Film Review--The House Bunny

The House Bunny
directed by Fed Wolf
written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith
starring Anna Feris, Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Katharine McPhee, Rumer Willis, Kiely Williams, Dana Goodman



I can’t figure out the message of this film. Is it a story about what’s inside or what’s outside? The basic premise is quite simple. A poor little Playboy bunny named Shelley gets kicked out of the Playboy mansion and is forced to fend for herself. She inadvertently stumbles into a sorority house and is laughed out by the lead House mother, a snooty bitch with stretched out skin and an obvious addiction to botox (I assume it was makeup so I’m not actually bashing the wonderful actress who plays her). A sympathetic house mother catches her on her way out and mentions that there is another sorority house whose last house mother left due to a bout of schizophrenia. At first the girls of the house are skeptical because basically Shelley looks like a whore and acts like a nitwit. See, these girls are not all dolled up and can’t figure out why boys don’t like them. This film really does a fine job of uglifying them and making them all sad and dejected because they don’t consider themselves to be pretty. Well, naturally Shelley has her ways and manages to pimp these girls so they all look like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton clones and suddenly they feel sexy and hilarity ensues.

Actually, this film’s humor is mostly left up to scenes where Shelley embarrasses herself by acting incredibly stupid. This is difficult for one of the girls named Natalie (Stone) to take because she herself is rather intelligent and sensitive and basically hates the kind of girls she later becomes. Suddenly the girls are hot and popular and all the boys want to get into their pants. As it turns out their ramshackle house is falling apart and the board of sororities has a plan to revoke their charter unless they can sign up thirty pledges. So, this becomes the goal and there are hijinks and tomfoolery as the they attempt to convince thirty girls that they are cool and there will be booze and hot boyz every night running around naked and making animal noises until the sun comes up.

The film hinges on the performance of Anna Feris and she does a fantastic job playing the air brained twit who has lived exclusively off of the fact that Hugh Heffner thinks she’s worth bringing into his bed. Hef plays himself and basically looks and acts like one would expect him to act. Shelley has been kicked out of the mansion because she is too old (she’s 27 which is 58 in bunny years) and lives with this horror in the back of her mind.

So, the transformations. Perfectly attractive and interesting girls are transformed into horrible shadows of themselves. Certainly they look dope and even manage despite their pariah status to comingle effectively with the other cool kids on the block. There is only one thing that stands in their way and that comes in the form of a mean little minx named Ashley (Sarah Wright). This girl is nothing but trouble and she is in cahoots with the aforementioned stretchy botox woman who might be her mother. Both of them are avid about purchasing the girl’s run down house so they can expand their sorority because they are just too popular to survive with one measly house. Ashley pulls off a number of cruel stunts and it’s delicious to watch Sarah Wright project such a hideous persona for the duration of the film.


Basically, the film has pacing problems and isn’t particularly funny. It’s troubling to see Mona, for example, be altered from a wisecracking angry little pickaxe into a glamour doll. She retains some of her indy/goth aesthetics and actually retains her street cred so it isn’t all bad. Still, she acts utterly superficially and her bitterness completely evaporates only because she puts on hair extensions and a dress. Nevertheless, her exuberance comes out and she appears to be enjoying herself perhaps more than she ever has in her life. By not buying into the beauty myth she was rather cutting and meanspirited. Perhaps she was merely observant and her sarcasm was a way of avoiding her lack of connection with the world outside of herself. She does manage to retain some of her charm by drilling boys about their reaction to her. She’s sharp and funny and it’s a thrill to watch her use her sharp wit to lacerate the unwitting boys who approach her. It’s another example of her fear of boys and no makeup and pumps are going to change this simple fact. Indeed, all of the girls have troubles with boys and a big deal is made that Natalie is a virgin. They throw a massive Aztec party and “sacrifice her” for the amusement of a great number of onlookers.

So, what is pretty? Is Shelley pretty because she has self confidence and she dresses like a slut? Are the girls not pretty because they aren’t dolling themselves up and putting on a face that they imagine other people want to see? The film makes a point of saying that real beauty cannot be fully articulated by makeup and hair extensions. However, it also says that a little glam doesn’t hurt, either. It also says that sexy means an openness to new experiences and an overarching desire to participate. The girls were trapped in a nightmare of their own devising. They had settled for a lifestyle of limited returns because they rejected the lifestyles of the other more superficial kids whose primary focus was on getting laid and drinking as much beer as possible. Natalie particularly sees past this illusion but her skepticism has left her unable to fully engage with her sexuality. It takes a ditzy blonde bunny to bring her out of her shell and into herself.

Yes, this film exudes a familiar eroticism that has been played out in countless films. It sells the idea that youth means excess and that groupthink is a strong deterrent for certain types who would rather cultivate their own point of view. In many ways this film is a satire of those makeover shows where frumpy girls morph into hotties who react with shock and amazement when the see their new selves for the first time. What is not revealed by these shows is how difficult it is to maintain the new lifestyle once the shine has worn off.

Anna Feris is as mentioned pulls off her role as a girl with tremendous dreams who only wants to be Miss November in Hef’s playboy magazine. Feris brings a thrilling capacity to her role and it’s impossible to take one’s eyes off of her when she’s on screen. Of course this might have to do with the skimpy outfits and her extraordinary features but really it has mostly to do with her ability to convincingly play a woman who is so brazenly clueless. Emma Stone does a terrific job playing both the dismal, unhappy version of herself and the free-flowing good time gal that she becomes. Stone is deft at reacting to other actors in a way that is natural. Kat Dennings is quite good as Mona, the girl I had the most hope for at the start. She gives us a character who retains the most of her original personality and is delightful in every scene.

Overall, this film captures a certain essence of glamor and the role it plays in the lives of females as they attempt to make their way in the world. There is really no empowerment here and nothing that feminists would particularly care for unless they are Camille Paglia and in that case they might go on for hours picking this film apart in terms of the ways it sells concepts of beauty. It’s a film that celebrates glamor and projects an idea that it can be implemented to enhance a girl or woman who is convinced that prettiness is a virtue that they want to exhibit. It believes in the idea that sex appeal is the result of actual activity designed specifically to bring it about. Originally the girls had no sex appeal. They displayed nothing that for better or worse is considered attractive by a great majority of able bodied youth throughout the world. They were forced into recognizing sex as a natural reality that people actually enjoy engaging in.

Film Review--Bottle Shock

Bottle Shock
directed by Randall Miller
written by Jody Savin, Randall Miller, Ross Schwartz
starring Bill Pullman, Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Freddy Rodriguez, Rachel Taylor, Eliza Dushku, Dennis Farina, Miguel Sandoval


Among its many virtues this film is a love poem to not only wine but to the elements that are essential to creating it–the soil, the vine and the grapes. It delicately explores the many nuances that are necessary to the process of bringing the best out of the grapes and emerging with a perfect bottle of pristine wine. It’s a story of redemption, of vision, and the trials of a volatile father-son relationship that struggles at every turn to right itself.

This is the true story of how Napa Valley took on the snooty French in a wine competition in 1976. The film uses many rock songs from that area (specifically the Doobie Brothers, America and Bread) to issue forth a well-rounded picture of the times that has barely recovered from the shadow of Woodstock and all of its famed and documented excesses. Alan Rickman plays Steven Spurrier, an English wine snob who is struggling to keep his business afloat. He gets word that California has emerged as a threat to the vaunted position of the wine capital of the world that the French has about itself. He takes it upon himself to travel to the states to stake out the competition in search for proof that there is something there worth troubling himself over.

It’s rather comical to watch Spurrier attempt to navigate his way in foreign territory where he maintains an elevated air of acute snobbishness and outright disdain. He meets a vinter named Jim Barrett (Pullman) who is having trouble getting his wine out to the public. There is a complicated relationship between the two men because Barrett doesn’t much appreciate Spurrier’s attitude and Spurrier simply doesn’t understand where Barrett is coming from. Barrett’s son Beau (Pine) is struggling to figure out what he wants to do. His father wants him to get back into school but Beau is hesitant and would rather continue drifting than commit to institutionalized learning that would put a crimp in his lazy lifestyle. He would much rather continue helping Barrett maintain his vinery despite the heated conflicts that boil up between him and his father. Sam (Taylor) appears and announces herself as Barrett’s new intern. She becomes a fixture at the vinery and essential to understanding the complexities inherent in the story.

Freddie Rodriguez plays Gustavo Brambila, who possesses an uncanny talent for guessing the vintage and type of any wine put before him. He’s something of a drifter as well and there is a commotion when he finally brings forth his own wine grown on the vinery of Mr. Garcia (Sandoval). Barrett fires him because he feels as if Gustavo has stabbed him in the back after giving him a place to work and establish himself in the art of making wine.

Each character brings something essential to this story that becomes an homage to the painstaking process of creating a bottle of wine that will cause fanatics to swoon with acute pleasure. This is a totem to the connoisseur who cherishes fine wine and appreciates the layers and the textures that go into making it. The film celebrates those whose passion for outstanding wine has elevate their sensibilities and provided them with an appetite for beauty in art, music and the very creative process itself. It’s clear that the artistry of wine making is a fundamental aspect of this film and it explores it with great skill and a dedication to both the simplicity of enjoying a well-constructed wine and the complexity of bringing it into fruition.

Beau and his father often box to take out their frustrations on one another. It’s a symbol for the difficulties that Beau faces regarding his relationship with Barrett. He yearns to prove that he is capable of standing up on his own but this assurance is easily betrayed every time his father knocks him to the canvas. Beau is a typical longhair who cries out for freedom and rallies in his person against all forms of oppression. He is the type who has never lost the spirit of Woodstock and that tumultuous age where things changed so rapidly that it was difficult to keep one’s bearings amidst all the chaos. Beau has had an easy enough life and this has not prepared him for participating in the world as it is.

This is also a story about intimacies that are hard won and often emerge after long stretches of discomfort and psychological anguish. Joe (Dushku) is another character who has emerged from the sixties with a strong, forceful approach to life that has seen her inherit her father’s bar. She too has been unable to fully extract herself from his influence but she does everything she can to keep herself afloat in a world that is about to elect a peanut farmer from Georgia to the highest office in the land.

