A sad and total waste of an opportunity for a film that will not age well into the future.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

Sequelitis ramps up action, loses charm

[6/10 · 25 September 2017]

For movie audiences, the original 'Kingsman' came out of nowhere, though fanboys knew and loved the source material. With an excellent leading man in Taron Egerton as Eggsy, and the best mentor one could want in Colin Firth as Harry, who, ironically looks like he could be the former's dad, 'Kingsman' was the surprise hit of 2014. As with 'Men in Black,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' and other adaptations of under-the-radar comic books, the film surprised because of its well-formed mythology right out of the gate.

And as with the sequels to those other comic adaptions, Kingsman's 2nd outing suffers the problem of bigger, louder, more! The first film was no wallflower with violence, but it certainly had softer moments to create the kind of balance a film needs. Not the case with this movie, which falls into that same pattern of having a villain who wants to destroy the world. Whatever happened to the Lex Luthors who just want to rule Metropolis?

Julianne Moore is a hoot as faux-sweet drug lord, Poppy, whose wish is to get her drugs into the hands of all people. In effort to do this, she has poisoned the illegal drug-using world and offers the antidote only if the President of the United States will end the 'war on drugs.'

To further her plan and remove all distractions, Poppy has taken out all of the Kingsman except for Egerton's Eggsy and tech guru Merlin, played by the always reliable and charismatic Mark Strong. The two men glean clues to go to the United States to get help.

The American portion turns into a bizarre amalgam of everything Europeans seem to know about the rural culture of the United States. When the men realize they must cross the Atlantic, Strong is singing the John Denver song 'Take Me Home, Country Roads,' which is about West Virginia, and then the tune of that song swells with orchestral strains as the two men go to...Kentucky? Well, at least they are neighboring states and do share the Ohio River. But both are Eastern states and so it makes no sense why the American characters are all dressed like they're from Wyoming, wearing cowboy boots, hats, and lariats, and talk with Texas accents. The exteriors all look more like Arizona, with a bar simply named Saloon (???!!!) sitting on a plot of dust, instead being surrounded by Kentucky's famous bluegrass.

While the British Kingsman are named after knights, the American Statesman are named after alcohol: Whiskey, Tequila, and Champagne. Wouldn't it have been cooler if they had been named after American legends like Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill?

This movie has no intention to get American geography or lore correct. I have no doubt Hollywood has truncated England's heritage and history countless times, so turnabout is only fair play. It's not offensive, its just discomfiting. It's the equivalent of having a football crazed fan from Nottingham be a huge Manchester United fan while always wearing a City jersey.

Once in Kentucky at the whiskey distillery, Eggsy and Merlin stumble upon Channing Tatum, who charms audiences, while he interrogates the two men. They learn Tatum is part of the Statesman, the American cousin of the Kingsman. Then Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry show up to play the head of the group and the techie, respectively, and they reveal that they have Colin Firth's Harry Hart under their care. Take that in. This film has four leading Oscar winning actors in supporting roles! That's the punishment they get for aging past 50!

Also strange, Tatum's character becomes ill and is put on ice (it's a fantasy world, remember) and is gone for the rest of the film except for the denouement. The action part is handed over to Pedro Pascal of 'Game of Thrones' and 'Narcos' fame, and he is made up to perfectly resemble Burt Reynolds in 'Smokey and the Bandit,' a reference that seems to only be there for older audiences as it is never called out. Pascal is fine and deserves his credit, but it's obvious Tatum was only brought in for just enough scenes to create the illusion of it being one of his films. If you saw the trailer, you saw practically every scene he's in.

To go over the plot from here would be to exhume the body of every movie being made in the 2010s. It gets convoluted and action crazy very fast, and will take our characters around the world. Have you seen a comic book or action movie in the past ten years? Then you have seen the entire third act of this movie. Good guys prevail, bad guys get killed, and all amid a lot of gunplay and bloodshed.

Also, and I say this as an American, why does Poppy ask the U.S. President to legalize drugs while she holds the rest of the world hostage? He has no jurisdiction anywhere but the United States and no power to tell other nations what to do. How are the world's leaders omitted from this, except for the fact all the money is going to special effects and high caliber stars rather than a cast playing world leaders?

'Kingsman 2' is not a waste of time but it is nowhere as good as the first. And one does wonder if the whole Statesman idea is a way of spinning off another franchise. If so, let's hope someone with greater geographical knowledge of the United States writes the screenplay, which doesn't necessarily mean he or she has to be an American.

