Author: Snugglecub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Argo – 2012

I really liked this film.  The name of the game is suspense!  The movie is stuffed full of intensity and nerve-wracking tension.  It is so masterfully done that even though you know the ending, you are still cringing in fear for the characters.  You see, it is a historical drama about an event that was all over the news.  The 1979 hostage crisis in Iran was an event that shocked the world and had millions of people hoping and praying for the safety of the 55 hostages in the American Embassy in Iran.

The film starts out with a voice-over monologue along with some images drawn like story–boards for a movie, mixed in with historical photographs.  The content of the voice-over was a perfect opening for the film.  It is a little long, but I feel it bears repeating in its entirety here:

“This is the Persian Empire, known today as Iran.  For 2,500 years this land was ruled by a series of Kings known as Shahs.  In 1950 the people of Iran elected Mohammed Mosaddeq, a secular Democrat as Prime Minister.  He nationalized British and U.S. petroleum holdings, returning Iran’s oil to its people.  But in 1953 the U.S. and Great Brittan engineered a coup d’etat that deposed Mosaddeq and installed Reza Pahlavi as Shah.  The young Shah was known for opulence and excess.  His wife was rumored to bathe in milk, while the Shah had his lunches flown in by Concord from Paris.  The people starved.  The Shah kept power through his ruthless internal police the SAVAK.  An era of torture and fear began.  He then began a campaign to westernize Iran, enraging a mostly traditional Shiite population.  In 1979 the people of Iran overthrew the Shah.  The exiled cleric Ayatollah Khamenei returned to rule in Iran.  He descended into score-settling, death squads and chaos.  Dying of cancer, the Shah was given asylum in the U.S.  The Iranian people took to the streets outside the U.S. Embassy, demanding that the Shah be returned, tried and hanged.”

Interesting note:  There is a slight inaccuracy in that opening narration.  Pahlavi was already the Shah when the coup d’etat took place.  In fact, it was he who dismissed Mosaddeq to begin the coup.  But enough of the history lesson.

The film then concentrates on the 6 individuals who escaped the U.S. Embassy and hid in the residence of the Canadian Ambassador in Iran, Ken Taylor, played by Victor Garber.  Tony Mendez, played by Ben Affleck is the C.I.A. operative who conceives of a rescue plan and is sent in to get them out.

The plan is to fabricate a science-fiction film from Hollywood called Argo.  Then Mendez would go to Iran, claiming to be a Canadian filmmaker scouting for filming locations.  He would meet with the 6 escapees and give them the identities of a film crew, then fly out with them using fake passports issued by Canada.

Now, I’m going to say right up-front, when this movie first came out, one of the biggest complaints was that it ignored the 52 hostages that were held in the Embassy for 444 days.  Let me dispel that argument right now.  First of all, the movie wasn’t about them.  It was about the 6 who got out.  Why would it focus at all on the 52?  And second, the rest of them were mentioned several times!  Their fate was divulged in the little blurbs at the end of the movie, telling what happened to the characters.  Attention was paid!  If the movie were about them, it would have spent considerably more time on their terrifying situation.

Ben Affleck actually did a good job.  Somehow he has earned himself a bit of a reputation in Hollywood as a bad actor, probably in association with a movie called Gili, widely considered one of the worst films ever made.  But this was a role in which he seemed very comfortable.  He grew a beard for the role and it looked good on him.  I thought he really did a good job and had no complaints about his performance.  The only thing I will say is that it was part of his character to keep his emotions suppressed in the interest of keeping everyone calm, so he didn’t have to stretch himself as much as other characters in that respect.

Bryan Cranston played his boss at the C.I.A., Jack O’Donnell.  Cranston did a fantastic job.  It would have been so easy to make the character the stereotypical hard-nosed boss without much depth.  But Cranston brought a measure of humanity and humor to the role that was refreshing.

John Goodman and Alan Arkin played John Chambers and Lester Siegel, a Hollywood make-up artist and a film producer, both of whom were in on the plan.  They did everything you would have to do to get a movie produced.  They got the rights to the script, started an advertisement campaign, went through casting calls, did a publicized reading, had posters made up, and drew up story-boards, all the while knowing that the movie itself was a complete fake with the sole purpose of retrieving the 6 American citizens hiding in Iran.

Interesting note:  According to Tony Mendez, the fake production office known as Studio Six was so convincing in the real-life Argo plan that even several weeks after it folded and the Iranian rescue was complete, “we had received twenty-six scripts.  One was from Stephen Spielberg.”

Where the film’s masterfully crafted tension cam in is that we learn that there is a race of sorts going on.  The American diplomats had shredded as many of their files as they could so that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of their captors.  The Iranians had sweat-shop children going through basket after basket of shredded paper, reconstructing the personnel files to find out whether there were any Americans that they were not holding as hostages.  The rescue plan had to be executed before the identities of the 6 escapees could be determined.

The tension was slowly built throughout the entire film.  Even though the outcome was just a matter of history that anyone who lived through that crisis would already know, the climax of the movie was exciting and made by heart race.  Several of the details were altered, maybe a time line or two sped up or slowed down to make the final escape one that was close cut and nerve-wracking.

Interesting note:  Apparently the 6 diplomats were not in as much danger as the movie depicts, though that was another detail that the Hollywood movie machine played up, despite reality.  Not the first time, and certainly not the last time that has happened.

The 6 Americans trying to escape Iran were, for the most part, fairly unknown actors, with one exception.  Tate Donovan played the part of Robert Anders.  He served as the leader of the group of diplomats.  In addition, actors Clea DuVall, Christopher Denham, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishe and Rory Cochrane played the rest of the diplomats.  I mention their names because they each brought a different dynamic to the group.

Most notably, McNairy’s character, Joe Stafford was the man who created even more tension, being too afraid to participate in the escape plan.  He also carried a bit of the film’s emotional content, confessing that he felt certain that they would all die.

Now, one of the most amazing parts of the movie was the fact that, in regards to casting and make-up, special attention was given to the look of each character.  They went out of their way to make the actors look like the real people who were involved in the events depicted in the movie.  And they really did a great job.  In fact, at the end of the movie, they made a point of showing the actors along-side historical archive photos of the people they were portraying.  The likenesses were remarkably similar.  In fact, I believe the only three main actors who this did not happen for were Affleck, Arkin and Cranston.

As I usually do when dealing with a historical drama, I must take a quick look at any glaring historical inaccuracies.  Small ones are forgivable, but big ones have to be at least mentioned.  Of course, Argo is only loosely based on the Iran Hostage Crisis.  The character of John Sheardown and his wife were completely left out of the movie. Sheardowns was a Canadian Immigration Official, at whose residence several of the American Diplomats stayed.  In the film, they all stayed together at the Taylor residence.

Another inaccuracy that should be noted is the fact that the movie makes a point of saying that when the 6 diplomats were on the run, they went to both the British Embassy and the New Zealand Embassy looking for asylum, but both countries turned them away.  This is completely untrue.  In fact, they spent one night with the Brits before moving to the safer location with the Canadians.  The New Zealanders actually drove the 6 diplomats to the airport on the day of their departure.

In reality, there was no real tension at all.  There was no great race to leave the country.  There were no problems getting past guards at the airport.  There were no police cars chasing the airplane down the runway.  The whole rescue operation was not very nearly cancelled at any point.  But hey, this is Hollywood.  Hollywood is rarely in the business of telling the absolute truth.  It is a filmmaker’s job to entertain an audience using all the tools at their disposal such as dramatic and emotional tension, suspense, and intrigue.  If they had strictly stuck to reality, it would have been too dull a story to warrant a movie at all.

And finally, there is one last inaccuracy that I need to mention.  The movie implies that the entire rescue operation was planned and executed by the C.I.A., but it was really the Canadians, working with Tony Mendez, who apparently did 90% of the planning, organizing, and execution of the rescue.  The biggest thanks of all should have gone to Ken Taylor and the Canadians who orchestrated most of the operation.

But like I said, this is Hollywood.  The movie was full of suspense and was exciting to watch.  So, it did its job, and did it well.  This is definitely a movie that deserved the Oscar for Best Picture.

 

The Artist – 2011

The Artist is a gimmick that was designed to remind the Academy of the early days of Hollywood.  It was a black and white silent film.  In fact, it was the first black and white Best Picture winner since Schindler’s List in 1993, and the first silent film since the very first Best Picture winner in 1928, Wings.  It was tailor made to touch the hearts of any movie buff who enjoyed films from the silent era.  It was a blatant attempt to give them feelings of intense nostalgia.

And darn it if it didn’t work.  The artist was nominated for 10 awards and won 5 of them.  In addition to Best Picture, it won for Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Costume Design and Best Original Score.  So, it wasn’t a sweep, but it certainly took home its share of Oscars.

The film starred Dujardin as George Valentin, a big Hollywood star in the era of silent movies. He was American Royalty in its truest sense.  He had everything: money, cars, a chauffer, a mansion, thousands of adoring fans and a beautiful wife.  Unfortunately, he also had a number of traits that are sometimes typical of someone in such a position.  He had an enormous ego and a callous disregard for most other people that bordered on just plain mean.  True, he had a thousand-watt smile that was perfect for a silent film star, but he only turned it on when the public could see him.

He had all the graces and flaws that one might expect of a Hollywood superstar, which is why, as he is signing autographs, a young and unknown actress literally bumps into him.  By today’s standards, such an accidental physical contact would be ignored, but in 1927, apparently, it is enough to make people gasp and recoil.  But Valentin plays it off as something forgivable.  He even poses for several pictures with the beautiful young stranger.

The woman’s name is Peppy Miller, played by Berenice Bejo.  And, of course, the movie that Valentin is promoting is nearly forgotten because all the papers want to know is: Who’s that girl?  The next day Peppy turns up at the movie studio and she turns heads with her bright smile and her talent for dancing.  But Al Zimmer, played by John Goodman, the director of Valentin’s films, is upset at Peppy for overshadowing his new movie and refuses to work with her until Valentin vouches for her.  Valentin is moderately attracted to her despite the fact that he is married to the beautiful Doris Valentin, played by Penelope Ann Miller.

Not long after that, as Peppy begins to get noticed, the real conflict of the film makes itself known.  Zimmer calls Valentin into a private screening room to show the latest craze in filmmaking: talkies.  The silent era was dying and sound was starting to take over Hollywood.  But a prideful Valentin laughs in Zimmer’s face and walks out.

So, as you can see, the first half of the movie doesn’t really have much of a plot.  It is simple and fairly dull.  I am not a scholar of the silent film era, but it seems to me that in order for a movie, silent or otherwise, to be good there has to be a story content that hooks you in from the very beginning.  Without that, a film just doesn’t keep my interest for very long.  But maybe I am looking at the subject with too modern a sensibility.

