Maybe it’s because I just did not care enough, but “Quantum of Solace” made no sense to me. An organization exists that everyone knows exists but no one knows the name of the organization or who runs it or how many members it has. In fact the only thing anyone seems to know about it is that they know nothing about it. Then suddenly at the end of the movie, James Bond (Daniel Craig) mentions its name – Quantum. When did he find this out? No one seems to know or care – especially the makers of the film.

“Quantum of Solace” was one giant excuse to put James Bond in as many roof, hotel, car and plane chases as possible. The plot was thrown in to keep it from being a silent film. It is one of the most confusing and contrived movies that I have ever seen. To even try and explain the plot would give me a migraine. The action scenes were almost as confusing as the plot with an average shot length just above a nanosecond. All of the humor and innuendo of the Bond franchise seems to have been tossed to the wayside in order to capitalize on the Bourne franchise formula and success. But James Bond is not Jason Bourne and we don’t want him to be.

This movie is a perfect example of the Hollywood mentality: what movie/movies have been successful recently and how can we cash in on it? By copying them, of course. James Bond is one of the most beloved characters and franchises in movie history, but Hollywood has managed to forget this and conform it to their cash cow mentality. I don’t blame Daniel Craig or Judi Dench (M) or Olga Kurylenko (Camille) or Giancarlo Giannini (Rene Mathis) or Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene). They all did the best they could with the material that they were given which leads us to the writers (Neal Purvis, Paul Haggis and Robert Wade) and director (Marc Forster).

What happened with this movie? This group of filmmakers should not have messed this movie up as bad as they did. These men have made movies that are good. Movies like “Monster’s Ball,” “Stranger Than Fiction,” “Finding Neverland,” “In the Valley of Elah,” “Crash,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” etc. So how is that the men responsible for these wonderful films made such a disappointing Bond movie? The dialogue was arbitrary. The action sequences were confusing and conducive to seizing. The sexual tension and innuendo commonplace in the Bond movies was inexplicably missing. There were no over-the-top gadgets or vehicles. It was all very…plain. And if James Bond is anything, it’s not plain.

It’s clear that there were obvious missteps and mistakes in “Quantum of Solace.” It’s just unexplainable how they happened – especially with writers and directors that we know are talented filmmakers. I think it all comes down to the studios. Hollywood studios fight tooth and nail to reach the top of the box office charts and, in order to do so, they often “borrow” from other successful franchises. Movies like the Bourne trilogy or “The Transporter” series are all studio responses to the Bond franchise. So how did the producers or studio heads forget that “Quantum of Solace” was a Bond movie and not one of their carbon-copy rip-offs? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if you are in the mood for a Bond movie, skip this one and go rent “Goldfinger.”

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 105 minutes

Starring: Daniel Craig (James Bond); Olga Kurylenko (Camille); Mathieu Amalric (Dominic Greene); Judi Dench (M); Giancarlo Giannini (Rene Mathis)

Directed by: Marc Forster; written by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade based on a character by Ian Fleming; produced by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. A Sony Pictures release.

Liam Neeson

From HitFix.com

When tragedy strikes, many people dive into their work to cope with the pain.  Liam Neeson hasn’t said much publicly following the startling death of his wife Natasha Richardson in March, but he’s certainly focusing on his work in the meantime.  The Oscar-nominee has shot an eye-popping four films already this year and now is set to appear in his fifth.  According to Variety, Neeson will join the Paul Haggis thriller “The Next Three Days.”

Already shooting, the Lionsgate picture finds Russell Crowe as a teacher whose wife, played by Elizabeth Banks, is falsely convicted of a murder she didn’t commit. After she becomes suicidal after several years of being in jail, Crowe’s character takes things to an extreme and decides to break her out.  Neeson will play an ex-con who has broken out of jail numerous times, used his celebrity to write a book about it and gives Crowe advice on how to do the deed. 

Haggis’ first film since “In the Valley of Elah” two years ago is actually an adaptation of the 2008 French release “Pour Elle.”  The noted screenwriter has also recruited Brian Dennehy, Olivia Wilde, “True Blood’s” Aisha Hinds, Daniel Stern and RZA. 

Neeson’s packed year has included Atom Egoyan’s “Chloe” which premiered to mostly negative reviews at last month’s Toronto Film Festival, “After.Life” with Justin Long and Christina Ricci, “Clash of the Titans” (where he plays Zeus) and the long-awaited big screen version of “The A-Team” where he portrays the group’s leader, Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, white hair and all.

Whether Neeson will rest after “Three Days” is unclear, he’s also attached to play the 16th president of the United States in Steven Spielberg’s still in development “Lincoln” which the director insists is still happening and could shoot next year.

United 93

[Munich title screen]

Munich

Cry Freedom

In Bruges

wΔz

Once Upon A Time In The Midlands

In The Valley Of Elah

The Great Ecstasy Of Robert Carmichael

Blackball

High Heels And Low Lifes

The Cottage

Bedrooms And Hallways

Devon Graye

By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez – HollywoodReporter.com

Devon Graye, best known for playing the teenage Dexter on Showtime’s “Dexter,” will star with CJ Thomason and Wes Chatham in “Husk,” a horror movie from After Dark Films. Tammin Sursok (“Aquamarine”) also stars.

Brett Simmons wrote the script and is directing the project, which is based on Simmons’ short film that played at Sundance.

The story sees five friends on a weekend trip who become stranded in isolated farmland when crows attack their SUV. They soon realize that the cornfields are inhabited by reanimated human scarecrows who reproduce by killing and force their undead victims to join their ranks.

Graye plays the brainiac of the group, Thomason is the blue-collar guy, and Chatham is the jock.

The movie is shooting in Iowa. After Dark has a distribution deal with Lionsgate.

Courtney Solomon, Stephanie Caleb, Moshe Diamant and Limor Diamant are producing for After Dark.

Thomason, repped by Peter Strain and Associates and Robert Stein Management, starred in “Harper’s Island” and appeared in “What About Brian” and “Boston Public.”

Chatham, repped by Gersh and Robert Stein Management, recurred last season on CBS’ “The Unit” and appeared in the features “In the Valley of Elah” and “W.”

There have been a number of movies that focus on the current war on Iraq.Of those I’ve only seen Paul Haggis’ In The Valley of Elah and Kimberly Pierce’s Stop Loss. The former’s strength comes from a great lead performance, while the latter is trash. So, Kathryn Bigelow’s is easily the best movie about the war in Iraq yet.

The movie follows one team in Iraq who is responsible for disarming bombs. Most of the focus is on Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner), who is the guy that actually goes out there and cut the bombs’ wires. He is a seemingly fearless individual who loves doing his job. He has a family, but he really doesn’t think about them. Then There’s Sergeant Samborn (Anthony Mackie), who is pretty much the voice of reason, and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), whose job is to protect Sergeant James, but is already traumatized. They are shown doing their job from when they only have 36 days left in their tour of duty, to about the second to last day. We see them celebrating, afraid, and trying to keep their cool under stressful, life or death situations.