What the world does need is more Taron Egerton. He's made only one non-animated film between the Kingsman movies and he's the best young actor to come up since, well, Channing Tatum's debut. Put Egerton to work before he wins his Oscar and turns 50 and can't play leads anymore.

30 for 30: Requiem for the Big East (2014) Season 2, Episode 17

Big East college conference misses the irony of its own elitism

[3/10 · 12 November 2014]

There's always a strange dissonance one experiences whenever he or she witnesses New Yorkers either pretending to be the underdog, or somehow deluded into believing that they actually are the underdog. They have the world at their feet in a city that has everything and rules everyone. How can they be an underdog? That's the feeling everyone outside of the Northeast will feel as they watch this very slanted, very prejudice-laden documentary.

"Requiem for the Big East" isn't so much a requiem as a melancholy anthem for such self-delusion.

Here's the back story: American college sports have always been divided by regional conferences that promoted their teams and encouraged exciting rivalries. The Midwest has the Big 10, the Atlantic Coast states have the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), the Mid and Deep South has the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and the Pacific Coast states have the Pac 10, just to name the four conferences with which this documentary is preoccupied.

However, despite a plethora of prominent schools, the Northeast had no storied conference unifying their college teams. Step in Dave Gavitt, basketball coach and athletic director at Providence College in Rhode Island. Through smart strategy, brilliant networking and a lot of chutzpah, he manages to create the Big East conference with his own school and St. John's, Georgetown, Syracuse, Seton Hall, Connecticut (UConn) and Boston College. A little later they were joined by Pittsburgh (Pitt) and Villanova. Because Gavitt is a basketball coach, and these schools were best at that sport, The Big East starts as a basketball-only conference.

These schools are all located in the power base of the American cities: New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and Pittsburgh, their suburbs and a few smaller cities not too far away. That these cities always gave/give the cold shoulder to college sports in lieu of their pro teams is never examined as a reason these colleges don't have the legacies of the other conferences and schools, which they so admire. The Northeastern newspapers barely even cover college sports! How can Boston College achieve the notoriety of North Carolina, Michigan, UCLA or Louisiana State when its hometown media are so busy ignoring them for the Boston Celtics NBA team?

As the conference formation is shown in the film, we are plied with the familiar tropes of the Northeast, as people in these wealthy places suddenly find their ethnicity (in this case Italian) and play it for all its worth as an underdog conference that "don't get no respect." Much is made of the fact these coaches and players are all an ethnic mix compared to the rest of American teams, and that would be applause-worthy were it not for the elitist attitude these same coaches and the filmmaker himself exhibit later in the movie when the conference adds other college programs.

It is fun to see the early broadcast days of ESPN as it became the de facto sports network for The Big East. While the rest of the Northeastern media are ignoring their teams, ESPN (based in Connecticut) wisely builds on its locality, and fits hand-in-glove with the conference. The quid pro quo of promotion of network and conference are an easy fit, and both rise together.

The part of this film that works is really all the film should have been about to begin with, which was the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry. The coaches of these two teams seemed to live to humiliate the other's school, especially in conference games. Their commentary is colorful and witty and had this film been only an hour long (as it should have been) they would have boosted the quality of the project infinitely.

Unfortunately the last third of this film is devoted to what the Big East coaches saw as the devolution of the conference, which is when it had to add other schools for the sake of football's growing influence on budgets. With sneering disdain, the coaches offer that they had to add Miami, West Virginia, and Virginia Tech. These men who sold themselves as the down-to-earth Italian street kids at the doc's beginning, suddenly find their Northeastern haughtiness as they lament having to play in these places they clearly consider to be beneath them.

Even worse, the filmmaker, Ezra Edelman, a Yale graduate, buys into this snobbery and even promotes it. Moments after justifiably explaining the deplorable racism Georgetown player Patrick Ewing experienced, Edelman introduces the induction of West Virginia into the conference with the most offensive and bigoted stereotype one could possibly muster. The banjos of the "Deliverance" theme play as rural man (playing a hillbilly?) stomp dances on the porch of a shotgun shack! And while he's assassinating the character of other schools for their crime of being outside the Northeast, the director overlooks some embarrassing details in the conference team's histories, like the Boston College game fixing scandal of the 1970s.