The US bicentennial hangs over every scene in this film. It’s a year for celebration and remembering the past with songs, banners, and a genuine sense of unity. This powers the film as the underdog Napa Valley vinters take on the French in a contest that has the potential to utterly transform the wine industry into something that the French are aghast to even contemplate. Strangely the contest itself isn’t played as necessarily the most significant aspect of the film. The relationships that are forged between characters are equally important to the judgement of experts whose opinion counts above all others. Still, the tension is palpable as the film winds down to who came home with top prize in the competition. Really, it’s no mystery because why would they make such a film if the French actually won the thing? They wouldn’t so its no distress to betray the conclusion by announcing who won in advance.

The performances in this film are all stellar. Particularly impressive is Bill Pullman who I will go out on a limb in saying deserves an Oscar nod for this performance. It’s nuanced, cool, contained, and wholly believable throughout. He possesses a rare mastery of emotion in this film and the internal conflict that drives his character is clearly visible on his face. Barrett is anguished and cannot find a balance until near the end when he finally emerges from a cocoon that has rendered him paralyzed for much of the film. Freddy Rodriguez plays another exceedingly complex character who is reserved and finds it difficult to fully open up. Rodriguez gives Gustavo a viability and a strength that is informed by his ease of movement. Alan Rickman is a delight in this film as a man whose entire belief system is questioned at every turn. His character is not particularly complex as it’s easy to determine which way the wind is blowing through his actions and posture. Rickman brings a charm and a grace to Spurrier that carries him through the film. Chris Pine is sensational as the tormented Beau. He is a beacon of light which comes through in his cool attitude toward everything about him.

Overall this film taps into the innate urge to delve into the mysteries of the vine in order to emerge drunk, sanguine, and alert to the possibilities of love, determination, and unadulterated beauty. It celebrates the artistry of the process which can be translated into every creative endeavor. It’s a film that allows for a glorious investigation into every aspect of bringing a hearty, richly textured glass of wine to those who can appreciate it and those who can’t. In a way despite its pitting of neophytes versus so-considered experts it still maintains a level of intimacy with wine that most of simply do not possess. Ultimately it’s a film about family and the many ways in which it is defined. It’s about the bringing together of people toward a specific goal that rewards its participants and enlightens anyone fortunate enough to share in its glory.

Film Review--A World Apart

A World Apart
directed Chris Menges
written by Shawn Slovo
starring Jodhi May, Barbara Hershey, Tim Roth, Nadine Chalmers, Phyllis Naidoo, Carolyn Clayton-Cragg, Albee Lesotho



So, this is Apartheid. Somewhere amidst all the hand wringing and blatant manipulation there is here one woman’s story of defiance and fortitude. Unfortunately, the story proves to hang on the idea that if you bash someone over the head long enough they will come around to your line of thinking. Still, it does seem to work during presidential debates but it doesn’t work here.

This is the kind of film where you are immediately told where to stand. When facing such an internationally condemned state of institutionalized racism it’s hard to imagine anyone siding with the South African government on this issue. When something is presented as such an obvious evil, it’s probably too much too ask for some fair and balanced investigation into the nature of the beast. But this is a specifically rendered type of cinema and it has no designs on creating anything but a clear cut evisceration of the condition under which the majority black population found themselves under this rule. The white traitors in this film, who have had their hearts warmed by ideas of communistic struggle, are presented strictly as heroes who fought against the tyranny because their consciences told them it was the right thing to do. So we are left with a pandering, sycophantic film that wants us White people to feel really, really bad about the political system that created apartheid. We’re supposed to lacerate ourselves because one nation decided to implement a suicidal plan of structural division within the borders of its state.

Although the African National Congress is a massive force in the overturning of the Laws that created Apartheid, their criminal activities are given short shrift in this film. They are presented merely as a legitimate organization with essentially peaceful motivations who were unjustly treated by authorities attempting to maintain order in the territories.

So, the story is based on the true story of a woman named Ruth First who was blown up in a car bomb years after this film is set. It’s 1963 Johannesburg and First (who has strangely been renamed Diane Roth) is raising a ruckus by writing inflammatory articles denouncing Apartheid. She is quite cool with the blacks who work for her or who show up for her drunken parties. A law has recently been passed which allows the government to arrest and detain any person for up to ninety days. The mood is subdued throughout this film as it’s clear the film wants to instill in its viewers that something terrible can happen at any time and an innocent person can be incarcerated. The local bobbies take grave interest in Diane and eventually come to arrest her and throw her in the hole for 117 days. The pace is far too lackluster and nothing much happens. Sure, the black Africans agitate and call for Nelson Mandela’s release but beyond that there isn’t much of anything going on. The film meanders for long stretches and the characters ultimately do not matter a whole lot in the end.

Diane has a confused, tormented little dollface named Molly (Jodhi May) who begs to be let in on her mother’s clandestine world. She’s none too popular at her boarding school where she is forced to sing in a massive choir and nobody seems to like her. When the film begins she does have a friend named Yvonne (Chalmers) who dumps her as soon as her mother is arrested. So, drifting and miserable she latches on to her thoughts and fantasies of her mother and hopes longingly for the day she can discover something useful about whatever it is her mother is working on. Naturally the film includes the sad plight of Sareda (Naidoo) who cannot see her babies due to the unforgiving laws. It’s so terribly demonstrated how awful this is and the audience is supposed to have a specific reaction to her plight but the film doesn’t pull this off and the viewer is left rather unmoved by the whole thing.

One thing that is demonstrated in this film is that there is a whole mess of White folks who are partying it up while paying no mind to the grief that exists all about them. They drink merrily and dance and act like everything is just as it should be. And it is, in their minds. The film sort of demonizes them for what it projects as their callousness but it doesn’t take into account the simple fact that when life is good you don’t go looking for trouble. You stick to your own and don’t bother with getting involved with criminal activity. This is a story about a woman who is presented as completely noble and who betrayed the simplicity of her kind to put herself at dire risk. She is put forth as a revolutionary who did what she could once she realized the severity of the situation. But somehow her whole mission becomes cheapened by the film’s tendency to frame her actions in such a deliberately manipulative manner. We are supposed to feel a kinship with her intentions but the end result is merely a beleaguered attempt to force the audience into a very particular point of view.

Tim Roth plays an associate of Dianas named Harold who is held up as an example of the type of White man who has diligently applied himself to challenging the legitimacy of the order. . He is shown on many occasions as an enemy of apartheid who fraternizes routinely with blacks and seems not to have a strong identity of his own. It’s interesting to see shots of Diane and Molly in a swarming sea of black as they identify with the plights of those oppressed peoples while simultaneously rejecting their own ethnicity. Whiteness is not really explored in this film although it does seem to be treated as something demonstrably false unless of course it is applied to the needy, oppressed and misbegotten. Those who fail to engage in the struggle for equality and acceptance are treated in a most criminal fashion. The blue eyed devil is the enemy here and those who remain contained in their own personal struggles without putting their Selves at risk are presented as blind and by extension corrupt.

Molly is a precocious child who represents the next generation of fighters who will carry on the struggle to end the state-sanctioned practice of separation and containment. Her self-discovery is a key component of the film and allows the audience to identify with the pervasive intensity of the battle against the status quo. She’s the innocent who is brought to understand her particular role in fighting against what her Mother has established through her writings and personal stance against present conditions. It’s obvious in the film that she is meant to be something akin to a great hope that has been properly inculcated into the dynamics of the struggle.

The performances in this film all serve the script and the general thrust of the film. Barbara Hershey projects all the necessary remorse and guilt that one expects from films of this ilk. Hershey captures all the essence of a character that is driven to facilitate change. Although its not particularly a nuanced performance, it proves to be effective in the end in establishing Diana as a force for good. Jodhi May gives us a character who doesn’t quite know how to establish herself against the turmoil she senses but doesn’t quite understand that brews around her. May handles Molly’s confusion with delicacy and a vitality that works quite well in the context of the film. The pain on Phyllis Naidoo’s face is palpable straight through to the end. Her character is presented as a victim of policies that have stripped her of the right to see her children. It’s terminally sad and Naidoo gives us that pain with clarity and deliberateness. Tim Roth is a silent force of reckoning throughout this film. Harold merely represents consciousness and the type of man who has seen the state of things and decided not to be one of those who fail to heed the call.

Overall, this film is a meandering clarion call to all those complacent persons who would rather ignore inequalities and the strict denial of freedoms that afflict great swaths of people. It’s designed to instill tremendous guilt to those whose priorities are focused strictly on their own families and maintaining their stake in the world. It celebrates the actions of criminals set in the guise of freedom fighters who nevertheless were succinctly committed to overturning a social order that kept their people down. Ultimately it’s decisively manipulative and doesn’t manage to elevate itself above the level of mere polemic to its great detriment.

Film Review--Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys

The Family That Preys
written and directed by Tyler Perry
starring Alfre Woodard, Kathy Bates, Sanaa Lathan, Rockmond Dunbar, KaDee Strickland, Cole Hauser, Tarajj P. Henson, Robin Givens, Sebastian Siegel



In Tyler Perry’s “The Family that Preys”, cruelties and heartbreaks inform a story that is richly textured, nuanced and exquisitely constructed. The hardest working man in show business brings yet another offering that demonstrates the intricacies of deceit that afflict those who get caught up in the absurd business of living.

Alice Pratt (Woodard) and Charlotte Cartwright (Bates) have been friends for thirty years ever since Charlotte’s husband tried to buy out Alice’s business but she wasn’t selling. They live two entirely distinct lifestyles; Alice works at her diner when not separating her perpetually fighting adult daughters, Andrea (Lathan) and Pam (Henson). Charlotte runs a exceedingly successful construction company started by her husband. She has leisure to spare and purchases a fancy old Chevrolet for her cross country trip. She tries to convince Alice to join her but she’s hesitant at first only to give in at the last moment. Their trip through the midwest gives the film a levity that it desperately needs. Otherwise it’s intensely serious drama that approaches melodrama in several scenes but doesn’t quite succumb. This is a story about the various methods fangs are employed to pierce the flesh of those closest to us. It’s about suffering through people in the vain hope that they’ll figure it out eventually and come around.