This is only the second war movie that doesn’t take a stand on whether the reason for being there is right or wrong (the other being Letters from Iwo Jima). It is just about the men that sign up to be soldiers and what the type of danger they face. There are few scenes of them talking about their lives back in the the US, which shows how focused they have to be to do what they have to do.

As a whole, the movie is great. It has an interesting story and a well written script. However, it is not an action movie or a thrilling movie, like some of the ads led me to belief. Rather, it is a slow-burning, dialogue-driven, character drama. There are some action scenes and explosions, but their sole purpose is to show the danger in Iraq, not just to keep the people entertained. What kept me entertained was the tension created by Kathryn Bigelow. From the moment the quote in the beginning shows up, it is her movie. There is not a bad shot, bad performance, or filler thanks to her. Her work here is definitely one of the finest directing jobs of the decade.

Thanks to her, Jeremy Renner gives a great performance. He plays a driven and fearless character, and there never is a false note. Near the end, where he is becoming more human, he could have been over the top, but he wasn’t. Like his character, he made the right choices under extreme tension. Mackie and Geraghty give strong performance, but they don’t come close to matching Renner.

As I said, it was nice to see a war movie that doesn’t take sides, but tells a story about the men who fight the war, without making them seem crazy to join the army. Although it is not perfect, it is a great showcase for Bigelow and Renner’s work. Hopefully their work will be remembered come awards season.

Josh Brolin as President George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's 'W.'

Sarah Finn
Sarah Finn Co., Los Angeles
W., Gridiron Gang, Coach Carter, Miracle, Castro’s Daughter, Iron Man, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story

It’s a much more specific demand when we’re casting really current figures—figures in the media, very visible figures. They’re not just in history; they’re people our audience would know very well. What we’re really trying to capture is the essential quality of that person. But it’s also very risky, because with public figures, we know that everyone will have an opinion and approve or disapprove of the casting.

It changes the casting process also because when we approach a film, we always try to be colorblind and look at a character as any ethnicity and from every dimension. But you just really don’t have that option if you’re casting a real person. You do the best you can. Sometimes we would say it’s more a “feel-alike” than a look-alike. But you work closely with your hair and makeup people, and often we’ll ask an actor to undergo hair and makeup tests.

People have an impression of a person, but it’s the director and actor’s job to create a psychological truth and accuracy in the performance and not just do a caricature or mimicry. I’ve gotten submissions that have been really impressive—from actors who have done a great deal of research and sent in tapes of themselves as the character. It may be a speech they found on the Internet or in a book. But basically they’re capturing the look of that person. I will absolutely look through to the truthfulness of an actor’s performance and not focus on their hair and makeup and what they’re wearing. However, what I find is that it often helps the actor deliver a better performance if they go the extra mile.

Alison Franck
Resident casting director, Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, N.J.
1776, The Miracle Worker, The Diary of Anne Frank, Ragtime

People know who these characters are and what they look like. You actually want to do research on them, obviously. You want to look up their history, what they physically looked like, what they might have sounded like.

You talk to the director and ask: How much do you want this to look like the person? How much do you rely on costumes? How important is it to you that he or she is physically a certain way? It’s not like we know that Thomas Jefferson was a baritone or something. That’s just the way 1776 was written. And it’s the same for Anne Frank. We know what Anne Frank looked like, but do we know what anybody else looked like? How much did we pay attention to the photographs of those real people?

Most of the shows I’m casting have been done before. The specifications of the piece itself will sort of help you determine the casting, the same as for any show—whether I need a soprano or I need a soprano who looks like so-and-so. You still need to be entertained. It’s not just about re-creating something. It’s about keeping it interesting for everybody.

Randi Hiller
Randi Hiller Casting, Los Angeles
Pinkville, Battle in Seattle, Coach Carter, Miracle, In the Valley of Elah, Iron Man 2, Thor

In the case of Miracle, or any of those movies where there are sports skills involved, it definitely did change our approach. We put all the actors auditioning for Miracle on the ice, because so many people say they’re really skilled at something. When they showed up and saw the level of skating required, a lot of people ended up leaving the audition. We did the skating first in New York and L.A., because it was amazing the number of people who said they skated at a high level and didn’t. When we’re putting out calls for hockey players in other cities, chances are the hockey players will show up first, because that’s how we’re reaching out to them.

Often you just maybe have a magazine article or one or two photographs of the character you’re casting and you just have to conjure it up in your mind. If it’s about events in which the people are much more identifiable, that’s different as well. There are some actors who would only be right for one role, and if they didn’t get it, they didn’t get it. You just want to make people proud. I feel like in a sense there’s more pressure, because it means so much on such a deep level to a lot of people.

We did a lot of scouting for Coach Carter and Gridiron Gang at basketball courts and high schools, and we put the word out to Boys & Girls Clubs. Some of those people who grew up in such a hard environment just feel different. I can’t really pinpoint what it is, but they wear their hard life on them, and you can kind of just tell when there’s one kid who’s had a hard life in a room with people who haven’t. I’ve cast real cops, real school kids, real criminals, and mixed them in with real actors. I think the real thing helps the actors understand the situation, and the actors help the real people be actors.

It also depends where the film is shooting, what they have to hire locally, and how close you can match the actors with the skills. There are always other things that make it a little more complicated.

This column was published in the July 16-22 issue of Back Stage.

