Mona Lisa Smile (2003): a reconsideration

Posted on September 23, 2010 by roguespirit

My wife and I saw Mona Lisa Smile when it was out in theaters back in 2003 and at the time dismissed it as insipid feel-good fluff. But this past weekend after we got “slimed” by Easy A, we started talking about the remarkable confluence of young female acting talent assembled in Mona Lisa Smile (Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Ginnifer Goodwin) and decided that it might be a good antidote to the crap we had just finished watching. And after all, Mona Lisa Smile was directed by Mike Newell, the director Enchanted April, which in my humble opinion is the greatest movie of all time. It was time to find out if we had indeed missed something.

Well, I’m not sure if it’s just because movies now-a-days are such trash, but Mona Lisa Smile is suddenly looking pretty damn good. It creates a moment in time and place for the viewer in a way that somehow does not feel like a period-piece (it’s a little like Enchanted April in that way.) Instead you are transported pleasantly and easily to Wellesley and get to look in on the lives of those that populated it back then.  The movie has a good score (one, I might add, that finds its way into a lot of previews these days.) The many scenes with the four young actresses are all really good – the dialog between them is generous, well-written and beautifully performed, and Newell created scenes of extended interaction of the kind you don’t see very often anymore in film. Each of the four characters develops in an unexpected way, and the influence of Julia Roberts on this development is (refreshingly) more subtle and believable than you would normally expect in this kind of film. The only real problem I see is Julia Roberts herself, but Mike Newell found a way to smooth over her tics and got her to project less “bombastic movie star” in the role, so that she actually didn’t bother me too much. It also helps that she is surrounded on all sides by solid actors and actresses who prop her up. I might add that Marcia Gay Harden is, as usual, fantastic in a supporting role.

Let’s talk about those great young actresses for a second. Let me go on the record here and declare that Kirsten Dunst recent substance abuse problems resulted in a huge loss for movies. That girl had serious talent! And talk about range! She could play serious, she could play silly, she could play romantic, she could play costume dramas, she could play sports movies. She could play spastic blond teenybopper comedy, then turn around and play a crazy teen on a downward spiral in a serious drama and make both characters equally indelible. And everything she tackled was played with such naturalness. She puts to shame Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, who in comparison begin to look like one-trick-ponies (even if that one trick is really good.) And of course she created one of my all time favorite characters in film: Claire Colburn in Elizabethtown, a bizarrely wonderful performance that I’m not sure any other current actress could have pulled off.

I see from IMDB that it looks like Kiki might be inching her way back into film – I see she actually starred in a short based on the wonderful little Haruki Murakami short story The Second Bakery Attack, has several features in post-production, and she’s cast in a film version of On the Road which seems to be filming now. Let’s all hope that she makes a glorious comeback, so we’re not stuck watching Hayden Panettiere for the next twenty years.

Anyway, in Mona Lisa Smile, Kiki turns in a simply beautiful performance as a stifled, vindictive, privileged little rich girl that slowly wakes up to the realities of her life and finally starts to grow as a person. It’s the kind of understated performance that does not get a lot of credit these days – if you’re not playing a “Rain Man” role, or wearing a fake nose, forget it. Just the energetic difference in her performance between her character pre-transformation and post-transformation is to me a thing of real beauty.

Julia Stiles, another fabulous actress who has disappeared for a different reason (she exceeded Hollywood’s threshold of 1% body fat) is I think perhaps a tad miscast in this role, but she turns in a really good performance nonetheless. And of course she always has that incredible, sexy Jane Fonda voice going for her no matter what she plays. Maggie Gyllenhaal has to be one of the most effortlessly talented actresses around, even if she tends to stick to a few definite types of roles. Her performance here is like a breath of fresh air, perfectly contrasting with the staid demeanors of her classmates without ever crossing over into caricature. Ginnifer Goodwin, who has the same “problem” with non-anorexia that Julia Stiles does, turns in a bubbly yet carefully shaded and nuanced rendition of the “black sheep” character. Whatever you think of the film, seeing these four together is a treat.

Mona Lisa Smile – worth reconsidering, in my opinion. Seven years later, it’s looking pretty good.