As the film opens Andrea has just married Chris (Dunbar). He’s former military looking for a job in construction. William Cartwright, Charlotte’s son and executive in the company, approaches the blissful couple with his new wife Jillian (Strickland). He offers Chris a job and tells Andrea to look him up when she’s done with her Finance degree. There is a quick moment between William and Andrea that is fairly subtle but clear enough to help articulate what comes next. The film moves four years and Andrea and Chris have a three year old son. Chris works for the Cartwrights with Ben (Perry) and has dreams about owning his own construction company which Andrea ridicules. Indeed, Andrea is routinely cold with Chris and claims always to be too tired for intimacy when she comes home from work. Meanwhile Chris discovers that his wife has another bank account with nearly $300,000 in it. He addresses this issue with Andrea but she claims it’s merely from bonuses she’s received from work. There is terrific tension between these actors and the film manages to capture something of the give and take between them.

There are several instances where expectations are met with consternation or outright rejection. Chris is an upstanding man who merely wants to provide for his family the best he can. He’s met with perpetual resistence by a wife who seems to have taken him for granted. There is coldness between them that appears initially to be merely a slight bump in the road but later proves to be much more serious. Andrea is dedicated to maintaining her status at the Cartwright company and has her own dreams of a larger lifestyle than Chris can afford. For much of the marriage she has carried most of the financial burden in the family and this has caused her some resentment. She chides her husband routinely for his limited purchasing power and the marriage subsequently suffers.

The biting nature of these characters is exploited to fine effect throughout this film. The mother-son relationship between Charlotte and William is particularly contentious. He pouts when he is looked over for the C.O.O position for an outsider named Abby (Givens) with pristine credentials who knows much more about the ins and outs of the company along financial lines. William is determined to save face and begins to plot against his mother.

The familiar Perry touch of spirituality is in full effect in this film. Alice is a believer who praises Jesus at every opportunity and who attends choir practice regularly. On their road trip she stops off at a baptism and convinces Charlotte to be baptized in the river. This is apparently to demonstrate the cleansing of a great white witch of international commerce by a black preacher. Perhaps there’s some residual guilt playing here but Perry doesn’t make it explicit. He merely provides us with a moment to pause and to realize the foundation that holds this film aloft. Christianity in this film isn’t a focus but its presence is felt throughout. The characters bicker and fuss but Alice’s character holds fast and tight to her lifeline and Woodard gives her a tremendous grace and a center of calm that is something that only her faith can bring her.

There is a peculiar lack of sexuality in this film. Alice and Charlotte are happily chaste and seem to be enough for one another to handle. Pam is happily married to Ben but beyond a bit of fun loving there isn’t anything particularly sexual about their relationship although it is assumed that something of that sort exists. Andrea’s sexuality is haunted and fragmented and it nearly drives her to ruin. Abby is super-executive who has elevated herself far beyond the messy inconveniences of sexual play. Yet, she’s a shark who devours people because it’s fun and because she can. Abby is ugly in her beauty, her intensity and cruelty. She is the most alluring sexually of the five women because she is so explicitly off limits. She can only be aroused by demonstrations of naked power which explains her derision of William who struggles with his identity in the company once he’s passed over. Their relationship is very much like slave to master and she is laughing the entire time.

There is an immediacy to many of the scenes that is played out with clarity of form and exquisite timing. This is a film that focuses entirely on interpersonal relationships and eschews any particular social commentary that might otherwise help to inform the action taking place. It’s a sociological study in the methods employed to dig at those around us who we assume will be able to take the effects of our attacks. All of these relationships take place in strictly established confines that allow the participants the luxury of movement and the delusion of safety. Each player in these little dramas attempts to establish leverage which they use in various ways to prick at the sensitivities of their rivals. Andrea is particularly good at this as she constantly insults Chris by telling him he’ll never be William Cartwright. The film slowly unveils the greatest treachery of all. William has been giving money to Andrea while filling her head with promises that he’ll leave his wife for her. Andrea is completely hooked and can’t extract herself from her folly. Charlotte and William play a strange game with one another. She treats him with quiet disdain and he desperately longs to extricate himself from her authority. He is, after all, a mere executive in a company that his mother owns. His ambitions drive him toward her but he can hardly stand to face himself as she pulls him close to her. The family bond is transcended by the grab for power and Perry handles the specifics of these events with authority.

The performances in this film are generally mesmeric. Particularly strong is Robin Givens as the cutthroat Abby. Givens gives her character a definitive strength of both character and physicality. Her posture, the way she carries her self, and the sly half smile she offers whenever she’s landed a particularly salient point all express the same undeniable fact: this is a woman of power and decisiveness. Givens conveys this with a raw intensity that provides Abby with just enough ammunition to give it her worst. Alfre Woodard is the gentle, god-fearing aspect of the film that keeps it grounded. Alice is the backbone of this film and Woodard provides her with an elegance and a purity of spirit that is enchanting. Rockman Dunbar’s performance becomes more enhanced as the film progresses. Chris is the typical hardworking, clean, upstanding black man who buys into the American dream. He’s not as exclusively educated as his wife but he’s smart about the day to day stuff of working reality. Dunbar gives Chris a dignity and an honor that is clearly expressed on his face alongside the moments of hurt and confusion that only solidify his status as a man of significance. Sanaa Lathan plays another fiercely independent woman who is on a fast track to her own elevated position at some giant company or other. She’s caught up in the machinery of ambition and carries herself like someone who’s eager to slake her thirst on the iniquities of lesser beings. Kathy Bates’s Charlotte is the most heartbroken of all the characters. There are several scenes that show the pain on her face as she struggles through. Bates does a wonderful job of revealing her character’s troubles piecemeal without giving very much away and any particular time.

Overall, this is a powerful and effective film that showcases a great number of extraordinarily talented actors who flesh out their characters and make them fully believable. There are several moments where it feels like a soap opera but that isn’t necessarily a criticism. Great soaps have a magnetic power that sucks people in which is the purpose of creating watchable dramas that resonate with a person long after the final credits have rolled. This is a film about self-inflicted torments and how they come to roost in the lives of those who inflict them. At the core of this film is a sense of hope that no matter how terrible things get there is always the chance that something will come around the bend which will alleviate some of the terrible pressure of living.

Film Review--Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder
directed by Ben Stiller
written by Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
starring Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Brandon T. Jackson, Bill Hader, Brandon Soo Hoo



A brilliant concept, occasional ribald execution and some effective turns by an all star cast do not add up to the type of far reaching comedy/satire that this film could have been. When it works, however, it generates considerable laughter most of which hinges on the ridiculousness of the central characters who mock actors hubris, and their occasional overarching strains for attention.

Leading this motley crew of sissy-pants actors is Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), a serious method actor who has won five academy awards. One gets the feeling that the characters finds himself rather disheartened at having to perform his monkey tricks for a mere action film which has bloated out of control and has seen the film crew waste a four million dollar series of almighty explosions while failing to keep the film rolling. Downey Jr. plays Lazarus as something of an elder statesman. Kirk is verbose, witty, and delivers most of the most appealing lines. He’s satirizing those actors who go to great lengths to prepare for a role to the point of putting on serious amounts of weight (or losing it) or other intense training exercises that inform the method approach. He himself has taken this to its illogical extreme by having his skin tone altered to play a black man in the film. Of course he talks like a pimp out of “Coffy” and raises the ire of rapper Alpa Chino (Jackson), the only legitimate black man in the film.

So the film within this film goes hopelessly awry and nothing seems to be working. In conference with John “Four Leaf” Tayback, novice director Damien Cockburn (Coogan) decides to fly out his actors into the middle of the jungle with cameras and explosives all around in order to show them what real danger feels like. Everything goes according to plan until Damien steps on a landmine and is blown to smithereens. This is where the film slowly degenerates into a mere action picture. All that is left is Kirk’s posturing because for some reason it’s inherently funny watching Downey Jr. pretend to be black. Almost as funny as watching Ben Stiller pretend to be retarded which he does in a trailer for a film that his character, Tugg Speedman made playing Simple Jack in an effort to be seen as a serious actor. Prior to this Tugg is considered the biggest action star in the world having made six installments of a wildly successful franchise. However, his career has sank and he’s not considered much at all anymore.

So, the films stalls once our heroes are out in the actual jungle. Everyone but Tugg realizes they are in grave danger as he insists on following the script they have been provided and making his own way. This gets him kidnapped by the feared Flaming Dragon gang who manufacture heroin. He thinks it’s a laugh and can’t wait for the torture sequence to begin. However, he quickly realizes he’s not in a film and is shocked to learn after he stutters that the tribe worship Simple Jack (it’s the only VHS they own) and force him to play the entire movie for them. Meanwhile, the rest of the group are struggling to make their way through the brush. Jack Black plays drug addled Jeff “Fats” Portnoy”, a soft actor who is famous for making a Eddie Murphy like film where he plays an entire family of lard asses who fart all the time. It’s also funny to watch this character try and fail to suck out the smack while pretending he’s eating candy. The real thrill comes when Fats realizes there is heroin afoot and his giggling excitement is actually sort of contageous. Black is perfectly cast in this kind of role and manages to showcase more than his typical manic zaniness. He notches it down and it works throughout the film.

Despite Kirk’s great lines and Fats’s ample and necessary tonnage, the real laughs in this film come strictly from Tom Cruise’s self-hating Jew, the executive in charge of the production, Les Grossman. I admit I didn’t even realize it was Cruise which made the character much more enjoyable. He’s quick talking, foul mouthed and utterly brutal in how he treats everyone. As he holds the clicker for the sound system and does a perverted little dance, it becomes apparent that Tom Cruise has hijacked this film. Equally amusing is the sycophantic turn of Bill Hader as Grossman’s assistant Rob Slolum. He’s a slimy, petulant little bird who begs to be tossed from a very high window.

Matthew McConaughey has another aggro turn as Tugg’s agent Rick “Pecker” Peck. Pecker is hyper energetic and lives in a glorious pad that positively glitters with celebrity excess. He’s devoted to Tugg to the point of throwing a hissy fit to Grossman when he learns that Tugg has not received the promised T-Vo on set. It’s yet another parody of the lifestyles led by those whose sole job is to ensure the visibility of their clients.