by The Great White Gypsy

“War is bad.”
“Bring our troops home.”
“We shouldn’t be in the Middle East.”
“This is a pointless war.”
Whether or not you agree with any or all of these statements, I think most of us can agree that it gets tedious and borderline insulting to be constantly, blatantly told this in every Middle East war film to come out in the last ten years. We go to the movies to be entertained, not to be caught up in partisan ideology and American guilt. Watch Charge of the Light Brigade, Gallipoli, or The Young Lions. Watch any Vietnam movie ever made. We all know that war is horrible; but contrary to popular belief (and in direct opposition to Michael Moore and Oliver Stone), cinema’s role in depicting times of war is to highlight our humanity, our courage, those moments when normal people are ordered into hell and voluntarily, sometimes accidentally become heroes.
The Hurt Locker is a war film that, much like Jarhead and, more recently, Generation Kill, shrugs cumbersome propaganda and focuses on the actual people. Staff Sgt William James (Jeremy Renner) is an Army explosives expert transferred to Camp Victory in Iraq after the previous Staff Sgt is killed in action. His squad searches for and disarms IED’s in the streets of Baghdad. The film covers one tour of duty for the squad (Which also includes Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty), and the mental and physical challenges they face. There is no specific terrorist or “bad guy” to be chased, just lots and lots of bombs to take care of.
This film manages to be tense all the way through. There are several complex and large bombs that Sgt James must disarm, and he does so with a cavalier, reckless attitude that scares his subordinates. However, it is also tense watching the squad hiding in a rock outcropping, playing a waiting game with enemy snipers. Though there are violent scenes, the film doesn’t rely on blood or body parts to keep you in the story. Equally jarring are the periods of downtime, when the soldiers have nothing to do but drink, fight, and think about their families. Of course, they are all trying not to get killed. They all want to go home. Sgt Eldridge (Geraghty) is scared and guilt-ridden over the last Sgt’s death. Sgt Sanborn (Mackie) seems cautious out of logic, but as his character progresses, he admits that he hates being in Iraq, and he wants to live long enough to start a family.
And that’s it. No long diatribe about the evils of war, no incompetent officers throwing troops into the fire. The biggest weapon of this film is its patience, and director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) really pulls it off. The film’s camerawork is very indie, adding to the realism. For the most part, the shots are all on point and full of purpose. Only occasionally does some fancy cinematography (a slow motion shot of a bullet casing hitting the dirt, for example) feel forced and out of place. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (United 93) did a respectable job, but those random outliers do detract slightly from the overall feel of the film.
Marco Beltrami (3:10 to Yuma) and Buck Sanders (Max Payne) provide a tempered yet powerful score that doesn’t overindulge for the sake of tension.
Jeremy Renner (28 Weeks Later) has been in some good films, and his performance in this one is perfect. His character is confident, talented, and cocky, but maintains an underlying sense of personal uncertainty. Anthony Mackie (Notorious) actually does a good job here, completely relatable and sympathetic throughout.
As much as I appreciate this film and it’s lack of political bias, there are some downsides. I was completely on board until the last five minutes, when the story seemed to wrap up too quickly, without elaborating on something I considered important. The character development seems to deviate, and for a few minutes all connection with Sgt James goes out the window. Also, certain characters and side-plots are extremely predictable and underdeveloped. Screenwriter Mark Boal (In the Valley of Elah) could have done a better job of evolving these things in the script, but I won’t hold it against him.
The Hurt Locker is not as good as Jarhead, but I think it’s much better than Stop-loss, and it won’t take a War film buff (such as myself) to appreciate it. Definitely check this one out.
Final Grade: B+

David Germain –  AP Movie Writer

   Films about the war on terror have not been high on audiences’ must-see list. Yet the makers of the latest, “The Hurt Locker,” hope they have the ingredients that box-office duds about Iraq and Afghanistan have lacked.

   Director Kathryn Bigelow and her colleagues deliver nail-biting tension and a remarkable you-are-there feeling with “The Hurt Locker,” giving viewers a real sense of the lives of bomb-defusing technicians in Baghdad.

   They also tell a story from today’s volunteer-military point of view, following troops who chose to go to war, the story stripped of U.S. foreign-policy critiques that made such recent war films as “Rendition,”"Lions for Lambs” and “In the Valley of Elah” sound preachy.

   “There’s no hidden political agenda in this,” said Jeremy Renner, who stars in “The Hurt Locker” as an ace bomb technician whose rash approach to the job alarms the other two members of his team (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty). “We were all adamant that we wanted to tell a pretty accurate account of this interesting job, and pretty much, that’s it.”

   Bigelow, who has directed big action thrillers such as Keanu Reeves’”Point Break” and Harrison Ford’s “K-19: The Widowmaker,” takes a close and claustrophobic approach here. Shot in a documentary style using handheld cameras, the film is remarkably effective at putting the audience in the heart of the suspense that goes with inching up to a bomb.

   Renner stars as Sgt. William James, who takes over the team of Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Geraghty) after their beloved leader is killed in a blast. James is the opposite of his by-the-book predecessor, a cowboy so confident in his skills that he flaunts safety protocols, leaving Sanborn and Eldridge in fear of their lives.

The actors prepared for the roles by going through bomb technician training at Fort Irwin in California. Wearing a protective suit of steel and Kevlar weighing as much as 100 pounds, one of the exercises he had to practice was to move a stack of paper clips one at time to another pile 15 feet away.

   Based on journalist and screenwriter Marc Boal’s experiences with a bomb unit in Iraq, “The Hurt Locker” was shot in Jordan, some scenes filmed within a few miles of the Iraqi border.

   To keep things real, Bigelow shot one sequence without telling Renner exactly where the movie prop crew had planted the bomb he was to defuse. He had to march in and carefully sift through the scene the way a real bomb technician would have, the cameras capturing all his moves.

   “Part of the opportunity of keeping this piece reportorial and raw and visceral and immediate is putting you, the audience, where the reporter was and where the soldier might be,” Bigelow said.

   The film has drawn raves from critics since it debuted at key film festivals last year. Summit Entertainment snapped it up for U.S. distribution, seeing commercial potential in “The Hurt Locker” despite audience apathy for earlier war-on-terror tales that included “Redacted,”"Stop-Loss” and “Grace Is Gone.”

Summit is starting the film out in limited release of just four theaters, then rolling it out to more cinemas over the next month. Can the film succeed where other terrorism-themed movies have failed?

“I’m just a filmmaker, so it’s hard for me to take that kind of temperature reading,” Bigelow said. “I certainly think that there’s an intersection of entertainment and substance, meaning you’ve got a film that’s a real nail-biter.”

by The Great White Gypsy

Away We Go – Directed by Sam Mendes, Written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida
About a couple expecting a child that travels around the country looking for a place to start their family. I’m still reeling from Mendes’s snubbing at the Oscars last year, and this comes out too soon for a shot in 2010, but he’s a great director, and Eggers is one of my favorite authors. The cast looks great, the tone seems heartfelt, and the music already sounds great. I can’t wait for it.
John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Catherine O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, Maggie Gyllenhaal
June 5

Downloading Nancy – Directed by Johan Renck, Written by Pamela Cuming and Lee Ross
Maria Bello plays a depressed, self-destructive housewife who meets a man in a chat room, and asks him to kill her. Then they fall in love. Then her husband beats the hell out of him. The uncensored preview looks raw and emotional, but it has the potential to be lame. First feature film for both writer and director.
Maria Bello, Rufus Sewell, Jason Patrick, Amy Brenneman
June 5

Tetro – Written and Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Apparently, this is Coppola’s first original screenplay since 1974’s The Conversation. It involves an Argentinean-Italian family dealing with the past, and brothers dealing with their creative passions. Vincent Gallo isn’t the most reputable actor. Actually, if you’ve never heard of Buffalo 66, then you’ve only seen him for a quick second in Goodfellas. Coppola is a huge name, with a long career. However, this film opened to very negative reviews at Cannes. Haven’t decided yet.
Vincent Gallo
June 11

The Last International Playboy – Directed by Steve Clark, Written by Steve Clark and Thomas Moffett
If you actually recognize Jason Behr, you’re one of six people who ever watched the show Roswell. This time he plays Jack Frost (…subtle), a heartbreaker and womanizer dealing with his mother’s suicide. He learns that the only woman he’s ever really loved is getting married, and his life starts to spiral out of control. He turns to his friends for advice, the most meaningful of which comes from his 11-year-old neighbor. Could be a bullshit chick flick, could be a respectable indie drama.
Jason Behr
June 12