I sometimes wonder how well the first Best Picture winner, Wings, would do at the box office if it were re-written for the audiences of today.  Give it dialogue to make it more dramatic, color to make it more visually stunning, and maybe a science-fiction setting to appeal to a modern audience.  I wonder how well it would do.  I think it would do quite well because the story was a good one.  But if you take the movie The Artist and gave it the same kind of treatment, I don’t think it would do as well.  The plot was just too paper-thin.  For me, the movie was a gimmick that wore off after the first half an hour.

The second half of the movie has much more substance and some deeper drama.  It follows Peppy’s rise to stardom as she embraces the talkies, and Valentin’s decline into poverty as he refuses to do the same.  But even then, the plot moves slowly and not very much happens.  Valentin is fired by the studio, his wife leaves him and he loses everything.  However, Peppy is still in love with him and she helps him as much as she can.

This is what justified the film and made me understand why it received all the awards that were given to it.  This is where the characters became a little deeper and more believable.  This is where reality stepped into the picture and I became much more invested in the characters.  Eventually, Valentin attempts to commit suicide and is saved, in true silent film era fashion, by his dog.  And we can’t have a movie like this without a happy ending.

I can’t really rate the performances of the actors based on the first half of the movie.  But the second half gave me plenty on which to comment.  Dujardin and Bejo both did a fantastic job.  Dujardin was wonderful to watch as he spiraled down into the depths of depression and self-hate.  But to me, it was Bejo who really stood out as a great actress.  Peppy became a very conflicted character.  She was riding the high and exciting wave of her own stardom, but her love for Valentin and her desire to help a man who, on several occasions, refused her help, afraid to accept the death of the silent film era, was a clear and somewhat compelling contradiction.  It was very well played and I enjoyed watching her.

Some other notable actors in the film were John Goodman and Penelope Ann Miller.  The scene in which Doris tries to tell George that she is unhappy in their marriage was very well acted.  Miller displayed some of the strongest emotional power in the film.  I actually felt bad for her character and when she turned on the tears, I nearly felt some myself.  She impressed me.

Zimmer was a bit of a two dimensional character, but Goodman is such a good actor that he made it more than what was on the pages of the script.  He has a very expressive face that worked quite well for a silent film.  In fact, it occurs to me that all the actors had to re-learn how to act for a film format that hasn’t been used for over 80 years.

Another actor that stood out was James Cromwell, playing the part of Clifton, Valentin’s chauffer.  He really looked perfect for the part and he portrayed a very loyal and likable character.  Well done Cromwell!

There were several things about the movie that I found very effective.  First of all, was the music.  The original score had to cover the entire film, over 1 hour and 40 minutes. Granted, there was a little music borrowed from other films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Alberto Ginastera’s “Estancia.”  But it was always appropriate to the action taking place on the screen.

And finally, there are two scenes in particular that touched me and really caught my attention as being very well done.  They stick in my memory and gave an extra dimension to an otherwise, let’s face it, monotone film.  The first was just a very simple scene in which Peppy sneaks into Valentin’s dressing room to thank him for vouching for her with Zimmer.  She writes a “thank you” note on his mirror but as she is leaving, she sees his tux coat hanging on a rack.  She approaches it almost shyly and hugs it as if he is wearing it.  She smells it and closes her eyes, imagining him to be standing in front of her.  Then she puts her right arm into the sleve and wraps it around her left side.  The simple illusion of the tuxedo sleeve against her gown is remarkable effective.  It suddenly appeared as though someone else was caressing her and the look of bliss on her face was priceless.  It was actually a magical little scene.

Interesting note:  Apparently this little scene was an homage to a scene in 7^th Heaven, a silent movie that was nominated for Best Picture in 1928, losing to Wings.

The other scene is the one in which Valentin is starting to realize that talkies are the future of cinema and the silent film era is nearly over.  The music stops and all is silent.  He is drinking and when he puts the glass on the table, you hear the sound effect as clear as day.  It caught me off guard.  It catches Valentin off guard as well.  He picks up the glass and puts it down again only to hear the sound again.  It is as if he has never heard a sound in his life.  He starts hearing sounds all around him.  But when he starts screaming into the mirror, trying to hear the sound of his own voice, no sound at all can be heard.  Finally he sees a feather fall to the ground and the impact is so loud that he grabs his ears in pain.  It was a very effective scene.

Something else that I could not help but notice was the fact that the film went out of its way to be a black and white silent film.  But all the films from that early era had a somewhat darker and grainier quality to the picture.  This effect could have been easily achieved with today’s technology.  However, the clear and smooth quality of the film never let me forget that this was a very modern film.  This was neither good nor bad.  It was just a decision made by the director, but it caught my attention.

Interesting note:  There wasn’t a single zoom shot in the entire film, specifically because the technology for zoom shots did not exist at that point in film making.  In addition, the movie was shot at a slower frame rate than most modern films, making the action on the screen appear to be slightly faster than normal, just like in the silent era.  All this attention to details in mimicking the style, and yet…

All in all, it was a well-made movie, but the plot was a little lack-luster.  The acting was good, but the black and white, silent film format was, in my opinion, a cheesy gimmick to remind me of something I’m glad we have moved beyond.  Yes, it was an homage to the work that was done in the early days of filmmaking which made all modern films possible.  I get that.  I just don’t know if it was Best Picture material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The King’s Speech – 2010

The King’s Speech was a well-made movie that was slow and boring, and there was a very specific reason why.  It was a historical drama that revolves around the figure of King George VI of England.  Actually he is only the Duke of York for the first half of the film.  The problem is that he has a speech impediment.  He has a very bad stammer.  It takes him several minutes to say a few sentences.  We all know how painful it is to try to listen to a person with such a disability.  The problem is that the film does not shy away from those painful moments.

What this does is it effectively puts the audience into a situation that is awkward and uncomfortable in the real world.  But OK, I get it.  That was intentional.  But with all the big, slow pauses and uncomfortable silences, we sit there watching and waiting for something to be said.  It just helped to make the whole film… well, slow and dull.

The movie starred Colin Firth in the lead role of His Royal Highness, Prince Albert, the Duke of York, later renamed as King George VI.  His wife, Queen Elizabeth, formerly Duchess of York, played by Helena Bonham Carter, is a loving and devoted wife.  After a disastrous speech closing the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, multiple speech therapists are hired to cure the Prince of his affliction, but to no avail.  Frustrated, Prince Albert gives up hope of ever being able to speak without his stammer.

In fact, the speech impediment is so bad, he cannot even talk to his daughters without stammering.  Everything seems hopeless, but more or less safe.  After all, he is not the next in line for the throne and is not likely to give too many public speeches in his life.  But ever loving and loyal, the Duchess finds a speech therapist named Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush.  She meets with him and finds that his methods seem to be unconventional which gives her hope for better, if not different results.

The Duke agrees to see him.  At their first meeting, Logue waves a magic wand and instantly wipes away the Duke’s stammer.  How, you might ask?  Well, he turns on a record with a set of headphones so that only the Duke can hear it.  He then has him read and record the To Be or Not To Be speech from Hamlet.  He reads beautifully and flawlessly without stammering at all, proving that he is capable of unhampered speech.  My question is this:  If he is giving speeches over the wireless, or the radio, why did they never employ that little trick again?

OK, never-mind that.  I know that not all his speeches were for the radio.  Sometimes he would have to speak in a public forum.  So, continued therapy was necessary.  And I understand that the film is about more than just the speaking.  It is about the friendship that develops between the Duke and the speech therapist.  But they spent too little time exploring that friendship and what it meant to the two men.  They spent some time on that, yes.  But maybe a little more would have made the film more dramatic.

Then, at one point, I thought it would be about how Logue eventually gets Albert, otherwise known as Bertie, to delve into the psychological reasons for the speech impediment.  Now, here there could have been some interesting drama, but again, they dropped the ball.  Very little time was devoted to those deep emotional shortcomings and fears that were acquired in the Duke’s early childhood which were the cause of his overwhelming disability.  There was a single scene which did a lot of hinting and suggesting, but very little actual hard reasoning.  Maybe the filmmakers were trying to remain close to actual events, but Hollywood is no stranger to embellishment for dramatic purposes.

In fact, such artistic license was taken in this very film in regards to the severity of the stammering, itself.  True, the real King George VI had a stammer that was strong enough to be called a disability, but the film portrayed it as something so intense that at times, it robbed him of the power of speech altogether.  Also, they stretched out the time it took for Bertie’s speaking to improve from the months to years.

But for me, I think that the whole plot line about how his older brother, Edward, Prince of Wales, played very well by Guy Pearce, was far more interesting than Bertie’s “inspired” efforts to overcome his speaking disability.  Edward was having an affair with a woman who had been divorced twice.

What I found interesting about that was the fact that the British nobles, the members of Parliament, and the government didn’t care about the affair, nor did they care about the fact that it was with an American woman.  They would have approved of the affaire if he had kept it relatively discrete.  But to marry her?  A woman who had been divorced?!?  That was the big scandal.  And that was why Prince Edward had to abdicate the throne after the death of King, George V, played by Michael Gambon.

But, of course, the abdication forced Bertie to take the throne, himself.  They made a big deal out of 4 simple sentences he had to say at his coronation ceremony.  Here again, they could have had a really cool scene, showing the ceremony, the costumes, the pomp, the crowds of people… but they dropped the ball again.  Instead of filming the coronation ceremony, they showed Bertie practicing his 4 lines in an empty cathedral, then they skipped ahead to the new Royal Family as they watched a few seconds of old black and white footage, which might have been real footage of the actual coronation event as the King’s face was never shown.

Interesting note:  In the real world, when Prince Edward abdicated the throne, he was actually banned from the British Isles.  The only times he and his wife Wallis Simpson were ever allowed back into the country was to attend the funerals of his mother and his brother Bertie.  The ban was put in place by the Queen Mother, Elizabeth.  She hated Wallis and blamed her for forcing Bertie onto the throne before he was prepared, thus contributing to his early death.  However, he actually died from lung cancer at age 56.

This, of course, is not the first Best Picture winner for actors Geoffrey Rush or Colin Firth.  However, it is Helena Bonham Carter’s first.  I mention this because I have always liked her as an actress.  She is gorgeous and there is an openness about her that is very appealing.  In this role, there is a lovely natural quality about her that has an inner core of strength and poise.  She really stood out to me as a good actress.  She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, though she did not win.