The performances in this film are all sharp if not one-dimensional. The actors know how to do this kind of thing in their sleep and there aren’t very many surprises. Robert Downey Jr. creates a believable character through his gruff pronouncements and his sturdy, authoritative carriage. He’s well-honed in this film and creates a thoughtful, sensitive character who isn’t too tough to cry (on cue). As always a little bit of Jack Black goes a long way and in this one he keeps much of what has made him a star under his hat. He doesn’t try to do too much and it works for him throughout the film. I still can’t really stomach Ben Stiller unless he’s being retarded at which he’s very successful. Otherwise, he’s just like that old lamp in the corner you’re grandmother gave you but you’re too timid to get rid of lest the tottering old beast haunt you from beyond the grave. Still, he’s a fairly competent director so at least they’ve put him to some use. Nick Nolte is again disturbed and convincingly so. He doesn’t seem to have to stretch very far these days to embody a loon. Tom Cruise as mentioned is very funny as the executive. He’s another one I don’t much feel like tolerating but in this thing he’s ridiculous, over the top, and genuinely hilarious. Bill Nader is as usual able to do quite a lot in a limited role. He establishes his character’s obsequiousness early on and it works well for his character. Brandon Soo-Hoo plays the psychotic child-warrior who leads the terrible Flaming Dragon gang. He’s cute, disarming, and entirely fierce in his role.

Overall, this film works best before the actors get too entrenched in the jungle. Once this happens the film merely becomes yet another action film albeit a fairly entertaining one. The actors all do consistent work that carries the film. Ultimately, it’s a sporadically humorous film that doesn’t attain a level of classic satire. It mocks things, and brings them down a peg, but it isn’t consistent in how it jabs the fork into the underbelly of its targets.

Film Review--Frozen River

Frozen River
written and directed by Courtney Hunt
starring Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Michael O’Keefe, Charlie McDermott, Mark Boone Junior, James Reilly



Rarely has a film seemed so present. Through the performances of Melissa Leo and Misty Upham we are allowed to feel the anguish of economic deprivation and the aching sadness and hopelessness that such conditions necessitate. We are given the rarest gift: a film that takes nothing for granted and slowly, methodically develops to reveal a story about the primacy of motherhood and how desperate times often call for desperate measures. The film takes place in an area known at Mohawk Nation between New York and Quebec. The cinematography by Reed Morano is gorgeously rendered so that the landscape can be viewed as another character. The film just feels cold and lonely.

Poverty has grounded Ray Eddy (Leo) down for quite some time. She can barely afford to provide her two sons, T.J. (McDermott) aged 15 and Ricky (Reilly), aged 5, with lunch money. She feeds them tang and popcorn until she gets her next paycheck. Her deadbeat husband has absconded and so she goes to look in the one place she knows where to find him–a bingo hall. She notices his car but is not allowed to look around because she can’t afford to pay the five dollar admittance fee. Once outside a young Mohawk woman named Lila (Upham) is driving off in her husband’s car. She follows and after shooting a hole in the woman’s trailer the two women officially meet. This leads to a simple proposition where Lila convinces Ray that she can get more money than her car is worth from a smuggler. Before Ray can react, two Chinese men are hustled into her trunk and so this torturous adventure begins. Instead of accepting that she was tricked into this dangerous action where the pair drive across a frozen river that Lila claims she has seen semi trucks drive over, Ray continues to smuggle aliens from the reservation into the United States.


But this film is about so much more than simply these illegal activities. Lila has a son that has been taken away by her mother-in-law soon after Lila’s husband fell into the river so that they never found his body. She aches for her child but has all but resigned herself to never having him again. Ray wants only to give her sons a better life than the one that presently afflicts them. Ricky desperately wants a Tyco super set for Christmas but Ray is putting all her money into purchasing a double wide trailer for which she has put down a considerable payment but not nearly enough to secure the dwelling.

The tone in this film is quite melancholy throughout. There is a real sense of failure and misery that permeates every scene. But there is also hope and the belief that it is possible to turn things around if only Ray could make just a bit more money running immigrants into the states. There is a leisurely pace to all this which accentuates the intensity of several scenes where anything untoward could happen but mercifully doesn’t. This could have easily turned into the type of film where psychosis runs rampant and the two women are perpetually put into peril. Instead, it’s merely a quiet, simple tale about economic fortitude and maintaining a decent life when it seems that nothing is left. Ray works for one of those dollar type stores and is unable to convince her boss to give her more hours. She is considered a temp despite the fact that she has been working there for two years. The reality she faces is grim and she barely manages to hold off two men sent to repossess her rent-to-own television set if she doesn’t come up with enough money to cover the payment.


T.J. runs a credit card scam with another boy and gives him the numbers in exchange for the Tyco set that Ricky wants for Christmas. He is Ricky’s guardian for much of the time and the bond between the two boys is clearly stated. T.J. is literally the man of the house and the responsibilities that this entails seem to weigh heavily upon his shoulders. He wants to get a job but Ray disagrees and informs him that he is to remain in school. It’s a difficult period in his life and he looks around helplessly, not knowing what to do to help his mother get the double wide. He longs for a life beyond that which he has known but he never exactly reveals the totality of his frustration. He slowly burns and quietly longs for something to emerge that will make life better for his family.

The film builds tension and opens many doors through which the story might go. It’s as open as the frozen river over which Ray’s car breaks through the ice forcing her, Lila, and two female Chinese immigrants to race to the other side. There is a legitimate sense of place in this film that grounds it in an immediacy that is both compelling and poignant. Over the frozen river Ray must travel to achieve her goals and purchase the one sanctuary she imagines will help her get out of the mess that circumstances beyond her control have thrust upon her. The double wide is held up as a symbol of relative prosperity that Ray needs to set things straight.

Despite precautions, Ray and Lila receive the attention of the police who are represented by Trooper Finnerty (O’ Keefe), an affable man whose method is direct and friendly. These exchanges increase the pressure that the film understands must be applied and relieved in a carefully orchestrated balancing act. This film never loses sight of the importance of gravity and maintaining a quietness that is naturalistic and reflects the severity of the ice-laden climate which is brutally cold and unrelenting. The differences between the United States and the Mohawk Nation Indian reservation are profound. There are different laws and a different way of going about business. Lila is denied access to a car by tribal elders because they know what she is up to yet say nothing. Ray is considered by Lila to be immune because she is White. However, the police are also aware of Lila’s activities and question Ray about her association with her.

The film progresses along unexpected lines. Nothing occurs predictably and the result is simply a greatly compelling film that focuses on concerns that afflict so many people in today’s fractured economy. Ray is an earnest believer in working for what she gets until the situation gets so out of hand that she has no choice but to perform illegal acts in order to provide for her family. She is out in no man’s land without an anchor and she jumps at the opportunity to help her self out of the immediate crisis. The film offers no pat explanations, no easy answers in describing her behavior and certainly neither condones nor condemns it. In the end she makes a specific choice and the chips fall where they may.

The performances in this film are all convincing portraits of real people with their own motivations for their behavior. Melissa Leo is sharply tuned throughout the entire film. She creates a wounded character who is immediately likable. She establishes Ray’s feeling of helplessness with a careful and nuanced performance that sheds quite a bit of light on the types of seemingly insignificant damages that build up over time until the situation at hand seems irreversible. Misty Upham brings a quiet elegance to her character and moves with delicate precision throughout the film. She is poised and maintains a calm air that belies the severity of her situation. Michael O’ Keefe is sturdy, compelling, and upstanding as the trooper who investigates Lila and Ray. His presence is solid and demonstrably focused and brings a semblance of clarity to a murky situation.

Overall, this film is a testament to what can be achieved on a limited budget with a stellar script, top-notched actors and a strong sense of place. There are many moments of quiet suffering that wash over the faces of the characters. There is isolation, loneliness, and terrible sadness in these faces but the film insists on moving forward and doesn’t make the mistake of lingering too long. Ultimately this is a film with something to say about motherhood, the threat of loss, and the impermanence that afflicts life at every turn.

Film Review--Made in Britain

Made in Britain
directed by Alan Clarke
written by David Leland
starring Tim Roth, Geoffrey Hutchings, Sean Chapman, Eric Richard, Bill Stewart, Terry Richards



Set in Thatcher’s England, during mad rushes of unemployment, the vaunted “No Future”, this film categorizes a disconnect between compromising to societal demands and the frustrated, intensely personal urgencies of the individual.

Tim Roth, in his first screen performance, is Trevor, a skinhead whose affiliation is bravely displayed in the form of a swastika on his forehead between his eyes. He is rabid, unwilling to be corralled into the pigeonholes that the vast majority of goodly citizens gladly ease themselves into. He commits random acts of defiance–either smashing windows of “Paki’s”, nicking cars, and otherwise demonstrating an acute mistrust of authority. As the film opens he has been placed in front of a magistrate and refuses to back down for a second. He is sent to an assessment center where he continues to actualize his deeply ingrained aversion toward anything remotely institutional. He has left school and considers everything to be learned there worthless.

For the most part Trevor’s frustration is misdirected in petty outcomes that do nothing to dull his ever-beckoning communion with his hatred. Hate moves him and gives him something legitimate to latch onto. There’s a scene late in the film that shows Trevor disarmed and vulnerable. Yet he is also scornful. He is standing in front of a shop window and gazing in at a display of mannequins playing out a typical evening in the home of the perfect little family unit. Trevor stands before this display and there is a hint of yearning on his face as if he is trying to suppress images of what family life might once have been. There is no indication of his background which allows the film to eschew any moralization that might otherwise be implemented for the sole purpose of trying to “explain” Trevor away as merely a product of faulty parenting or an insufficient environment. Still, he is a part of a system that professes a desire to help him help himself but its actual aim, fully articulated by Trevor, is merely to break him and force him into a specific role.

This is not a story that focuses on rehabilitation. It leaves the prospect open and rather suggests any number of possible outcomes for Trevor. The script by David Leland is sharp and bitter, fueled by a singular rage that Trevor spews with glee, assured as he is that nothing they might throw at him makes a bit of difference. Yet, there is a scene that shows Trevor’s deference to physical manifestations of actual authority that is worth noting. A character known only as the Superintendent (Hutchings) comes into a room that Trevor is being held in after one of his exploits. He proceeds to employ a chalkboard to map out what he sees as Trevor’s future which in his estimation is exceedingly bleak indeed. He starts off with school and chastises Trevor for refusing to continue with his studies. He works through various points that he feels Trevor could have helped himself if only he’d complied. The schematic ends with the only option he sees open to Trevor: namely a endless cycle of poverty, petty crime, and prison.