It is at this point the entire film loses its thesis and our sympathy. One can't root for the underdog when the underdog is too busy looking down its snout at the rest of us. The coaches who growled about having to play at Miami, West Virginia and Virginia Tech, then growl about the schools leaving the conference for sunnier pastures, and taking Syracuse with them. After watching the last 30 minutes of the film, one can only cheer on the departing schools and enjoy the demise of a conference that formerly held our respect.

This movie is not a waste of your time if you are a college sports fan. If you have the luxury of seeing it on DVR or DVD, you will likely want to fast forward about 15 minutes and end it before the conference expands. It is this core part of the film that was all that was worth exploring.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (2008)

Beloved novel is drained of its wit in film

[6/10 · 28 June 2010]

Michael Chabon is one of our generation's greatest writers, having earned the acclaim of awards and prizes that he deserves. "Wonder Boys" was made into a very good if uneventful film, and one has high hopes for "Kavalier & Klay." "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" is about Art Bechstein, the young son of a gangster who does not want him to follow in his footsteps. Art has majored in business but has no taste for it. It is the summer after his graduation and he is supposedly studying for a test that will license him to work in high finance, though he spends his time enjoying the summer as the last of his youth.

Art works at a bookstore and meets Phlox, an attractive young woman. He also makes friends with a gay man named Arthur Lecomte, who introduces him to Cleveland Arning. Art meets Cleveland's girlfriend Jane who is striking and mysterious to him. Art spends his summer in relationships with these people and learning more about himself.

The tone of the book is one of the great accomplishments of Chabon's writing. It is wry and witty, and ever so slightly tongue in cheek. My favorite line in the book is the last, in which Art tells us this summer was a turning point for him, or maybe he just made it all up. Art is a cousin to Holden Caufield, with his attitudes, but he takes himself far less seriously.

This film is not the trainwreck that many would have you to believe, including devotees of the novel. While some criticize the glossy cinematography, I would argue that it is one of the few things that work in this film. Pittsburgh has a fascinating aesthetic that deserves to be filmed well, and the cinematographer accomplished that.

The overall problem with the film is that it never comes even remotely close to capturing the tone of the novel. The wit and humor are gone completely. The tone of this movie is so deathly serious that none of the events that were shocking in the novel are the least bit surprising in the film. It is the equivalent of sitting in the parlor of a funeral home.

Jon Foster is an exercise in bad casting. He looks like what one imagines Art to look like--mildly handsome, lanky, a non-showy intelligence--but never once plays the character properly. There is no slyness, no humor, no wit or warmth in this performance, and that is about 60% of what's wrong with the whole film. Foster does not even come remotely close to the character we followed in the novel. A toned down Topher Grace is what the part called for, but all we get is an actor who is so bland and dull that we couldn't care less about the character he is playing.

Peter Sarsgaard was perfect casting as Cleveland, and has a resume of similar successful roles in his past. However, Sarsgaard plays Cleveland with all the seriousness of a war veteran who's lost his legs. The unpredictability and wildness that makes up the book's character is not in the film.

Sienna Miller's Jane is an overinflated part, about a character who was only meant to be an enigma in passing, sort of like Suzanne Somer's "Girl in the White T-Bird" in "American Graffiti." Her mere beauty is supposed to mean more to us than it ever does.

Only Mena Survari as Phlox and Nick Nolte as Art's gangster father manage to properly convey what we knew about the characters. Unfortunately the likable Phlox is reduced to being a clingy nymphomaniac, as opposed to the sweet, likable free spirit in the novel. Still Survari made the part work despite limited screen time.

Art's sexual awakening is glossed over and Cleveland's bisexuality is treated more as pansexuality. The film has the nerve to show the men in embrace, but cuts to the morning after in chaste fade away.

Even the Cloud Factory is given a short shrift. A prominent fixture in the book, it is also a big player in the movie, but as with the characters, it is also played as a serious location rather than a humorous one. The actual plant in the novel is a working facility at Carnegie Mellon University. In the film, it is an abandoned facility outside of town about which Cleveland says no one knows why smoke still comes out of the stack. Well, actually, smoke can only come from a stack if it is fed coal or some other energy source, which someone must purchase. So if no one is buying coal for it then such a thing is not even possible. Smoke doesn't just appear! And that sums up the problem with this film. Smoke appears out of nowhere and for no reason, as do the human emotions. We don't see any motivation or reasoning, and we never understand why any of these boring people want anything to do with each other.

