film babble blog: JFK

Showing posts with label JFK. Show all posts

Friday, February 18, 2022

Film Babble Blog Fun Fact: Oliver Stone's JFK Flips The Script

The real Jim Garrison as Earl Warren in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991)

Oliver Stone’s 1991 conspiracy classic JFK was largely based on New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s 1988 book, On the Trail of the Assassins, that heavily criticized the Warren Commission’s handling of the assassination of JFK in the early to mid ‘60s. Garrison made a cameo in the film, JFK, as his adversary, the then Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren.

The real Earl Warren of the infamous Warren Report in the '60s

This means that in the film, Garrison’s Warren was criticizing Garrison, played by Kevin Costner; for criticizing the Warren Report. Got that?

There are other cases of actors or non-actors playing roles based on public figures that they oppose, but it’s getting late, and that’s all I got right now.

More later...

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Natalie Portman's Performance As JACKIE Is Second Oscar Worthy

Now playing at an indie art house theater near me:

JACKIE (Dir. Pablo Larraín, 2016)

The Kennedy assassination has been cinematically examined many, many times before, but Pablo Larraín’s JACKIE looks at what’s considered one of the most tragic and world-changing events in American history from the most intimate angle.

That would be through the eyes of JFK’s First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, who was sitting next to her husband in the Presidential Limousine on that fatal day in Dallas when he was slain by a sniper.

Written by Noah Oppenheim (THE MAZE RUNNER, ALLEGIANT), the film concerns Mrs. Kennedy, beautifully portrayed by Natalie Portman, being interviewed by noted journalist Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) for Life Magazine at the Kennedy’s family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts shortly after the death of her husband in late ’63.

Through flashbacks we are taken through Jackie’s recollections of the aftermath of the assassination, and the making of her 1962 CBS television special A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy (Mad Men fans may remember the episode in which several characters were watching this special).

The tone between the former First Lady and writer White is tense as she reminds him that she’ll be editing their conversation in case she doesn’t say exactly what she means, and she says curtly, right after taking a puff on her cigarette, that she doesn’t smoke.

Peter Sarsgaard puts in a solid turn as JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy, who despite being in a state of shock, does what he can to assist his sister-in-law with the funeral arrangements while newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson (John Carroll Lynch) prepares to move into the White House. Johnson’s staff includes future Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti, played with assholish arrogance by Max Casella.

Former indie it girl Greta Gerwig is on helpful hand as Mrs. Kennedy’s Social Secretary, Richard E. Grant (WITHNAIL & I) plays abstract painter/Kennedy confidante William Walton, and JFK dead ringer Caspar Phillipson puts in brief appearances as the iconic Commander in Chief in flashbacks. But perhaps the best supporting role here is that of John Hurt as Father Richard McSorley, who Jackie confers with about her despair. Hurt is somehow comforting when he tells Mrs. Kennedy that there are no answers, and that every soul alive wonders whether this is all that there is. Not your typical “everything happens for a reason” b.s. for sure.

Portman’s Jackie may not be picture perfect, but she’s got the voice and mannerisms down and almost immediately I was buying her in the role. She obviously studied the White House tour film, and probably just about every recording of the legendary woman that she could find, but her performance comes off as a lot more than a studied impression. It’s a lived-in piece of fine acting that captures the emotional rollercoaster of mourning.

The feelings of grief, confusion, anger, and loss of faith that Jackie wrestles with all swirl together in such moments as when Lady Bird Johnson (Beth Grant) suggests that Jackie should change out of her blood-covered pink Chanel suit and pillbox hat on the plane ride back from Dallas as there will be press and cameras ready for her when they land, and Mrs. Kennedy sternly remarks: “There were wanted posters everywhere for Jack - with Jack’s face on them. Let them see what they’ve done.”

When Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswalt, is shot by Jack Ruby on live TV, RFK decides to shield Jackie from the news, but when she learns about it she still isn’t deterred from arranging the elaborate funeral procession in which she walked in black veil slowly behind her husband’s casket for eight-blocks through Washington D.C. to St. Matthews Cathedral.

