"Man" Steals

I saw Man of Steel in a bistro theater full of gray-hiared people like myself - all the others couples - literally out for a dinner and a movie. I was the only person of color in the theater - but this may have had more to do with the location of the theater (far suburbs) than anything else. Anyhoo, I was moved by Man of Steel - surprisingly so as I have always been a Marvel Man and have gone on record as to how corny and ridiculous I consider most DC Characters (his power is that he talks to fish - really?).

Over the last five decades the most popular DC character has clearly been the one without any super powers. In fact, the problem with Superman, DC's first and most durable superhero is that, over time, he became too super - and writers had to go to ridiculous lengths to cut him back down to size.

One of best things about "Man of Steel" is how it discards two of the hoariest tropes associated with Kal-El: his acute susceptibility to kyptonite and the nonsense about no one being able to figure out that Clark Kent is Superman. Done and done. This opens up the "Man of Steel" to a more "realistic" telling of his story. As realistic as a story about a man catupulted from his dying planet in rocket ship who crash lands on another habitable planet can be.

There is real pain in Kal-El's hero journey. The death of his surrogate father, Jonathan Kent, is as tragic a circumstance as you can imagine. It is many times worse than Spiderman being unable to save Captain Stacy or Uncle Ben - because there was really nothing he could do. Kal-El is able to save Jonathan Kent's life and it takes every fiber of his being not to - he is forever his father's son (both of them) - and then he must bear the burden of knowing he could have saved his father's life and he is forever conflicted by the fact that he not only did not but by the should not his earthly father imposed on him. This is powerful stuff. And, it is powerful stuff delivered by great actors.

The entire enterprise is imbued with a certain gravitas by employing actors such as Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner as Kal-El's fathers, the reliable Diane Lane, drabbed down and vertially make-up free and, just barely, old enough to be the 30 year-old Henry Cavill's mother. These actors are complimented by the venerable Laurence Fishburne giving Perry White a presence not approached by Jackie Cooper (does anyone remember the estimable Frank Langella in the lamentable Superman Returns?) and Henry Lennix and Christopher Meloni as General Swanwick and Colonel Nathan Hardy, respectively.

Of course we must mention intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane who finds perfect incarnation in Amy Adams, apparently in direct lineage from "Girl Friday" Rosilind Russell to her inimitable predecessor, Margot Kidder.

The fact that "Man of Steel" is marred by obligatory fight scenes (with brooding Michael Shannon) - that make the movie overlong - does little to dilute it as a great telling of this original hero's journey.

~rave!

Tin Can Alley

The third sequel in a movie franchise is seldom the charm.  They
are either big and ponderous (Matrix Revolutions), descend into
parady or camp (Superman III) or devolve into pure schlock
(Jaws 3D).  Iron Man 3 is none of these while possibly being all
of them.  In fact, IM3 plays like a third Robert Downey, Jr.
franchise, a third rail to his Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes
annunities - call this one Tin Can.

Jim Favreau, director of the first two Iron Man movies, looks like he
may have eaten his way out of that job as he reprises his role as a
corpulent Happy Hogan.  He is replaced by Shane Black, author of
the original Lethal Weapon movie.  In fact, IM3 plays more like the
fifth installment of Lethal Weapon than a sequel to IM2.  The villian
is a Euro-Trash industrialist (Guy Pearce) and the final
confrontation takes place on a dirty oil tanker with Downey
and Don Cheadle firing bullets instead of repulsor rays.

As I noted in my review of Iron Man 2, seldom has there been a
better match of actor and role than Downey and Tony Stark/Iron
Man.  The age old question: does the man make the suit or does the
suit make the man, applies to IM3 as Downey spends way too much
time out of his full metal jacket.

~(no)rave!

Rogue Behavior

I recently watched the first two episodes of Thandie Newton's
action-adventure series Rogue on DirecTV's Audience Network.
It is gritty, fast-paced entertainment that feels oddly British (I kept
expecting to see the iconic "Egg" Building in the background) even
though the story is supposed to be taking place in Oakland,
California.

It is probably not surprising that the show appears wrapped in the
Union Jack when the chief writer, Matthew Parkhill, and most of
the prime participants are either British, Australian, New Zealand
or Canadian actors and the show is filmed in the city of Vancouver
in the Province of British Columbia. I don't understand why the
show wasn't based in London - except for the desire to sell the
concept to an American network and audience. Suffice it to say
you never believe you are in Oakland, California, despite the signs
on various buildings designating this as an Oakland Police Station
or that as an Oakland courthouse.

