Review: Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road (2008)
starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn
dir. Sam Mendes


I once had really high hopes for Sam Mendes. American Beauty (1999) has been maligned over recent years and I don't think it is entirely fair. It has problems, but it is also a bristling narrative that has ideas and themes about the roles we are suppose to play in society and how playing those roles can be extremely destructive to the human soul. With the help of Alan Ball's script, it took those ideas and made them quirky and bizarre and overall an emotionally charged experience.

Since then, Mendes seems to have spun down. His narratives have become extremely straightforward and the themes seem to ride along the surface and slap us across the face. Maybe it's the theater director in him, you have to make sure the people in the cheap seats know what's going on.

Revolutionary Road is another example of what happens if you can't live life the way you want to. It's set in the repressed fifties and plays out like a Douglas Sirk film missing all of the subtext. It's a solid drama, but doesn't really carry any emotional punch due to its lack of subtlety. Yes, we get it, DiCaprio is stifled by his lifestyle but can't move past it. Yes, Winslet is an incredibly liberated woman who knows that happiness doesn't depend on the house looking perfect or the roast being prepared properly. Oh, in case we don't get it, they send in Michael Shannon as a "crazy" guy to reiterate.

Shannon is quite good , by the way, for what he's given, as is most of the supporting cast. Winslet shows she's still a class act actress, if there has ever been any doubt. I have problems with DiCaprio at times. He's an odd duck to me because sometimes I feel like he totally inhabits the character and sometimes he plays it like , "This is how an actor acts!" I don't feel that way just about this film, but large portions of his work. I think he should stay away from period pieces in general, it's where he seems weakest, but that's just me.

Part of me wonders if I would have appreciated this film better if the TV show Mad Men didn't exist. It covers a lot of the same themes but keeps them realistic and under the surface instead of blurting it with melodramatic gusto. It gets under the skin instead of molesting you like Revolutionary Road tends to. Did I mind it? No. Will I watch it again? No, but it's a pretty dry season and for some of the energy that is Kate Winslet, it's worth checking out a matinee. Just be prepared for feeling down the rest of the day.

6.8 out of 10

On The Boulevard: Samuel Z. Arkoff

You know those stereotypes of cigar chomping movie moguls? Well, that's Sam Arkoff.

Arkoff was originally a lawyer and a shark at that. He decided to get into the movie biz and teamed up with James H. Nicholson and a very young gent by the name of Roger Corman. For those who don't know who Roger Corman is, he's the guy who helped turn b-grade movies into an empire and through that launched some of the greatest talent working in movies today. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Sayles, Ron Howard are just a few of the heavy hitters. But this story is about Arkoff.

Arkoff and Corman formed what would become American International Pictures (AIP) and off to the races they went. They'd start off with some very successful adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe's works then move into helping define the beach party film and motorcycle gang extravaganza. Arkoff was one of the kings of exploitation and produced over 125 movies in his life, 18 with Corman. The company would fold in the early eighties, but Arkoff has helped leave a mark in low budget cinematic history.

Arkoff believed his success was due to what he humbly coined, "The Arkoff Formula". It defined what makes a sucessful low budget movie.

Here's the recipe:

1. Action (exciting, entertaining drama)
2. Revolution (novel or controversial themes and ideas)
3. Killing (a modicum of violence)
4. Oratory (notable dialogue and speeches)
5. Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
6. Fornication (sex appeal, for young adults)

With that kind of mind, how could you not have a star?

The Eclectic Choice: Dead End Drive-In

Dead End Drive-In (1986)
dir. Brian Trenchard-Smith

This is a great one. In the near future (now distant past) resources have dwindled and society has crumbled. It's kind of like an urban Mad Max society where car gangs rule and just run around causing fatalities and generally fucking with people.

Our hero Ned takes a fine lady tothe Drive In and they end up being stuck there. The revelation dawns on Ned that the government is basically creating concentration camps for all of these juvenile roustabouts and keep them entertained with junk food, drugs and exploitation films. Not bad life, but Ned wants out and begins schemeing his escape.