Posted in Appreciations (Irreviews Favorites), Films of the 2000s | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Easy A – Generation-Y teenybopper movies, Exhibit A

Posted on September 21, 2010 by roguespirit

Many people summarily dismiss teenybopper movies as a genera, but there are great teenybopper movies, okay teenybopper movies, and bad teenybopper movies. Great teenybopper movies recreate the unique horror of the 1980s Generation-X high school experience, in all of it’s sadness, helplessness, vulnerability, and despair, and then turn everything around (half realistically, half dream-like) and make everything okay. They all follow this formula one way or another – from Clueless, to Ten Things I Hate About You, to Bring it On, to 13 Going on 30, to Freaky Friday, to Mean Girls, to Bandslam. Hell, even Juno followed this formula more or less.

I think the formula works because Generation-X was the last generation to grow up in a world without the internet (and everything that came with it or arrived on the scene concurrently.) There was a sense of isolation and naivete in the teenage adolescent experience that makes for great drama, and the fact that kids still did “normal kid things” back then (as opposed to constantly interfacing with electronic devices like fucking cyborgs) opens the possibility for dialog and plot-lines that have real texture. Even if these films are set in modern times, you will notice that the rhythm of life is very much Generation-X adolescence.

Easy A, on the other hand, is Exhibit A in the inevitable transition to Generation-Y teenybopper movies, and in my opinion it represents the worst possibilities of the genera. It has no soul. There’s not a scrap of genuine emotion or feeling in the thing. It is a glitzy, senseless piece of trash, rife with badly executed lowest common denominator humor. And on top of all that, it has bad music.

To say this film never finds its comic footing is something of an understatement. The film has no comic focus whatsoever. Its comic pacing is really poor – consider for example the “gay guy pretending to loose virginity” scene, which should have been much, much funnier and drags on way too long. The film also makes that increasingly common mistake of diffusing its comedy across every character, even the minor ones. Everyone is a fucking card in this film, none of them are funny, and each detracts from all the others.

But the film fails even more dramatically on the emotional front. The lead character’s story arc is completely unbelievable. She says she’s suffering but you never see it. She does not even look very upset at anything that is happening to her. She never cries (what kind of kid is she?!) She deals with adversity like a hardened battalion commander, never hesitating, always confident and effective. Any real outcast who went down a road like this would be irrevocably destroyed, trust me. She would be treated much worse than anything Stone experiences in the film, her family would probably be completely dysfunctional and unhelpful (like most outcasts,) she would not get the cool guy (who looks and sounds about 28 but is in high school,) and she would never be forgiven, by anyone.

This lead character (played by Emma Stone) is supposed to be a loser-type who is uniformly ignored at school, at least that’s what she tells you in her badly-written narration sequences. But what you actually see in the film is a brilliant girl who is effortlessly and dazzlingly articulate in every situation, who exudes a confidence and sexuality that defines the upper bound of “girl-next-door” sex appeal even before she turns tramp, who has an irresistible voice that can melt steel, and who has a fabulous and completely confident sense of fashion. How can you possibly connect with her or relate to her as an outcast?! First of all, every boy in the school would be openly pursuing this chick non-stop. Second, every girl in the school would be openly pursuing this chick non-stop. Third, all the UFOs in the sky would be landing in her backyard to try to optimally cross-mate species!

As for her best friend, Aly Michalka, there is no way in hell that a girl looking like that is going to be the the outcast best-friend of a completely ignored nobody. Think of Julia Stiles best friend in Ten Things I Hate About You (played by Susan May Pratt) if you can even remember the character. That is what the misfit, hippie best friend of an outcast looks and acts like, not some tricked-out blond bombshell with double-D tits. And by the way, since when does Aly Michalka have double-D tits? Just last year in Bandslam she looked perfectly normal. Very sad.

Stone’s family in this film is ridiculous. Their behavior is pointless and absurd and does nothing but detract from the already feeble storyline. Look, I like Patricia Clarkson as much as anyone, and Stanley Tuchi can be really wonderful when he takes on a warm, loving character. But to just let these two run amok in their scenes (which are many, and long, and painful) is just plain bad film-making. They are so overpowering they regularly eclipse the lead character. Not a good idea.

Then there’s the male heart-throb character: That dude from Gossip Girl is just not cut out for this kind of role. Yes, I know he’s ripped on steroids, with “guns” and “abs” like every other teenager in films, but he is just a cold, flat fish, devoid of any sex appeal or any appeal at all, actually. He is a disaster.