Trevor remains speechless during the entire display. He waits until the Super is gone before unleashing a tirade to care-worker Barry Giller (Chapman) and the deputy superintendent in the assessment center, Peter Clive (Stewart) against conformity and the futility of capitulating to the demands of the social order. The film is born aloft on the mesmeric, focused performance of Tim Roth. He carries the film through the intensity of his eyes, his relentless pursuit of his own system of ideals. These include, naturally, a wholly racialist and Nationalistic outlook through which he views a world he cannot comprehend or control. Although he claims to abhor blacks, this doesn’t stop him from employing a fellow ward at the assessment center named Errol (Richards) from participating in his acts of mayhem. Errol is a rather timid boy who merely acquiesces with Trevor’s deeds without once taking any initiative or acting on his own accord. This culminates when the pair steal a van from the center and revisit the same Pakistani man’s home where the proceed to smash in his window as well as those of several of his neighbors while shouting racial epithets. From there Trevor drives a sleeping Errol to the police station where he smashes into one of the patrol cars. Then he abandons Errol to be apprehended and runs off into the darkness, consumed with a rage that is both electric and terrifying.

Trevor seems to welcome any outcome that might befall him. He is not cowed by threats or any postulations of what his life might become should he choose to continue along the same path that so invigorates him. Indeed, prison holds a certain allure to him ostensibly because it would offer him more opportunities to hone his blossoming ideology while making him even harder. Trevor responds to the idea of pain although actual pain seems something else altogether. Near the end he is smashed on the kneecap with a truncheon and is temporarily flummoxed and his face registers fear for the first time. He has bought into a hyper-masculine ethos where pain simply makes a man stronger, more “battle-ready”.

For all his crimes and his uncouth behavior, Trevor remains a sympathetic character worth investing in. He’s not easily escapable or put down as a mere psychotic. His deeds resonate because they come from one who so deliberately stands outside the simple fences that keep the rest of us hewed in. Clarke deliberately refuses to make Trevor into a romantic figure as his fury and anguish serve no purpose other than to cause distress to others. Even in the way he pushes the call button at the police station reflects his anti-authoritarian view. He refuses to let up and when he is warned to stop using his hands to push the button he pushes it with his head. Earlier he went to his case worker’s apartment building and proceeded to push the intercom buttons of most of the tenants. In this sense Trevor merely performs these petty annoyances because they amuse him. One gets a clear impression that his sense of joy has been skewed slightly and he does take great pleasure in all his deviant acts. He greatly enjoys the distress he causes and takes special pride in involving so many people, time, and money in his welfare. He’s simply a kid who does things merely because he is told not to and because rebelling gives him a legitimate sense of Self.

Trevor knows he’s cunning and capable of holding his own with the authority figures whose lot it is to keep him from escalating into a lifetime cancer against society. But he also recognizes that they don’t exactly want him and other children to be truthful because in doing so they would unleash wholesale chaos and wouldn’t be able to control it. This point is at the heart of this film. According to Trevor’s line of thinking, if youthful outrage were fully articulated, if people actually expressed their true feelings, then the social order would suffer a grave transgression. Trevor suggests that society is, therefore, built exclusively on lies. He’s searching for honesty, for integrity and demands that people say precisely what they mean. This is why he doesn’t speak back to the Superintendent; he respects him for coming right out and expressing his opinion of Trevor without sugarcoating it or patronizing him. It’s clear that Trevor is a leader who, with his obvious intelligence, could succeed in any endeavor he attempted. He is characterized as one who got away, who slid into disuse through a series of circumstances that one might argue were open to him only because of unspoken needs that had heretofore gone unfulfilled. It’s interesting that Trevor does not run with a pack of skinheads but prefers to act out on his own volition with out the conforming aspects of the group dynamic.

The use of steady cam creates a fluid, seamless cinematography which helps express the kinetic urgency of the film. Trevor doesn’t stand still if he’s managed to avoid detention. He must keep active, to hurl his body forth, as a bulwark against the tyranny of his own thoughts. His outrage is not yet fully articulated as his hatreds lack a solid ideological foundation yet he is compelled to act, to do the only things that make sense to him. Still, as he is, he is simply not focuses enough to take his belief system to the next level. He is at the ground floor and has merely picked up bits and pieces that have yet to be formed into a vital, workable philosophy. Interestingly enough, if he were to land in prison, he would merely gravitate toward those with more experience, who have studied certain incendiary texts and who have become more effectively entrenched in the posits of a particular ideological system. He would most likely come out more ardent, more virulent and potentially dangerous then when he went in. Again, Trevor has the capacity to lead and would make a formidable teacher and assimilator within the movement. Prison would do nothing to change his basic world view; in fact, it would only prove to accentuate what had already been inculcated into him. So, on an unconscious level Trevor welcomes prison as a place to gain the only kind of knowledge he deems useful.

The performances in this film all resonate with tremendous clarity and vision. Tim Roth is dynamic from start to finish and the screen vibrates whenever he’s on it. His performance is controlled and disrupting. He’s a criminal with seemingly no future yet he comes across as charming in his own way. This has everything to do with the relentless of Trevor’s approach to everyone who claims a desire to help him. He’s gleefully snide, disruptive, and impossible to corral. Roth creates a character that one longs to see get it all straightened out against the terrible odds he is facing. We want Trevor to be alright, to not suffer the humiliation inherent in incarceration and we want him to gain more insight into the flashpoints that cause him so much consternation. Geoffrey Hutchings has a virtuoso turn as the Superintendent. He is utterly authoritative in conveying the hardline institutional position. He provides a nice counterpoint to Trevor’s rages and proves to be the only authority figure able to calm Trevor down.

Overall, this is a gritty film that offers legitimate insights into the nature of conformity and those forces which, due to a baffling array of circumstances, are not able to be so easily acclimated into the social order. Trevor merely represents a group of outsiders with bleak prospects who feel no sympathy toward a society they feel has condemned them to a life of servitude. Trevor doesn’t want to be anyone’s lackey and he sees legitimate employment as a noose he is unwilling to place around his neck. With millions of unemployed in Thatcher’s England, this film addresses the problem by focusing on one of the more extreme examples of an individual who has drifted into the open arms of an extreme position just to find some sense of meaning in his life. His anger is not explained in this film nor is his viewpoint extensively expressed. We get hints as to the impetus of his frustration but nothing that purports to solve anything. For this reason, it remains an important film that conveys ugliness towards an end of commenting on one specific character whose life is mired in contradictions and who owns the key to his own salvation.

Film Reviews: Agatha Christie's Murder with Mirrors

Murder with Mirrors
directed by Dick Lowry
written by George Eckstein
based on the novel by Agatha Christie
starring Helen Hayes, Bette Davis, John Mills, Liane Langland, John Laughlin, John Woodvine, Tim Roth, James Coombes, Anton Rodgers, Frances de la Tour, Leo McKern, Dorothy Tutin

Featuring young pup Tim Roth and post-stroke Bette Davis, this film performs the duties of a decent murder mystery that does have one guessing straight through to the end.

Helen Hayes is Agatha Christie’s famed Miss Jane Marple, a sly old tooth who is of course a master sleuth in the guise of a tottering little old lady. When she learns from a man named Christian (Woodvine) that her friend Carrie Louise Serrocold (Davis) is ill, she pays her a visit. The Serrocold estate is massive, palatial and also the home for juvenile delinquents who help in the garden and run little errands when necessary. It is thought that Carrie Louise is being slowly poisoned by some unknown person. One evening one of the errant boys named Edgar (Roth) pulls a gun on Serrocold and they end up on the foyer. A shot rings out but it is determined to have come from a car backfiring. Then another shot rings out from the foyer and the entire household collectively panics because the door is locked. Serrocold emerges in one piece and the matter is quickly shoved aside because Miss Bellaver (de la Tour) finds Christian slumped over in front of his typewriter quite dead. So, ths search is on to find the culprit and Miss Marple exploits her unassuming manners and exceedingly sharp eye to solve the crime.

The cheery collective of broomsticks get knocked about when the murder occurs and everyone realizes they are a possible suspect in this egregious act. Inspector Curry (McKern) maintains a keen interest in all of the potential culprits but even his immaculate skill is no match for Miss Marple’s brilliant deductive abilities. He begrudgingly allows her to help with the investigation which proves out of reach of standard police tactics. Miss Marple is simply smarter than the cops and it essentially turns into her investigation after a fashion. She leads the cops in accordance with her instincts and they are relegated to the background, panting desperately to keep up. Miss Marple knows all the angles and quickly puts the pieces together to solve the crime.

The film provides the audience with a series of possible subjects to be eliminated. Then it takes one of the characters off the screen for much of it so you forget he’s there, and then it reveals the murderer, who is always the person you least suspect. It’s the standard of these things and this film manages to do a better than average job of keeping things interesting and unpredictable. It isn’t obvious who the killer is and it turns out to be a rather pleasant surprise when they are revealed. Still, the film spends much of its time eliminating various potentialities and then it moves in for the kill, so to speak. There are red herrings along the way and each one doesn’t at all deter from the fact that the actual killer will be none of those early suspects who fall by the wayside.

Essentially, this is a simple genre film that follows the expected formula without deviating from it too directly. It merely creates a particular setting filled with a group of people all with a motive and throws a murder into the mix. The purpose of these films is for the audience to try to stay one step ahead of the hero/sleuth who knows all the tricks and can see things that we are not made privy to. They test our skills of deduction, observation and patience. Each person must be removed from the suspect list until there is only one obvious suspect left. It’s a thrilling game as long as the film is smart and this one proves to be smarter than most. The culprit is truly the least likely to commit the crimes and of course we are not made privy to their motivations for taking such drastic measures but that’s not the point. We are to determine who did it, not why.

The film plays out as if there were two mysteries to solve: who killed Christian and who is attempting to poison Carrie Louise. A box of chocolates arrives which proves to contain poison. Then, Dr. Max Hargrove (Rodgers) goes off and threatens to kill Miss Marple but is allowed to escape. So, it would seem as if the killer is determined but naturally Miss Marple sees through this development and determines who the actual murderer is.

