Who would have thought that an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey set during the Great Depression and featuring blue grass music would be so damn entertaining. O Brother, Where Art Thou is the story of three chain gang escapees named Everett (George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro), and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) who are going after a treasure that Everett supposedly buried after a big bank heist. Along the way they get sidetracked numerous times by bedeviled blues man, sirens that turn them into toads, and fall into a gubernatorial election.
This film has a great story and a great film. The Coens are hit or miss for me usually, but this one is definitely a hit. The story is almost detached from its source material and feels like an Americana folk tale like Johnny Appleseed. It's a fun and quirky jaunt to ones goals that doesn't have a dull moment in the entire film.
The cinematography and direction are first rate. The sepia tones make it feel like an old, worn letter written in the 1930's. The film looks like it has gone on this journey, especially during the dust bowl scenes. It's not all glossy and fresh. It's old and worn like the country was during this era.
O Brother, Where Art Thou is one of those films that you just don't know about. It's premise doesn't sound like something most people would be into but once they digest they're in for a wonderful ride through Mississippi.
I should have been leery when I heard that the Australian Tourism Board helped finance this film. That's never a good sign. But the idea was promising and since it featured actual Australians I felt confident in a good, original film. That could never be further from the truth.
Australia is about an English "Lady" (Nicole Kidman) who travels to the continent thinking that her husband is fooling around at his cattle far. That could not be further from the truth- he's been murdered. With the help of "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman) she needs to drive the cattle into port so that she can save the ranch from the super cattle rancher that surrounds her property (played by Bryan Brown). Of course all of this is set against the major operations of the Japanese army in the South Pacific during World War II.
So what's my beef with Australia? I have to start by asking one question:
Have you ever seen Gone with the Wind?
This is the Australian version. Only this time there's no real direction.
True, the scenery is magnificent and Luhrman makes great use of his native topography, the film suffers from a stolen story and direction that is less than stellar. Everyone either over acts or underacts in this predictable film and it slowly becomes a parody of itself. The running time is also an issue and could have been easily resolved by condensing and combing both parts of the film. Just because your movie's long doesn't make it an epic.
At the end of the day I'm sure the film will achieve what it was financed to do- bring in a bunch of tourists who saw the film and wanted to visit the majestic Australian continent. Beyond that the film is basically fluff stuff to get to the National Geographic shots.
Al Pacino (along with Robert DeNiro) was probably the greatest actor of the 1970's. Long before he became the yelling guy that found his start in Scarface and was awarded for his noise in Scent of a Woman, Pacino was an actor's actor. He ended his reign in the 1970's with ... And Justice For All, a courtroom drama that wasn't a very stellar story but overcame its problems with great acting and direction.
Arthur Kirkland (Pacino) is an idealistic defense attorney that tends to grate against the established legal hierarchy in Baltimore. He soon finds himself juggling two cases where the defendants don't really belong in jail, a suicidal judge (jack Warden), a girlfriend (Christine Lahti) who is investigating ethics issues in the courts, and the judge (John Forsythe) he hates who asks him to defend him in a rape trial. That's a ton of stuff to juggle and as the movie progresses Arthur becomes more and more disgusted by the way the law has turned into a car lot mentality. "Let's make a deal! Let's make a deal!"
The story is just so-so. There are points that feel like pure manipulation and predictability is the standard. The thing about this film is that when you dissect it into its acting and directing you get more than what the total film really is. The acting from all levels is superb with that young Pacino leading the way. he was still a king in 1979. Jewison directs the film in a way that leaves room for comedy and a little bit of tension. He makes a bland story interesting.
... And Justice For All has been shafted for years as some of Pacino's lesser work, but when you look at it from a technical standpoint and forget about the many flaws of the script you see what a precision picture this film really is. A '70's classic that closed the decade with class.
Where Eagles Dare is about a group of Brits led by Major Smith (Richard Burton) and one American (Clint Eastwood) whose mission is to penetrate a fortress and bring back an American general who has the plans for the second wave of Allied European assault.