While much of the film is speculation about Jackie’s state of mind, and, like with any dramatization of history there are bound to be inaccuracies, Larraín and Portman’s depiction of this elegant lady feels authentically faithful to its subject. I was unaware that the entire notion of JFK’s being likened to Camelot originated from Mrs. Kennedy’s interview with White.

Jackie recalls that her husband used to play side two of the Original Cast Recording of Camelot before turning in at night, and that he loved the lyric “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”

So as the film movingly reveals, Jackie Kennedy herself polished the legend of JFK’s era that still shines today. Here, Portman channels that shine into a powerful and poignant performance that is absolutely second Oscar worthy (she had previously won for BLACK SWAN).

JACKIE, one of two historical dramas that director Larraín has made this year (the other being NERUDA about Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda), may be an overly respectful and romanticized portrait (but not too romanticized that we don’t get a graphic assassination scene, gory head wound and all), but it feels profoundly righteous as it completely earns its gravitas. It’s a gripping experience to see one of our countries most beloved political figures being embodied by one of the most beloved actresses of our day in this haunting tale about finding grace in the face of tragedy.

This film also stirs up emotions about dealing with the difficult transition involving power changing hands next month. The Obama administration was as close to Kennedy’s Camelot as I fear we’re going get again in my lifetime. Such a movie as this is a must see in these scary times as it reminds us that America has gotten through dark times before and will again. This movie makes me want to believe that, despite the scariness of what’s on the rapidly approaching horizon, Camelot lives!

More later...

Monday, October 13, 2014

KILL THE MESSENGER: The Film Babble Blog Review

KILL THE MESSENGER

(Dir. Michael Cuesta, 2014)

This thriller/biopic, now playing at an indie art house near me, comes off a bit like JFK Jr., and I’m not talking about John-John, the late offspring of John F. Kennedy.

KILL THE MESSENGER plays felt like a lesser offspring of Oliver Stone’s 1991 classic of political paranoia in its depiction of a story based on real events involving a truth-seeking everyman uncovering a vast conspiracy involving a powerful governmental agency that could squash him like a bug.

Here, a scruffy mustached Jeremy Renner passionately portrays investigative reporter Gary Webb, who caused quite a stir in the mid 90’s when he exposed the CIA’s involvement with the U.S. crack epidemic in a series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News.

The first half of the film, scripted by Peter Landesman (PARKLAND) has Renner's Webb following leads about drug trafficking through interviews with Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire) as infamous '80s LA drug kingpin “Freeway” Rick Ross, Tim Blake Nelson as Ross's lawyer, Robert Patrick as an accused drug dealer whose property was seized by the feds, and Andy Garcia as an imprisoned drug lord who Renner travels to Nicaragua to speak to.

The second half deals with Webb publishing his story and initially being hailed as a hero, on both the homefront with his wife Rosemarie DeWitt and kids, and at the office with his editors (Oliver Platt and North Carolina native Mary Elizabeth Winstead), but then getting investigated and gradually discredited by the CIA.

These sequences of Webb's decline, involving his estrangement from his family and being holed up in a sleazy hotel room with its walls lined with photos, newspaper articles, strings-tying-suspects-together, etc, (you know, like crazy yet righteous people like Carrie from Homeland do?), are tedious in their over familiarity.

The case that the CIA worked with Central American drug dealers with profits from cocaine sales in the U.S. used to arm the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua is a compelling one, but we're never given more of a breakdown of the mechanics that were at play. We, like Renner, are just supposed to take folks' words on these things, but a scene that intensely takes us into the operation would've been nice. I don't feel like I learned anything more about the inside workings than I did seeing the trailer.

Director Cuesta, who’s produced and directed episodes of Homeland, Dexter, and Six Feet Under, gets a good gritty mood going, but the power of the material dims as it tracks Webb’s decline. It sort of peters out.

And, again, like JFK, it has a scroll of text at the end that tells us that this guy was right about everything all along.

On the surface, this adaptation of Nick Schou’s 2006 book “Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Web” and Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series of articles, is a solidly structured film with a powerful lead performance by Renner (possibly his best to date), but its overdone conspiracy thriller framework renders it into just a cinematic footnote to what really went down.