Rush also did a good job.  Though not much is known about the real Logue, the screenwriter, David Seidler, a man who had overcome a similar speech impediment in his own life, was able to get ahold of Logue’s notebooks.  This helped to create a more complete picture of the man who helped King George VI to make the important and inspirational speeches required of a man in his position.  Rush was able to fill in the blanks with his own skills as an actor, and though he didn’t win, he was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Interesting note:  In the late 1970s and the 1980s, Seidler went to Logue’s grandson, Valentine Logue to ask for an interview and the notebooks.  Logue only agreed to discuss his grandfather’s relationship with King George VI and make the notes available if the Queen Mother allowed it.  She asked that this not be done in her lifetime. Three years after her death in 2002 the project was picked back up and the notebook was released.

As for Colin Firth, I thought he also did well enough.  He is a competent actor, though I generally see him playing the same character over and over again:  the stuffy British gentleman.  Like Clint Eastwood or Tommy Lee Jones, or even Keanu Reeves, as long as you only cast them in the kind roles roles that they are known for, they will do a very good job.  That being said, sometimes I would like to see Firth stretch himself as an actor.  However, he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his work in The King’s Speech.

Another actor, who I thought did a good job was Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop Cosmo Lang.  We remember him from the 2000 Best Picture winner Gladiator.  His character is quite different, but he played it with sufficient gravity and skill.  He has a good on-screen presence and a very distinct appearance.

One thing about the film that I liked very much was the music.  The Soundtrack was composed by Alexandre Desplat.  The music is sparse, specifically reflecting the King’s broken speech.  The instrumentation is minimal: nothing more than strings and piano, except for one track which features an oboe and a harp.  It is beautiful and simplistic with a feeling of sadness and melancholy.  Right at the very beginning of the movie, it caught my attention as something special.

The music lent itself very easily to both the subject matter and visual style of the film.  There were very few bright colors.  The costumes and filming locations alike were all muted tones of gray, brown and black.  As is often the case in England, many outdoor scenes took place in the rain.  The cars were all black.  The wallpapers on many of the indoor sets were made up of dull and lifeless colors.  Even when there were colors, they were muted or dim, like the faded pastel dresses worn by the Duchess or the dark red lipstick worn by Prince Edward’s mistress.

Everything pointed towards depression, frustration and sadness.  All except for the final shot before the credits.  After King George gives his first good speech on the wireless, the speech that announced to all the people of England that they were now at war with Germany, the King, his Queen, and their two children, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, walk out onto a balcony to stand and wave before their subjects.  There in that one shot, the colors are brightened, despite the dark times that we all know are ahead of them.  But that wasn’t the point of the movie.  The King had successfully gotten through the hardest and most important speech of his career, all because of his speech therapist and friend, Lionel Logue.

But in the end, this film was much too slow and the subject matter was just too dull for my tastes.  Still, many people liked it.  In addition to Best Picture, The King’s Speech won Oscars for Best Director (Tom Hooper), Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler) and Best Actor (Firth).  I thought it was a passable film, though not nearly as great as everyone made it out to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hurt Locker – 2009

Well, here we are again with another war film.  This one has the distinction of being the first Best Picture winner about the Iraqi War.  Everyone with whom I had spoken about The Hurt Locker told me that it was such a good film, so my expectations were high.  I enjoyed the movie on a number of levels, though when I was done watching it, I had to take it in stride.  Some aspects of the movie were so obviously manufactured, unrealistic, and not based in reality that I could not take them too seriously.

That being said, there was also a lot of realism about other aspects of the movie, and the drama was good.  It seemed to me that there were 3 leading cast members and 3 supporting members.  The leads were all relatively unknown actors at the time: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty.  The supporting cast was made up of Guy Pierce, David Morse and Ralph Fiennes, each of whom had already made names for themselves in Hollywood.

The plot was an interesting one in that there was no real villain.  But despite that fact, the film was full of heart-pounding tension.  Our 3 leads are members of a U. S. Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit, or EOD unit.  Live explosives make for innately tense situations.  The men who volunteer to be on the teams that diffuse them have to have nerves of steel to work under enormous pressures that I can only attempt to imagine.

The film follows Sergeant First Class William James, played by Renner, Sergeant J. T. Sanborn, played by Mackie, and Specialist Owen Eldridge, played by Geraghty, during the final month of their 1 year tour of duty in Baghdad.  These 3 men did a fantastic job, especially Renner, the leader of the team.  Not only did they act their parts well, as I did my research, I found that they did their filming in Jordan, in the Middle East.  They had to deal with all the harsh conditions typical of the remote location, not the least of which was the heat, which averaged 120 degrees Fahrenheit for most of the shoot.

The film was directed by Kathryn Bigleow, and she was the first woman to be awarded the Best Director Oscar from the Academy.  It was her goal to infuse the movie with as much realism as she could.  She wanted the audience to experience the realities of Iraq War as did the soldiers by whom the war was fought.  The sweat on the faces of the actors was real.

Interesting note:  Renner recounts his experiences during filming, saying, “I got food bugs, then I got food poisoning: lost 15 lbs in 3 days.”  Add to that the 80-100 lb bomb suit made of padded material, and it is a wonder that he didn’t suffer heat stroke on a daily basis.

But the film starts out with a different leader:  Staff Sergeant Matthew Thompson, played by Guy Pierce.  He seems like a very competent man who really knows his job backwards and forwards.  A bomb threat is called in and it is his job to put on the bomb suit and actually approach the explosives to diffuse them.  Sanborn and Eldridge have the task of making sure the locals stay away from him and to watch for any suspicious individuals who might have remote detonation devices.

Too late, a man with a cell phone is spotted.  Thompson tries to run, but the bomb explodes and Thompson is killed.  His replacement arrives in the form of Sgt. James.  The problem with Sgt. James is that he is a loose cannon.  He is a successful bomb diffuser with an incredible track record, but he has a complete disregard for proper procedure, and has a habit of endangering his own life as well as the lives of his teammates.

Here is where my main complaint about the plot comes in.  I happen to be from a military family, and though I’ll admit that I don’t know much about military procedure and the like, I do know that soldiers that don’t follow rules and safety protocols are not tolerated.  They are quickly taken off assignments and sent elsewhere.  I imagine that they are probably harshly disciplined as well.

Even as I was watching the movie, I was just rolling my eyes as I saw Sgt. James doing stupid things that put his crew at risk.  He put them into situations that they had no business being in.  He gave them orders which could have easily gotten them all killed.  And yet, there was a scene in which Colonel Reed, played by David Morse, approached him simply to praise him for his work and marvel at how cool everyone seemed to think he was.

No!  He is not cool!  He was a menace to himself and everyone around him!  He needed to be taken off the EOD unit and demoted, if not discharged!  It all started on the first mission in which Sgt. James participated.  An explosive device is reported in a residential area of Baghdad.  The locals clear the street as they see the bomb squad approaching.  Sanborn starts to get out the remote unit, a small robot with a swivel arm and a camera that can safely assess the threat.  It can give the EOD unit an idea of what kind of explosives are being used and possibly what detonation device is being employed without putting any human lives at risk.

However, the gung-ho Sgt. James refuses to send the robot.  He immediately demands the bomb suit and approaches the bomb on foot.  Sanborn objects and protests, but James pulls rank, ignores the rules, and does things his own way.  OK, end of story.  Remove him from duty… now.  But no.  He successfully diffuses the bomb and nobody is hurt.

This kind of behavior causes tension in the group, and here is where a lot of the drama of the film comes from.  How do Sanborn and Eldridge put their lives in the hands of a man who seems to have little regard for their lives?  There were just so many stupid things that the character of Sgt. James did I had to start looking at the movie as a complete work of fiction.

Interesting note:  The film was independently written and made without the help of the U. S. Army.  Here is a quote I found on Wikipedia, in regards to the character of Sgt. James: (He is) “more of a run and gun cowboy type… exactly the kind of person that we’re not looking for.”  Another bomb disposal team member says that the lead character’s “swagger would put a whole team at risk.  Our team leaders don’t have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren’t allowed to operate. A team leader’s first priority is getting his team home in one piece.”

I was right.

But at least his reckless behavior was acknowledged.  At one point, he orders his EOD team to chase after some terrorists that were fleeing the site of a successful bombing.  During the chase, Eldridge is nearly captured.  In order to save him, James and Sanborn have to shoot the men dragging him away.  In the process, they shoot Eldridge in the leg, shattering his femur in 7 places.

As Eldridge is being airlifted to surgery, he bids a fond goodbye to Sanborn, but curses James for his stupid and unprofessional behavior.  James tries to apologize for shooting him, but adds that he had to do it in order to save his life.  Eldridge says that he would never have had to do it if he hadn’t forced them all to be where they should have never have been in the first place.  And he was absolutely right.  But even after that, James was still not relieved from duty.  Pure fiction.

But I was able to enjoy the tension and drama of the movie.  The unpredictability of the bombs and mysterious behavior and attitudes of the locals really put me on edge, which was the point.  Bigelow did her job well.  I was at the edge of my seat when James was searching a burned-out car for a detonation device or trying to use a pair of bolt cutters to remove a bomb vest from a civilian being used as an unwilling suicide bomber.

Now, there is one thing that I had to question.  It seemed that at times, the team was diffusing a different bomb every day, which seems like a lot.  Is that really how it was?  Were there that many unexploded bombs all over the city of Baghdad and the surrounding area?  How often were real EOD units called to do their dangerous work in the Iraq War?  Was this an accurate depiction?

Apparently, the answer is yes.  In fact, in my research, I found that the movie may have actually softened reality a bit.  The film’s screenwriter, Mark Boal, had spent time with an EOD unit as a journalist in 2004.  He apparently accompanied the team 10 – 15 times a day to watch their tasks.  That would lead me to believe that the brave soldiers who have this horrible job are put in danger far more often than the movie shows.

As I mentioned earlier, I thought that Renner did a particularly good job in his role.  The fact that his character did some pretty unprofessional and moronic things like throwing away his communications head-set when he was irritated because Sanborn was screaming at him, telling him that he was putting all their lives in danger, was not the actor’s fault.  That was Boal’s fault.  Renner played the part well as it was written.

The film not only tried to put the audience in the middle of the action, it tried to put it inside Sgt. Jame’s head, as well.  What we saw was a little disturbing and yet all too believable.  It takes a certain kind of mind to function under those harrowing conditions for any length of time.  I would guess that nobody walks away from one life threatening situation after another without being damaged somehow.