Something decidedly "British" pervades the whole enterprise.
British and Australian actors are apparently the new vogue in all
realms of entertainment. They play True Blood vampires and
upright police officers and rogueish Governors dealing with the
Walking Dead, but in all of those instances if you didn't know,
you wouldn't know. In this particular instance, you are constantly
aware of something being not quite kosher with these allegedly
"American" characters. 

Ian Hart, who plays an artful dodger cop, is such a archtypical
British character with his cockney attitude and porkpie hat that
his character could have been played by Bob Hoskins. The most
believable of these "American" characters is Kavan Smith, as
Thandie's husband, and he was born in Edmonton, Alberta.

All of which is to say what? "Rogue" feels ersatz? Yes. Do I
ever feel like I am in America, let alone in Oakland, California?
No, not ever. Even the stakes, the Chinese mafia trying to bully
in on the action on the docks, seems British. Even Newton's
mixed race kids are too British in looks and demeanor to be
believable as Oakland born and bred. It is annoying. Why are
they trying to sell me that this story is taking place
in America, let alone in Oakland, California?

But, if you can swallow all the textural tea and crumpets,
Rogue is gripping and compelling. Newton is whippet lean
and junk yard tough as Grace, the conflicted cop working
undercover to expose the smooth but lethal boss of the docks
(New Zealand born Morton Csokas). The sexual attraction
between these two is palpable but Grace is the wife of Tom
Travis and the mother of feisty teen-ager, Evie Travis (Sarah
Jeffrey). 

Grace's dual life takes a terrible toll on her family: her young-
est son wets the bed, has nightmares and draws horrific pictures
of sharp-toothed predators chasing him. A good cop, she is a
horrible wife and mother - constantly making promises she can't
keep.  Grace wants to quit her increasingly dangerous life and
devote more time to her family, but she keeps getting sucked
back in - with ever escalating consequences.

I'm all in for the ten-episode run.

~rave!

Spurs that jingle, Django, jingle

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is a remarkable achievement.  Remarkable for reasons that have everything to do with its subject manner - the antebellum south and its cruel and peculiar institution of slavery - and nothing to do with it.  It is remarkable primarily because it is a compilation of improbable things: a nearly three hour long spaghetti western; a $100 million blaxploitation movie (in fact, perhaps, the "granddaddy" of all blaxploitation movies); and, most improbable of all, a nearly three hour blaxploitation spaghetti western that is smart, funny, savage, knowing, telling, entertaining, and, often, bloody, engrossing, and full of surprises.  

A gritty parable of love, lost, sacrifice and revenge, Django follows the prototypical arc of the spaghetti western's man with no or one name - with a notable twist.  When we meet Django ("the 'D' is silent") he is chained to a quartet of black men who have been bought at a slave auction.  They are being transported through the woods, chained neck to wrist to ankle, barefoot and bare-chested on a cold and chilly night, when they encounter a man driving a quaint wagon with the giant white tooth bobbing on its top. Fortunately for Django, the loquacious and courtly Dr. King Schutz (Christoph Waltz) has given up dentistry for the more lucrative profession of bounty hunting and he needs Django to identify a trio of ne'er do wells for him.  

It so happens that the three men Dr. Schutz is tracking are the same three men who whipped and branded Django (Jamie Foxx) and Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) before selling them further down the river.  Not knowing where the brutal Brittle Brothers have gone, Dr. Schutz's plan is to go from plantation to plantation with Django masquerading as his velvet-suited valet until Django can spot and identify the culprits.  Mission accomplished, Dr. Schutz takes Django on as a junior partner while promising him both his freedom and the good doctor's help in finding his wife.

One night after a cowboy meal of beans and strong coffee, Dr. Schutz tells Django the German legend of Brunhilde: Brunhilde, a half-divine shield maiden, has been condemned to live her life as a mortal woman imprisoned in a remote castle protected by a dragon and surrounded by a wall of fire where she will remain until a man can slay the dragon and penetrate the wall of fire to save her.  Django's half-goddess/whole woman - his wife - is named Broomhilda von Shaft (which, ostensibly makes her and Django the great grandparents of that bad mutha "shut your mouth" private dick whose movie of the same name greenlit the blaxploitation explosion of the late sevenites).  And the dragon who guards her citadel is the suave and savage Calvin Candie (Leonardo Dicaprio).  Django resolves to walk through the fires of hell, in this instance, the laws and mores of pre-Civil War Mississippi, to reclaim his wife.

The lead actors in Django are excellent.  Waltz exudes the innate charm he oozed as the silky but vicious Nazi Colonel Hans Landa in Tarantino's last revisionist epic, Inglourious Basterds, only this time he uses his considerable powers for good.  Waltz's Dr. Schutz is the glue that anchors Django's tale and he steals almost every scene he is in, even those with the equally impressive Dicaprio, who has slyly grown into the best actor of his generation.