Pittsburgh is a fascinating city with a rich history, Chabon's novel is a great book with rich characters. Both got the short shrift in this plodding and pointless film. The only way to enjoy it is to put it on TV at a party and turn down the sound while playing a music CD. The visuals make for great music video and replace the characters who never muster any personality in the atmosphere of the film. Like most films about ennui, we become bored with watching boredom.

Control (2007)

A greatly missed opportunity, undeservedly praised

[3/10 · 14 January 2009]

I was fortunate enough to live in Seattle and witness firsthand the grunge movement, so the explosion of a musical scene--as what happened with post-punk in Manchester, U.K. in the 70s--fascinates me, and I've been catching up with all that post-punk music that I missed out on back in the day. I loved Joy Division's dark sound and wondered why they didn't have a larger oeuvre of work. A little research revealed the reason to be lead singer Ian Curtis' suicide on the eve of the band's American tour in 1980. This intrigued me with Curtis and the band, and I thought Joy Division had the makings of a good movie. And it does, but this is not that movie. Having seen it I am amazed at the plethora of great reviews this film has gotten. It is perhaps the most mundane film ever made about rock and roll music! If a person had no knowledge of rock music and was first introduced to it through this film, he would think that it was a product not of rage and angst, but tedium and solitude.

"Control" is unnecessarily filmed in black and white in the hopes of fooling dilettantes into believing it is high art, and given the rave reviews from American critics, it succeeds in its foolery. Director Anton Corbijn has used b&w in previous films with rock subjects only to make the film look artistic because he has no cinematic idiom of his own. Corbijn never makes use of the shadows and light that are the very point for a modern filmmaker to us b&w. Moreover, this film needs to be in color to capture the grit and decline of Manchester in the period. Speaking of which, the film never seems to step foot in any place but a bland suburb. To understand these characters and their motivations we need to see the decline of the industrial titan that was Manchester, but we see only modest homes and verdant lawns. Just what dreadful life were they responding to with their music? The characters in this film live rather decently in what appears to be a bucolic setting. Even when the band makes a trip to London we only see shots of them in their car going to and fro. This is perhaps the most anti-urban film ever made about an urban subject.

Even worse, there is no sense of a musical community, and that is a grave crime given the burst of energy that emanated from Manchester in that period. If this film is to be believed, Joy Division seemed to exist in a vacuum, with inspiration coming only from David Bowie and Sex Pistols records, with no acknowledgment to their peers and contemporaries.

The entire genesis of creativity is given the short shrift as well. We see Curtis write poetry which presumably will become songs. He goes to his room and closes his door to shut himself off from the world, but we never see the world that influenced his need for solitude. Curtis is not portrayed as a tortured soul--which undoubtedly he must have been--but as an easygoing bloke who doesn't even seem to disdain his civil service job. Sam Riley does well enough in his role as Curtis, but never breaks through. You keep waiting for him to show us the magic but he only manages to during the concert scenes. But then, how could any actor achieve that task? All Curtis does in this film is mope.

Samantha Morton, so good in other work, is still good here but she isn't given much to do. The dissolution of her marriage happens fairly easily and without much complaint from her character. Toby Kebbell stands out as the band's manager Rob Gretton. Sadly he breathes the only excitement and energy into this whole enterprise. I would comment on the other band members but I couldn't tell one from the other. Whatever friendship existed between them was not brought to the screen, and the other three band members are as much a backdrop as the sets. This movie would suggest that they were of no consequence, when in fact they went on to form New Order and rise to the prominence for which Joy Division seemed destined.

Even the film's title is a cryptic cop out. Joy Division's breakthrough hit was "She's Out of Control," but unlike "Love Will Tear Us Apart," it didn't reach a seminal status. Is "Control" a reference to Curtis' seizures? His personal life running astray? If so, how is his experience unique enough to give this movie such a definitive one-word title? How is he in any less control of his life than Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, or Michael Hutchence were of their own? The title is generic, and one can only guess that the movie was not called "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (which would have been incredibly apt) because of contractual issues.

The biggest surprise about this film is that in spite of all its tepidness, it has received great reviews from the likes of Roger Ebert and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. "Control" had an 87% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes! Anton Corbijn has fashioned a movie about rock music that is devoid of any of the energy, zest or verve of the musical form. This film isn't the least bit enlightening about Ian Curtis, Joy Division nor Manchester's post-punk music scene. It is blandly made, employs stock moments from biographical films and only engages the viewer on a few occasions. Corbijn has a history of making movies about great rock subjects (U2, Depeche Mode) and draining every bit of life out the bands and their music. Now he has done the same for Joy Division. Skip right by "Control" and go directly to the documentaries, "Joy Division" or the BBC produced "Factory: From Joy Division to Happy Mondays."