And here, finally we have somewhat of an explanation for the problems with the character.  The first thing said at the very beginning of the film is a quote from a best selling book written by Chris Hedges, a New York Times war correspondent and journalist.  “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”

That chilling quote is explained in the final scenes of the film.  When Sgt. James’ tour of duty is over, he returns home to his wife and infant son, only to realize that he feels disconnected from everything.  The banality of his home existence is too much for him.  He is bored and uninterested in the safe and sedate day to day tasks he must perform.  So, what does he do?  He re-enlists and is sent back to Iraq to begin another 365 day tour of duty.  A potent and often lethal addiction, indeed.  It made for a very profound ending.

The Hurt Locker was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, winning 6 of them.  In addition to Best Picture, the film took home Oscars for Best Director (Bigelow), Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.  I would agree with all of them, except maybe for the Best Original Screenplay.  The whole basis for the film is a man who would never be allowed to serve in such a capacity.

So, I have to ask, what was The Hurt Locker up against in the Original Screenplay category?  Inglorious Bastards, The Messenger, A Serious Man and Up.  The only one of those films I have actually seen is Inglorious Bastards.  Personally, I liked that screenplay better than The Hurt Locker.  But that’s just me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slumdog Millionaire – 2008

Let me just say right off the bat, I was completely surprised by this movie.  I have to admit that though I went into watching it with an open mind, my expectations were a little low.  I was not expecting much out of a film from a foreign country, half of which was in another language, using subtitles.  But not only did Slumdog Millionaire surprise me, it surprised the Academy, if not the world.  And I think it is important to mention that though the story takes place in India, this is not a Bollywood film.  It is actually a British movie, a fact I did not know.  Still, the original novel, called Q & A, was written by the Indian Author, Vikas Swarup.

The plot is three-fold: the far past, the recent past, and the present.  Each story is held tightly together to paint a large and colorful picture.  We start out by being asked a question, as if on a game show.  I can only give an approximation based on memory of the opening question of the film, but something like the following question came onto the screen: How did Jamal Malik know the answers to all the questions?  A. He guessed.  B. He cheated.  C. He studied hard.   D. It is written. (Meaning: it was fate.)

The whole thing takes place in Mumbai, India.  Jamal, played by Dev Patel, is being tortured by the police in a prison.  He is asked how a common slumdog could possibly answer all the questions right.  When they accuse him of cheating, the only answer he can give is that he knew the answers.  As he is being tortured, he has flashbacks of being on a game show.  He is on the set of the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  The show’s host, Prem Kumar, played by Anil Kapoor, is asking him questions from a card.  The studio audience is waiting in silence for his answers.  Then he snaps back to the present and the torture continues.

The Police Inspector, played by Irrfan Khan, stops the torture and has him cleaned up.  He sits Jamal down and tries talking to him.  Again he is asked how he cheated.  Jamal insists that he is innocent.  He really knew the answers.  The Inspector tries a different approach.  He turns on a video of Jamal on the game show and goes through each question, asking how he knew the answers.

That is where the real magic of the story begins.  Jamal tells his story and the far past sequences begin.  He tells of how he grew up in the Juhu slums.  Dozens of children are shown running and playing on trash heaps.  The first question asks the name of an actor in a popular Indian movie.  Jamal recounts the tail of when the very actor in that film came down in a helicopter and signed autographs for the kids in the slum.  We are introduced to his brother Salim, who is self-serving and habitually mistreats Jamal.

The Police Inspector goes over more questions that Jamal answered correctly on the game show.  The questions get harder and harder.  The answers for each one can be found in a key story in Jamal’s life.  The questions are not always chronological in conjunction with his life, so the flashback sequences bounce back and forth between different periods in his childhood.  But through his interrogation, it soon becomes apparent that Jamal doesn’t care about the money he is winning or the game show.  His motivations, then, become unclear.  But all is eventually revealed when he tells of the most important event in his young life.

He tells of the day his mother was attacked and murdered during the Bombay Riots. He and Salim, now orphans, meet a young girl who has also lost her parents.  Her name is Latika.  Salim tries to reject her but Jamal defies his brother and welcomes her.  The three of them live in the garbage dump until they are picked up by Maman, played by Ankur Vikal, a cruel man who takes in orphans and teaches them to be street beggars.  He even goes so far as to mutilate the children, saying that a blind or deformed beggar can earn more money.

Without going too much farther into the plot, I will attempt to be brief.  Salim and Jamal escape Maman, but Salim betrays Latika and she is recaptured.  The brothers become petty thieves and con-artists.  Years pass and Jamal continues to search for Latika.  When they find her, Maman shows up and tries to take them all back into his custody.  But Salim pulls out a gun and kills him.  He then takes a job working for a crime boss.  He throws Jamal out onto the street, and rapes Latika.  Jamal grows up and continues to search for his beloved Latika, who has become the wife of Salim’s crime-boss employer.

All of this is relevant because the climax of the plot involves the far past, the recent past and the present as they come together.  The film turned into a romantic love story by the end.  It turns out that even though his varied life experiences allowed him to win millions of rupees, it is revealed that the only reason he was on the game show was because he once saw Latika watching the program.  He got on the show in the hopes that she would see him and find him.  That was why he never opted to take the money at each stage of the game, why he did whatever he could to stay on the program for as long as he could.  That was why he made it to the end and won the grand prize of $20 million rupees.

Interesting note:  The current exchange rate for $20 million rupees in USD is $411,600.00.

The film was so well constructed and so well acted that I quickly forgot that nearly a third of the dialogue was in the Hindu language with cleverly placed subtitle boxes appearing and disappearing on the screen.  Just like the country of India itself, they were colorful and pretty, not your common subtitles in yellow at the bottom of the screen.  Instead, they showed up all over the screen, always next to the character who was speaking.

When the time came for Jamal to answer the final question I didn’t know how the movie would end so I was completely caught up in Jamal’s story.  I wanted him to win and I wanted him to find his true love.  I wanted the happy ending.

And as for the game show aspect of the plot, all of India became caught up in the excitement as well.  He had become an overnight celebrity.  The fact that he was from the slums and that he was on the verge of becoming an instant millionaire caught the attention of the nation.  All of India tuned in to watch, the entire country hoping the same thing I was hoping for Jamal.

He is driven back to the studio to answer his final question.

Dev Patel, by far, was the best actor in the film.  He really did a fine job.  His portrayal of Jamal was honest and insightful.  He was so believable, both in the custody of the authorities, and as the nervous contestant on the game show.  He also handled the few brief love scenes with an earnest innocence that was an important quality of the character.

Freida Pinto played opposite Patel as Latika.  She was beautiful and had a smile that could light up a room, though the only scene in which she was able to show it was the tiny scene at the train station.  She sees Jamal and smiles at him and you instantly understand the passionate and yet unspoken relationship between the two characters.

Salim was played by Madhur Mittal.  He did alright, but his character had so few redeeming qualities, that I must admit, I tend to discount the actor along with the character.  Of course, I should not do that.  Mittal did just fine and played his part well.

Now, when I mention this trio of characters, I have referred only to the adult portrayals.  There were actually 6 child actors that played them at different ages.  They all did a good job.  The youngest Jamal, Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, and the middle Salim, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, actually did a very good job.  As child actors go, they turned in some impressive performances.

Interesting note:  This little fact is taken directly from the IMDB website:  Director Danny Boyle placed the money to be paid to the three lead child actors in a trust that is to be released to them upon their completion of grade school at 16 years of age.  The production company has set up for an auto-rikshaw driver to take the kids to school every day until they are 16 years old.

However, another character who caught my attention was the host of the game show, Prem Kumar, played by Anil Kapoor.  He was very handsome and his role encompassed a bit more than his on-stage persona.  There were short scenes of him threatening Jamal, trying to unnerve him, trying to make him lose all the money.  He was shown to be visibly furious at Jamal’s success, an emotion which had to be suppressed when the studio cameras were rolling.  He had to pretend to encourage him to win.

In fact there was a wonderful scene when the filming of the game show was on a break.  Jamal and Prem were in the restroom together.  As Prem washes his hands he lets the hot water cover the mirror with steam.  He tries to tell Jamal that he wants to help him on the current question.  In the fogged-up mirror he writes the letter B, apparently giving him the answer to the question.  When they are both back on the stage, Jamal, knowing that Prem has already encouraged him to drop out, gets the question right by not choosing B.  It was a well done sequence.

Interesting note:  Danny Boyle originally wanted the actor who was the host of the final season of the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire to play the game show host in the movie.  Anil Kapoor, the actor who ended up playing the role, had actually been a contestant on the show.  He had taken home $5 million rupees.

The movie was an impressive bit of film-making.  The story was almost like a sweet fairy tale, but more than anything else, it was a love story that was very well crafted.  It retained a sense of innocence and love all the way to the very end.  It was a feel-good movie that left me with a smile.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I really enjoyed this film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Country for Old Men – 2007

Wow!  This was a very violent movie, mostly because of the creepy, creepy character played by Javier Bardem.  No Country for Old Men was an action/thriller that kept you on the edge of your seat.  It was a back and forth game of cat and mouse that was unpredictable and unstable.

First of all, as I sat down to watch the movie, I had high expectations.  Everybody I talked to about it said that it was such a great movie.  I was told of its violent nature, but was not told of the psychotic aspects that made my skin crawl just a little bit.  I have heard it described as a modern western, but I don’t think that is an apt description.  The story takes place in Texas, but for me, a western has to have cowboys or a story that can only be told in the Wild West.  But this story could have taken place almost anywhere.

To explain what I mean by that, we need to go into the plot a bit.  Bardem plays the bad guy, Anton Chigurh (pronounced like Sugar), a psychotic killer who is the most dangerous kind of criminal.  He has no conscious and kills randomly with no thought of consequences, honor or morality.  He murders if he happens to feel like it at the time.  But he is also incredibly smart and knows how to survive just about anything.

Chigurh starts off the film by being picked up by a police officer, then strangling him with the chain between the handcuffs that are still about his wrists.  He steals the police car, only to ditch it by pulling over a motorist, and murdering him with his strange weapon/tool.  It is a captive bolt pistol.  It is a strange weapon, to be sure, but it just adds to the creepy nature of the character.  It is a device used to stun cattle before they are slaughtered.  Basically it is a high-powered air compression device that forces a metal bolt through the skull.

So after his character is introduced in this way, the real story begins, and therein lies one of the biggest differences from the source material.  The original book had the same name and was written by Cormac McCarthy.  The directors, the infamous Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, went out of their way to keep close to the book.  In an interview, Joel said that adapting the book into a screenplay was just like compressing the novel instead of re-writing it.  As is understandable, a few things were taken out, but nothing new was added.  But the big difference between the book and the movie was the focus.  The book focuses on the character of Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones, as he tries to figure out what is going on.  The movie focuses more on the cat and mouse relationship between Chigurh and Llewellyn Moss.