Moon – Directed by Duncan Jones, Written by Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker
Great Sci-Fi films are few and far between. Sunshine was amazing, but most of them suck. Moon looks like a cross between Solaris (the original) and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sam Rockwell plays an astronaut on the moon doing energy research alone with his talking computer (Kevin Spacey). Then he starts seeing and hearing weird stuff, and thinks he’s losing his mind. Could be like Solaris (the remake) or Mission to Mars, but it could also rival Sunshine. I’m excited.
Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
June 12

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 – Directed by Tony Scott, Written by Brian Helgeland
Remake of a 1974 heist movie starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, the new one stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta. Same basic story, a subway car is hijacked, and a civil servant must negotiate the demands. The original was pretty damn good, but Travolta’s character looks like a Wild Hogs/Swordfish hybrid. Tony Scott’s had some low points the last few years (Domino, Spy Game), but his last two teamings with Denzel were Deja Vu and Man on Fire, which were badass.
Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzman, John Turturro, James Gandolfini
June 12

$9.99 – Directed by Tatia Rosenthal, Written by Etgar Keret
I know when you see stop motion animation with accents, you automatically think Wallace and Gromit (…or not), but after an overdose of Oscar animated shorts and Bill Plympton, I’m willing to give this one a shot. About a bunch of people living in an apartment complex in Australia searching for the meaning of life. Don’t judge me.
Geoffrey Rush, Anthony LaPaglia, Joel Edgerton, Claudia Karvan
June 19

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Directed by Michael Bay, Written by Ehren Kruger and Roberto Orci
Yes, we all know that Michael Bay is pretty much a joke. But the Transformers kick ass, Megan Fox is really hot, and the first one was really cool. The second one brings back all our favorite Decepticons and Autobots, (even Jazz, the only one to die in the first one…you know, the only one who sounded black?). Hey, it’s summer, time for effects and explosions. It’s Michael Bay season.
Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese, John Turturro, Hugo Weaving
June 24

The Hurt Locker – Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Written by Mark Boal
Every time I see Jeremy Renner, I think of S.W.A.T., which isn’t a good thing. However, The Hurt Locker is much more serious. It is about an army bomb squad in Iraq, and the crazy shit they have to deal with every day. This has the potential to be another The Kingdom, meaning it will be really cool, but completely overlooked by the majority of moviegoers. Bigelow directed Point Break, Blue Steel, and K-19: The Widowmaker, so she’s kinda one of the guys. Boal wrote the screenplay for In the Valley of Elah. I just hope it’s not as disappointing as Stop-Loss, but it’s MTV free, so I’m optimistic.
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly
June 26

Life is Hot in Cracktown – Written and Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo
Brandon Routh is a crackhead? Shannyn Sossamon and Lara Flynn Boyle are hoe-bags? Are we sure this isn’t a documentary? Giovinazzo also wrote this novel about several different people living in drug-infested urban areas. Feels like a much grittier version of Crash, but could just be another urban flop. Kerry Washington is hot.
Brandon Routh, Kerry Washington, Shannyn Sossamon, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Lara Flynn Boyle, Illeana Douglas, RZA
June 26

Quiet Chaos – Directed by Antonio Luigi Grimaldi, Written by Nanni Moretti and Sandro Veronesi
Italian film about a man who saves two women from drowning, then returns home to find his wife has died. Lost in his bewildered emotional state, he sits outside his daughter’s school all day every day, interacting with the people in the area. Grimaldi hasn’t done much outside of Italian TV, but Moretti is apparently a big deal as an actor, writer, and director in Italy.
Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino, Alessandro Gassman
June 26

The Stoning of Soraya M. – Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, Written by Betsy Griffin Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh
James Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) stars as a man driving through 1986 Iran when his car breaks down. He begins talking with Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog), who tells him a story about her niece, who was executed on erroneous charges by the community. The story may be small, but the scope strikes me as amazingly broad. Themes of mob mentality, justice, women’s rights, and cultural pressures. Nowrasteh is new to the game, but Aghdashloo’s an Oscar nominee who’s been in everything. Looking forward to it.
James Caviezel, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mozhan Marno
June 26

Surveillance – Directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch, Written by Jennifer Chambers Lynch and Kent Harper
Serial Killer flick meets Rashomon in Lynch’s second film, about three eyewitnesses being interviewed by the FBI concerning a series of shootings they all saw, but each account is different. Jennifer appears to be daddy’s little girl already, and David Lynch is executive producing, so be prepared for a serious mind-fuck. I have goose bumps.
Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, French Stewart
June 26

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN

Every month I do my research on upcoming projects, and every month the list seems to get longer. With each Coming Soon, however, I must leave out interesting films because either I can’t find a release date, or it’s already out, or the dates are conflicting on different sites. Well from now on, I’m just going to tell you about all these cool movies anyways. Some of them won’t be released in the US until possibly next year, if they ever come to a theater near you at all. Some of them may already be on DVD. Just keep your eyes open.

I Come with the Rain – Written and Directed by Tran Anh Hung
Josh Hartnett gets a bum wrap, but he’s been in some cool movies (Lucky # Slevin, 30 Days of Night, Black Hawk Down). In this one, he’s the token white guy. He plays a cop-turned-P.I. who left the force after killing a serial killer he was fixated with. He travels to Tokyo to find the son of a billionaire, and the lines between reality and fantasy, and good and evil are blurred. Vietnamese writer/director Tran hasn’t done much, and the 5-minute-long promo trailer kind of gives up the whole movie, but it has a lot of potential.
Josh Hartnett, Elias Koteas, Byung-hun Lee
June 6 (Japan)

The Countess – Written and Directed by Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy (actress in The Air I Breathe, Before Sunrise, 2 Days in Paris) tackles her second project as a director with the story of Hungarian Countess Bathory, who thought the key to maintaining her beauty was to bathe in the blood of a young virgin every night (more proof that virginity is harmful to your health). Doesn’t have a US release date yet, but it’s already been to a couple European festivals, so look for it on DVD soon.
Julie Delpy, William Hurt, Daniel Bruhl, Anamaria Marinca
June 25 (Germany)

Fireflies in the Garden – Written and Directed by Dennis Lee
Based on a Robert Frost poem, this is the story of a family dealing with emotional turmoil and internal conflict in the aftermath of a sudden tragedy. The cast alone is worth checking this movie out (when is the last time Julia Roberts and Willem Dafoe were in the same movie?) This has been released in every other freaking country, so I may be really late. Check imdb, or your local Blockbuster.
Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Julia Roberts, Ioan Gruffudd, Hayden Panettiere
May 29 (UK), possible June 26 release in US.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – Written and Directed by Rebecca Miller
Robin Wright Penn plays a loving wife and mother who, at age 50, starts to unravel when her much older husband (Alan Arkin) wants to move to a retirement community. She must look into and deal with the wild behavior and harsh realities of her past, and still hold on to her present. Miller wrote Proof, and directed The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and this looks like a slight departure for Arkin as an actor. It could be another The Life Before Her Eyes, or it could be really freaking good. Also, I’m in love with Monica Bellucci. There, I said it.
Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Keanu Reeves, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci, Blake Lively
July 10 (UK)

Film2Home

Erbjuder en gratis film om man vill testa ett legalt alternativ, dvs se en film via bredbandet. För mig som har HTPC är detta ett fint val iom att datorn är kopplad till tv´n. Ni som har testat detta redan, vad tycker ni, är det acceptabel kvalité på filmerna. Hur nöjda är ni med tekniken? Är detta “framtiden”?

