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Believe It or Not, But Interesting Either Way
CATFISH (2010/DVD) 
How did I miss all the buzz surrounding this little documentary?? It aired at Sundance in 2010 and seems to have been generating news and discussion (some rather heated) ever since. In case you missed it also, here’s the plot: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, young technical types, decide to create a film surrounding Ariel’s good-looking brother Yaniv (“Nev”) who is receiving artwork from a gifted 8 year old named Abby. Abby has seen Nev’s photos of ballet dancers and is making paintings based on them. She lives in the Midwest—specifically in small town Ishpeming, Michigan—and soon Nev is facebooking, messaging and talking on the phone with not only Abby and her mom Angela, but more importantly (and much more frequently) with Abby’s gorgeous older sister Megan 
who encourages Nev to think about her romantically and even sexually. When the trio of guys gets a gig to shoot a dance festival in Vail, Colorado they decide to head home by way of Ishpeming, and naturally much is revealed. It’s best to know nothing more about this flick—which is how I saw it—and just let it unfold in front of you. Afterwards, you might want to check out all the chats about what’s really going on. An interesting experiment all the way around—be sure to watch to the bitter end for an explanation of the title.
Grade: B
BTW: This was evidentally pretty darn hot at Sundance and was picked up for limited distribution by Relativity Media. Watch the trailer here.
DON”T FLUB THAT LINE: Who’s Wearing The Queen Pants Around Here
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998/DVD)
How could a love story about the origins of Romeo and Juliet be a controversial film? Well, one that snubs Saving Private Ryan from the Best Picture Oscar. What seemed like a typical costume period nomination, along with Elizabeth, beat out modern war classics like Ryan and Terrence Malick’s Thin Red Line. Ever since creating the question of why? Along with Best Picture, the movie garnered six more Oscars including Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow and Supporting Actress for Judi Dench.
Most of the uproar came from the Best Picture, but no one raised any eyebrows when Judi Dench won having only been in three scenes. In what was a glorified cameo, seemingly to give Dench a chance to round out her portyale non current female British Monarchs, somehow convinced everyone that she was in a true supporting role. Therefore, in her three scenes she had to be on point, and by gift of the screenwriters given lines that would be her staple in movies to come. Marc Norman was the originator of the idea of a struggling Shakespeare, but it was the brilliant Tom Stoppard who actually gave the movie its Elizabethan flare. While it is not certain who wrote the most obscured lines in the movie, we do have to lay the blame at both of the writers feet.
So the scene: It has just been pointed out that one of the actors in the premier of Romeo and Juliet maybe a woman (not prohibited in English theater at the time), and Queen Elizabeth (Dench) has somehow disguised herself in the crowd (a massive undertaking considering that she was wearing a costume that was larger than a family sedan) to see for herself. After she reveals herself to everyone, as the queen, she begins to solve every one’s problems, but this is after she has to explain how she can empathize with even a supposed drag queen. So when the Queen is justifying her upcoming round of decrees on the people’s lives involved with the play, Dench says (but very quietly), “I know something of a woman in a man’s profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.” Really, we get it. She is the Second Queen of England, but come on! Does she have to remind us constantly? In the two previous scenes, Dench points out that she is the Queen and that she is a woman. Then again, with all of the make up and crazy make up, maybe the filmmakers thought that the audiences would think that it was Divine back from the dead and not Judi Dench.
MOVIES THAT MATTER: Go Back To The Moon? I Can See It From My Back Yard
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON (2007/DVD)
I am actually going to review a somewhat new movie. With the conclusion of the NASA Shuttle program, America is faced with a gap in its intrigue that has not been there since Yuri Gagarin. With no more launches of American manned craft for the foreseeable future, we have to look back to see the wonder and excitement of space travel. Along with The Wonder of It All, Shadow shows the story of the Apollo Space Program as told through the Apollo astronauts themselves. From great men like Buzz Aldrin a.k.a. Dr. Rendezvous, Gene Cernan, Michael Collins, Charles Duke, Jim Lovell; we see the guts that it took not only from them but from engineers and the American public to push ourselves beyond our planetary boundaries to send the only other humans to walk on another planetary body.
Where this documentary is better, than its contemporaries and predecessors, is that they got use of NASA archived footage and not just the stock footage that had been used in every space movie ever created before. From original camera footage from Apollo 8‘s first orbit of the moon, to the main rocket assembly floating in space and the footage of the capsule taking off and spinning back toward earth. Most of the shots are incredible, and the interviews are incredibly uplifting and inspiring. The fact that the captain of Apollo 17 and last man on the moon, Gene Cernan, says he was angry that he did not get to fly fighter jets in Vietnam but had to sit on top of a rocket that would be propelled faster than a bullet to the blackness of space, shows you the huevos that these men had to go where no man had gone before.
In recent days, this movie carries more weight of asking the question, when do we go back? With current politics and the constant struggle NASA for funding now that the Cold War is long over, for now we will not even being returning to orbit. Those stories are for Russia and China now, we will just be sending our astronauts out to their launch pads with thumbs held out looking to hitch a ride to outer space. In the Shadow of the Moon reminds us of when there was a time that dreams were not somethings we shrugged our shoulders at and moved on, however they were challenges to not just show up a rival but better ourselves in the process. In the meantime, us dorks will have to settle for Star Trek and Battlestar…what their all canceled, SON OF A…
THE GREATS: A Great Film About The Greatest… Great, Great, Great.