Moss is a regular guy living in West Texas, wonderfully played by Josh Brolin.  He is hunting out in the desert when he comes across a drug deal gone bad.  Dead bodies are scattered over the ground.  Even the dog has been shot and killed.  Automatic weapons are still gripped in dead hands.  But moss is a smart enough man to know that where there is a drug deal, there is money.  He follows a trail of blood and eventually finds a satchel containing $2 million next to a man who has bled to death.

Of course, he takes it in the belief that he can elude whoever the money belongs to.  After that, the movie follows Moss as he runs from Chigurh, the Mexican drug dealers, and Sheriff Bell.  But he finds himself constantly on the run and never able to relax.  He receives injury after injury, making one narrow escape after another.  At one point, he finds a tracking device hidden in the money.  He leaves it behind and believes that he is safe, but the chase continues.

The back and forth scenes between Brolin and Bardem were very well done.  The two of them are rarely on the screen at the same time, but each of them did a great job in their respective roles.  I mentioned the creepiness of Bardem’s performance, but for me, it stood out as a defining element of the whole film.  That is what you remember when it is over.  That is what sticks with you.

So, what made him so scary?  It was his look, his voice, and his behavior.  First, and many critics go out of their way to mention it, was his hair.  It was a strange kind of page-boy haircut that looked like a perversion of Little Lord Fauntleroy on an adult.  The haircut made him look like he was automatically out of place wherever he went.  It made him look like a man who had no regard for social norms or the opinions of other human beings.

Interesting note:  The strange hair left Bardem’s “psyche… affected in a very delicate way.”  He was convinced that he would not get laid for two months and was too depressed to leave his house.

Bardem is a Spanish actor who had to brush-up on his English to play the part.   He did his best to hide his accent, making his character hard to place.  He has a very deep voice and all his lines were delivered very dispassionately, though with a deadly seriousness at the same time.  It reminded me a little of the voice of the psychotic character of Buffalo Bill from the 1991 Best Picture winner, Silence of the Lambs.

And the random acts of violence and murder made for some very tense scenes.  One in particular that stands out is a scene in which he stops at a gas station to fill up the tank of his stolen car.  He goes in to pay for the gas, but is offended because the old man behind the counter casually comments on the car’s license plate.  You can see the look in his eyes and hear it in his voice.  He now wants to murder the man.  But what he does just made for a wonderfully tense scene.  He pulls out a quarter and asks “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?” before flipping the coin.  The poor guy behind the counter is already unnerved by the man’s look and behavior.  But now, he suddenly feels that his life is somehow in danger.  He is frightened enough to attempt to get rid of him by saying that he is closing the store early, but Chigurh is insistent that he make the call.  It is never plainly stated, but I think that the man knew that the wrong choice would somehow cost him his life.  It was a very well written and chilling scene.

Josh Brolin also did a fantastic job.  At first, I didn’t even recognize him.  He had a big moustache and long greasy-looking hair covering half his face.  He looked so red-neck and scuzzy that he fit the part perfectly.  And the character was also very well written.  He is portrayed as a generally good man who felt like fate had dropped an opportunity in his lap that was too good to pass up.  He is trying to make a big score to give to his wife, played by Scottish actress, Kelly Macdonald.  The problem is that he is smart enough to have a few tricks up his sleeve, allowing him to think he can get away with his life and the money, but dumb enough to not realize he is way outmatched by just about everybody.

Interesting note:  Brolin was in a motorcycle accident a few days before filming was to begin.  He broke his collarbone, but he was so excited about being in a Coen Brothers’ film, he and his doctor lied about the extent of his injuries.  They allowed him to perform the role.

Another Interesting note:  Kelly Macdonald has a very strong Scottish accent and had to have a vocal coach teach her how to speak with the proper West Texas drawl.  Macdonald did a great job and was very believable in her part.

But going back to my earlier statement.  The plot of this movie could have taken place in any place, any time, and against any backdrop, and it would have been just as good.  The story was good enough to transcend a single location and setting.  It just happened to have been set in Western Texas.  So, would I call it a modern western?  I wouldn’t, but I guess other people would.

The only real disappointment of the film, in my opinion, was Tommy Lee Jones.  He just wasn’t a very good actor.  He was cast in the role for several obvious reasons, the first and foremost being that he didn’t really have to act.  Jones grew up in San Saba, Texas, not far from where the film takes place.  That took care of the accent.  Second, he looked the part well enough.  And third, he was a well-established name in Hollywood.  The problem is that he brought no passion to the performance.  I always felt like he was on the verge of falling asleep.  He made me want to fall asleep, as well.

Maybe I was missing the point of the character.  It is conceivable, especially considering the end of the film.  It was very cryptic.  The newly retired Sheriff Bell is sitting at the breakfast table with his wife explaining two dreams to her.  They both seem to be about getting old and dwelling on the death of his father.  Maybe that was part of the point.  He was just getting too old and sleepy to deal with the dangers and horrors that are part of being a law enforcement officer.  Unfortunately, if that was the case, it just translated on the screen as a one-note actor with no energy.  Someone like Clint Eastwood could have done the part better justice.

Now, as I sometimes do, I have to give a special honorable mention to actress Kathy Lamkin, who had a very small, but very memorable part.  She only had a minute or so of screen-time.  When Chigurh is searching for Moss, he checks in with Moss’s trailer-park office and tries to intimidate the manager to tell him where his intended victim works.  She politely refuses.  He calmly asks again, “Where does he work?”  She refuses again.  The tension in the scene is clearly rising.  He asks a third time.  “Where does he work?”  Her response is final, showing that she is not intimidated by the scary man.  “Did you not hear me?  We can’t give out no information.”  Priceless!  Even Chigurh is impressed and leaves without incident.

And finally, I have to mention the Coen Brothers, themselves.  As a team of directors, the actors and the critics alike have nothing but good things to say about them.  They consistently put out quality films like The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?  Bardem revealed in an interview that it had always been his biggest dream to work with the Coen Brothers, so when he got the call to talk to them, he could not believe that his dream was actually going to come true.  And after filming was done, he had nothing but positive things to say about them and their style of directing.

This was a good film.  It was very violent, but I didn’t feel that any of it was gratuitous.  It was all actually very tastefully done, if that makes any sense.  It was all pretty integral to both character development and plot development.  The Coen Brothers really put together a well-made film with one of the creepiest bad guys I’ve seen in a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Departed – 2006

The Departed was so named in reference to the dead, or the dearly departed.  Knowing this, I can easily say that it lived up to its name.  By the end of the movie, nearly all the main characters had departed this world, most of them with gunshot wounds to the head.  Martin Scorsese was hired to direct this remake of three Chinese films, originally called Internal Affairs.

Interesting note:  When asked about Scorsese’s film, the co-director of the Internal Affairs series, Andrew Lau, said that his own movies were better, though it was appropriate that Scorsese would change the story to be more suitable for an American audience.  Also, Scorsese did not realize the movie was a re-make until after he had agreed to direct it.

The movie stars Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg.  But there were several other big names that were in supporting roles like Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone and Vera Farmiga.  I had no problems with the acting.  Everybody did a good job.  The movie itself was good.  Scorsese did his job as well.  And it was a thriller so I’ll give another nod to the Academy for stepping away from the dramas that normally win the Best Picture award.

But all that being said, I feel a little less than enthusiastic about it.  The problem is that I’m having difficulty pinpointing why.  I think that the movie’s hype had something to do with it.  Everybody I talked to kept telling me how incredible the movie was, so I had some pretty high expectations.  And while I would certainly call the movie good, I don’t think I would call it great.

The departed was an over-the –top thriller.  Jack Nicholson plays Frankie Costello, a crime-boss in the Irish mafia in Boston.  He is hard and ruthless, no stranger to murder, and manipulative.  He chooses a young boy named Colin Sullivan and takes him under his wing, grooming him so that one day he can become a mole in the Massachusetts State Troopers.   Sullivan, played by Matt Damon, grows up and is accepted into the Special Investigations Unit which focuses on organized crime.

DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan, a boy who also hails from a neighborhood under Frankie’s control.  Before he graduates from the police academy, he is recruited by Captain Queenan, played by Martin Sheen, and Staff Sergeant Dignam, played by Mark Wahlberg.  They ask him to voluntarily go to jail for a number of years and become a small time criminal in order to build a plausible back-story, all for the purpose of becoming a mole in Frankie’s crime family.

And there is the set up for the entire film.  The rest of the movie follows the two men as they dance around each other, each trying to find the rats in their own organizations before they are found out, themselves.  It is a back-and-forth plot that twists and turns.  How can each mole help their own side while buried deep in their opponent’s?  Who knows their true identities?  How can they be compromised?  It is really a clever script and it kept me very engaged.

But then we bring in the character of Madolyn Madden, played by Vera Farmiga.  She is the sexy psychiatrist who councils both men and starts a relationship with each of them.  She is supposed to be a professional, but she does a number of very unprofessional things that I’m guessing could make her lose her license to practice psychiatry.  While counseling Costigan, she sees him become obviously upset.  He is mad that he can’t get any medication to help him through his stress which is brought on by his assignment.  First, she grabs some pills from her desk and tosses them across the desk at him.  She has already stated that it is far too early to be prescribing him any kind of medication, let alone throwing what looked like an over-the-counter medication for who knows what at him.

Then after he leaves her office in anger, she writes him a quick prescription for Oxycodone.  Then she tracks him down outside the building as he is leaving to give him the prescription and tells him that she no longer see him as a patient.  Not long after that, she jumps into the sack with him.  Never-mind the fact that she is also sleeping with Sullivan.

Interesting note:  The character of Madolyn Madden was actually a combination of two different characters in the original Internal Affairs movies.

Something else about the movie was the overly gratuitous use of foul language.  There were scenes in which every other word was the “F” word.  Every character did it, but Wahlberg was the worst.  He couldn’t open his mouth without dropping the F-bomb.  I’m not opposed to the use of such language, but really, it was way too much.  Of course, this was not the actor’s fault.  It was either the screenwriter or the director.

Of all the actors in the film, I actually would like to single out DiCaprio.  He actually did a particularly good job.  His character was in a situation where his life was in constant danger, and while he handled his fear in front of Frankie flawlessly, when he was away from him, his fear and paranoia were very well portrayed.  At several points he is begging Queenan to get him out.  He almost looked like he was ready to have a nervous break-down.  Well done DiCaprio!

And lest I forget, I have to give another honorable mention to actor Ray Winstone, playing the part of hit man, Mr. French.  He also stood out to me as a particularly god actor.  When he first appeared on the screen, I immediately saw him as a big, cuddly teddy-bear of a man.  But he quickly made me re-evaluate that assessment.  He shows himself to be a tough and almost mean-spirited muscle man for a notorious criminal.  He has a gentle look, but was just as violent as the man he worked for.  Well done Ray!