Incredibly well shot, this is a gem. It's funny and well paced and delivers messages about society and the vegetative state of todays (yesterdays?) youth. The movie is an extreme example of 80's teen cinema, but has all of the good stuff and very little of the bad. It's campy explotaition and knows it, which makes it that much more fun to watch.

This is a must own for anyone who enjoys watching a good time on screen.

Review: Benjamin Button

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008)
starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond, Faune A. Chambers, Jason Flemyng
dir. David Fincher


I had a debate with a friend a little while back about how far David Fincher would have to bend to receive attention from the Academy and get an Oscar. I felt that he'd have to make a film that is very un-Fincher to get any notice and my friend said that it is being Fincher that will get him the award.

I think I was right. As of now, a push is going for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to be nominated and take the best picture of the year. Personally I think it will because it already won it several years ago when it was titled Forrest Gump (1994). However much I tried to put it out of my mind as I was watching it, the same thought kept creeping into my skull, "It's Forrest Gump!" This is not much of a shocker since it was written by Gump scribe Eric Roth, I just expected more from these guys.

I don't mean it as any kind of slam, I actually do enjoy Forrest Gump for what it is and I do enjoy this film for some of it's ideas. But it's not a David Fincher film as far as thematics go and to me it becomes disappointing because of that.

To me Fincher is the new and improved William Friedkin. He explores themes of aberration and obsession and that is what I want from him. So witnessing a film that deals with seizing life and how you're never too old to start living just seems like an awkward choice, very Zemeckis, and I don't really think Fincher buys into it entirely. The film never gets sappy enough for there to be any real emotional connection and it never delves into the darkness of human interaction to become a real Fincher film. This is a movie caught in the currents of confusion.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are both good. It's Pitt's best and he's helped along by the use of some amazing technology. The aging process used to move Benjamin backwards while time moves forwards is a real breakthrough. A real gasp happens not with some of the old Benjamin, but the Benjamin in his early twenties who looks just like Pitt did back in the Johnny Suede (1991) days. It's a marvel and instead of being distracting you feel the same awe and wonder that Blanchett's Daisy feels when she sees this young man standing in front of her. So I can't say if it's Pitt's talent or the help of computers that have given him such a subdued and emotional performance. I'll say Pitt, they guy deserves props for being more than pretty.

But the Forrest Gump thing keeps getting to me. It's structure is very similar, minus the flashback framing, the characters are very similar and the situations are very similar. From fighting in a war to continual encounters with people who will have moments in history, I find it hard to believe that it didn't seem to pop out to anybody early on. Unless it was an intentional move to make the film more pallatable for commercial audicences? If so, I guess they succedded then.

Some of the moments of quirk didn't really fit it. There is a sequence about fate that played like a clunky version of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet piece. It is an awkward moment that grinds the story to a halt and doesn't add anything. Also an old man relaying stories about being struck by lightning seven times, they only show five, seems to interrupt more than anything else. In a movie that tries to point out how odd things happen all the time, the odd things seem very out of place. We're willing to accept that Benjamin Button is aging backwards, you don't need to shove this conceit down our throat with whimsical side stories.

I'm not going to say it was a waste of time or that it's a bad movie. It has it's charm and is much stronger than I am giving it credit for. It is better than Gump, but I can't help and feel a little hurt. David Fincher is an amazing talent and an amazing voice. He is willing to look at the dark side of humanity and within it, ask questions and search for emotional resonance. This just doesn't happen to be one of those movies.

7 out of 10

Review: Gomorra

Gomorra (2008)
starring: Salvatore Abruzzese, Simone Sacchettino, Salvatore Ruocco, Vincenzo Altamura, Toni Servillo, Carmine Paternoster
dir. Matteo Garone


I wasn't ready for what I was about to see when sitting down for this film. I knew it was a crime film from Italy and that it was "different" than any other gangster movie. This hurt my viewing of the picture, but at the same time made the entire process that much more compelling.