Crank (2006)

Logic is cast to the wind for effect

[3/10 · 5 September 2006]

It's perfectly all right for a film to defy logic if it takes us somewhere interesting. "Face Off" flew in the, well, face of logic, but it posed interesting questions about identity and revenge. That is not the case for "Crank." I like Jason Statham as much as the next person. He's sexy and swaggering and the perfect hero. You even like him in this as he is such a sweet boyfriend that he doesn't want to hurt his girlfriend's feelings by rushing her. Of course this idea is stolen from "Pulp Fiction" wherein Bruce Willis never wanted to rush his girlfriend, Maria de Medeiros, all the while being hounded by Ving Rhames.

Quentin Tarrantino appropriated ideas from film noir and reassembled them into a collage; Guy Ritchie appropriated from Tarrantino and created a collage of a collage. This film is just a mish mash since the collage can't be deconstructed and reconstructed any further.

Ideas are introduced and dropped. Continuity is a huge problem. At one point Statham is shot in the butt by one of the villains as he runs onto a freight elevator. Statham curses the man and fires back as he holds his wounded tail for the next couple of shots. Then suddenly the wound is no longer there and his butt is back to normal.

This film is also that worst of all American clichés. Violence abounds graphically, yet when Statham and his girlfriend (played by Amy Smart) have sex in the middle of Chinatown, the shot of the act is coy and cautious, as though being made for TV. Like so many American films, "Crank" isn't the least bit afraid of brutal acts of violence, yet--this being an American film--the idea of nudity in sex is intimidating, even with a British leading man.

Whereas Tarrantino and Ritchie have the good sense to confine their violence to the underworld of crime, the violence of this film seeps into the lives of everyday people, and hence loses our sympathy for the movie's hero. When a cab driver refuses to allow Statham in his cab because he is soaking wet Statham throws him to the ground, points at him and screams "Al Quaeda" in the middle of a crowded plaza. People then leap on the man and we hear his bones breaking. It's meant to be funny and--except for the young kids sitting near me who mistook the moment for something resonant--it isn't. It's just cruel like this whole movie.

This is a mean film, a film that hates people and makes you hate the ones who populate this particular world. It has nothing to say, no original idea and no humor. It wastes a great leading man and a great idea with only some punchy (yet unoriginal) ideas toning up the direction.

A History of Violence (2005)

The most overrated film of 2005

[2/10 · 4 January 2006]

It is impossible to believe that this terrible film--one of the year's worst--has received such high acclaim and has been deemed one of the best by many critics. Nothing takes me out of a film faster than when characters behave like "movie people" instead of like real people. No one in this film behaves or reacts the way actual people do, but rather in a silly dramatic fashion that is pure theatrical tripe.

The reason for this vast overpraise is Viggo Mortenson's excellent performance as Tom Stall. His character is the only one which is reasonably well written, and Mortenson delivers as he reminds us that he is one of the most under-treasured actors in Hollywood (along with Alesandro Nivola). He hits every note of his character's conundrum just right.

Like "The Road to Perdition," this film is based on a graphic novel, and like that film it features talented actors wasted on a paper thin plot and shallow study of human emotions.

You can see the film is going to veer off course in a mundane scene where Stall's son Jack (played by Ashton Holmes) is bullied in the gym locker room. Jack is at first humble but then comes back with smart alecky remarks and everyone laughs at the more popular bully rather than the geeky Jack. Has this ever happened anywhere? Yet we see this idea played out in terrible films like "Can't Hardly Wait," where characters do what we wish could happen in real life, instead of what would actually happen. And that's the rub for this film. The bad guys are always losing, which makes you wonder how they got the status of being bad guys to begin with.

Then there is the famous/infamous sex scene on the stairwell between Tom and his wife Edie (Maria Bellow). Anything that gives us a nude Mortenson is certainly welcome, however this scene is ridiculous. I won't give away anything except to say it ends the way every scene in this unlikely movie ends: stupidly and unbelievably.

Every year a graphic novel is turned into an overpraised or overly stylized film ("Sin City" anyone?), when in fact these films never quite get beneath the surface. Twenty years from now people will laugh at the idea that this film was as highly regarded as it is today.