As I mentioned before, by the end of the movie, nearly everyone gets killed off.  Actually, it would be easier to list off the surviving characters.  Staff Sergeant Dignam and Madolyn Madden.  That’s about it.  And the strange thing about it is that most of them died within the last 5 minutes of the film.  One after another, someone would kill a man, and then within seconds, he would be killed by another character, who would then be killed by another… and so on.  But it all just seemed a bit gratuitous and it all happened so quickly that it left me just a little dumbfounded.

The movie took home 4 Academy Awards.  In addition to Best Picture, The Departed won for Best Director (Scorsese), Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay.  Wahlberg was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, though honestly, I can’t see how his performance was any better than any of his co-stars.  They all did a fine job.

Now, here’s something else about the movie caught my attention.  The whole thing took place in Boston with characters that grew up in Boston.  The two main leads, Damon and DiCaprio had noticeable Boston accents which they both kept up very well.  This was easy for Damon who had actually grown up in Boston, but DiCaprio had to have a dialect coach teach him to have the proper accent.  This just goes one step further why I think he did an exceptional job on the film.

But then I have to ask, why wasn’t DiCaprio nominated for an Oscar?  His acting was excellent, he kept up the difficult task of maintaining a plausible accent, and he had already made a name for himself as a good actor.  He was actually one of those rare cases of a child actor that successfully transitioned into a competent adult actor, a true star of Hollywood.  Well, there were a couple of reasons why he wasn’t nominated.  First, Warner Bros. Studios didn’t want to favor him above any of his co-stars in the Best Actor category.  It is noteworthy to mention that DiCaprio supported this decision, believing The Departed to be an ensemble cast with no leads.  Second, DiCaprio was also in another film in 2006 called Blood Diamond for which he was nominated for the Best Actor category.

And finally, there is one more aspect of the movie that I have to mention in regards to Jack Nicholson’s character of Frankie Costello.  There were two little scenes he was in that didn’t really make much sense.  First, there was a scene that lasted for about 15 or 20 seconds in which Frankie grabs a handful of cocaine and throws it at two whores on a bed.  Then he says “You want some coke?  There it is.  Don’t move until you’re numb.”  In another scene, Sullivan is covertly meeting him in a porn theatre.  Frankie is wearing a trench coat and a quite visible strap on phallus.  Huh?

In my research, I learned that Scorsese told Nicholson to improvise as much as he could to display the wild and unpredictable nature of the character.  I’m OK with that as a concept, but the cocaine scene and the dildo didn’t seem to fit the film somehow.  They seemed to be too non-sequitur.  But those things were actually fairly small and forgivable.  There were probably more similar improvisations that I never noticed because they fin into the film without drawing attention to themselves.

All in all, I’d say The Departed was a good movie and I enjoyed it well enough.  But I guess I’m still having trouble figuring out my ambivalence towards it.  Well, let’s take a quick look at what it was up against.  Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen.  Hmmm… no help there, though Little Miss Sunshine was a very funny comedy.  I think there was just too many gratuitous things about the film:  the violence, the killing and the foul language.  I think the movie might have been just as good with just a little less of each.  But hey, what do I know?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crash – 2005

RACISM!! RACISM!! RACISM!! In case you haven’t gotten my point yet, this movie is about RACISM!! I was clobbered with the concept. I came away from it feeling like I had, by virtue of being White, been accused of being a racist. It was so strongly shoved into my face that I was almost offended.

The stance that Crash seemed to take is that everybody, without fail, is a racist… especially white people. I haven’t felt like this since watching the Best Picture winner of 1947, Gentleman’s Agreement, which was about Anti-Semitism. But to the film’s credit, even the victims of racism were shown to be racist as well.
Now, if you can get past being preached at and being force-fed the differences between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese and Persians, There were actually some fairly interesting stories going on. Director Paul Haggis, who you might remember as the winner of the Best Adapted Screenplay Award the previous year for his work on Million Dollar Baby, made some very interesting choices. He seemed to go out of his way to mislead the viewers at every opportunity. He seemed to look at the popular 1994 film, Pulp Fiction and emulated its eclectic style.

Like Pulp Fiction, Crash didn’t have a strong central plot. Instead the film was made up of a number of individual stories that were thinly connected by tiny threads. Each of those threads touched the wavering line that was the main story, though very little time was given to that story. The result was a tapestry made up of characters that floated in, out and around each other, sometimes touching each other, and sometimes crashing into each other.

The opening scene is that of a Persian man, Farhad, and his daughter, Dorri, played by Shaun Toub and Bahar Soomekh, as they are buying a gun. The owner of the gun store is a racist. When Farhad becomes confused and thinks the owner is cheating him, he becomes angry and the racial insults begin. The owner kicks him out of the store. Dorri completes the purchase and buys a box of ammunition, seemingly at random.

But then the main story kicks in and it is a murder mystery. Don Cheadle plays Detective Graham Waters, a Los Angeles homicide policeman who is called to the scene of a body found on the side of the highway. At this point, we do not know who the victim is.

Then the scene changes to the previous day where two Black men, Anthony and Peter, played by Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and Larenz Tate, are walking down the street in a predominantly White neighborhood. They are passed by a couple, and as they walk by, the woman unconsciously shies away and grabs her husband‘s arm. Anthony comments that the woman is racist and doesn’t even realize it. He says he is offended because she sees a Black man and automatically assumes that he is a criminal. Of course, two seconds later Anthony and Peter pull out guns and car-jack the couple.

The couple are District Attorney Rick Cabot and his wife Jean, played by Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock. The story then follows them as they go home and are having the locks in their house changed. A Hispanic man named Daniel Ruiz, played by Michael Pena, is the locksmith. Jean freaks out and gets into a fight with her husband, saying that the locksmith is going to give their keys to his “homies” and she wants the locks to be changed again.

Then the story follows Ruiz as he returns home to tuck his daughter into bed. She is afraid because she has heard a gunshot. Once he gets her into bed, he gets an emergency call to fix a lock in someone’s store. It happens to be Farhad’s store.

Anyway, I could keep going, describing the various plots and stories. Suffice to say that more and more characters are introduced in this fashion. Mat Dillion plays a White racist police officer John Ryan, partnered with Tom Hansen, played by Ryan Phillippe. Terrance Howard and Thandie Newton are the Thayers, a Black couple who are pulled over by Ryan. Loretta Divine is Shaniqua Johnson, the Black insurance representative that denies Ryan’s father’s insurance request.

Then there is… wait… what was the main plot again? Oh, right. The murder mystery. But by this time, I didn’t even care about that any more. I was still trying to figure out what all these separate stories had to do with each other. But the answer was simple, really. You guessed it: racism.

Crash went out of its way to show just how nearly every one of its characters were racist in one way or another. But after a while, I began to realize that it was the whites that were portrayed as the most racist of all. They were afraid of just about everybody, believing them all to be criminals, gang members, and rapists.
The movie seemed to take itself too seriously. There was nothing light-hearted about it. There was no sense of fun or joy. I’m not saying there has to be in order for the film to be good or enjoyable, but when the ending credits started to roll, I was left with a general feeling of anger and futility. It systematically showed me the serious problem of racism and yet offered no solution, no hope of a better tomorrow.

But don’t worry. In the end, at least you are brought back to that main plot. You learn who was murdered and who murdered him. But once again, Haggis takes every opportunity to mislead you. Neither the murderer nor the victim are who you expect.

And as for those misleading aspects of the film, I suppose they are one of the things that made the movie interesting, if not enjoyable. For example, when Dorri buys the bullets in the red box, we naturally assume that they are regular ammunition. But when Farhad eventually shoots the weapon, we think he has accidentally killed Ruiz’s young daughter. It isn’t until later that we learn that the bullets Dorri bought were blanks. We are never told whether she knew they were blanks when she bought them or if it was just a fortunate mistake. The point is that the tragedy was averted, but not through any human virtue. It was just blind luck.

With such a large cast telling so many different stories, nobody really got very much screen-time, especially when compared to a normal linear film. So it is difficult to judge individual performances. Sandra Bullock got the second billing spot behind Don Cheadle, but they were by no means the leading actors. They were probably just the biggest names the film had at the time and they were hoping that they would draw more people to the box-office.

So, the only thing I can do is to pick out the actors whose performances stood out to me. And I’ll also mention one who I felt fell a little flat.

For my money, the actor that stood out the most was Matt Dillon. He played a despicable character whose blatant sexual violation of Mrs. Thayer was disturbing and unforgivable. But in a later scene, when he saves her from a horrible death, he becomes that perfect blend of level-headed thinking and reckless heroics that make him the quintessential police officer. He puts his own life at risk to save hers, despite the fact that she recognizes him as the man who molested her in front of her husband. She initially refuses to let him touch her, but accepts his help when she sees the danger she is in. Again, more misdirection. We are all set up to write Ryan off as a racist pig, but then he turns around and is shown to be a true hero in a life or death situation.

Terrance Howard also turned in a good performance as Mr. Thayer. They set him up as a weak man who often allows people to shower him with racist comments and abuse. But we are misled again. When Anthony and Peter try to car-jack him, he fights back and nearly gets himself killed, not by the two criminals, but by the police officers who show up on the scene. Howard was actually very good in that scene, playing a man who has finally taken too much abuse.

Cheadle is a very good actor and he always does a good job, so I liked the few scenes he was in. He always has a wonderful seriousness about him, yet also an undeniable depth of emotion that lies beneath the surface.

However, Brendan Fraser, I’m sorry to say, fell a little short of his co-stars. He just wasn’t a very good actor. His performance was virtually emotionless. He was paired up with Sandra Bullock, who is a pretty good actress, and she quite easily upstaged him. Part of that might have been the writing, but I think that Fraser’s poor performance had something to do with it as well.

Interesting note: Fraser’s role of Rick Cabot was originally supposed to have been played by John Cusack, who I think would have been a much better choice.

All in all, I’m not sure if I would call this movie Best Picture material. It was a well constructed film, deserving the other two Oscars it took home for Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay, and the acting was fine. It just had too little cohesiveness in the plot and too much anger behind the action. It accused me of being a racist but didn’t offer me any forgiveness or apology, or any hope of redemption. The world is full of bad and horrible people, and it always will be. The end.

Interesting note: The Best Picture win for Crash was actually a fairly controversial issue. It won over the movie Brokeback Mountain, which many people say should have taken home the coveted award. Unfortunately, anti-homosexual discomfort among the Academy members made Crash the “safe” choice. However, some critics stood by Crash as the better movie.