WHEN WE WERE KINGS (1996/DVD/Netflix)
Very few documentaries can show the importance of one event, this is one of them. When We Were Kings tells the story of the Heavyweight Championship Fight between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman, otherwise know as the Rumble in the Jungle. The fight took place in Kinshasa, Zaire as part of publicity for President Mobutu. Produced/Directed/Edited by Leon Gast and Taylor Hackford, this documentary is a fascinating look into not only the background of a boxing match, but the lasting importance of a moment like this one.
The film was set to be released following the fight, to provide even more revenue, however the film rights were contested by the financiers of the project. This lasted until the early nineties when the matter was settled out of court. In that time, Ali had retired after several more fights, Foreman was in the midst of his second run at a heavyweight belt. People profiled in the movie like Don King had risen and were falling at the time of the movie. And the politics in Zaire had shown what type of leader Mobutu was. By forcing the film to wait over twenty years to be released, this movie won best documentary Oscar.
As mentioned above, the film profiles Don King in his first high profile promotion. It also displays the brief dominance and fall of George Foreman from the Heavyweight Championship. Mobutu and his changes to Zaire at the time are examined, and all through reflective interviews from those who were there. Most importantly, the film chronicles the moment that Ali became “The Greatest”.
This moment and film had such an influence, that this story is the basis of Michael Mann‘s Ali. Which is just a fictionalized account of the documentary that is no where near as good. When We Were Kings is not only one of the best sports documentaries of all time, but one of the best documentaries in general.
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING: Jaws Doesn’t Mean You Can Make That PooPoo
I am deviating off the course a bit this week. Since it is summer, and we are in the blockbuster season (a.k.a movies starring Shia LaBeouf). I would like to point out the short falls of a brilliant career.
Steven Spielberg (Anywhere movies are/ 1974-2011)
Mr. Spielberg is one of the more interesting moguls of current Hollywood. He is a man praised for his ability and imagination, but hated by more people than George Lucas. While, I personally love what he has done making movies over the years, I am not the blind faithful either. Mr. Spielberg has made plenty of bad movies to go along with his greats. Compared to other filmmakers he is a god that walks as man, but compared to other legends (i.e. Kubrick), he is still a hack. So in looking at Spielberg’s career, I believe it is notable to point the following out:
1: Of the top 50 grossing films, he has produced and/or directed five of them.
2; He is Steven Spielberg. He has an idea about a guy going to the toilet, and it is green lit by 8 am Eastern Time.
3: Dude made Jaws.
4: Owns his own production studio, and sold his distribution company a few years ago for more money than we will ever see (take that Zanuck).
With all of this going for him, this does not make Spielberg immune to lemons. Here we have broken down his movies into three categories:
Awesome: Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, Empire of the Sun, Raiders, Last Crusade, Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Catch Me If You Can.
Tolerable: Temple of Doom, Sugarland Express, Always, A.I., Amistad, Minority Report, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich.
Horrible: 1941, Lost World: Jurassic Park, Crystal Skull, and Hook.
As you can tell, he has an impressive career, but also some big failures critically, and box office wise. First off, he can never be forgiven for the last Indiana Jones movie. That ruined so many hopes and dreams of thirty-somethings, that it should be a crime. And I still marvel at the horribleness of Hook. I mean there is nothing redeeming about that movie at all. Nothing that even looking back on is funny. The only funny part is that when it came out when I was a kid, I loved the movie to the point of obsession. This just proves that kids have horrible taste in movies. The tolerable, at least have a good performance by one or more of the actors that saves an otherwise cheesy movie.
The fact is that we cannot sit here and say that Mr. Spielberg is a bad filmmaker. In fact, he is one of the greatest, but being a great means that you fail sometimes, at least in Hollywood. If Steve Spielberg can look back and say that I had three or four really bad movies, then he beats out nearly every other director in the good to bad ratio. Altman and Kubrick at least had one out of their few (Eyes Wide Shut and Dr. T and the Women). While he may not be every one’s favorite, it is clear that nearly everything he touches turns to gold. Ruth led for a long time in Home Runs and Strikeouts. For proof of this in the movies just look at Jaws and then the Transformer series.
BUT I WANTED TO SHOOT THE BAD GUY!!!
The city is L.A. The time is post WWII 1940′s. You are Cole Phelps. Your mission, clean up the whole damn town.
I know what you are asking, yes this is a video game, and yes, I am reviewing it as a movie. So get ready to have your mind blown. I am deviating from my normal path of movies before the last five years for a special reason. After completing the my first run through the game, I was overcome with the same feeling that I had after finishing watching a TV season on DVD. Which became the inspiration for this week’s column.
Some of us may remember reading what were called choose your own adventure novels. For those that are not familiar with these books, at certain points during the story, the reader is asked to make a decision for the main character and proceed to a corresponding page where you find out the outcome of your decision. These can lead to further reading, or as in my case, the immediate death of the main character. Several years ago, video game story lines began taking this approach. Allowing the gamer to make the choice for the character, and proceeding with the storyline instead of the the old follow the scrolling screen. In more recent years, games have become more complex to the point where the characters, and thus the gamers, are given moral choices. Choosing one or the other can affect the outcome of the game. In recent years, video game companies have been creating their own original plots with more intricate characters and various story lines to create whole new experiences for gamers, rivaling the creativity of Hollywood itself. Read more »