Grey's Anatomy (2005– )

Chick power taken to extremes ruins character relationships

[4/10 · 20 April 2005]

I didn't even have to be told this show is produced by a woman, but I looked it up to verify and sure enough it is. The show is so overtly pro-female/anti-male that you just know an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey will be coming soon.

Everything irritating about this show could be summed up into a moment of dialogue from one of its episodes. After constantly berating, belittling and humiliating her roommate George, and never hesitating to make it clear to him that his opinion means nothing to her, Izzie (short for Isobel) asks him in all seriousness, "Did you feel like I was emasculating you?" Even more incredulously, she said it with a straight face.

"Emasculating" is the key word in this show. The hospital of this program is populated with women with chips on their shoulders and men who are bastards until these women set them straight. In one particular episode a rape victim is callously dismissed by the surgeons until the intern reminds them that she has a name--the ol' new-girl-teaches-the old-farts compassion trick. Beyond that, the doctors remove from the woman's mouth something which none of them but our heroine, Meredith Grey, can identify : the end of the rapist's penis.

I'm not even all that perturbed by the idea of a bitten-off penis, for a rapist would surely get what he deserved, but do you mean to tell me that a room full of MALE DOCTORS couldn't identify a penis while a WOMAN could? Where is this hospital so that we can all avoid it?

The program constantly features Izzie wearing next to nothing as she walks around the house she shares with Meredith and George. Improbably, George (whom we can only assume is straight) complains about this, only to prompt her poke her head into the shower while he's there. Meanwhile, there's cocky Alex who mocks her modeling days and she gets even by stripping in front of him. If Izzie is so concerned about being taken seriously by the hospital crowd then why is she so contemptuously undressed in front of George, someone who could be her ally, yet offended by Alex's motivations?

I guess you're asking yourself why I watch this show if it bothers me like this, and the answer is that otherwise it can be engaging. I can even overlook that fact it features Patrick Dempsey, an actor I've disdained--pre or post rhinoplasty. It takes place in Seattle, a city in which I once lived and continue to love, so it makes me feel connected to that particular place. This show has all the framework of being a great program, and I don't even mind the chick power stuff adding a little verve. I just wish they'd take it back a few notches and make the males (beyond Dempsey's character) a lot more sympathetic.

Night of 100 Stars (1982 TV Special)

Fun and kitschy programming as only the 80's could produce

[4 August 2003]

This was a fun program from back in the last days of three networks when there wasn't much else to watch. The very idea of getting 100 stars together for one non-awards show seemed audacious at the time.

The different stars represented the facets of actors' work: Stage, movies and television. Television actors who could sing (Nancy Dussault, Pam Dawber, and John Schneider) but no one knew they could were put into a mock take on "What's My Line?" Broadway stars belted out songs from the shows which made them big names. And movie actors...well they mostly gave speeches or did bits.

The show is full of skits and walk ons hurried so as to fit 100 stars into such a short time span. At one point they simply had actors of Christopher Reeve's ilk wearing a top hat and tails stroll across stage to hear their names announced!

There was a sequel to this show but nothing could top the pure kitsch quality of the original. They don't make'm like this anymore...and I will leave it up to you as to whether or not that is a good thing.

What Really Happened to the Class of '65? (1977–1978)

A very engaging show

[25 June 2003]

This was an engaging anthology program which came on NBC on Thursdays the summer of 1977. Each week we followed the lives of different members of the high school Class of '65. I still remember some of the episodes: A girl becomes a semi-successful folk singer; two buddies try to open a restaurant in the desert where a highway will go through; and Richard Hatch (from "Battlestar Galactica") played a ne'er-do-well. I would love to find this on DVD, or at least on TVLand. It's lifespan was short but it gave me many fond memories along with other great 70's television like "Rockford Files."

A Chorus Line (1985)

A very bad film of a very good stageshow

[2/10 · 4 February 2003]

The Broadway musical, "A Chorus Line" is arguably the best musical in theatre. It's about the experiences of people who live for dance; the joys they experience, and the sacrifices they make. Each dancer is auditioning for parts in a Broadway chorus line, yet what comes out of each of them are stories of how their lives led them find dance as a respite.

The film version, though, captures none of the passion or beauty of the stage show, and is arguably the worst film adaptation of a Broadway musical, as it is lifeless and devoid of any affection for dance, whatsoever.