Another interesting note: This really has nothing to do with my critical analysis of the movie, but it was an interesting bit of trivia I found in my research. Crash was the last Best Picture winner to be released in VHS format, and the first to be released in Blu-ray Disc in the United States.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Million Dollar Baby – 2004

It is time to scale things back again.  Million Dollar Baby is a film that comes back down to reality.  No big special effects spectacle.  No huge cast of characters.  Just a good story told in a very down-to-earth way.  On the surface this movie might look like a movie about boxing, and while that is certainly an important and integral part of the plot, it is about much, much more.

Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are together again.  The previous Best Picture winner that they both happened to be in was Unforgiven, 12 years before in 1992.  Hillary Swank was a newcomer to Hollywood, and she did a fine job.  There were really no other big names in the movie.

Eastwood played the character of Frankie Dunn, a boxing trainer that is a great coach, but is only marginally successful with his boxers.  He is too cautious.  He has a habit of keeping his fighters away from matches in which they might get hurt.  He never takes any risks, and so his boxers never achieve great success.  Freeman plays Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris, an ex-boxer who has lost the use of one of his eyes and is now a janitor of the boxing gym that Dunn owns.  Frankie becomes depressed after his prize contender leaves him for a manager who will be more aggressive in getting him a shot at a title bout.

In comes Maggie Fitzgerald, played by Hillary Swank.  She is a poor girl from a white-trash home who wants a chance to make something of herself.  She wants to have her moment in the sun, doing something that she loves to do.  She wants to become a professional boxer in the WBA.  After some hard coaxing from Scrap, Frankie grudgingly takes Maggie on and becomes her trainer and manager.

It turns out that Maggie is a natural, and with Frankie’s expert training, she starts working her way toward a title fight.  Now, here is where the real emotional content of the film becomes apparent.  Frankie has a skeleton in his closet.  He has a daughter from whom he is estranged.  He writes her letters every week, and every single one of them is returned.  The movie never explains what happened between him and his daughter, but it is made clear that he harbors very deep regrets.  During the training process, Frankie develops a paternal bond with Maggie, seeing in her the spirit of the daughter with whom he desperately desires to reconcile.

On the flip side, Maggie’s father died when she was young, and her white-trash mother never developed the parental connection needed to help her in any way.  So, Maggie becomes fiercely loyal to Frankie as well.  But true to form, Frankie begins to turn down opportunities for Maggie’s boxing career to advance, fearing for her safety.

Interesting note:  At one point in the film, Frankie gives Maggie a nickname in Gaelic, playing up her Irish Heritage, which the fans chant.  He called her Mo Cuishle.  However, in reality, the phrase is spelled wrong.  It should be Mo Chuisle.

Both Eastwood and Swank did a good job in their roles.  Eastwood really surprised me by showing a softer side than I ever remember seeing him display.  His character even broke down into tears at one point, something I have never seen the actor do in any of his films.  Swank was a relative unknown at the time and even today, I am not familiar with any of her work.  She did a great job and it was obvious that she and Eastwood had a good on-screen chemistry.

One complaint I have about Eastwood, and I must admit that this seems to be a characteristic of his acting style, in general, is the way he speaks.  The sound is a soft, raspy sound that is almost like a trademark for him, but as he gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to understand him at times.  And I know that he doesn’t have to sound that way.  It is a choice.  I know this because on the DVD, he included a four-way interview between himself, Swank, Freeman, and the interviewer, James Lipton, known for his television program Inside the Actor’s Studio.  In this interview, Eastwood spoke clearly and without his typical rasp.  That was his normal speaking voice.  But for some reason he chose to make himself sound old and rough.  But now that I consider it, maybe that was the point.  Hmmm…

Another interesting choice Eastwood made, this as the film’s director, though the screenwriter, Paul Haggis, had to have been the first person behind it, was to have the character of Scrap doing narration throughout the film.  And as we all know, Freeman has that natural gift of making nearly everything he says sound deep and meaningful.  It is an uncanny thing with him and it has the effect of making everything sound incredibly interesting.  In the end, it is revealed that all of Scrap’s narration is a letter to Frankie’s estranged daughter.

One of the major themes of the film, a phrase that Frankie keeps repeating to Maggie over and over again is ‘protect yourself at all times.’  This seemed to be Frankie’s mantra, but as I watched the film, I realized that he didn’t just mean in the ring.  He meant it for life in general, which only served to emphasize his overly caution attitude as a boxing manager.

Eastwood set the viewers up to expect the movie to be about Maggie’s boxing career, like a female Rocky, being the underdog and triumphing over her personal demons to touch greatness.  But it was the twist in the tragic ending of the movie that caused most viewers to say that it was one of the most depressing movies ever made.  And it really was.  However, I was a little cheated.  Even though I had never seen the movie, I already know what the plot twist was.  I knew the tragedy and saw it coming, though not the whole tragedy.  I was not as emotionally slammed as I should have been.

Lucia Rijker played the part of the Welterweight Champion Billie ‘The Blue Bear’.  She was defending her title, but she was a dirty fighter.  She blatantly broke as many rules as she could get away with.  One would think that any boxer who was given warning after warning for rule-breaking would be banned from the sport.  But one of the cheap tricks she pulled was to attack Maggie after the stopping bell had rung and Maggie’s guard was down.  She punched her so hard that she fell down.

Now here is the real spoiler alert.  She fell and broke her neck on an overturned wooden stool.  She became permanently paralyzed from the neck down, ending her career, her hopes, her dreams and her life outside of a hospital bed.  She could no longer even breath on her own.  Frankie cared for her and stayed with her at the hospital, all the while feeling that he was responsible for her injury.  As the audience, we all know that he was not to blame.  But it is also so easy to see how he could fall into that trap of blaming himself.

I wanted to know what happened to the other boxer as her rule breaking almost turned into murder. Now would she be banned from boxing?  But the movie never said what happened to her.  It was the final ending that took me by surprise.

The plot made it clear that Frankie was a very religious man.  As many people do, he struggled with his faith, earnestly praying for reconciliation with his daughter and for Maggie’s safety.  He got neither of those things.  Who would not have their doubts?  So when Maggie asks him to euthanize her, he initially refuses.  But after her suicide attempts, (she tried biting her own tongue and chocking herself on the blood…) he realized that that she was suffering intolerably and wanted to die.  She explained that she had no regrets and was grateful that she’d had her moment in the spotlight.

At this point I sympathized with her.  I’m not sure if I believe in euthanization.  But on some level, I do believe in a person’s right to choose their own path, even if that path leads to death.  But that is a whole different discussion.  Anyway, that is enough plot analysis for now.

Another thing about the movie that caught my attention was the music.  Much like the movie Unforgiven, the music was this kind of soft and gently played guitar music that had a very melancholy edge to it, despite the violent nature of the story being told.  According to the credits, Clint Eastwood, himself, wrote the music.  Who knew that he was a musician as well?  It was beautiful and slightly haunting music that fit the end of the film, but not necessarily the beginning and middle.

I don’t really have any big complaints about the movie at all, though there is one thing I don’t understand.  The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and took home 4 of them.  In addition to best Picture, it won for Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman).  I have to ask the question: Why did Morgan Freeman win?  I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it.  He is a very good actor and he did a fine job in his performance.  But the role itself just wasn’t worthy of the award.  He didn’t do much, didn’t really affect the course of the plot much, and didn’t have much opportunity to show off any above-the-bar acting skills.  So, why did he win?

The Character of Scrap was like an outside observer to the story taking place.  He commented on it and narrated it, but honestly, he could have been easily written out of the movie and it would have had just as great an emotional impact.  He only had one memorable scene in which he sees a somewhat mentally handicapped boy being abused and used as a punching-bag by a real asshole.  He is tricked into being in another room while the asshole does this horrible thing.  Scrap puts on one boxing glove and raises his fists, inviting the asshole to fight ‘the old man’.  Of course, in a most satisfying way, he not only knocks the asshole out cold, you see a tooth roll out onto the mat.

But that scene was only a very small sub-plot.  It didn’t need to be there to make the movie what it was.  Freeman was up against veteran actor Alan Alda in The Aviator, Thomas Hayden Church in Sideways, Jamie Fox in Collateral and Clive Owen in Closer.  The only one of those films I saw was Sideways, but that was enough.  Church’s role allowed him to show off a greater emotional range and depth of character than Freeman.  But, the Academy apparently saw something I did not.

Aside from that minor little issue, I thought it was a good movie, though it wasn’t my favorite Best Picture winner.  Did it deserve the award?  Sure, why not?  But I’ve never been a huge fan of Clint Eastwood or boxing.  It moved pretty slow and had surprisingly few scenes that took place in the ring, which might have made it a little more interesting.  Well… they had some but they were very short scenes that were over very quickly, so I didn’t have time to get very excited by them.  One of Maggie’s problems as a competitive boxer was that she would knock out her opponents in seconds and win very quickly without giving the audience the chance to get into the sport aspect of the film.

But like I said, why not?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – 2003

OK.  This is one of the big ones – Maybe even the biggest one of all, because it is my opinion that this movie did not win the Best Picture award by itself. The Return of the King was the third movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers preceded it, and the award was for the three films together.  So, of course I had to watch the entire trilogy over again and not just the third installment that took home the Best Picture Oscar.

Of course, that being the case, that means it took around 12 hours of movie watching to complete the full epic.  The director’s cut of each film was roughly 4 hours long and if you are going to see the movies at all, you should really watch the director’s cut.  The films were shortened for their theatrical releases and were just fine, but the extended versions that were released on DVD simply enhanced the films into a more complete representation of the books from which they were made.

The original books were written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.  They are considered by most literary scholars and authors of fantasy books to be the sires of the fantasy genre.  It is the grand-daddy of them all.  It is from this universe that Tolkien created that most modern fantasy fiction comes from.  And it was long said that a movie adaptation could not be done.  It was far too complex a story to be done well.  The technology required to do such a monumental epic justice had not yet been invented.  It would be far too expensive.  The only other film adaptations ever attempted were animated.  A live-action version simply could not be done.

But director Peter Jackson did the impossible.  He spent close to seven years of his life in creating the three films that took the world by storm.  The sheer scale of the production was staggering.  The number of people involved in the making of the movies was incredible.  The meticulous attention to detail drawn from the source material was obsessive and mind-boggling.  The cast of actors was incredibly talented and were put through their paces.  Some of them like Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies and Orlando Bloom were pushed to the limits of their skills as actors.  And they turned in some of the best performances of their careers.