Bland gratistitlarna så hittar man bla storfilmer som tex “Body of Lies” & “Låt den rätte komma in”

Förutom streamad film finns det även nedladdningsbara filmer på sidan från 39-129.-/st. Filmen som du sedan äger och laddas ner på din dator och du kan se den hur många gånger du vill och när du vill med hög kvalitet, på samma sätt som om du köper en film i en butik. Pris ex: Body of Lies 39.-

På vissa filmer finns det även möjlighet att utöver nedladdningen få en fysisk DVD hemskickad med post. Dessa filmer kostar mellan 139-199:-

CDON.COM

Erbjuder  också film som går att se via datorn via sin tjänst “Bredbandsfilm”. Där priserna börjar redan från 9kr/film. Men de sänder även sport, tex nu under Ishockey VM så kostar en match 69kr/st, kanske lite väl i dyraste laget om ni frågar mig, men en NHL-match på tex espn360 ligger runt 84kr.

Även CDON.com erbjuder vissa filmer gratis.

Bland dessa titlar hittar vi tex. “In the valley of Elah” men även avsnitt från bla Dexter

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I have a special spot of hatred in my hear for Crash. 2005 was a great year for films. Even the Academy did a great job picking the Best Picture nominees. If any of the four other nominated films won – Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich, or my personal pick Capote – I would have been thrilled. But instead, they went and chose Crash.

But apparently Paul Haggis thinks it was all a mistake. Haggis told the Chicago Tribune, “I love the Oscars; I just think they are the best thing in the world, but if you asked me if it was the best film of the year, I’d say, ‘Of course not.’ “

We can agree there Paul.

He continued: “I happened to like my second film [In the Valley of Elah] better than Crash, but no one went to see it.”

That’s where we can’t agree. In the Valley of Elah defied my expectations and was even worse than Crash.

Crossfire is a film noir as it uses light and shadows to create mood and atmosphere. elah isn’t film noir it is more real in style.

Nial Spence.

I agree with Nial. I feel as though, if you class film noir as a genre, then Elah has taken it as a very big influence. Both films do stem from the hard-boiled crime novels and pulp fiction that was around in the 20’s and 30’s, however both of them use it in very different ways. Crossfire clearly takes influences from Chandler in the utilisation of the detective playing on the rough, dirty side of the law, whereas Elah is, in a sense, a lot cleaner. Hank doesn’t appear to be harrowed by years of service, but is proud of it. Finlay, in Crossfire, is the complete opposite. His world-weary view is something that could have been used to convey a very strong message about the state of America, however due to the Production Code this was not possible. Elah had a lot more freedom in this sense, and had the ability to give a much more pessimistic viewpoint.

James Brown.

We also see that in Crossfire that the villain  “Monty” is shown to be a psychopath from the start of the film and that he has not been influenced or changed in anyway to be how he is. As due to the production code films from the 1940 had to abind to this code. this meant that they couldn’t say anything bad about the armed forces. As crossfire was made in 1947 then it had to a bind to these rules.

Whereas in Elah it didn’t have to a bind to these rules so we see that the villains (mikes fellow soldiers) are shown to have changed into psychopaths by there experiences in the war in Iraq. they are shown to be desensified by there experiences. So this is showing to the audience that the war isn’t good and it is affects the soldiers.  we also see that hank has been changed by his experiences in the army as he is very straight and we see him make his bed and sort his shoes as if still in the army.

This brings up the comparison of what to do with returning veterans in the two films?

As we see in Crossfire that Mitch has been changed my the war as he is a wreak and just what to see his wife. As in the 1940’s there were hundreds of veterans coming back from the war and the army didn’t know what to do with them and the soldiers didn’t know what to do with them selves as they weren’t used to being back after being at war. we see this in the character Mitch.

Niall Spence

Yeah i agree with both of you, Naill was right talking about film noir in crossfire. The lighting and shadows are great in this movie, they create an amazing effect and mood throughout the movie. The lighting also creates suspence within the movie. Elah on the other hand is clearly not film noir but there is a great use of dark colours, such as blue and black etc. What Niall says is spot on about the comparison between the two about the returning veterans coming back from both wars and the soldiers not knowing what to do with theirself, this is shown in Elah by Mitch being Killed by one of his own fellow soldiers. It seems that killing has become so much a part of their daily life that they dont think twice about the consequences to the family of  Mitch.

Matty Frost

I agree with all of these posts, but I would say that the production code in the 1940’s would have allowed the character of Monty to have been changed into a murderer by outside circumstances, just not by the US army

Sean

I feel that Elah goes;  Where’s Mike, what happened to Mike, who killed Mike,and why they (his friends) did it to Mike. And Crossfire goes; Who’s done it and why they’ve done it. So you can tell that ‘Elah’ is a more complicated film in terms of the plot, so it will have more twists and turns.

Joel Cavney

We all know the story of David and Goliath. David was the brave messenger boy who used a tiny catapult to defeat a giant that no-one else dared fight.

The place where the fight occurred is probably less familiar. According to 1 Samuel 17:

Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines.

The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.”

Paul Haggis’ film of the same name – released in 2007, but which I’ve only just seen on dvd – takes us into a valley of the sort best evoked in another bible verse: the valley of the shadow of death. And leaves us there.

Though most of the film is played out in a grey, tumble-weed ridden Albuquerque in North America, every scene takes place under the shadow of the Iraq war. The radios are playing a war-mongering George Bush; the local police joke when an Iraq veteran’s wife comes in complaining he has drowned their dog. With an army base just outside town, post-traumatic stress disorder is no news at all.

On that level the film is a classic interrogation of war and its consequences; a natural descendant of The Deer Hunter, with its narrative of young recruits brutally shorn of innocence and coerced into acts of inhumanity. Though Elah is, if anything, even more despairing. The film suggests that the impact of legitimised violence, especially against civilians, is rarely less than catastrophic for the individual psyche.

Like The Deer Hunter, Elah is deeply concerned with the lives of the people left behind, and their inability to imagine the unimaginable scenes their loved ones must inhabit. Hank Deerfield, played by Tommy Lee Jones – who has surely never looked so worn nor so broken – fails to foresee the trials his son Mike will endure in Iraq, even though he is himself a Vietnam veteran.