The performances in this fill all seem fit for TV. In one of her final performances, Bette Davis gamely makes it through despite the stroke and several other illnesses. It’s apparent she has suffered a great malady as one side of her mouth appears slightly paralyzed. Despite this she registers a certain poignancy and grace in conveying her character’s immovable presence. Helen Hayes is perfectly cast as Miss Jane Marple and conveys the slight glimmer of wickedness in her character’s eye that allows her to get inside the heads of murderers. As Gina, Liane Langland is feisty and tempestuous as her shock of red hair would suggest. She’s got a fiery disposition that works well in this film as her character lives out a particular program of mild dissolution tinged with protracted desire. Dorothy Tutin plays the depressed, miserable Mildred, Carrie Louise’s middle-aged daughter, with decided calm. It’s clear that the character has fallen off the map and is struggling to find the pleasure that Gina takes for granted. She’s bitter and it’s all told in her posture and gestures. Frances de la Tour’s character is another sour faced addition to the household who is suspected initially of poisoning Carrie Louise’s medicine. De la Tour is quite good at looking stone faced and reserved so that she makes an easy target for the shenanigans that are taking place around her. Tim Roth is haggard, uncomfortable, and edgy throughout this film. He finds his character's malaise and sticks with it. His character is a bit mangled and Roth makes it clear through the way he carries himself that he's a bit dodgy and possibly dangerous although that's just part of the game he's been playing to upset those who are easily upset.

Overall, this is an adequate example of the whodunnit mystery genre. It serves the purpose and pushes all the right buttons. The characters are all believable and fleshed out. The performances are well-suited to this format of television without trying to step out of the necessary boundaries set for that medium. Ultimately, it’s a cheery enough murder mystery with a lovable lead character who drives the film as far as it might go.

Film Review--Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

Bangkok Dangerous (2008)
directed by the Pang Brothers
written by Jason Richman
starring Nicolas Cage, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Young, Panwarad Hemmannee, Nirattisai Kaljaruek, Dom Hetrakul



A hitman finds love which compromises his craft and upsets the perfect balance he has determined for himself.

Yes, the story is hackneyed. Yes, it uses all the familiar tropes to tell it’s all–too–familiar story. We’ve seen it before hundreds of times and it’s nothing new. Despite all this, this film manages to do enough to sustain a level of interest for its duration. Most of this probably has to do with Nick Cage’s performance as Joe, the hitman who has been given four assignments in Bangkok. He hires a kid named Kong (Yamnarm) to run errands for him regarding the hits for sinister gangster Surat (Kaljaruek) and his crony Aran (Hetrakul).

Joe gets injured in a shootout and enters a pharmacy for some medication. He apprehends Fon (Young) and sets his sights on her. Joe asks her out and they spend a great deal of time getting to know one another. Charlie Young is positively effervescent in this film. She completely sells Fon’s love for Joe and this is by far the most effective aspect of the film. Otherwise, it’s merely a standard hitman pic with no necessity and no urgency. But, Young transforms an otherwise pedestrian film into something of note.

This film switches it on now and again and the subsequent jolt of energy is cleanly felt against the temples. This is not the same film as the first one and this is readily apparent from practically the first step. The first one featured a great number of strange edits involving seemingly incongruous elements and this film plays it straight throughout. Indeed, there are any particularly memorable shots in this one as it satisfies itself merely telling a story that everyone has heard. Also, this film is about Joe’s business and the original features more of Kong’s solo work. In the original Kong is deaf and in this one it is Joe’s girl Fon. Kong falls for Fon in the original while Joe is dating Aom (Hemmannee). Here it is Kong who meets and greets Aom while Joe dates Fon. They are interesting switches that change the complexity of the story. There isn’t a sense of innocence and pure unadulterated joy that originates from Fon and Kong in the first one. Here Kong is a wisecracking thief who has lost that innocence and is more decayed and cynical.

Kong is a budding, multifaceted face of grim, tortured culpability. He’s the shaky future of this enterprise–hallowed, deliberate, and polite straight through to the kill. In essence this is a buddy film with zero assurance between partners. It’s simply a matter of maintaining order and adhering to the code which controls his actions and assures that he get the job done clean and fast. However, he breaks the code due to his innate longing to see something beyond these shady greys that have insured him in the past against the frayed emotional bonds of free human interaction. He chooses Fon knowing full well that he is stepping into truly dangerous territory from which one can not so easily extricate oneself.

Musically, this film keeps the tension and plays scattershot with the emotions which works to its advantage. It sustains the dank, pitiable mood that is established early on and gives the film a definitive boost in scenes for which it is required. Sometimes, however, silence is preferred and on these occasions the music sometimes manages to get in the way of the performances. Essentially, however, it keeps the pace and jacks the film with a continuous emotional legitimacy. There is a liquid quality to this film that translates to graceful camera work in which the actors seem exceedingly languid and generally poetic in their gestures and postures. Despite the predictability of the plot and all the film’s deficits it still manages, on occasion, to creep up on the viewer in unexpected ways. These moments are scarce and mostly realized through the eyes of Charlie Young who brings a sweetness to her silent role that embodies the necessary slow-downed aesthetic that the film tries desperately to maintain when its not busy demonstrating a brutal, if typical smash-mouth philosophy.

Certainly the film doesn’t stray very far from the formula which historically has informed these types of films where an antihero faces a generic hurdle that directly challenges his heretofore established point of view. Joe has developed a strategic niche that demands a particular code of behavior to which he has systematically aligned himself with. It’s a basic plot device that must be gradually overturned and this film does so with another obvious device that is introduced via his relationship with the girl. Again, despite the pedestrian nature of this development, the film establishes a particular style which elevates it and instills a specific integrity into the story. Fon is more than eye candy which distracts Joe from his particular course of action. She represents something darker and more primitive which he uses as a bulwark against a lifestyle that has become merely routine without the sudden rush of accomplishment that has come to define the experience.

Teaching is a basic element to this story and the relationship between Joe and Kong develops along the same generic lines that afflict the rest of the film. Kong is an able student who ingratiates himself with Joe and essentially forces his hand. Joe’s plan is to rid himself of this unwanted distraction but his newly minted awareness prevents him from going through with his plan. He is unable to proceed in the expected fashion because, as he states, he sees a bit of himself in Kong and killing him would be like killing a part of himself and this course of action is therefore unacceptable. Still, their relationship is strained and fraught with pitfalls. Joe opens himself up to a most dangerous condition by allowing himself to become emotionally attached to his charge.

Surat represents the grim face of the mafia whose sole purpose is making as much cash as possible in the shortest amount of time. He plays a decisively manipulative game in which Joe and Kong are but pawns. The film alters when Joe realizes that the man who issues forth the death warrants considers the pair something of a liability. This is a world where honor, integrity, and morality cease to operate in the expected fashion. Surat is demonstrably calm in the face of issuing forth edicts that bring so much carnage to whomever he determines deserves to be handed their fate so unceremoniously. He is jury, judge and executioner who takes no risks and leaves the administering of his brand of justice to underlings who are all too apt to take the bait and risk their lives for the sake of a bit of cold hard cash. Joe is a puppet who lives out of a suitcase from job to job. He is a weak man who is unable to extricate himself from the plan of operation which enslaves him, clouding his vision of what is right, what is noble. It is Nick Cage’s performance that makes his character remotely likable. It’s a case of a big star, with their inherent desirability, transforming an ugly character into something more accessible. In this sense there are no disagreeable characters because audiences will always attach their positive feelings regarding the actor to whomever they are portraying. Their charisma wins out every time unless the actor is capable of slipping so casually beneath the skin of the character so that the audience forgets who they are watching and are able to focus exclusively on the role. Nick Cage doesn’t possess that transparency in this film because there is never a second in the film that it isn’t abundantly clear who is on the screen. Unknown actors are often the better choices in such roles because these attachments haven’t been forged and they are more able to create a personage who isn’t burdened by familiarity, hopes and expectations.

The performances in this film work well enough for the material. As mentioned, Nick Cage maintains his star status and it is impossible to see the character without first acknowledging the actor who is portraying him. Still, Cage does play the role as one would expect him to. He’s physically present, mutters effectively, and instills a clear sense that his character is burdened by something only he can see. Shahkrit Yamnarm makes Kong approachable and realizes him with nuanced performance that makes a terrific foil for Nicolas Cage’s more brooding, off putting character. Charlie Young is simply a delight in this film. She does everything with gestures and her face which radiates a simple joy throughout the course of the film. She has a permanence about her which is realized in the scenes where she is simply allowed to demonstrate her inherent calmness regarding her particular viewpoint. She is also capable of showing great consternation when Fon realizes the nature of Joe’s activities.

Overall, this isn’t a particularly novel approach to this limited sub-genre. It doesn’t do anything novel but stylistically it maintains a level that is certainly a cut above many such films. It relies on a mood that is consistently conveyed throughout and for the most part it establishes a unity that transforms a fundamentally typical script into a more substantial work. It still lacks a spontaneity and comes off as too polished at times. There is none of the grit that informed the original although the underbelly of Bangkok is shown in a not so shimmering light. The world of gangsters and corruption is exposed and not exclusively glamorized yet there are moments when the film’s stylistic approach does impart a message that grossly contradicts the overall tone of the piece.

Film Review--Bike Porn 2

Bike Porn 2
directed by Reverend Phil



The contours treat the mind to paroxysms of deepest pleasure with each caress. The anticipation mounts as fingers gently stroke the chain; quivering slightly, they move to the fork and then reach the down tube. They pause to remove a shirt. They continue to free the wearer of the burden of unnecessary clothing which obstructs the pleasure of raw skin on cool metal.

Yes, there is a terrible accident where succulent bruises afflict the honey ass of a lovely lass cruising at speeds unnatural and perverse. Many delicious photographs display the wounds with coarse purity and stringent delight. We imagine her buttocks skidding on the cruel pavement, or perhaps being blistered by the machine itself. We amuse ourselves in this codified world where bicycles meet and greet and perform tenderest acts upon each other’s frames and appendages. They massage the secret g-spot somewhere near the lug and moan lightly through the mesmeric whizzing of their spokes. It is passion derived exclusively from raw, plastic need. and all the frames engage in ballets of seismic glory as the wheels continue to spin on their own accord. The bikes have reached the heights of sensual bliss and have come pulsatingly to life without suffering the blind purpose of mere consciousness. They respond only to the body’s raging effervescence and spend their days entangled in the poetry of degradation and exposure.