At least this'll have moviegoers looking up stuff on the real guy online. Maybe there they'll actually learn something.

More later...

Friday, April 04, 2014

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2014: Day One

The first day of the 17th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in downtown Durham, N.C. started out overcast, but the sun made its way through the clouds in the mid-afternoon. But why the hell does that matter when I and many others were spending all day (and the next three) inside dark screening rooms at the Carolina Theatre and the Marriott City Center?

This year's roster boasts 48 new documentaries, 23 Invited Program films including 13 World Premieres and 11 North American Premieres, and the World Premiere of Doug Block's 112 WEDDINGS, which screened as the Opening Night Film earlier this evening. More on that later.

This morning, I attended my first film of the festival: Rory Kennedy's LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM, concerning the complicated process of evacuating a war-torn Saigon before Northern Vietnamese forces take over.

The bulk of the doc is constructed from an amazing amount of great grainy archival footage, along with photos, period TV news reports, and home video. Interspersed throughout are interviews with members of the military, press, and other key participants, most recounting the immense moral dilemma of whether to obey White House orders and only evacuate Americans, or whether to save as many Vietnamese lives as possible. LAST DAYS is more gripping than most recent thrillers, and there's a lot of heart pouring through the remembrances.

Now onto some short docs starting with Maurice O'Brien's BUFFALO DREAMS, a 15-minute film about Scott Shand, Scotland's only commercial bison farmer. Beautifully shot by Director of Photography Fraser Rice, the piece conveys how times are tough for the herder as weather conditions and financial failings threaten his livelihood. Despite its brief length, O'Brien's doc certainly makes an impression.

Next up, I saw Sandy McLeod's SEEDS OF TIME, concerning agriculturalist Cary Fowler, the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, aka “The Doomsday Vault.” It’s an installation located in Svalbard, Norway, that contains back-up copies of seeds of all the world's crops. This is because, as Fowler passionately puts it, the threat of climate change is “the single greatest challenge that agriculture has ever faced.” I thought I might be bored by a doc about a guy who's all about seeds, but the noble narrative of Fowler's mission, entertainingly enhanced with animated sequences by Sam Marlow, made for a thoroughly engrossing 76 minutes.

A couple of short works paired together followed beginning with Scott Calonico's THE SILLY BASTARD NEXT TO THE BED. The title of the 9 minute film comes from something JFK said on the phone to an air force general on the phone in 1963. Using footage, photos, real audio, and interview snippets, Calonico tops his similar style LBJ short that screened at last year's Full Frame.

Also good in the 'let's laugh at history' vein was the following feature: Brenda Goodman's SEX (ED) THE MOVIE, another doc clocking in under 80 minutes. It's a half history/half "best of" of American sex education films, many of which have been excerpted in other documentaries, and endlessly parodied by the likes of SNL and The Simpsons. Definitely the most purely fun doc of the day, and when it came to breaking down how different gender agendas were portrayed to schoolchildren of the past, I learned as much as I laughed.

Lastly, the Opening Night film: Doug Block's 112 WEDDINGS. I've not seen any of Block's previous docs (51 BURCH STREET, THE KIDS GROW UP), but the filmmaker/part-time wedding videographer's work here reminds me of Ross McElwee's (SHERMAN'S MARCH, BRIGHT LEAVES) stuff in its soft-spoken charm. Block looks back over the footage of the 20 years of ceremonies he's filmed, and catches up with with some of the couples now to see if they lived happily ever after or not. It's very amusing (sometimes sad) to see these cases of then and now, all of which is summed up by one interviewees' statement that “happy weddings are a dime-a-dozen, happy marriages are rarer.” This doc got the biggest laughs of the day, though SEX (ED) came mighty close in that regard.

Alright, that was a fine first day of Full Frame. Check back tomorrow for coverage of Day Two, and for live tweeting of the event follow @filmbabble.

More later...