Samuel L. Jackson is a hoot as the house nigger, Stephen, who has fashioned himself a cushy sinecure as the lead slave at Candieland, the plantation owned by DiCaprio.  It is Jackson's most cunning and diabolical turn since Ordell Robie, the devil in man-clothes he played in Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

Foxx's role is a thankless one that requires him mostly to be noble and stoic.  He complies admirably, giving it his best "Clint Eastwood."

About the "N" word: suffice to say it is probably said enough to make your teeth white.

In this new millennium, four years into post-racial Obamarama, it is possibly disheartening that the red meat of a black actor dispatching scores of white men (and one white woman) with accuracy and aplomb is still thrilling.  As thrilling as it was when Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and the rest of them bloodied the screen forty years ago.  

What is heartening is that the hero of Django never once lusts for a white woman.  There are no heaving bosoms, ala Raquel Welch or Stella Stevens, for him to lust after.  The primary white woman of note is Laura Cayouette as Candie's spinsterish widowed sister, Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly, and she is mostly a comic foil. 

Our hero only has eyes for his purloined wife of whom he has frequent visions as he endures both his quest and their separation.  While "When a man loves a woman" is not on the soundtrack, it could be.

~rave!

Lost in the Cloud Atlas

I don't smoke or drink but after watching the Wachowski's 
"Cloud Atlas" I felt like I was sharing the doobie Tom Hanks 
and Halle Berry passed back and forth during the Luisa Rey 
movement of this filmic symphony.

"Cloud Atlas" is the kind of movie you feel you should dress 
up for - like going to the theater or going to the symphony. And, 
unfortunately, that is the kind of audience it will ultimately draw. 
Atlas requires the type of sophistication and patience a night at 
the opera might require. A film patron will need the forbearance 
and the fortitude to abide as unfamiliar characters and stories
slowly take stage and unfold with no particular urgency.

The viewer is adrift for long passages of this movie, the primary 
flaw being the lack of a notable thru-character to latch on to and 
care about. There are a few linchpins – Doona Bae and Jim Broad-
bent  being particularly striking as the genetically engineered 
fabricant, Sonmi-451, and the vanity publisher and late in life 
swashbuckler, Timothy Cavendish, respectively. Elsewhere 
formidable star power is muted as big name actors such as Tom 
Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant and Wachowski repertory player, 
Hugo Weaving, frequently disappear under mounds of makeup. 
In fact, one of the delights of the movie is sitting through the end 
credits and being wonderfully surprised by who was playing who.

You have to respect the high ground the Wachowskis are playing 
on and it is doubly nice to see that, as in the Matrix Trilogy, there 
are black people in the future and they fare pretty well.

In the end I must agree with book critic Robert K. J. Kiheffer 
who wrote, "for its pleasures, Cloud Atlas falls short of 
revolutionary." It may not be a masterpiece, but it is a stunning 
canvas.

~rave!

American Gothic Horror Show

Anyone watching the year two reboot of American Horror Story?  I was highly disaffected by the ending of the first cycle which, IMHO, seemed like a cheat - especially after how invested we, the viewers, had become.  We cared.  Cared enough to be disappointed when all the primary characters ended up in kind of a Beetlejuice-esque limbo - without the calypso.  Anywho, last night in the wee hours of the morning, I watched the first two episodes of "Asylum" and, just like Michael Corleone in the Godfather saga, I'm pulled back in again.

Asylum is full of all of the religious and sexual kinks one comes to associate with a Ryan Murphy project - including his PG rated "Glee."  And, of course, there's the monster mash: slasher movies and alien abductions and mad scientist dismemberments and lobotomies all diced up in some cosmic blender.

As in season one Jessica Lang is revelation.  Still exuding a smoldering (if brittle) sexuality at 63, she continues to amaze with her steely precision as an actress. As Mother Superior, she is one twisted sister.

~rave!

The Faces of Te-Boe

The NFL Network is running a documentary on the phenomenon
of Tim Tebow called "The Faces of Tebow."  As a die-hard pro-
fessional football fan and a card-carrying Dr. Who devotee (since
Tom Baker), I am fascinated by the nexus where two lumps of
granite: Tim Tebow and the Face of Boe can come together in a
populist punchline. I love the linguistic gymnastics involved in
"The Faces of Tebow"; I wonder at the mind of the football loving
sci-fi geek whose brain connected the disparate dots to make
such a psychic connection; and I wonder how many die-hard
Tebow fans could (or would) make the extrapolation to the
iconic "wanderer without a home"...and vice versa.

~rave!