Other actors like Cate Blanchett, Bernard Hill, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Karl Urban, Miranda Otto, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, John Noble, David Wenham, Christopher Lee, Brad Dourif and even Liv Tyler, daughter of rock legend Stephen Tyler, all did a fantastic job.

The casting could not have been more perfect.  Who but Ian McKellen could have played the role of Gandalf the Wizard as he did, with as much power and authority, and yet gentleness and compassion?  Who else could have played the iconic role of Aragorn with as much realism and enthusiasm?  Can you imagine anyone but Elijah Wood playing the role of Frodo Baggins, portraying the heights and depths of the unbelievable hardships that the character demanded?  If there was an Academy Award for casting, the team of casting directors would have had to win.

For anyone who has not seen any of the Lord of the Rings films, I will give a brief synopsis of the plot.  I will attempt to keep it short and just touch the highlights.  It will help in going over the performances of certain actors, the music, Peter Jackson’s directing choices, the cinematography, the costumes and the special effects.

In the distant past of the fictional land of Middle Earth, great magic rings of power were forged.  Three were made for the elves, 7 for the dwarves and 9 for mortal men.  But the evil demigod Sauron made one ring to rule over them all.  Into it, he poured his very life force so that even if his body was destroyed, he would live on through the ring.  And that is exactly what happened.  A man named Isildur killed him and took the One Ring.  But he lost it at the bottom of a river before being killed, himself.  There it lay for thousands of years.  Eventually it was found by a Halfling named Smeagol who found that it had the power to turn him invisible and prolong his life, though it also drove him insane and turned him into a fearsome and withered creature known as Gollum.  But eventually, after 500 years, he lost the Ring as well.

It was found by another Halfling, or Hobbit, named Bilbo Baggins.  He kept it for around 60 years whereupon he left it to his heir Frodo.  The good Wizard, Gandalf, learned of the Ring and its true nature of pure evil.  He sent Frodo and his gardener Sam to the house of Elrond the Elf.  Along the way, he meets Aragorn, the last of Isildur’s line, who becomes his protector.  He defends them against the ghostly shades of the Nine Riders, who are the bearers of the 9 Rings of mortal men, enslaved by the spirit of Sauron.

At Elrond’s home, a council is convened to determine the fate of the One Ring.  It is decided that Frodo must take the Ring to Mount Doom where the ring was forged, and destroy it.  As companions on his quest, Legolas the Elf, Gimli the Dwarf and Boromir the Human are chosen, along with Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf and two more Hobbits, Merry and Pippin:  Nine companions against the nine evil wraiths.

Along the way, Gandalf battles a demon and is lost.  Boromir is slain by orcs, and Frodo and Sam are separated from the group.  As they continue toward Mount Doom they meet Gollum who desperately desires to once again possess the Ring.  He agrees to be their guide, waiting for his chance to take it back.  But the plot also follows the remaining members of the company as they play their parts in the wars that the living spirit of Sauron unleashes upon Middle Earth.  Aragorn turns out to be the rightful King of the Country of Gondor and Sauron’s main enemy.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Frodo and Sam go through unbelievable hardships and eventually make it to Mount Doom.  However, Frodo succumbs to the power of the One Ring.  Instead of destroying it, it possesses him.  All would be lost if not for Gollum.  In his desire to get the Ring, he bites it off of Frodo’s hand, along with the finger on which it sits.  They struggle and Gollum falls into a pit of lava with the Ring.  With the One Ring destroyed, the spirit of Sauron dies and Middle Earth is saved.  Aragorn is crowned King of the world.  All the elves, along with Gandalf (who didn’t really die), Bilbo and Frodo leave Middle Earth on a voyage across the sea to the Undying lands.  The end.

Of course, that is just the barest bones of the plot.  It is huge and epic, complex, and at times, not easy to follow.  There are dozens of supporting characters and hundreds of extras.  And the whole thing was spearheaded by the incredible talent and dedication of director, Peter Jackson.  He brought the gargantuan project to life and was the main force behind its success.  He gathered some of the best talent in the industry and produced a trilogy of films so ambitious in scope and scale, that few movies are their equal.

First, the cast.  The main mover and shaker behind the events that take place in the plot is Gandalf, masterfully played by Ian McKellen.  He had the perfect look and the right temperament.  The character was just the right combination of hardness, compassion, power and humor.  McKellen was 63 years old when filming took place and yet the physically demanding role was played with vitality and energy.

Elijah Wood was incredible as Frodo.  To watch him go from a happy-go-lucky country boy to a burnt-out shell of a man, battered and bruised, was so heartbreaking and yet believable.  Wood really turned in an unbelievably good performance.

Interesting note:  In the extra documentaries about the movies included with the DVDs Wood commented that some fans of the films actually wanted to know how Jackson digitally enhanced his eyes to make them appear so large.  In reality, there was no enhancement at all.  Elijah Woods’ eyes are actually as big as they appear.

Viggo Mortensen probably had the most physically demanding role in the entire film.  He was a warrior, plain and simple, often displaying super human strength and endurance.  From what I understand, he performed most of his own stunts whenever possible.  He got so into his part that he often stayed in character, even when the cameras were not rolling.  Mortensen was incredible and made the character both bad-assed and yet, at times, incredibly introverted and spiritual.  He played the hard ranger and the noble King with equal skill and talent.  He really understood the character and turned in an unforgettable performance.

Both John Rhys-Davies and Orlando Bloom were also perfectly cast as Gimli the Dwarf and Legolas the Elf.  They were wonderful to watch, though I have to admit to one minor complaint that is easily forgivable.  The problem had to do with the writing.  Gimli and Legolas were often turned into the comic relief of the movie, especially in The Two Towers.  But I didn’t mind that much because when it was time for them to be serious, they remained true to the characters and kicked ass with the best of them.  There was just no need for Jackson to turn to fart jokes.

One actor I have not mentioned yet is Andy Serkis.  He had very little actual screen-time, and yet he was one of the most memorable parts of the entire trilogy.  He played the part of Gollum.  Gollum was a completely CGI character.  He was made possible by a technology called motion capture.  Serkis acted the part with the rest of the cast, dressed in a full-body suit covered in motion sensors.  Those sensors fed information to a computer that tracked his every movement, giving the digital animators a perfectly life-like template to work with.

The animation on Gollum was flawless and frighteningly realistic.  The facial expressions and simulation of real emotions were done so incredibly well, that you very easily forget that it is a CGI image.  He even stood up to close scrutiny whenever the character had a close-up.  The texturing of his skin, the perfectly blended lighting and the realistic movement made him blend in seamlessly with the live footage in which he was placed.  Nothing like Gollum had ever been done before.

The music was written by Howard Shore and was so incredible in scale and scope that he was able to turn it into a Lord of the Rings Symphony that is performed in classical concert halls.  It was grand and epic.  It was perfectly written and blended into the film.  It was small and minimalistic when it needed to be and yet large and powerful when it was supposed to be.  Shore’s talent and dedication to Jackson’s vision really came through.

Now, when it comes to Peter Jackson’s directing, the first word that comes to mind is genius.  But the second word I think of is demanding.  He demanded nothing but the best from every last person who worked for him.  After watching the entire 12 hour director’s cut trilogy, I watched only 2 of the documentaries included with the DVDs.  But in one of them I learned that the final theatrical cut of The Return of the King was completed only 2 days before the World Premier in New Zealand, where the entire movie was filmed.  The third installment of the trilogy had more special effect shots than the first two movies combined.  Jackson pushed his people to the wire and pushed himself at the same time.  I can’t even begin to imagine the number of hours spent by all the people involved in making these three movies.  The statistic would be staggering.

Jackson’s grand vision was truly inspired.  Many have called these three film Jackson’s masterpiece.  It is a description that is truly deserved.  Every little detail was adhered to and nothing was left to chance.  Jackson really gave us a spectacle on a grand scale that had never before been attempted.

Something else that I have to mention as being outstanding was the cinematography.  As I mentioned, all the filming was done in the beautiful country of New Zealand.  I don’t think the world was fully aware of what a stunningly gorgeous place New Zealand really is.  But Jackson made full use of all its splendors.  The open fields of green, the mountains, the snowy peaks and valleys of dark gray rock, the deep forests and winding rivers of surpassing perfection, the pristine sunrises and misty mornings, all gave Jackson a pallet of such colors and loveliness that the world was just shocked by the spectacle of the landscapes.

Next is the costumes and sets.  The film’s art design was something special.  For each race, the costumes, the set designs and the props were all intertwined.  It was all meticulously thought out and beautifully crafted by a company called WETA.   Each race had its own style, its own aesthetics.  The elves were clothed in long flowing robes made of expensive looking silks and velvets.  Their homes and dwellings were likewise designed with long curving lines and delicate patterns.  They wore tiaras that resembled their architecture.  Their water jugs and bows, their armor and swords, the helms and their hair all had the same intricate designs.  When you see anything Elven, you immediately know what it is and where it came from.  Their style resembled the trees which all Elves love.

The Dwarf, Gimli, had weapons and armor designed with harder, squatter lines and patterns, much like the dwarves themselves.  They contained more straight lines and starker angles.  Their styles resembled stone and faceted jewels.  It was all amazingly detailed and just made the movie that much more real.  The Humans of Edoras and the Humans of Gondor each had their own distinct styles which were adhered to.  And, of course, the Hobbits had a style that was distinctly… Hobbitish.  Even the Orcs and Goblins had their own individual styles that were distinct and realistic.

And finally, I have to mention the special effects.  The special effects were unlike anything the world had ever seen.  The men and women who made up the special effects team for the film were able to achieve spectacular effects that had never before been attempted.  They made use of optical illusions when crafting their sets in order to make size differences between the different races of Middle Earth, a technique called forced perspective.  They used size doubles for some shots.  They made use of incredibly detailed miniature models and props.  And, of course, they used computer generated animation.  Some might say that there were too many special effect shots, that after a while it just became gratuitous.  But the quality was so top-notch and realistic that I just kept wanting more.  The special effects teams really knew their craft and were able to realize the fantastic dreams of Jackson.  They really made his vision come to life.

The first two films were both nominated for Best Picture, thought they didn’t win.  But The Return of the King not only made up for these losses, it took the Oscars by storm.  It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and it won in every category for which it was nominated.  It won for Best Picture, Best Director (Jackson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (Shore), Best Original Song, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Make-up, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.  It currently holds the record for the highest Academy Award sweep.

If I am looking at the trilogy as one complete film, I have to say that it was one of the most complex, the most monumental and the most phenomenal projects ever attempted.  It was well worth all the attention and awards it received.  I’d even go so far as to call it one of the greatest films ever made.  Well done, Mr. Jackson!