Glistening flesh defines the road, vibrating in time to the thrill of being seen by entire families on an innocent drive through pristine country. The jiggling bits so free and decisive must give little Suzie Snotnose quite a treat. Imagine her bucktooth delirium as the riders approach and she gets her first real glimpse of a man. With terror and confusion she observes as the cyclists race by her father’s decrepit brown station wagon with side paneling and a sheen of futility stuck in traffic again.

The girl rides as the saddle creeps inside. She is ascending, moaning, breathing heavily as she receives the tyranny of the hard plastic deep inside the darkness. The camera focuses lovingly on this transaction as the participants move in and out of a rhythmic as the mercurial female continues to climb. She appears to be heading to work in an office but suddenly she’s ready to drop to her knees and relax her throat muscles. Such is the splendid scene of the hardened lass pumping that action with her tender thighs.

Bikes are mangled, stripped entirely of personality, deranged beyond recognition in the street where they live. Owners rescue them from more battery and gently replace the abused parts. They enter the woods and discard burdensome clothing and soon the manchild is perched so high above clean earth and racing toward infinity while the girl clamors behind. It is freedom expressed in a simple series of gestures and movements. He is released from the hell of commonality and the cold embrace of necessity. He is reaching toward a new reckoning as others take their jousting wands and knock each other off their high positions. The same high bikes, beyond reason and the accessibility of mere mortals, crash as rogue bicycles are want to do. The tearing of their flesh–broken mirrors, torn tassels-- creates in them a furiously orgasmic clarity that presses on with each driving push. They lean in and demand the pure indulgence of total war. But the drivers steer clear at the last moment and frustration sinks deeply into the cassettes and the warriors sink into the knowledge of another chance lost.

Overall, there are no victims in this brand of pornography. Only allies. Or alloy, depending on your bent. What is known is that when a happy couple introduces their filthy little machines to one another there is an exchange of ribald urgency that will be actualized at the most pressing opportunity. It is important to affix a wayward eye upon them otherwise they will engage in happy, healthy nastiness as soon as you turn your back. Also, their infinite pleasure as you mount them, pressing your flesh onto their hard contours, cannot be underestimated. They moan excitedly as you grind and push, they shriek in delight as you grip the handlebars with certitude and cold, brutal mastery. You become one with their flesh in a glorious union that can be repeated simply and elegant each time you force your will upon their sturdy, exquisitely crafted frame.

Film Review--Proud American

Proud American
written and directed by Fred Ashman




Ah, you’ve got to love the heady marriage of cinema and corporate sponsorship. At least it’s blatant this way and not so underhanded that it merely creeps into our consciousness without our awareness. In this film, four major corporations lay out the cash to sponsor a film that clearly fails at it’s primary agenda which is to instill a staunch Americanism in all it’s viewers. In fact, truth be told, this is truly one of the funniest films I have ever seen and I have to admit all the laughs are unintentional.

I marvel at how this film was put together and more importantly, why? Do these people honestly believe the populace will be swayed by something that never elevates itself above a hallmark card? The music is so blatantly “inspirational” (I was inspired to read the Communist Manifesto but that’s just me) that it’s impossible to read through it. There are nearly a dozen songs by someone named Larry Beard and they really need a wider audience. Every last one of them is about patriotism, how great America is, the land of the Free, freedom, etc. al ad nauseated. These are supposed to stir the heartstrings and force connections between the heartwarming stories being played out on the screen and the American dream. It’s as blatant as anything I’ve yet seen in a film. The same stirring refrain every time a character is making an important speech or just saying something the film makers really want to plea to our emotions.

Simple labels such as good or bad, necessary or irrelevant, simple or profound do not really apply to this film. It exists in its own little world and is impervious to criticism. Still, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the intentions of those who worked on this project. Most likely they desired nothing more than to raise the red, white, and blue in front of the local K-Mart and hope that as many people salute it as possible. They wanted people to take out their Mastercard, make some impetuous purchase, and think of 9/11 or the poor immigrants swimming their way to freedom.

There are five stories here that ostensibly celebrate the human spirit and being all that you can be. The music tells us how to feel about these people so that we don’t ever get the wrong impression. It’s a useful ploy as mentioned and the film takes full advantage of it. The stories include an immigrant Vietnamese girl who when we first meet her is attempting to enter into an American high school. She is made fun of by mean girls who just don’t get it. She meets some “nice” girls who help her with her English and before you know it she is an executive at a software company she and her husband started. Yay America! Then we meet a young African-American boy (his skin color is of vital importance in this egalitarian sludge-sickle) who is tempted to join the gang of thugs his brother runs with. He is nearly run down by thugs who are so deliberately thrusting and overly intensified that it creates nothing but hilarity in its wake. He cuts his arm escaping and is taken to a kindly doctor who patches him up and explains that he too can be a doctor. Well, from that point on he studies every day hard and fast and he too reaches the heights of his ambition. Then, a Brazilian immigrant starts as a dishwasher, gets promoted so he eventually becomes a manager, joins the Navy Seals, is crippled in an attack, and becomes a champion disabled athlete. Another story involves a group of skinheads who smash in the front window of a Jewish Family while they sleep. “Oh, our minora.” It’s awful and terrible but all the neighbors come rushing in and quickly attend to the situation. Soon, the entire neighborhood has put up minoras to advertise their solidarity. Again, yay America!


This is remarkable because it is a drama with absolutely no drama. It’s clear that every minority presented is going to reach their goal and achieve all of their dreams. In many respects it’s not a film at all. Indeed, it is merely a series of reenactments of actual success stories and has a documentary feel at times. What is most baffling are all the random, disconnected images that creep up now and again. The film also reenacts important moments in corporate history from Coca Cola to Waltons and even includes a preacher spouting off about Martin Luther King in front of his congregation. Again, there is no intentions of telling a cohesive story here. It’s just a series of events that are all supposed to say roughly the same thing: America is a land of opportunity and anyone can succeed. You only have to want it enough. It starts with a voice over of immigrants conversing about how native born Americans don’t appreciate their own country as much as they, the immigrants, do.

It’s not pleasant being preached to in this manner, being told so clearly how to feel so that if you don’t feel this way you are somehow not American enough. If you don’t get sucked in to this consumerist fantasy you might as well be living in Russia or some other god forsaken place where they don’t have our “freedoms” goddamit!

This is exceedingly manipulative in such a way that the only response that seems valid is laughter. The “acting” is on the level of the typical after school special and the message being proffered is about as complex. It’s a maddeningly simple exercise in brute force jingoism that imparts a particular view without nuance or accountability. It merely says that in America, anyone can come here for any reason and take solace in the fact that they have reached the promise land of opportunity. This as a time when the unemployment rate has risen dramatically and houses are being foreclosed at a level not seen since the Great Depression.

Despite its myriad flaws, the kernel that drives this atrocity is the basic, general message that hard work and dedication may lead to great accomplishment. The methods employed are tactless and obvious but it seems to have it’s patriotic heart in the right place, as it were. Tragically for the producers of this film and those corporate interests that funded it, this film will reach no one as it has most likely already left the 750 theaters it was released in. It will go down as the most poorly attended major release of all time and in many ways it deserves that fate. Corporations have no place in cinema although they sponsor through subliminal advertising most of the films that come out of Hollywood. Perhaps this film will set a precedent and we will be inundated with many more such cinematic travesties. It’s simple, really. Announce your methodology up front and promote your products brazenly in what is in the end merely another product to serve the vested interests of the corporate mind scheme.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film because it taught me all of the ways in which a film can fail. I laughed for much of it in a way I haven’t experienced in a considerable amount of time. I don’t feel more hopeful about Iraq nor to I trust my government any more than I already had. I wasn’t moved by all of the flags wavering in the cool morning breeze and I didn’t exalt at all of the torturous music on the soundtrack. It failed to reach me probably because I’m too cynical to fall for it’s generic message that all will be well if we only cling to the illusions of that great dream. What a crock.

Film Review--Babylon A.D.

Babylon A.D.
directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
written by Eric Besnard
screenplay by Joseph Simas and Mathieu Kassovitz
based on the novel by Maurice G. Dantec
starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Gerard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling, Mark Strong






In a world divided between commercial excess and apocalypse, a man receives a mission to safely escort a young girl from Russia to New York.

In this action/adventure thriller, Toorop (Diesel) has had his share of strange jobs. He’s a mercenary with a terrific sense of where he is at any given time. He is instructed by the corpulent Gorsky to bring the girl safely out of the decrepit, despairing Russian landscape and take her to America. He is given no other information as to why this pretty little thing is so important or what she will do once she reaches the shores of New York. A convent is his next stop where he meets the steely, serious Rebeka, a woman who claims must accompany the girl, named Aurora, wherever she goes. The girl emerges and the happy trio head out on their way as they attempt to make their way out of the country. The actual escape is certainly filled with perilous moments but it feels relatively painless as the ride a submarine, snowmobiles and a plane to make their way to New York.

The race to escape is certainly thrilling at times and redundant at others. There is energy in these scenes as the central characters are all properly developed and well fleshed out. It’s clear that quite a lot of time, money and attention was paid to the special effects and their impact is readily felt throughout the film. At times the effects to overtake the narrative and it seems as if the film is nothing more than a series of well-timed explosions but for the most part a balance is struck between the action sequences and the story proper. There is a genuine sense of comradery between the actors and the film never loses them in the mix. They remain forcefully present using a variety of techniques to maintain their integrity.

This is an occasionally very dark film particularly during the scenes in Russia which looks like a deathtrap and a degenerate place filled with bounty hunters and angry young men looking for a method of taking out their pain and frustration out on whomever they see fit. It is in direct contrast to New York City which is a thriving futuristic Metropolis that is shiny and clean and gloriously rendered in bright lights and shiny surfaces. It really is the tale of two worlds and a commentary on how America will continue to thrive in the future while much of the rest of the world crumbles into dust. Of course we don’t see Europe or China so perhaps Russia alone has fallen into ruin. Regardless, it’s terribly ugly and animalistic; many of the scenes are loud, abrasive, and typical of the rush of the errant crowd. This is the world that Toorop has ensconced himself in in an effort to escape himself more or less. But he is a mercenary with a certain code to follow and is unable to pass up such a job as this.

