Hart's War

So my hubby has decided to try Netflix and made a bit of a booboo by putting in his preferences. Anyone who has followed this blog knows that my dear one is not known for his stellar taste in film. Most of his selections for our viewing pleasure failed my personal three point criteria for movies he's allowed to bring home (have you ever heard of it ? does it contain at least one recognizable actor? is it NOT a Western?) That being said I conceded to Hart's War, largely because I recognized Bruce and Colin, although I could not remember ever hearing of the film and despite the fact that it's a WW2 story, which is only slightly better than a Western.

Lt. Tom Hart (Colin Farrell) is a senators son and doing the light duty when a bit of bad luck lands him in the hands of the Germans. The ranking officer at the stalag is Col. McNamara (Bruce Willis) who's disdain for Hart is only slightly less obvious than his hatred of the stalag commandant. When two black aviators arrive at the stalag - officers who happen to be black men - McNamara begins a twisted game of cat and mouse, playing on the racial prejudice of Americans and Germans alike. A white prisoner is murdered, a black man accused and Hart assigned to defend him in a kangaroo court martial. It's unclear just who is the enemy.

Okay. So Bruce is Bruce and this isn't Oscar material. But the story is decently constructed, there are lots of interesting twists and a solid supporting cast. As usual Farrell can act more with a facial expression than most actors can in their dreams. And the subplot - that Americans can be so racist that even in a POW camp complete with evil guards with guns they manage to be haters - is a little sad because it's still so true. All in all, not a bad evenings entertainment. (Thanks, Honey.) Another review here.

The Dark Knight

Before we begin, let me go on the record - Batman Begins was without a doubt the best vision of the comic book superhero ever done. BUT, somewhere between that vision and this mess, Christopher Nolan must have suffered a severe head injury or, perhaps more likely, a near fatal level of toxic ego massage. Of course you are going to sit through all 152 minutes of this thing... it will seem longer... for one excellent reason. Heath Ledger.

Synopsis? Batman (Christian Bale,) DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) are cleaning up Gotham. Enter new bad guy - the Joker. The story wasn't important beyond that. Ledger is mesmerizing as the sociopathic jokester who's only real goal is to mix things up. He's brilliant. In every way. Makes the skin stand up on your neck, scary, brilliant. And for the first couple of hours that was enough to hold my attention. That, and the cool toys and nifty effects.

But then it all started wearing thin. Bale demonstrated the emotional range of cardboard with a speech impediment (I know, I know - so people won't guess he's really Bruce Wayne... right.) Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman aren't given enough material to justify their salaries, and we won't even get into the ridiculous role of Maggie Gyllenhaal - to suffice as appropriately gendered victim and look earnest. The film belongs to Ledger. Sadly, I fail to see how Nolan can follow his Joker with anyone else. But the real tragedy is that we'll never get to see how truly remarkable Heath Ledger was going to be. See the mostly commercial (buy it NOW!) website here.

310 to Yuma

Boys will be boys. Boys love westerns. Westerns have lots of action, shooting, men being men and, you know, dying in the dirt. Westerns sort of took it on the nose as not cool there for awhile, until Dances With Wolves brought them moderately back into fashion. And since the Powers of Hollywood don't have an original thought among them, when someone says 'let's make us a Western,' someone else dug out something to remake. The original (1957) starred Glen Ford. You already know it was better.

The oh so classic western storyline: white hat noble farmer type Dan Evans (Christian Bale) volunteers to see that black hat train robber type Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) actually makes the train that will take him to a fair trial and prison for his multiple misdeeds. Of course, Ben's gang is out to save him and everyone else is quaking in their boots so our hero must do all this alone. In order to impress his smart ass teenage son with his Courage. And make him proud. Probably post mortem. And of course, Dan and Ben will grow to Respect One Another.

Okay, the hokey story line would work better with Glen Ford as Ben and Van Helflin as the doomed Dan. But Western story lines are always just that hokey, and at least this version tries for a little gritty realism in costuming (nobody looks clean at all,) set detail and sound. You have to dig the nifty little way the bullets plink and plunk as they fly about (this actually won an Oscar for sound!) Christian works his over thin booty off, Russell seems to be having fun, but the film is stolen by Ben Foster as the very psychotic Charlie - second in command of the gang and deeply committed to his boss (he's scary and hilarious.) It's entertaining, but you can easily take a potty break without hitting pause.... Check out the website here.