Lastly, the amount of on-screen time devoted to showing a time-lapsed representation of how rumors spread through the internet, super-phones, and the virtual ghettos of social networking, is really excessive. They keep coming back to this again and again, showing extended sequences, visually flying through the halls of the school like a video game, stopping here and there to show robo-children staring at electronic devices and seeing “things.” Very, very boring.

If you must watch Easy A, at least compare it to something like Bandslam to maintain perspective on the actual dramatic potential of this much maligned genera.

Posted in 2010 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Town – It’s actually very good

Posted on September 20, 2010 by roguespirit

I don’t know if Ben Affleck is a great director, but I’ll tell you one thing: In my mind he makes a lot of directors who are considered good by critics look pretty bad (Clint Eastwood and Ridley Scott to name 2 off the top of my head.)

The Town is a well-crafted movie with excellent performances. It is paced effectively and has good dialog, especially by today’s standards. It is interesting, exciting, and the action sequences are staged and shot really well. There is so much mediocre action in today’s movies (a perfect recent example: Inception), that when you find yourself drifting to the edge of your seat during a film’s action sequences (as if you actually CARE about the outcome) you take notice. Credit Ben Affleck: it takes skill to blend all these fine qualities into a movie.

As an actor, Ben Affleck is drifting up toward the top of my favorites. He is a very natural actor, and has aged into a very warm and winning one. He’s great here as a tormented bank robber with a tiny-but-growing heart who wants out. Really great. The guy playing the best friend (Jeremy Renner) is just off-the-charts fabulous! It helps of course that both roles are well-written, but still these actors make the most of the fine writing.

In supporting roles, Blake Lively and Rebecca Hall are terrific. (Rebecca Hall is in my opinion always a good thing in any movie she appears in.) Jon Hamm is a little uneven and two-dimensional as the FBI agent, but the film works so well as a whole that this does not seriously detract from the overall experience.

What’s remarkable about The Town, at least by today’s standards, is how it immerses you in the strange criminal culture of Charletown, MA and develops characters in that setting, and at the same time sustains a parallel police story. No, the police angle is not fabulously executed, but it is basically effective and more importantly has a consistent place in the movie from start to finish. In its own way, The Town is almost a poor cousin of something like The Day of the Jackal, when you find yourself weirdly routing for the bad guys, while following the developing action from both sides simultaneously.

As is inevitable for this genera, there are some cardboard, prick gangster-types with zero emotional range floating around (saying things like “I clipped your daddy’s balls!” with a husky, menacing voice) but the scenes with these people are short and to the point, not glamorized or saddled with inflated importance, and thus do not detract from the film.

Ignore the New York Times critics. I highly recommend it!

Posted in 2010 | Leave a comment

Going the Distance / The Switch – summer romantic comedies

Posted on September 7, 2010 by roguespirit

My wife and I took in a double feature of this summer’s romantic comedies while on vacation last week. I thought I would review them together here.

Going the Distance is a minimally entertaining comedy. It’s better than 500 Days of Summer, that much I can say. It has its moments, certainly. My main problem with it is that it diffuses its comedy across all the characters, an unfortunate trend that I see a lot in modern comedies (The Other Guys did the exact same thing.) In this formula, everyone is treated as a comic centerpiece, all the time, and it starts to get old about a third of the way through. I prefer a more concentrated comic focus in my comedies. The film also suffers because you never connect with the two leads in any meaningful way except as widgets for conveying a silly comic plot-line. This is no 13 going on 30, trust me. The dialog is basically “I missed you!” / “I missed you too!” Plus, they make very clumsy use of lots of really good 80s music, which is disappointing. Still, we both enjoyed it for what it was – a silly summer distraction.

The Switch, on the other hand, is actually a sweet little film that is pretty well-made. The critics have this one wrong, in my opinion. It’s less of a rip-roaring comedy and more of a quirky character study. The film basically borrows a lot from Tootsie and About a Boy, but hey, if you’re going to borrow you might as well borrow from really great films! The dialog is pretty well done, and Jason Bateman is wonderful in the (very interesting) lead role. The guy is just a really good actor in my book. Jennifer Aniston (never a favorite of mine) is actually not bad in this film – part of it is Jason Bateman props her up a good bit, and part of it is that they actually wrote fairly decent dialog for her to say. This may be the only film I’ve ever seen her in where she gave a performance that was not completely stilted – the director did his job well, obviously! They successfully avoid cliches with the character of the kid, and the supporting performances are tolerable (barely.) The preview for The Switch did not do it justice – it is more than a one-event comedy (“when will she find out?”) It has a very pleasant overall impact. I’m not sure I would ever watch it again (I might) but I certainly enjoyed it.