So when Mike goes AWOL while on leave from the Middle East, Hank, an ex-military policeman, sets out to discover where he might be and what might have prompted his disappearance.

Both Jones and Charlize Theron – as a local police officer – give outstanding, self-effacing performances as two very different versions of the law. Both live their work; both are driven by a selfless sense of duty, an allegiance to something remote and intangible.

The other main players, the soldiers who clearly know more than they’re willing to say about Mike’s disappearance, offer a more extreme version of such discipline. Their loyalty is two-fold: to the American flag, but less consciously, to their own mental survival in impossible conditions, at any cost.

The film is based on true events: the disappearance of an American soldier named Richard T. Davis.  And though on the surface, Elah is most obviously a police procedural – a genre film – replete with missed clues, a crotchety “detective” and a few red herring leads, it is also a very original piece of cinema which dares to tell a deeply unpalatable truth about soldiering and our reliance on it. When I wrote that the Dark Knight was so far the only film I’d seen to have dealt in some way with Iraq, Paul recommended In The Valley of Elah, saying it was one of the best films he’d seen tackling the effects of war. I would second that.  Of course it’s not at all optimistic or fun to watch; rather, it inspires a kind of dread. But it’s worth remembering that the valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath, was only briefly a place of extraordinary courage. More commonly it played host to paralyzing, deeply human fear.

2007: In the Valley of Elah di Paul Haggis

Il titolo fa riferimento alla valle che vide lo scontro di Davide e Golia… Ma ora a vincere è Golia, sottolinea amaramente Paul Haggis (reduce dal trionfale esordio di Crash).

Uno dei più riusciti lavori sul crollo dell’american dream (“uno dei migliori film contemporanei sulla “perdita dell’innocenza” degli americani”, Repubblica) : un’opera tesa e massimamente asciutta (con l’andamento di un coinvolgente poliziesco) che sembra appartenere più alla migliore cinematografia europea che a quella hollywoodiana.

Commuove e sconvolge Nella valle di Elah, giustamente definito dalla critica “film doloroso, difficile, scomodo”.
A onore di Haggis il mostrare con decisione e senza ipocrisia (evitando accuratamente ogni forma di retorica o di facile melodramma) come la guerra faccia trasformi l’essere umano.
Attualissimo il messaggio: perché Saul ha permesso che Davide sfidasse il mostro? perché l’America permette che i suoi ragazzi facciano altrettanto con il mostro della guerra? L’America ha bisogno del resto del mondo, senza questo l’America non può farcela, perde militarmente ma soprattutto moralmente.
Bellissima l’ultima scena, che riassume compiutamente e dolorosamente il significato dell’intero film.

Due ore dove le pause, i silenzi, gli sguardi hanno la medesima importanza dei dialoghi e delle azioni… due ore che catturano la nostra attenzione procurandoci inquietudine, angoscia, orrore: inevitabile interrogarsi su cosa stia accadendo al mondo odierno.

Nella valle di Elah (a cui una delle ultime Mostre veneziane dedicò una vera e propria standing ovation) si contraddistingue anche per il desolante affresco di una provincia maschilista chiusa triste… che una suggestiva livida fotografia contribuisce mirabilmente a ritrarre.

Superiori a qualsiasi elogio le performance dei protagonisti.
La prova di Tommy Lee Jones è quanto di meglio si sia visto negli ultimi anni e non sarà facile dimenticarla. Charlize Theron offre una delle più sentite interpretazioni della sua carriera, evidenziando una ammirevole capacità di trasformazione e di immedesimazione. Susan Sarandon conferma di essere una delle migliori attrici del cinema contemporaneo: ha poche scene ma le bastano per rendere indimenticabile il suo personaggio.

Da far proprio il giudizio conclusivo di MyMovies:
“Una costruzione narrativa che non può essere scalfita sotto nessun punto di vista: intreccio, pathos, commozione, citazioni bibliche… sono impeccabili e rendono il film privo di qualsivoglia smagliatura”.

p.s.
Tutti gli addetti ai lavori ritenevano che il film avrebbe fatto incetta di Oscar: ha avuto solo una nomination come migliore attore (Tommy Lee Jones)

Pubblicato su Cineocchio

tuttelerecensioni

Regia: Paul Haggis
Sceneggiatura: Paul Haggis
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, James Franco, Susan Sarandon, Josh Brolin, Jonathan Tucker, Jason Patric
Paese: USA (2007). Uscita Italia: 30 Novembre 2007. Uscita USA: 13 Settembre 2007
Trama:
Mike Deerfield scompare misteriosamente subito dopo essere ritornato dall’Iraq, dove ha combattuto, e viene considerato “assente ingiustificato” dall’esercito. Il padre decide di mettersi alla ricerca del ragazzo, con l’aiuto di una riluttante investigatrice…

Deep End, The (2001)
★★★★ / ★★★★

The thing I love most about this film is its audacity to be atypical. Tilda Swinton is absolutely terrific as the mother who is constantly tested to see how far she will go to protect her son (Jonathan Tucker) and his secrets. Throughout the picture, I felt like I was watching a poker game as I peer over her shoulder, both of us knowing that she has a bad hand, but she keeps calling her opponents’ bets because she invested too much in the round, desperately hoping that the others are simply bluffing. The bleak atmosphere elevated the constantly increasing drama to the point where it almost works as a thriller. I tried not to look Swinton in the eye too much because once I do, I feel like I’m in as much trouble as she is. Her Oscar win from “Michael Clayton” was a long time coming. Another great performance comes from Goran Visnjic who plays one of the men that blackmails Swinton. I thought I knew which direction his character was going to take so that specific twist was a nice surprise. As for Jonathan Tucker, I’ve seen him in movies like “Pulse,” “Hostage” and the 2003 version of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” but it was “In the Valley of Elah” and “The Ruins” that made me want to know more about his capabilities. Even though he’s not in as many scenes I as I would have liked here (considering he’s a crucial part of the story), he was spot-on in each of them. Overall, I was invested in each character because the situations they are put in can happen to just about anybody. There’s a certain sense of realism and that’s what makes it so engaging. This is the kind of movie that not everybody can appreciate because it’s far from the norm. Instead of focusing on what was said, the film focuses on the characters’ silent moments and decisions, thereby creating a plethora of implications. Suffice to say, I think this film is exemplary in every way.

I said in my last post that I wouldn’t be able to handle being in a war. How do I know this? Other than keeping in touch with Nick, I have tried to learn about the war through the media.

Of course the media can be quite biased; does this director support the war/President Bush? was this journalist embedded with a platoon overseas and therefore has some kind of bias presented in his or her writing?

Literature

I cannot remember where I first heard about Rick Atkinson, but apparently he was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division (which has become Nick’s brigade) in March 2003.

I enjoyed Atkinson’s book, In the Company of Soldiers, because I could relate to some of what he was talking about. His descriptions of Hopkinsville, Ky. and Fort Campbell, as well as pre-deployment preparations, sounded quite familiar. As a journalism major, it was interesting to read a firsthand encounter of the war from an accomplished journalist. Atkinson spent much of his time discussing Maj. Gen. David Petraeus and other senior officials.