This is your basic, straightforward, 1960's WWII movie where they take an established star (Burton) and an up and comer (Eastwood) and send them on an impossible mission against thousands of Nazis. The problem with Where Eagles Dare is that by the time you get to any kind of pay off you really don't care. You'll be bored to tears by the never ending action sequences as characters swing back and forth between sets over and over again. The two hour forty minute running time could have easily been trimmed to make the film run a little easier, but that would still not make up for Burton's performance. Burton tries to be the star, yet Eastwood steals the stage, which isn't saying much because Eastwood is given very little to work with in his character. He's practically playing a plank. Burton, who was intoxicated through much of the shoot, pales in comparison.
There are a few good sequences throughout the film, but most of it drags on and on and never really reaches its destination. You'll need a score card for all the plot twists and a pillow for the inevitable nap.
Al Pacino attempted to save his career with the cop thriller Sea of Love which kicked the era of Pacino playing detectives into overdrive. Pacino plays Detective Frank Keller, a burnt out cop whose wife has left him leaving him lonely and drunk most of the time. His begins a homicide investigation into an almost execution style slaying in which the victim is found nude on the bed while a 45 rpm record of "Sea of Love" plays in the background. More murders pile up leading them to a personal column. Keller and his partner Sherman (John Goodman) go undercover by writing an ad and going on "dates" with numerous replies. It's on one of these "dates" that Keller meets Helen Cruger (Ellen Barkin) who develops a relationship with Keller and also slowly becomes the investigations chief suspect.
Sea of Love is your paint by numbers crime thriller. It's a predictable piece that, even though its characters are well defined and acted, tends to follow a treasure map to the prize at the end- the big reveal. The big reveal is satisfying and when you think about it actually makes sense (as opposed to other films of this ilk). Pacino gives us an OK performance. Certainly not his best, but it's been a lot worse. Barkin is great as the femme fatale, sexy with an attitude. John Goodman plays the sidekick without being the funnyman to Pacino's straight man. Overall this is a slightly above average film that delivers as promised just like the hundreds of other movies before and after it.
Some movies act like a microcosm of history. They take one little part of an enormous picture and use it to show how the little piece of the big picture affected each other. With Born on the Fourth of July Oliver Stone shows us how gung-ho America was going into the Vietnam war and how that conflict affected millions of lives by looking at one life in that war: Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise). The film opens with the youngster Kovic watching a Fourth of July parade in the 1950's that reeks of apple pie and Eisenhower. Kids played soldier in the woods to mimic their dads and uncles stories from Europe in the decade before. Jump ahead to Kovic near graduation and deciding to join the Marines. He is still gung ho and ready to die for his country in a war in Vietnam that will be "over before we get there". He goes to Vietnam where two tragic events change his life forever in which one of them is taking a NVA bullet that renders him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns to a different America, polarized by the war and finds himself slowly seeing that the war wasn't as honorable as he thought it was.
Tom Cruise finally got some respect from this film, proving that he could be more than the guy in his underwear dancing to Bob Seger or flying airplanes. By his return home he is a beaten man and it shows in his appearance. To me, this is Tom Cruise's first great performance. The remainder of the film from his return is mainly Stone showing Kovic's reaction to the turmoil that was the late '60's and the early '70's. The film shouts at us that this is how a million people reacted to it by looking at this one, lone man. It's a fascinating journey that Stone takes us on with ups and downs and the resentments and triumphs that go along with it. A terrific biopic.
Woody Allen travels to Barcelona with another examination of love with Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The story follows Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) and their summer trip in Barcelona. Vicky is working on her thesis and preparing for upcoming wedding. Cristina is there to sort herself again, a woman who isn't quite sure what her purpose is in life. Enter artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who turns their summer upside down. Both women end up in a relationship with him but their differing psyches cause them to react to the situation in different ways, especially when his ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) crazily enters the picture.
At the heart of this film is Woody Allen. Even though it's in Spain it is still reminicent of Allen's new York films. It doesn't sugarcoat love. It gives it a real face, even though at times it's obscured for hilaritys sake. The acting and direction are great, as expected. The only problem is that the film tends to drag in some places. It's more interesting with Cruz on screen than the two leads. When you look back at the film she is the spine of the film- every runs through her, even though she's barely in half of it.
Who would have thought that an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey set during the Great Depression and featuring blue grass music would be so damn entertaining. O Brother, Where Art Thou is the story of three chain gang escapees named Everett (George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro), and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) who are going after a treasure that Everett supposedly buried after a big bank heist. Along the way they get sidetracked numerous times by bedeviled blues man, sirens that turn them into toads, and fall into a gubernatorial election.