I recommend The Switch, and if you are in the mood for light, silly comedy, you could definitely do worse than Going the Distance.

Posted in 2010 | Leave a comment

The September Issue – the Devil is a boring corporate drone

Posted on September 7, 2010 by roguespirit

I enjoyed The September Issue, but not in the way I was expecting. I figured the film would be a chance to see the real Devil Wears Prada. Well it definitely is that, but it turns out that the real deal is a lot more boring, and the cast of characters a lot uglier and more plainly dressed.  (No one on Wintour’s staff is going to be confused with Giselle, trust me.) I think I prefer the Devil Wears Prada version.

Let’s cut right to the meat of it. I could not believe how boring Anna Wintour is! She is nothing like Meryl Streep’s ridiculous character in Devil Wears Prada. This woman is just like every other high-level corporate leader I’ve ever come in contact with. She’s practically a robot, completely focused on her job. I can’t see this woman ever wasting time torturing an assistant – she’s too busy for that. She’d just fire them in a second and move on. Wintour does not even have anything interesting to say about fashion. She does not have anything interesting to say about ANYTHING. When asked what she would do with one wish, she replys “a better back-hand.” This tells you everything you need to know about Anna Wintour.

The September Issue is not a very well made documentary. They do not explain the action adequately, they do a poor job of introducing the various characters, and there is way too much rapid cutting – the film is definitely edited for the A.D.D. generation. I think part of the reason for this is because the scenes are not very interesting and neither are the people – there’s a reason no one sets up cameras in corporate America and then markets the product as entertainment. So they just try to keep the pace quick and make it all look glamorous. But in my mind, they fail. To me, it looks a lot like my day job, only in a different business. Not fun.

Still, it’s fun to see all the silly artistry of the fashion industry. Very entertaining!

Posted in 2009 | Leave a comment

Animal Kingdom – a brilliantly animalistic crime drama

Posted on August 19, 2010 by roguespirit

It’s not very often that I’m moved to see a film by one single line in the film’s trailer. I mean, everyone likes a good line, but this line is delivered so brilliantly that my wife and I dragged ourselves to Sunshine on a weeknight to check out the movie. And the filmmakers obviously know how brilliant it is, because they actually repeated the clip a second time in the trailer, just tacked on to the very end, to make sure you take that line with you. Well, it worked, and I’m happy to report that the rest of the film is (unbelievably) up the level of that great line in the preview. We both loved it!

It is very unusual these days to see such quiet, unpretentious earthiness in a movie of this type. In this way it is the exact opposite of the Coen Brothers or that hack Tarantino, but at the same time distinct from manipulative “modern indie” stuff like Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Instead, Animal Kingdom is like watching a bunch of real people, only they’re really bizarre, bad people who are bonded together in this strange dysfunctional little family unit – fascinating! The small amount of violence in the film is done exquisitely; they capture the shear shock of it really well, and I think a big reason why is that they somehow manage to not glamorize it at all. Again, this is the opposite of Taratino or the Coens, who view violence as a stupid, ham-fisted joke.

The film has a wonderful, tense, low-key story that evolves slowly but is quite mesmerizing. The dialog is minimalistic, but really well-written and effective. The characters of all the different brothers are beautifully drawn. Each one is a distinct type of sociopath, but at no time do any of their characters descend into caricature. This is most evident in the case of the crazy brother (Ben Mendelsohn) who is absolutely frightening but so real and understated you literally keep forgetting how completely crazy he is! When was the last time you saw a character like that in a crime film?

Obviously the actress playing the mother (Jacki Weaver) is wonderful, and she has other fabulous lines besides the one in the preview. But James Frencheville is also really good as the kid. Usually I quickly grow bored of this kind of  “comatose kid” role, but not so in his case. He also does an outstanding job delivering the narration in the beginning, narration that is quite well-written. Finally, Guy Pierce is really strong as the detective investigating the family.

I should also add that I really enjoyed the score, which is this dark, brooding, retro synthesizer music. It somehow perfectly fit the atmosphere of the movie.