Letters from Iwo Jima

I was really looking forward to this second part of the Iwo Jima saga as envisioned by Clint Eastwood. I thought it was the coolest idea - to shoot two movies looking at the same battle from the opposing viewpoints. This one was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and won for Best Sound Editing. Even more I was looking forward to the story as told by the losers... after all, twenty thousand Japanese soldiers died on that little chunk of rock and held off the overwhelming American forces for 40 endless days. The stuff of epic...

I was HUGELY disappointed in this film. Where do I begin? I'll start with the writing (best screenplay?) which I found so loaded with stereotypes as to be almost comical and so obviously written by an American; her surname may be Japanese but it is very clear that her native culture invented McDonald's. There are the repetitive battle scenes straight out of Flags of our Fathers with little change in perspective, all cleverly tied together so that the two movies mirror each other - neither offering any insight into the other. And after a half hour of reading subtitles of uninspired dialogue and watching even talented actors like Ken Watanabe overact all over themselves to give this mess meaning, I was ready to commit hari kari.

Again, Clint Eastwood is a lazy storyteller. I guess I understand shooting battle footage once for the sake of the budget, but could we have altered the camera angles or something? He used the same soundtrack, for heavens sake. Maybe I could have been kinder if I had seen this movie first... but I doubt that there was a need to make it at all. At least Flags had a point. Website here.

300

Sometimes we watch the movie that somebody else wanted to watch. My "boys" saw 300 about three times each in the theater. The thing made a killing - with production costs of about 65 million, it had a domestic gross of $210,614,939.
So you gotta ask, "why?" Curiosity killed the cat, I guess I only feel maimed.

Frank Miller (Sin City) wrote the graphic novel from which the film is spawned and Frank has a twisted little love affair with really sick violence. Very loosely based upon the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors held off the legions of Xerxes, Miller borrows from history what he chooses and embellishes the rest. I mean embellishes, with a capital E - all the Spartan warriors have chiseled abs (airbrush defined) and good hair - all the baddies are tres ugly - throw in a kick-ass queen -everything else is gravy.

Mostly, this is a video game brought to life. The dialogue is cheesy but delivered with good humor. What the boys want is what the boys get - long protracted battle scenes that lurch from real time to slo mo so you don't miss a decapitation or the gallons of CG blood. Who needs a meaningful story? Just throw in some hubris and words like "freedom" and "glory." The visual effects are fascinating if incredibly over the top; with manipulated color contrast and texture. Who expects acting? The costuming is original, creative and effective. Loads of talent and effort went into the battle choreography.

It's just so sad that we still find bloodbaths entertaining. See the website here.

Blood Diamond

Movies that try to educate are almost always on shaky ground. No matter how noble the cause, it can be an interesting juggling act to try first and foremost to entertain your audience, introduce them to something they know nothing about, and then sway their opinion on it. This movie just smacks of good intentions, but makes the usual mistake of trying to do too much - anything written about Africa tends to do that. It's an unfortunate failure with Blood Diamond.

The story unfolds with the stereotypical white mercenary (Leonardo DiCaprio) joining forces with the stereotypical noble, but dim, savage (Djimon Hounsou) to locate a priceless pink diamond. They are, of course, constantly bumping into the stereotypical white journalist (Jennifer Connelly,) hordes of deranged insurgents, and deranged government soldiers and there will be lots and lots of explosions, and executions, and bullets raining. (Extra credit will be given for somehow avoiding the inevitable mercenary/journalist bedroom romp.) It all ends with the stereotypical solemn government hearings on the evils of insert your cause here.

Although it's entertaining enough for action fans and garnered six Academy Award nods (including Best Actor and Best Supporting for the two guys above,) this screenplay deserved a rewrite or a better edit. The African continent has enough content to drive anyone mad, but trying to squeeze in storyline about how conflict diamonds are funding terrorism AND how they're acquired (slavery) AND moved (smuggling) AND how they brainwash kids into soldiers AND the continuing genocidal violence AND the politics of all of this is a bit much. They lost me early on. AND DiCaprio was better in The Departed.

See the website here.