The biggest mistake was made in giving the director's job to Sir Richard Attenborough, whose direction offered just the right touch and pacing for "Gandhi." Why would anyone in his or her right mind ask an epic director to direct a musical that takes place in a fairly constricted place?

Which brings us to the next problem. "A Chorus Line" takes place on stage in a theatre with no real sets and limited costume changes. It's the least flashy of Broadway musicals, and its simplicity was its glory. However, that doesn't translate well to film, and no one really thought that it would. For that reason, the movie should have taken us in the lives of these dancers, and should have left the theatre and audition process. The singers could have offered their songs in other environments and even have offered flashbacks to their first ballet, jazz or tap class. Heck, they could have danced down Broadway in their lively imaginations. Yet, not one shred of imagination went into the making of this film, as Attenborough's complete indifference for dance and the show itself is evident in his lackadaisical direction.

Many scenes are downright awkward as the dancers tell their story to the director (Michael Douglas) whether he wants to hear them or not. Douglas' character is capricious about choosing to whom he extends a sympathetic ear, and to whom he has no patience.

While the filmmakers pretended to be true to the nature of the play, some heretical changes were made. The very beautiful "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love"--a smashing stage number which took the dancers back to their adolescence--was removed and replaced with the dreadful, "Surprise," a song so bad that it was nominated for an Oscar. Adding insult to injury, "Surprise" simply retold the same story as "Hello, Love" but without the wit or pathos.

There is no reason to see this film unless you want a lesson in what NOT to do when transferring a Broadway show to film. If you want to see a film version of this show, the next closest thing is Bob Fosse's brilliant "All That Jazz." While Fosse's daughter is in "A Chorus Line," HE is the Fosse who should have been involved, as director. He would have known what to do with this material, which deserved far greater respect than this sad effort.

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

An effective film based loosely on actual events

[10/10 · 12 January 2003]

There is much discussion about how much of this film is factual and how much is made up for the fun of the film. I am a West Virginian who visits Pt. Pleasant often because it is an interesting town with Revolutionary War history and such, and I can say that this film is mostly fiction, but that's okay!

The true facts are these: Many different people saw the mothman creatures in the late 60's in the Pt. Pleasant area. There were no direct warnings or communications, simply specters without explanation. These phantoms were taken seriously only because--as noted by Laura Linney in the film--they were seen not by flakes or freaks, but by responsible members of the community.

The Silver Bridge did collapse after a period of the mothman sightings, and they were never seen or reported again in the region since.

It should be noted that in this, region the mothman sightings and the bridge collapse are seen as two separate incidents. People around here really don't perceive the mothmen as auguries of the bridge collapse. However connecting those dots for the book and film creates for a clever scenario--barring any disrespect to those who died in the bridge collapse.

That most of this film is a trumped up version of the actual events shouldn't matter. The film is merely exploring the scenario, and by using a real town with a real story, it draws us into the sense of community and fear that could pervade if such things did occur.

The film is very well done and very effective in its use of paranoia and our fear of the unknown. There is no axe murderer roaming the woods; no monsters shown with giant fangs. Only the brief, fleeting images of the mothmen and their unexplained presence.

Director Mark Pellington is great at using very few tricks to accomplish a lot of atmosphere. He is respectful to the people of Pt. Pleasant and West Virginia, and never takes the low road of playing the people off as rubes. It is that smart decision which makes this film work. If we didn't respect the community, we would never be drawn into this world.

Richard Gere gives his usual excellent performance, and continues to be one of the most under-appreciated actors when it comes award time each year. He is the definition of a rational and intelligent man drawn into a situation that overwhelms him.

Laura Linney is also excellent, and as a West Virginian myself, I must say she plays a Mountaineer (our parlance for West Virginian) better than any actors I can think of since those in "Matewan." She never condescends to the character, and employs an excellent dialect which is just as subtle as the dialect one would find in Pt. Pleasant, instead of the overbearing hillbilly dialects other actors often employ. Linney continues to amaze with subtlety and I am always looking forward to more of her work.

Debra Messing has a brief role, but she does make a mark and get a chance to show that she has dramatic acting chops which she refined onstage in roles such as "Angels in America." I would like to see her in more dramatic work since I enjoy her comedic work on "Will & Grace" each week.

I also thought Alan Bates made a marvelous turn in the film as a professor (in more sense than one) of the mothman. He has some great lines, including, when Gere asks why the mothmen don't explain their presence if they are superior creatures: "You are superior to a cockroach; do you ever bother to explain yourself to a cockroach?"