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/11/14

The Coen brothers’ excellently icy INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (my #2 favorite film of 2013) is today’s most notable release on home video, in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions that only have one Special Feature: the 43-minute behind-the-scenes “Inside INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS” mini-doc that’s been showing on HBO the last few months. It’s good stuff with interviews with Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, T. Bone Burnett, and the filmmakers, but some other bonus material would’ve been nice. However, fans who've collected the Coen bros. work on DVD/Blu ray will know this is par for the course.

Next up, Brian Percival’s THE BOOK THIEF, a World War II drama that I didn't care for when it was released last December, is also available today in 1-disc Blu ray/DVD editions. The film, concerning Sophie Nélisse bonding with her kindly German foster parent Geoffrey Rush over stealing books from being burned by the Nazis, has about 40 minutes of Extras including the half hour doc “A Hidden Truth: Bringing THE BOOK THIEF to Life,” almost 7 minutes of Deleted Scenes, and the Theatrical Trailer.

Despite its stellar cast including Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Casey Affleck, and Forest Whitaker, OUT OF THE FURNACE, Scott Cooper's followup to his acclaimed country music drama CRAZY HEART (you know, the movie that won Jeff Bridges an Oscar), was largely ignored last fall. Now its out on Blu ray and DVD so it can be ignored all over again. No, just kidding - it's a not bad Rust Belt drama thriller about Bale as an ex-con whose younger brother (Affleck) goes missing after taking part in an illegal bare-knuckle fight run by the beyond evil Harrelson. It may not be as good as any random episode of True Detective, but it's not a waste of time either. Special Features: Four featurettes (“Inspiration,” “Scott Cooper,” “Crafting the Fight Scenes,” “The Music of OUT OF THE FURNACE,” and the Theatrical Trailer.

Nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (it lost to THE GREAT BEAUTY) Felix van Groeningen's THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN also hits home video this week, but only on DVD. It's a tunefully sad drama which examines the relationship of tattoo artist Veerle Baetens and banjo player Johan Heldenbergh who fall in bluegrass soaked love, but that's put to the test by their terminally ill 6-year old daughter (Nell Cattrysse). Only one Special Feature is included: Interview with Director Felix van Groeningen.

Do we really need another documentary about the JFK assassination? Not really, but Malcolm McDonald's JFK: THE SMOKING GUN, releasing today only on DVD, is at least about one of the lesser known theories concerning the 50-year old event. It puts forth that the fatal head shot didn't come from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll; it came from one of the cars full of Secret Service agents following Kennedy.

With testimony from witnesses, that, of course, were ignored by the Warren Commission, and computer graphic breakdowns, McDonald's thriller-emulating doc isn't without points of major plausibility, but its way too padded with reenacted bits with stiff actors playing out scenes that have already been recreated dozens, if not hundreds of times before - i.e. the doctor unsuccessfully trying to stop the Secret Service from taking JFK's body from Parkland Hospital, the overcrowded Bethesda operating room, etc. Bonus Features: Forensic Evidence Gallery, Behind the Scenes Clips.

Also out today: Gary Fleder's action thriller HOMEFRONT, starring James Franco, Jason Stratham, Winona Ryder, and Kate Bosworth; Takeshi Kitano's Japanese mafia thriller BEYOND OUTRAGE; Victor Salva's latest horror flick DARK HOUSE; Fabien Constant's documentary MADEMOISELLE C, about former Vogue Paris editor-in-chief and fashion stylist Carine Roitfeld; and the Criterion Collection release of David Gordon Green’s 2000 directorial debut GEORGE WASHINGTON.

More later...

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Cinematic Legacy Of The Kennedy Assassination

As today is the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, Film Babble Blog looks back at the cinematic legacy of the history changing event:

I’m 44 years old, so I wasn’t alive when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. But since the events of that tragic day in November of 1963, 50 years ago today, have been so thoroughly covered from every conceivable angle in countless movies, TV shows, and documentaries, not only do I feel like I was alive then; I feel as if I had actually been there smack dab in the middle of Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on that fateful date with a better view of the historic hit than Abraham Zapruder had.

Oliver Stone’s 1991 conspiracy theory epic, JFK is largely to blame for planting such vivid yet false memories in my psyche, but it was an obscure film that I saw on television when I was a kid that laid the foundation. It was David Miller’s 1973 political thriller EXECUTIVE ACTION, the first film * produced about the assassination.