Around the time that Nick deployed to Iraq, my literature teacher assigned our class to read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. I never knew I could enjoy a book about the Vietnam War as much I enjoyed this one! I remember reading it on the plane ride to and from Fort Campbell in September. I was really interested in reading about the soldiers. O’Brien did an excellent job of portraying these soldiers not just as muscular robots, but as real humans – mostly teenagers and young adults. I was also interested in the role that women played in this novel; as many military personnel would say, girlfriends and wives are useless when it comes to deployment. Boy, I certainly did not like being lumped into that stereotypical category. I wanted to prove that one wrong.

I am looking forward to reading Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq. Buzzell was born on the splendid day of July 18 (just like me) but I am interested in reading this book because it started out as a blog. Buzzell, a former soldier in the Army, certainly has the experience and perspective that I am interested in hearing.

Music

Music concerning the Iraq War has been quite interesting. Obviously much of it comes from the country genre, with Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten?” and Toby Keith’s “American Soldier.” Nick loved that latter. I couldn’t stand to listen to it because it was so true and so sad. I also do not enjoy listening to Tim McGraw’s “If You’re Reading This.” These songs are too sad. It’s a good thing Clint Black came out with “Iraq and I Roll” and Keith changed his tone with “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.” Very supportive music, I’d say.

I once spent an hour-and-a-half watching WWE because it was a special salute-to-the-troops edition. Apparently some of the WWE characters visited Iraq and put on a special show for the troops. Yes, I watched the show because I was hoping I’d see Nick’s face among all those soldiers!

Cinema

Lately, I’ve become very interested in movies. It’s interesting to see how different directors put a spin on things and see what they have chosen to highlight.

I really enjoyed In the Valley of Elah, though I would not necessarily say that this is a movie that wholeheartedly supports the war. It’s about the murder of a soldier who has just returned from Iraq and a father’s quest to find out who did it and why. Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron star in this movie. Many of the men who played soldiers in this movie were actually in the military. This may be why I like this movie so much; these soldiers/actors were able to lend credibility to their roles.

On the other hand, I was a smidge-bit disappointed with Home of the Brave. It was very interesting but I think it was a little exaggerated, or at least biased. I would certainly see it again, though. Jessica Biel and Samuel L. Jackson are in this movie.

I was not too crazy about Battle for Haditha. I thought the idea of portraying US Marines, terrorists and an Iraqi family was quite interesting. However, I just got bored halfway through the movie. There were too many subtitles, and I am more interested in the US involvement on this matter. In any event, it was interesting to see the terrorist, and definitely the Iraqi family, point of view.

Once again, I was disappointed with Harsh Times. I really like Christian Bale, but I wish I could have seen more about his experience in the military. The movie states that he was a soldier, but I would have liked to see how he was during his service. I think this would have thickened the plot more to see if or how his character had changed (especially as a result of being in the military).

I really enjoyed Stop-Loss, simply because Nick has expressed his worry that he will be stop-lossed when it comes time for him to leave the Army. I wanted to learn more about what “stop-loss” means, and this movie showed an interesting perspective. I imagine Channing Tatum and Ryan Phillipe represented the feelings that Nick would probably feel. I cried during the scene when they were deploying because I knew how it felt (at least from MY experience and perspective — I cannot imagine how THEY must have felt).

Sooner or later, I plan on watching Grace is Gone, The Lucky Ones, and The Marine. It’s only a matter of time. Right now I am fixed on movies about the Iraq War because I want to know what people think about our current situation and those involved. Maybe later I will watch movies about World War I or II or Vietnam.

Lectures

Lectures are another way that I have tried to learn about this war. Elon has hosted a variety of sessions about Iraqi culture and the war. During a student debate, students from both political parties discussed what the presidential candidates should do about the war.

Iraqi journalist Ahmed Fadaam spoke to my Reporting for the Public Good class in the Fall. It was really interesting to hear his perspective on the invasion because he was actually in Iraq when it all happened. He had good advice about American-Iraqi relations.

 1) Other than “Wall-e”, this is the most enjoyable movie I’ve watched so far in 2009 (that isn’t saying much since I just looked at my Netflix queue and saw such stimulating selections as “House Bunny” and “Eagle Eye”). I’m not saying it’s the best, or the best acted, or the most well-made movie, but it was two hours of thought-provoking, genuine emotion, whodunnit cinema. A lot of times as I’m watching a movie I’m waiting for the payoff, whether that is the end, or some scene or line that will stick with me. This inevitably leads to clock checking to see approximately how much time is left in the movie. I am simply watching the movie. But with “In the Valley of Elah” I didn’t check the clock once. I was almost completely absorbed. If Isa hadn’t coughed about 2/3 of the way through I would have forgot that I was sitting in my living room and not actually driving around with Tommy Lee Jones in his plain brown F-150.

2) Despite being named after King David of the Bible and growing up in the modern American evangelical church I had not made the connection between the Valley of Elah in the title of the movie and the one in the story of David and Goliath. If there hadn’t been two scenes in the movie that pointedly addressed the story I probably wouldn’t have made the connection. Shame on me for not knowing my obscure Bible trivia! Regardless, the connection between the story of David and Goliath and the movie is lost on me. The use of the story within the movie seems to suggest there are parallels between the two. David plays the role of the underdog, the young, tiny shepherd who does what no professional soldier would do and agrees to fight Goliath, the Phillistine giant. Within the movie, David merely triumphs over his fears through self-determination and by his own skill defeats Goliath with a sling-shot pebble to the forehead. The movie completely leaves out a central character of the Biblical narrative, that of God. In the Bible story David is fighting in the confidence he has in God: ^“David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” 1 Samuel 17:45. The setting of the story is America’s involvement in Iraq – the more recent involvement and not the Gulf War in the early 90’s. Based on our culture’s self-identity as the “hero” or “the good guy” the parallel should be with America as David, but there are no similarities. In the Iraqi conflict and occupation we are clearly the Goliath, the giant superpower that scares the majority of the world by our mere size and strength. The poor, underequipped Iraqis are more like David, down to even their improvised weapons. And perhaps that is the point the filmmaker is trying to make, that our general assumption about the war is upside down. The omission of God from the story as told by Tommy Lee Jones’ character in the movie may have even been intentional. It is widely known that our President at the time of the Iraqi invasion was a professing Christian and made it clear he believed he had the support of God in the armed conflict; the omission of God is a blatant effort to show He was not involved in our conflict, on either side.