Animal Kingdom is very well-named. There is a subtle animalism present throughout the entire film, present in everything from the most overt act of violence to the most mundane interaction between characters. It is very fascinating to watch. And I absolutely love the title frame of the film, which features this tacky 3-D painting with these three lions in various positions in a jungle setting. Just brilliant stuff!

I highly recommend this film!

Posted in 2010 | Leave a comment

Eat Pray Love – a yuppie on a really sweet vay-cay!

Posted on August 16, 2010 by roguespirit

After watching Eat Pray Love on opening weekend, my wife announced “I may be through with Julia Roberts forever!” That summed up my feelings pretty well.

Admittedly, Julia Roberts is a true star, the kind they don’t make any more. Who from younger generations can you simply plunk down in any film and have that film instantly become an “event?” (and no, Robert Pattinson doesn’t count!) But let’s face it, her acting is really problematic. She has about 6 ways of delivering lines, and each “way” looks and sounds exactly the same, scene to scene, film to film. Here they are: 1) Through tremulous, whining crying. 2) Affected deadpanning with a little smirk. 3) Deadpanning without the smirk. 4) With an insanely big smile and deep laugh. 5) the moderately irritated comeback. 6) Voice-going-instantly horse and eyes-popping-out yelling while she gently shakes her head back and forth. That’s it. There’s nothing else and there’s nothing in-between. Plus, she is just about the least convincing crier I have ever seen in film. This is a real problem in a film about a woman having a complete breakdown!

Javier Bardem, on the other hand, is someone whose mere presence is reason enough to run out and see a film. The guy is incredible! He’s warm, charismatic, has a great voice, possesses tremendous range, skill and depth as an actor, and exhibits an almost unique combination of sexiness and grittiness. Put simply: the guy has soul. To me, he is the hottest quantity in film right now, and he is the reason my wife and I went to Eat Pray Love.

Without Javier Bardem this film would be absolutely intolerable. It’s still pretty damn bad with him, but at least you don’t feel like Julia Roberts picked your pocket. He takes over the film in the last third and given almost nothing to work with in the script he somehow makes you like and care and bond with his character as if he were the main character of the film, without over-acting or grandstanding in any way. It’s remarkable. From the first instance of seeing him driving on some country road in Bali in his open-top jeep, crazy hair waving in the wind, unshaven with retro sun glasses, grooving to some 70’s tune, you get this instant jolt of energy and happiness. My wife and I were poking each other and laughing. It was like the film suddenly came to life.

Okay, so what can I say about the film itself? Basically it is a pretty superficial film that leaves you with very little. It has a bad score, a highly problematic lead actress (imagine what Kate Winslet could have done with this role,) an unconvincing story arc, and completely unremarkable dialog. It does feature several fine supporting actors (Viola Davis, Billy Crudup, Rickard Jenkins) laboring heroically to make something of the script and their poorly drawn characters, but for the most part, they fail.

The biggest problem with the film is that you never get a sense that this woman is in any kind of real emotional trouble. The vast majority of the time it looks like she’s just enjoying a really sweet vay-cay with great food, friendly people, beautiful scenery and plenty of money to burn! The scenes in Rome are straight out of Under the Tuscan Sun. The scenes in India are just bland. The filmmakers couldn’t even be bothered to explain anything that goes on in the ashram. Instead, they rely on a cartoonish smart-mouthed Texan (played with … let’s say “great determination” by Richard Jenkins) who kind of insensitively fires little pearls of wisdom at her like “You wanna get to the castle, girl, you gotta swim the moat.” But you never see her “swimming the moat.” Indeed, she seems pretty damn happy and untroubled there, much happier than she should.

In Bali, Javier Bardem takes over, but there is only so much he can do opposite Julia Roberts. My god, here she is hanging out with this soulful, way-cool Brazilian stud, and she’s acting like nothing special is going on! Even when she finally goes for him in the very end, her flatness in that final scene is just embarrassing. A similar thing happens when Richard Jenkins has his breakdown scene – she’s sitting there looking at him like he suddenly started to speak Russian. She floats through the whole film with an air that says “I’m Julia Roberts. I don’t have to act.” It gets old.

The only thing I took away from this film was the question of why Javier Bardem can’t get better movies than this.