Told from the point of view of the evil men in power, including Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan as shadowy co-conspirators who plot Kennedy’s killing right down to the last detail, the low budget docudrama postulates many of the same theories, mostly having to do with alleged murderer Lee Harvey Oswald being a patsy, that Stone would later do up with higher production values in JFK.

EXECUTIVE ACTION largely drew upon the work of New York Legislator Mark Lane, whose 1966 bestselling book “Rush To Judgement” heavily criticized the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Oswald acted alone. Throughout the ‘70s, the consensus that something much more sinister was up than what the public record allowed, was evident all over pop culture.

Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) defined the label “paranoid thriller” (see also Sydney Pollack's THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, 1975) by building upon assassination theories with a premise about an evil company (the Parallax Corporation) that's behind pivotal political plots. Warren Beatty plays a reporter that tries to unravel the conspiracy, but ends up being unwittingly trained to be an assassin himself. A scene in which Beatty is brainwashed by a recruiting film, satirized in Ben Stiller's ZOOLANDER, gives a good idea of the movie's sinister tone:

In Woody Allen’s Oscar winning 1977 comedy ANNIE HALL, comedian protagonist Alvy Singer obsesses over the possibility that there was a second assassin to the point that a girl he briefly dates (Carol Kane) states bluntly the he’s “using this conspiracy theory as an excuse to avoid having sex” with her. This surely received a lot of laughter from hip in-the-know audiences at the time, since post Watergate distrust of the government was at an all time high.

That same year, John Landis' KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, the first film to feature the comedy stylings of ZAZ (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) of AIRPLANE! and NAKED GUN fame included a commercial parody for a fictitious Parker Brothers' board game called Scot Free. A four member family is seated around a kitchen table playing the game, made up of a miniature mock-up of Dealey Plaza, as a voice-over announcer sets up the premise: “Your team has just assassinated the President - can you get away scot free? Shake the dice and see...”

A few years later, a surreal and somewhat comical take on the cluster of conspiracy theories came along: William Richert’s WINTER KILLS (1979), starring Jeff Bridges as Nick Keegan, the brother of a slain President, of course, the victim of secret forces. The controversial film didn’t get much of a theatrical run, VHS copies of it were rare, and its out of print now on DVD (a 2003 edition of it can be found on eBay) so it’s a bit of obscure title that few people have heard of, but it’s well worth seeking out.

Bridges’ very “un-Dude” performance as the Robert Kennedy-ish hero neatly heads an impressive cast including John Huston, Anthony Perkins, Sterling Hayden, Elizabeth Taylor and Toshirô Mifune in an outlandish scenario yet again involving evil men pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The usual suspects of mobsters, the military, and power hungry oil barons are trotted out, as Bridges investigates the wide-ranging suspected cover-up.

Apart from the TV miniseries “Kennedy” starring Martin Sheen, and various PBS documentaries, the ‘80s were relatively free of movie treatments of the mysteries surrounding the Kennedy assassination, but it’s funny to note that in Ron Shelton's BULL DURHAM (1988), Kevin Costner’s character Crash Davis delivered a speech to Susan Sarandon listing his core beliefs, and one of them was “I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

A few years later, Costner would be speechifying the complete opposite at length as New Orleans investigator Jim Garrison in Stone’s before mentioned opus, which recently played at the Crossroads in Cary to mark the anniversary.

Stone’s movie is the biggest production to date dealing with the events of November 22nd, 1963, and definitely the most star studded. The film is largely accountable for the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon parlor game because Bacon appears alongside a cast that features seemingly everybody who was working in the early ‘90s including such A-listers as Tommy Lee Jones, John Candy, Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Joe Pesci, Gary Oldman, Michael Rooker, Donald Sutherland, Ed Asner, Sissy Spacek, and so on.