3) The movie was darn near flawless. There were about 5 – 10 slow minutes about 2/3 of the way through when it seems the movie loses some of its focus; those minutes probably could have been cut and the story wouldn’t have lost anything. However, the biggest problem with the movie was the end. I would have been completely satisfied if the movie had ended with Tommy Lee Jones returning home and walking down the dark hallway to go to bed with his wife. But in a movie filled with subtle and not-so-subtle references to the evil of America’s involvement in Iraq, the final scene, where Jones’ character raises a battlefield American flag upside down as an international distress signal, was over-the-top and more pointed than it needed to be. The movie to that point was clearly anti-war, but that statement made it anti-American as well, the conclusion being that we as a country are in trouble due to our war-culture. I don’t necessarily agree or disagree, but the scene just came off too presumptuous for my taste.

4) I agree with the movie’s central theme that war as a practice is damaging to both the body, mind, and soul. Actually the central theme might be best summed up by the phrase stated several times in the movie, “It’s fucked up, isn’t it?” There seem to be concessions that have to be made to be able to take another person’s life. The transformation of Jones’ son, Mike, throughout the movie is intended to show this. He joined the army probably out of familial obligation; Jones’ character was in the army himself and he had an older brother that was in the armed services as well. At the beginning of his time in Iraq he intentionally kills an Iraqi child by running him over with his Humvee. The standing order was to not stop for anything when patrolling as a means of self-defense; it’s harder to hit a moving target with an IED than one standing still. But the death of the Iraqi child affects him. It isn’t just another casualty of the war. The movie doesn’t explain how exactly Mike changes, but the other scenes shown from his time in Iraq along with his unit’s descriptions of him portray him as cold, emotionless, and even sadistic. Mike became a drug user, possibly an addict. He used loveless and joyless sex as another type of drug to cope. He became prone to dark moods and fits of rage. His death and the search for his killers is the focus of the movie’s story, but based on what we learn of Mike his soul had been killed long before his body. To effectively manage his emotions in combat soldiers like Mike must dehumanize their enemy. This makes it easier to deal with the constant death and violence witnessed. However, it also begins to dehumanize the soldier. Their soul, which even in the most pessimistic person, becomes even darker and it slowly dies. I’m not claiming this happens to everybody that faces combat or everyone who has been in the armed services. I don’t think the movie even believes that, Jones’ character was in the army and saw action in Vietnam, but he was no worse for the wear (or at least apparently). Violence changes us. Our lives are meant to be lived in harmony, both with each other and with God. Violence against God’s creation slowly destroys that connection we have with God. If man is created in God’s image, than killing another man is like killing God, or killing the likeness of God that we see in ourselves. I’m not saying God turns his back from us when we sin, even what we consider the most heinous of crimes against man, but each act of violence turns us further from Him and ultimately leads to our own destruction.

It’s difficult to deal with. I understand the need for the armed services as a means of self-defense. I am not sure how I feel about the use of violence in self-defense. I’m not sure God wants us to just lay there and be killed (although there are prominent examples of this within the New Testament including Jesus himself and the first martyr Stephen). I guess the distinction would be defense of your own life versus defense of someone helpless. The use of violence when used to defend an attack against your wife or child, or someone disabled, elderly, or defenseless, seems inherently to me to be permissible. But I cannot see God agreeing that pre-emptive attacks constitute self-defense. What good is it to kill someone because you think they might have wanted to or could have killed you? There is judgement involved in such a belief, and it’s a helluva a thing killing a man, such judgment is best left to God.

Here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie. ‘How fucked up is that’, indeed.

It has always been annoying that filmmaker Paul Haggis so cavalierly “borrowed” the title of David Cronenberg’s freaky 1996 car-wrecks-as-sexual-fetish drama Crash, an adaptation of the even more bizarre novel by J.G. Ballard.

Haggis’s film of the same name, released in 2004, less than a decade after Cronenberg’s far more intriguing and far more visually accomplished film, is an Altman lite examination of crisscrossing lives in Los Angeles; Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), based on the Raymond Carver short story collection, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) were superior films, also set in SoCal and taking similar approaches.

Adding insult to injury,  in 2006 Haggis’s movie won Oscars for best picture, best original screenplay (Haggis) and best editing.

Haggis followed Crash with the bomb In the Valley of Elah, a heavy-handed anti-Iraq War film, while Cronenberg has fared well in recent years with critical and commercial triumph A History of Violence, a sort-of newfangled Western built on mythic themes,  and the generally well-received drama Eastern Promises.

Cronenberg gets lots of love this month with a series at the IFC Center in Manhattan, showing the next seven Friday and Saturday nights at — appropriately enough — midnight. Scroll down to see the schedule.

Cronenberg’s themes of body horror and man-machine mutations have fascinated film students and scholars, and for good reason — the filmmaker offers plenty to chew on.

But the academics may have overstated the case for Cronenberg’s significance as a film artist, New York Times writer Terrence Rafferty observes in a piece published today (I disagree).

“The mind-body-machine games Mr. Cronenberg plays in movies like ‘Videodrome’ and ‘eXistenz’ are elaborate, suggestive and inventively worked out, but they are games, not deep philosophical statements,” Rafferty writes. “He always wins them, too, in part because he’s a terrific bluffer: he has the knack of convincing academics and other lofty-minded viewers that he’s holding better cards than he is.

“A midnight audience isn’t as easy to fool, and will probably see these films for what they are: funky, macabre science fiction comedies that tease the brain without effecting any significant alternation in its structure, or causing permanent damage.”

Cronenberg at IFC Film Center, 323 Sixth Avenue, New York City:

Feb 20-21: CRASH (1996)

Feb. 27-28: SPIDER (2002)

Mar 6-7: THE FLY (1986)

Mar 13-14: EXISTENZ (1999)

Mar 20-21: THE DEAD ZONE (1983)

Mar 27-28: VIDEODROME (1983)

April 3-4: NAKED LUNCH (1991)

2007年公開のポールハギス監督作品。

息子が無許可離隊を知らせを聞いたトミーリージョーンズが不信感を抱いて事実を探し求める話。

クラッシュ、ミリオンダラーベイビーの脚本家のポールハギス監督作品という事で期待して見たけど、期待に違わぬ良作でした。

クラッシュのように恐ろしく緻密な脚本ではないものの、良質なサスペンスとして話が展開していきます。で、何より役者一人一人の演技が素晴らしい。

トミーリー翁の表情も良いし、シャーリーズセロンのいつもながらの化けっぷりも良い。名前忘れたけど、尋問を受ける米兵もフルメタルジャケットのデブ二等兵を思わせる恐ろしい顔でした。

きっと毎日のようにイラク関連のニュースが報道されるアメリカと日本ではこの作品を見る目が全然違うと思うけど、アメリカが勝手に始めた戦争と、その戦争に翻弄されるアメリカ。ラストシーンも全て計算ずく。

ポールハギス恐るべし。

ただ一つ難点は”告発のとき”という意味不明の邦題か。

原題の”In the Valley of Elah”っていう非常に重要なタイトルを変えてまで

告発のときにしたことに何か意味あるのかしら。

色々深読みする人には凄く面白い映画だと思います。

（あ、邦題には意味ないと思うけど）

★★★★☆