At the end of the film a title says that the cause of the bridge collapse was never known. This is a classic example of Hollywood having fun, since the cause was never a mystery at all. The bridge was designed with what was called an I-bar, which meant the entire bridge was held up with one single joint! It rusted and snapped under the weight of stopped holiday traffic (as shown in the film). Because of this, such bridges all over the nation were shut down and subsequently replaced. The Silver Bridge collapse remains the worst bridge disaster in American history. The collapse scenes are terrifying, yet respectful of the actual tragedy.

Kudos to Pellington and his marvelous cast for making such a thought-provoking and engaging film.

It should be noted that Pt. Pleasant has a great sense of humor about the mothmen, and they even have events for people to come and enjoy the lore. If you are in the region stop by downtown and find some fun paraphernalia.

Inside Moves (1980)

Good acting and character relationships overcome lapses in credibility

[7 June 2000]

"Inside Moves" is a thoroughly charming film although not a perfect one.

John Savage plays Rory, a man so empty that the first scene of this movie shows his suicide attempt as he leaps from a building. He is left crippled by the attempt after months in the hospital.

Rory lives in a rundown building in Oakland, California and frequents a bar in the neighborhood which is (a little too ironically) filled with every variety of handicap. David Morse is Jerry, a tall lug of a bartender whose crippled leg prevents him from being an athlete.

Diana Scarwid plays Louise, a new barmaid with whom Rory is smitten, and Amy Wright plays Anne, Jerry's girlfriend who is also a druggie. Jerry is drained by his relationship with Anne and she causes him further self-doubt.

Rather Implausibly Jerry's leg is not only healed (with the aid of a pro basketball player who takes an interest) but he goes on to play for Oakland's very own Golden State Warriors NBA franchise. Obviously physical impairments are rarely ever healed so easily, much less healed enough to enable someone to become a pro athlete. Moreover, how does one find room for himself on the local pro team, much less ANY pro team.

Nonetheless, the film triumphs for us as Jerry regains more than just his physical capabilities. The films message, which isn't all that subtle is that the only true handicaps are the emotional barriers we put around ourselves by keeping the right people at a distance and the wrong people too close.

The dramatics are all handled very well and the film only lapses into melodrama in one scene. Otherwise this is a lovely film well worth viewing if you like stories about human relationships and interaction. Scarwid was nominated for an Oscar for this film and it offers Savage his best role besides "Hair" or "The Deer Hunter."

October Sky (1999)

An excellent portrayal of a lost segment of society.

[10/10 · 27 July 1999]

October Sky is an excellent example of how movies can recreate a world which is virtually extinct. The pre-machinery days of coal mining in West Virginia are explored here through the eyes of a boy who dares to dream of a life beyond the coalfields.

This movie succeeds on many levels, and most of them have been noted in reviews. But its greatest accomplishment is the evocation of the community and lives of a people who have other wise been written out of American history.

While the U.S. was booming in the post-war, places like this small town of Coalwood, West Virginia were stoking the fires of the American dream. Required to contribute, but refused a piece of the great growth, these families are very much cognizant of their designation in society. This film deftly shows us Homer Hickham's painful self-awareness as he tries to show colors to a people relegated to dreaming in black in white.

However, this is not a film about drudgery or the downtrodden. It is one about a town that was willing to believe in its youth, and it provides a valuable lesson for today's "television-as-babysitter" world.

There are elements of Hickham's book which would have fit nicely within this film's framework. The value placed on high school football over academics is but one such element, and would have helped to explain the community's mentality a little more clearly.

But that is nitpicking, for this is the best of all kinds of movies: It is one which respects it subject matter, its characters, and how their lives fit in the small frame as well as the big picture. Kudos to screenwriter Lewis Colick for appreciating Hickam's humor and the dignity of the town's citizenry. And bravo to director Joe Johnston for instilling this talented cast with a sense of esteem.

The collaborative effort of all involved in this film make it one for the time capsule. It reminds us who we were, how we got to where we are now, and eventually where we are going. This film joins Charles Laughton's "Night of the Hunter" and John Sayle's "Matewan" as accurate portrayals of West Virginia and its denizens. Without condescension or unqualified judgment, Johnston joins these directors in celebrating a people who are often dismissed as insignificant cogs, but in reality they are the engines who create a prosperity of which they are never allowed to partake.

A thought to ponder as in this movie we watch Sputnik streak across the "October Sky."