These folks help distill the information Stone displays down to further his theory, informed by decades of other’s research and speculation, that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy that stretched through the military industrial complex, involving the CIA, and anti-Castro Cuban nationals. Newsweek welcomed Stone’s movie with a cover story that had the headline: “The Twisted Truth of ‘JFK’: Why Oliver Stone’s New Movie Can’t Be Trusted,” yet in the same issue had a very favorable review of the film by David Ansen. That sums it up neatly: JFK is an entertaining and thought provoking movie, but it’s just a movie, it shouldn’t be taken as historical record.

In the years after JFK, Danny Aiello played Jack Ruby, the Texas nightclub owner who shot and killed Oswald in RUBY, Clint Eastwood played a Secret Service agent who was in Kennedy’s detail that day in Dallas in IN THE LINE OF FIRE (1993), and the long running Fox television program The X-Files revealed that its chief antagonist, the Smoking Man played by William B. Davis, was the real gunman who shot the President from inside a sewer drain along the route of the motorcade.

Yep, JFK’s tagline, “The story that won’t go away,” really is truth in advertising.

More recently, Peter Landesman’s drama PARKLAND, concerning the aftermath of the assassination with another cast of big names (Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, Zac Effron) partly set at Parkland Hospital where Kennedy’s body was taken after the shooting, played briefly last September at the Raleigh Grande. The film effectively captures the chaos and confusion in the air on Nov. 22, 1963 and the days after, but it’s not concerned at all with conspiracy, and it doesn’t really add anything to the cinematic history of the world-changing events of that date.

Neither does the National Geographic Channel’s telefilm adaptation of Bill O’ Reilly’s best seller “Killing Kennedy,” which premiered earlier this month, though there’s some fun to be had watching Rob Lowe take on the President’s Boston accent. O’Reilly isn’t a fan of conspiracy theories so it’s a pretty dry run through the facts.

We may never get the answers to the questions about what really went down that day, but one thing’s for sure: whether it’s another feature film, a new documentary (there are tons of them on cable these days), or an episode of a ‘60s-set TV show (Mad Men did their Nov. 22, 1963 episode in their third season), we are destined to relive the JFK assassination again and again until we shuffle off this mortal coil.

* Mel Stuart's 1964 documentary FOUR DAYS IN NOVEMBER was technically the first film produced about the assassination, but this essay concerns the dramatizations of the event.

More later...

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

New Releases On Blu ray & DVD: 11/12/13

Along with many other critics, I was super disappointed by last summer’s Superman reboot, Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL as you can read in my review. The Christopher Nolan-produced film, in which Henry Cavill steps into the famous red boots for the first time, was still super successful, being the highest-grossing Superman movie ever, so it’s now available in several different Special Edition sets.

The most expensive package, at just under $50, is the Limited Collector's Edition (pictured above), which features the theatrical version of the film in 3D hi-definition, hi-definition and standard definition, and also includes a limited release metal “S” glyph with acrylic glass stand. Around the same price is the Collectible Figurine Limited Edition Gift Set (Blu-ray + DVD + Ultra Violet Combo). For folks on tighter budgets, there’s the 3-disc Blu ray + DVD + UltraViolet Combo Pack, and 2-disc Blu ray and DVD editions.

Special Features: “Journey of Discovery: Creating MAN OF STEEL” (the full length film with interviews and visual commentary inserted), a couple of nearly hour-hour long making-of documentaries (“Strong Characters, Legendary Roles,” “All Out Action”), a 6-minute featurette “Krypton Decoded,” a 2-minute Superman 75th Anniversary Short, a History Channel-style featurette called “Planet Krypton,” and, for some reason, the “New Zealand: Home of Middle Earth” featurette from THE HOBBIT Blu-ray (?).

Another summer hit, David Soren’s TURBO from DreamWorks Animation, also releases this week. The family favorite, featuring a snail (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who dreams of winning the Indy 500, is out in a 2-disc 3D and non 3D Blu ray/DVD Combo Packs and a single disc DVD edition. Special Features include a bunch of short featurettes, music videos, a deleted scene, “The Race – Storyboard Sequence,” segments with Head of Character Animation Dave Burgess showing viewers how to draw the film’s lead characters, and an interactive featurette called “Shell Creator.”