The film relates the plight of poor Aurora who was born to parents who prove rather eccentric in their general approach to life. The mother’s specter hangs over the film as she seems to be something of a messiah figure in a faith she wants to turn into the most powerful religion on earth. The High Priestess (Rampling) is a woman driven be demons that press her on toward a measure of greatness rarely discovered or felt by the ragged, tragic mass of consumers who belch and distress over the trivial and the mundane. She provided the eggs for the child and baby Aurora was interjected with an electronic brain that created her a rather special monster. She could speak nineteen languages at two years old and possesses many skills that she has never been taught. She also is said to carry a virus that will wipe out half the world. This angle isn’t particularly explored and it’s true the end is pretty muddled and doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense. The father, named Darquandier, was nearly blown up and walks about with a body brace that necessarily limits his movements. He wants his little girl, his product, after she disappears in a fiery explosion that kills Toorop before Darquandier brings him back to life and fixes him up with prostheses.

So, the actual ending seems like a tacked on hallmark card. It makes sense in terms of the narrative but it feels like an easy way out. Still, it’s how all of these films end so I don’t suppose I should readily complain. But, in this one, it’s just too soon.

The performances in this film are all adequate for the material. Vin Diesel is typically blank and not particularly demonstrative when he’s not beating someone nearly to death. He has the standard robotic cadence down but there are moments when he actually seems to be acting which is progress of a sort. Michelle Yeoh is steady and confounding in a backbone role that sees her character switching from demure acceptance to shit storm fighting machine. It’s nice to see the sister of a religious order demonstrating mad skills. Melanie Thierry is certainly pretty and pouts a lot in this film. She relies on her bone structure to speak for her in many scenes and the camera certainly loves her face. But she’s not merely pretty in this one. She’s tough, and her character reflects a vitality and strength that enhances the film. Charlotte Rampling is simply spooky in this film. Her character is visible in every sector of the globe where the film takes place. She makes grave announcements in a hologram on the sides of buildings and she demonstrates an almightly cold streak with certain actions.

Overall, the film doesn’t step all over itself telling its story. Although it gets convoluted at times and isn’t ultimately satisfying there are moments scattered throughout that elevate it above the level typically reached by this sort of film. It possesses an intensity that comes through in the scenes when they are escaping something or someone. There is actual tension here that enhances the overall quality of the film and allows the viewer the opportunity to worry after the characters who prove to be believable and necessary as people. It’s not a great film by any means but it generates enough energy to keep the pulse racing. It jacks up the adrenaline and accomplishes everything it sets out to do and that is all that one can ask from this sort of film.

Film Review--Brideshead Revisited (2008)

Brideshead Revisited
directed by Julian Jarrold
written by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock
starring Emma Thompson, Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw, Patrick Malahide, Felicity Jones, Michael Gambon, Jonathan Cake, Ed Stoppard, Geoffrey Wilkinson



It’s the tale of two kisses. In a foreboding, brutally oppressive Brideshead, salacious intrigue boils between a solid, cold Matriarch, her two adult children, and a stranger who has stumbled frightfully into a world to which he does not effectively belong.

Charles Ryder (Goode) is a painter who has spent three years in the jungle painting various scenes that are selling well. He is aboard a massive liner and is being celebrated and cozied up to by potential patrons. He sees a girl and immediately follows her. We don’t know her name only that he is desperate to find her. Finally he catches her and she merely greets him before the scene ends. The film flashes back ten years and Charles is studying at Oxford. He is readying his room when a young man appears in the door way and promptly vomits. Charles rather cheerfully cleans up the mess and on the next day there is a note and flowers from one Sebastian Flyte (Whishaw) inviting him to dinner. He meets Sebastian and the two quickly form an intimate friendship that becomes quite serious. Sebastian is a homosexual, rather a libertine who takes his pleasures as he finds him and doesn’t much take actualities into consideration. He is flippant, casual to the point of distraction, and deceptively polite. Charles is equally smitten and their intimacy gradually creeps toward an inevitability. This comes in the form of a chaste kiss that is followed immediately by crashing silence. It is not spoken of again and seems to do nothing to cool each boy’s ardor for the other. Yet, an unspoken elegance passes between them and they remain just as they were–diligent in each other’s company and painfully aware of the intensity that has grown between them.

Soon after making Charles’s acquaintance, Sebastian invites him to Brideshead to meet his grandmother. This is the first time we are confronted with the magisterial opulence of the palatial home that appears more fit for royalty. The place is boarded up because the family is elsewhere and it is clear that Charles is quietly taking in the splendor of what he sees before him. On the way out a car passes them and Charles notices a girl in the back seat that Sebastian informs him is his sister Julia (Atwell). Later on Charles is at home with his father Edward (Malahide) when he receives a notice saying that Sebastian is gravely ill. He agrees to visit his friend and is picked up at the train station by Julia.. This begins his proper instruction into the language of luxury and the necessity of controlled emotion.

The film is as regal as the Matriarch of the family, Lady Marchmain (Thompson), a grave, intense woman whose Catholic faith consumes the entire film and permeates every scene, every shot, every gesture. This is a rare film that is entrenched in a strict religious aesthetic although the film itself is not particularly religious. There is a heaviness and a seriousness to everything that takes place at Brideshead. This is in sharp contrast to the carefree afternoons Sebastian and Charles spend together on their own, just them against the world. Here there is room for experimentation and a rogue posture that is not bound by the tyranny of tradition and a specific, regulated order. Between the rigid expectations of Oxford and the stark practicalities of Brideshead, Charles and Sebastian steal whatever amusements from the day that are presented to them.

Tensions naturally flare when Julia, who heretofore has shown disdain for Charles, begins to see him in a different light. They begin spending time together, waiting for the right moment for their passions to ignite. The moment of reckoning arrives and they share a brief, passionate embrace but Julia quickly walks away. It proves to be the only such encounter as Julia soon becomes engaged to Rex Mottram, an older man who is rich and most importantly Catholic. Lady Marchmain confronts Charles, as he is considering Julia, and instructs him to forgo any thoughts of marrying her. One of the most significant aspects of this film is the way that Lady Marchmain controls the lives of her children. Her Catholic faith binds each child to her and she refuses to consider any other alternative. The chapel in the house is a legitimately sacred arena for Lady Marchmain to establish the specific tone of her rule. She cannot be questioned. She demands that Julia marry a Catholic so that is what she does. Sebastian meanwhile loses ground and quickly becomes an alcoholic who feels distant from his mother, Brideshead and all that it represents.

The film plays out like an emotional tug-of-war between Sebastian and Charles. Sebastian pitches a fit soon after he discovers Charles and Julia kissing. He shuns Charles and proceeds to nearly wreck himself. Their connection proves to be fragile and there are breakups and reunions that seem to tax each friend more aggressively at each turn. Meanwhile the specter of Julia hangs over Charles’s head. He is torn by his devotion to his friend and his newly discovered feelings for Julia. Yet he is banned from pursuing his longings by the terminal, unyielding force of nature that is Lady Marchmain.

Brideshead possesses a magical pull on Charles. He is brought in as something of an oddity and he never seems to lose this distinction. He is viewed initially by Lady Marchmain as an upstanding, honest young man upon which she could rely. She builds him up to be something of a proper role model for her son from which she is emotionally estranged perhaps due to Sebastian’s homosexual lifestyle. Brideshead tempts Charles although he never fully succumbs to its charms. He demands nothing of the family; he behaves as if he’s perfectly content either nestled in its bosom or far away back at home with his father. Charles is a straight arrow who lives according to a fairly consistent set of principles. He has a dignified air and carries him Self with an elevated state of grace. In this film Charles possesses a disarming charisma that stems entirely from his posture and ease of manners. He is simply a man who is innately capable of objectively quantifying the world around him and it is this quality that allows him to paint. All throughout the film we are made to note that Charles is essentially an artist and is able to see patterns and angles that others fail to see. Sebastian is incapable of such an exacting approach to phenomena. He is too lost in his sensual being to truly take the complicated steps toward viewing the world with any clarity. He succumbs to drink because he is unable to make a commitment to the actual world and prefers to while away his time in daydreams.

The performances in this film are uniformly excellent. Emma Thompson reveals the soft heartache of her character with a regulated, forceful comportment that defines her from her first appearance on screen. Lady Marchmain remains mysterious and unsullied by pathetic displays of emotion. Thompson raises her above the fray and she simply looks down upon her younglings with her claws sharpened and her fangs bared. Matthew Goode possesses a Cary Grant like quality that is much more than his mere physical resemblance to the departed actor. There is something in the way Goode moves that elicits memories of Grant’s easy strides and projected confidence. Goode is remarkably calm and presents a solid, grounded center. His manners are controlled and precise and he doesn’t waver as he progresses through the film. Ben Whishaw is languid and moody as Sebastian. It is clear through his gestures that he is a grand thinker. He surrounds himself with luxuries that ultimately deform him. Whishlaw gives us a character who is terminally lacking in conviction and has not established a point of view. Hayley Atwell plays Julia as a woman who senses something elsewhere; she anticipates a life outside the stifling walls of Brideshead but she can never fully extract herself from it. Atwell has an ease of being that embodies her character with delicate shuffle that often resonates with a shiver. Michael Gambon is only in the film for a few moments but his presence is felt throughout. His character is decadent, rather impish, and charged with a permanence that matches that of Brideshead. Gambon walks and acts like a man of stupendous privilege who once knew the machinations of the material world but who has now forgot.

Overall, this is an immensely ordered work of structures and measured meanings. Charles enters into a world of confined leisure through a pleasure seeker who knows nothing of the harsh realities of life as it is lived by most less fortunate people. Sebastian seems the type who bounds from one affair to another but in this film he holds on to Charles because Charles is not one who can be so easily discarded. The overarching necessity of Catholicism plays a dramatic role that equals that of the actors in this presentation. It is a character that demands allegiance from most of its characters and it’s telling that Charles the atheist would find himself here not quite able to enter into the codified world of supreme dedication to archaic peasant rites. Ultimately this is a film that speaks to longing and elevation. Order and tradition hold out against an onslaught of freethinking and battle-weary bemusement.