Posted in 2010 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Cairo Time – unfortunately, it’s kind of a snooze

Posted on August 9, 2010 by roguespirit

I was so psyched to see Cairo Time this past weekend at IFC in Manhattan. The thought of the marvelous Patricia Clarkson actually getting a romantic lead opposite a warm, charismatic actor, in a promising movie, was just too much. And I’m sure she would have been great in it . . . if they had just written some fucking lines for her to say!

This is my main problem with Cairo Time. I like films where people TALK to each other. I like dialog. I can’t help it. If two people are in love, I want to hear about. If they are in love and frustrated about it, I want to hear about that! Eric Rohmer is my favorite filmmaker, that should tell you how much I like dialog.  Cairo Time is one of these films that is all about capturing little looks, awkwardness, meaningful glances. As my wife put it, it’s yet another one of these films where no one finishes their sentences. What most filmmakers don’t understand is that you need strong dialog to set up those subtle, non-verbal moments in order for them to really work magically. Otherwise it just gets really boring, watching these people look at each other, or not look at each other.

Think about some of the fantastic looks and subtle moments in Now, Voyager, for example, and how incredibly effective they were, and then recall how much incredible dialog there was in that film. The subtle stuff works because the dialog bonds you to the characters and makes you care about them. In Cairo Time, you know so little about these people the story borders on completely unbelievable. Is Patricia Clarkson unhappy in her marriage? There’s no evidence of it, but there is no way to tell. Why does Tareq like her so much (other than the fact that she’s a good-looking blonde.)  How should we know? We’re never given a single clue, actually. How does Cairo effect her? We have no idea, expect the obvious observation that she seems to be thoroughly enjoying her tourist experience in the city. We are told nothing about these people, except that they are thrown together. How are we supposed to care if they “hook up” or not?

My second problem with Cairo Time is that it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a romantic drama or IMAX 3D: Cairo!. Actually, now that I think about it, they definitely tended toward the latter. There are all these endless scenes of Cairo, exquisitely shot. Actually, this was my favorite part of the film. In fact, I now feel that I’ve seen Cairo adequately enough that I probably don’t ever have to visit that disgusting, stinking hole, for which I am very grateful. The problem is I went expecting a romantic drama that made use of Patricia Clarkson’s considerable talent.

Lastly, I want to comment on A.O. Scott’s theses that the film is a triangle between the two leads and Cairo itself, and that Clarkson falls for Cairo. In my opinion this is complete horseshit, and if this is really what the filmmakers intended then they failed completely. My definite impression was that she just didn’t go for the guy, and (coincidentally) happened to be in Cairo at the time. It’s pretty sad, but Leap Year was actually more convincing as a romantic story where beautiful terrain played an integral part! I guess we should not be surprised to find that Leap Year had more dialog, and better dialog, than Cairo Time. Sad, but true.

I just hope Patricia Clarkson gets another chance at a romantic lead, and that next time the filmmakers write some dialog for her so she can show how great she really is.

Posted in 2010 | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The International – better than I thought it would be

Posted on August 9, 2010 by roguespirit

The International is a strange movie. It survives completely on its terrific story idea, which is the idea that international banking controls the world, deals arms, assassinates people, manipulates countries through the debt they accrue fighting ridiculous wars, and basically exists completely outside and above the system because of the complicity of the world’s political structures. The set-up for the film sucks, but it doesn’t seem to matter because the idea of the story keeps you interested. The dialog is pretty bad most of the time, but then every once in a while there is a really memorable exchange that is decently written and executed. The pacing of the film is generally sub-par, but then there are several really good action sequences (particularly the one in the Guggenheim) that leave you transfixed. It’s like the film is maybe 20% “quite good” and 80% standard mediocre fare. The good parts actually make it worth it, in my opinion.

Naomi Watts is horrible in this film, as she is in most films (thankfully she kind of drops out of the action a bit toward the end.) But Clive Owen surprised me – it’s actually one of his better performances, if you discount some of the tired lines he has to try to pull off. The supporting cast is actually pretty good. The incidental casting is weak, but it doesn’t really matter given the way the story is structured.