One of the year’s best documentaries, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s BLACKFISH, hits home video today in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. Read my review: “Anti-Sea World Doc BLACKFISH Makes A Convincing Case” (8/19/13). Special Features: Commentary with Director Cowperthwaite and Producer Manny Oteyza, a bunch of featurettes full of Orca facts, “A Note From Gabriela Cowperthwaite,” and the theatrical trailer.

I had a pretty lukewarm reaction to Noah Baumbach’s vehicle for his girlfriend Greta Gerwig, FRANCES HA, when I saw it last June (my review: “FRANCES HA: She’s Undateable & Her Film Is Just Barely Watchable”), but that was very much an minority opinion as its 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and its addition to the Criterion Collection today proves. Supplements on the Director-Approved Special Edition include conversational featurettes with Peter Bogdonich speaking with Baunbach, and filmmaker Sarah Polley with Gerwig, a conversation about the look of the film between Baumbach, director of photography Sam Levy, and creative director Pascal Dangin, and a booklet featuring an essay by playwright Annie Baker.

Also out today: David Gordon Green’s comic drama PRINCE AVALANCHE, starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch; Christian Petzold’s 2012 German drama BARBARA; Diablo Cody’s drama comedy PARADISE, starring Julianne Hough, Russell Brand, and Octavia Spencer; James Cullingham’s music biodoc IN SEARCH OF BLIND JOE DEATH: THE SAGA OF JOHN FAHEY (DVD only); and another notable music documentary: Laura Archibald’s GREENWICH VILLAGE: MUSIC THAT DEFINED A GENERATION.

On the older films out today front, there’s the 25th Anniversary Edition of Katsuhiro Ohtomo’s AKIRA, Oliver Stone’s JFK gets all done up in a 50 Year Commemorative Ultimate Collector’s Edition, the Criterion Collection presents the Blu ray debut of Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 masterpiece CITY LIGHTS, and Kino Classics puts out their 2-Disc Deluxe Remastered Edition of F.W. Murnau’s NOSFERATU (1922).

Finally, Dexter: The Complete Final Season, containing maybe the worst finale episode of any series ever, drops today on Blu ray and DVD. The entire run of the popular Showtime series, starring Michael C. Hall as a Miami-based blood splatter analyst/serial killer of other serial killers, is also available now in Dexter: The Complete Series Collection. The 25-disc Blu ray, and 33-disc DVD boxes are neatly packaged to recreate Dexter’s blood sides collection.

More later…

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

FROST/NIXON: The Film Babble Blog Review

FROST/NIXON (Dir. Ron Howard, 2008)

Ron Howard’s adaptation of the Tony Award winning stage play moves briskly as it opens with a montage of early '70s archival footage and period news reports of the Watergate break-in leading to the first impeachment of a sitting President in history.

Seemingly derived from the sweeping intro to Oliver Stone’s JFK, this capsule of video and sound bites gives newcomers to this material ample back story while plunging those who lived through it back into the feeling and tone of the era.

Once that is established, it is summer 1977 - Ex President Richard M. Nixon, disgraced and in self imposed exile in his beach house in San Clemente, CA is approached by ambitious British broadcaster David Frost to make an expensive deal for a series of extended television interviews.

Nixon, portrayed grandly by Frank Langella, sees this as an opportunity to redeem himself in the public’s eye while Frost, given a quirky but still suave demeanor by Michael Sheen, sees opportunity of a different sort – a career breaking, star making spectacle sort, to be exact. Though it contains nothing but men (and a few women) talking in hotel rooms, cars, and the living room set where the interviews were conducted, this is compelling stuff from start to finish.

Paced like many boxing movies with back and forth training sessions up to the final round in the ring, the momentum never lags. Frost struggles to finance the endeavor, insulted by those who blow him off as a “talk show host” while still allowing time for a new love interest – Rebecca Hall (Vicky from Woody Allen’s VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA) who doesn’t have much to do except sit on the sidelines looking pretty.

Frost’s team includes Sam Rockwell as passionate anti-Nixon author James Reston Jr. and Oliver Platt as journalist Bob Zelnick who together provide considerable comic relief. Nixon’s corner is dominated by Kevin Bacon as Nixon’s fiercely over-protective post Presidential chief of staff, who both turns in one of his best performances while narrowing down the number degrees of separation between him and everybody else in show business.

“Even Richard Nixon has got soul”, Neil Young once sang and the final third of this movie seems to suggest just that. First presented as a shady money grubbing player disguised as an elder statesman, Langella’s Nixon betrays hidden levels of dark conscience in his home stretch showdown with Frost which would make even Hunter S. Thompson tear up for the man.

If Langella isn’t nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award I’ll be royally shocked.

Howard thankfully retained both Langella and Sheen, from the 2006 stage play written by Peter Morgan. Sheen, who had played British Prime Minister Tony Blair in THE QUEEN (also written by Morgan), has the definitive “deer caught in the headlights” look when first sitting down with Tricky Dick but over time assumes the prize fighter Rocky’s “eye of the tiger” – to bring the boxing analogy back into it.

FROST/NIXON is a tightly focused and deeply pleasing film, certainly one of Ron Howard’s best as director. Whether or not Nixon was redeemable or remorseful doesn’t matter; layered reflective takes on history like this make for the best art regardless (see Shakespeare).

More later...

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Alphabet Meme

I was tagged by Ibetolis from the great blog Film For The Soul to take part in the Alphabet Meme that has been going around started by Fletch at Blog Cabbins. The basic idea is pretty self explanatory but rules are below anyways.

Here goes:

A is for ABOUT SCHMIDT (Dir. Alexander Payne, 2002)

Just watched it again a few days ago and still love every second. A career best for Jack Nicholson.
B is for BARFLY (Dir. Barbet Schroeder. 1987)

C is for COOLER, THE (Dir. Wayne Kramer, 2003)

D is for DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Dir. Albert Brooks, 1991)

E is for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)

F is for FLETCH (Dir. Michael Ritchie, 1985)

G is for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (James Foley, 1992)

Speaking of a career best, in an incredible cameo Alec Baldwin offers an “alphabet meme” of his own.

H is for HEAD (Dir. Bob Rafelson, 1968)

I is for I’M NOT THERE (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2007)

J is for JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone, 1991)

K is for KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMEN (Dir. Hectoer Babenco, 1985)

L is for LADY FROM SHANGHAI, THE (Dir. Orson Welles, 1947)

M is for MAGNOLIA (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

N is for NETWORK (Dir. Sydney Lumet, 1976)

“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!” - Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) Guess I'm all about the powerful cameo speeches, huh?

O is for OH, GOD! (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1977) See 10 Reasons The 30th Anniversary Of OH, GOD! Should Be Celebrated (Oct. 3, 2007)

P is for PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (Dir. Woody Allen, 1986)

Q is for QUADROPHENIA (Dir. Franc Roddam, 1979)

R is for ROMEO IS BLEEDING (Dir. Peter Medak, 1993)

S is for SMOKE (Dir. Wayne Wang, 1995)

T is for TIME AFTER TIME (Dir. Nicholas Meyer, 1979)

U is for UNREASONABLE MAN, AN (Dirs. Henriette Mantel & Steve Skrovan, 2006)

V is for VISITOR, THE (Dir. Thomas McCarthy, 2008) See A Marvelous Minimalist Movie Before The Blockbuster Bombast Begins May 2, 2008).

W is for WAKING LIFE (Dir. Richard Linklater, 2001)X is for X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (Dir. Rob Bowman, 1998) Actually this is far from one of my favorite movies, but as X movies go I like it better than X-MEN and XXX.

Y is for YELLOW SUBMARINE (Dir. George Dunning, 1968)

Z is for ZOOLANDER (Dir. Ben Stiller, 2001)

That's right. Take that ZELIG! Now here are the rules for this “Alphabet Meme”:

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord Of The Rings series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

So, these are the folks I'm tagging: TheSophomoreCritic Sara Forbes at SARANOMICS Dean Treadway at filmicability ::: The Playlist ::: * TLA ATTACKS THE MOVIES Moviedearest Hope they play along. * D'oh! ::: The Playlist ::: already made their meme - check it out here.

More later...