If you like political action films, give this film a try. It’s not great, and I don’t think I would ever watch it again, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

South of the Border – not a great documentary, but an important one

Posted on July 27, 2010 by roguespirit

It’s very sad that Americans know nothing about the amazing political transformation that is currently taking place in South America. Our media simply won’t allow it, and for good reason – the last thing the elite oligarchy that runs this country (and owns the media) wants is for average people to start getting ideas about their own welfare. They don’t want anyone in this country looking south and saying “Wow, look what they’re accomplishing!” What they want us to do is watch our TiVos, play with our X-boxes, worry about Lebron James, and dismiss everything happening south of the border as “Communism” forced on people by “evil dictators.” That will ensure, among other things, that wealth will continue to surge unabated, from us to them!

I think that the movements down there are the cutting edge of hope for the world, and Oliver Stone has made a documentary to begin properly introducing us to this remarkable array of populist leaders. What happened down there is that the common people woke up and elected individuals who would actually try to make their lives better in real, concrete ways. These new leaders are not the egg-headed patrician elite that we elect here in the US (like Obama, Clinton and the Bushes.) These guys being elected down there are working-class folk: soldiers, farmers, priests, union organizers. They are from the lower classes, and rule on behalf of the average man. This is absolutely unthinkable in the US right now – we can’t even come up with a serious candidate of this kind, let alone elect one!

Stone does a fairly good (and entertaining) job of showing how our media endlessly villainizes these leaders. The bit about our media declaring Chavez a drug addict because he chews coca leaves is pretty funny. It also does a good job of showing each of these leaders as thinking, feeling people who are really trying to help their countries. Stone hits all the important basics. The US-backed coup attempt against Chavez, and how the New York Times and all other US media supported it enthusiastically; the attempted sale of Bolivia’s water supply to a US-based company, and the accompanying law that it was now illegal for Bolivians to drink rain water; the incredible and ongoing US aggression against Cuba. He also touches on crucial history that is still not widely understood in America (like what we did in Chile and Guatemala in the last century.) Stone rushes the issue of the IMF a bit, but does discuss the basic concept that we are the IMF, and we lend these countries money in exchange for political policies that hurt their people and enrich our multinational elites. It also discusses how Argentina and Brazil finally rejected this.

Most of the time is spent on Venezuela and its Bolivarian Revolution, and Chavez is portrayed as the maverick that inspired all the others. A surface tenet of the Bolivarian Revolution is that governments should act to benefit their own people, and not super-rich people in some other country. South of the Border does a decent job showing this. It talks about how Venezuela took its oil profits and invested them in the infrastructure of the country – agriculture, education, heath care – to give its people a chance to work toward a better life. But it doesn’t get into very many details, which is disappointing.

But the deeper, more interesting tenet of the revolution is the decentralization they are struggling to bring about. Chavez knows that when push comes to shove the US can take him out in the blink of an eye, and will. It’s messier (not harder) now that he has allies in the region, but it could still be done pretty easily, via Columbia and our “drug war” for example. And we can always send the B-52s down there to “encourage” the population of Venezuela to elect a different leader. The only way to preserve the gains Venezuela has made is if they become decentralized and firmly rooted in the population itself.

This was the concept behind the Bolivarian Circles, and later the Communal Councils, and it’s the concept behind Chavez’s emphasis on education and on people actively owning their new constitution. It’s a fascinating issue: How do you set things up so that a super-power can’t in a single stroke destroy what you’ve built just because Exxon bonuses weren’t high enough last year? Chavez knows he must become less and less central to the revolution, contrary to what our media tells us his ambitions are. It would have been really nice to hear some discussion about this topic, but I guess Stone felt it was too much, too fast. Perhaps he is right. We in the US have a lot of catching up to do – Stone’s agenda for this movie seems limited to convincing Americans that these South American leaders do not have horns, scaly red skin, or barbed tails, and they do not breathe fire or reek of decomposing bodies. Let’s hope he succeed.

I had to laugh at the very end, when Obama had to publicly reassure the American people that he is not endangering America by shaking hands with Chavez. Good God in Heaven!!! Remember in 2006 when Chavez offered us a permanently fixed $50 a barrel for oil if we helped them develop their extra heavy crude oil reserves? It makes you wonder: What is the real cost of vilainizing this guy?

See South of the Border, even if you are convinced Chavez is Satan himself. For even better documentaries, see The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, about the Coup attempt against Chavez, and Naomi Klein’s The Take, about the incredible “occupied factories” movement in Argentina. They are both really terrific and thought-provoking.

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