At first I was trying to decipher the various story lines to see if they were going to start to come together for a giant climax. That's the Hollywood moviegoer in me. Then as I was beginning to learn the language and form of the film I came to understand it as a much more serious and important version of Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993). Like Altman's film there are various characters who's lives never directly intercede with each other, but are all connected through the world they live in, Los Angeles. All of the stories in Gomorra may not be directly linked to each other, but are connected through a gigantic crime syndicate, the Camorra, that is involved in everything. This isn't your gangster movie about whacking the guy who offends you, it's about greed and a crime organization so forceful that it doesn't care who it destroys, including the environment, the kid next door or anyone who gets in the way of a dollar.

Gamorra shows a world so completely corrupt that there is no way out accept through death. Even attempting to walk away, giving up all dreams and resolving ones self to working a meniall job may end up some how connecting back to a Camorra clan. It is a scary world that is depicted with a lens that prides itself on depicting reality.

The closest this film ever gets to resembling the classic gangster film that we know of is the story of two teens who want to be big time gangsters. They imitate Tony Montana and try to live the romantic angle by playing big and acting tough. But those ideals are quickly shattered as the boys are brought into the real world of organized crime. There is no romance in this world, there is no code or pecking order, there is only survival of the greediest.

This is the one time where going in knowing what you are about to witness helps in the viewing of this movie. Like Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers (1966) or Costa-Gavras' Z (1969), Matteo Garone has worked hard to strip away every ounce of artifice and show the modern day Italian crime world for what it really is. Harsh and hearless.

9.8 out of 10

R.I.P. Sam Bottoms

Sam Bottoms (1955-2008)

There are several Bottoms brothers who act and it can get a little confusing at times, I admit. But Sam has appeared in a couple classic films including Apocalypse Now (1979) as Lance Johnson the ill fated surfer, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) as Clint Eastwood's ill fated sidekick and The Last Picture Show (1971) as Billy the ill fated deaf kid. Hmmm, I'm sensing a trend there.

Bottoms may have never been a star, but he is what I consider a dependable actor. That isn't a slight in any way shape or form. If you see that he's in a film, it may not be a draw, but you know that role will be well delivered. Even if the film sucks, he'll be good. That means something.

Mr. Bottoms was taken way to early at the age of 53 from a brain tumor, but he leaves behind some great movies and will be missed.

Review: The Wrestler

The Wrestler (2008)

starring: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Todd Barry, Judah Friedlander

dir. Darren Aronofsky

I've only been to one live professional wrestling show and that's what it is, a show. I never felt the emotional gouging of physical pain. It plays like a theatrical piece, a put on by a bunch of juiced guys who figured out some choreography and succeed and/or failed in executing it. Darren Aronfsky's The Wrestler is a beast from a different planet. In the first few minutes the viewer is in on the discussing of how a match should play out, but then thrown into the ring and the very real physical pain of executing those moves. Sure it's fake, but it's also a grueling exercise to entertain a small number of people. Nothing in this film feels staged or theatrical, it is an exercise in reality and the fringe-living human beings who populate it.

To say Rourke is great is an understatement. He's brilliant, mind blowing, so emotionally honest that he inhabits Randy "The Ram" Robinson completely. There is a lot of talk going around about the performance coming from a place that may be more Rourke than the character, I think it's bullshit. The case only stands up in Robinson's final soliloquy to a crowd of screaming fans. When dealing with his daughter or bonding with Marisa Tomei's stripper Cassidy, it is inspired and never goes over the top. Rourke huffs and groans his way through walking down a hall and you can feel the years of abuse Randy has put on his body. That's not Rourke, that's Rourke and Aronofsky interpreting the character of Robinson. I can't say enough about how touched I was by this troubled man who made decisions and in the end realizes he will stick by them.

Aronofsky has stepped away from the stylized images he has used in the past and allows the camera to become a part of Randy. It is there solely to show us who this man is and where his life has taken him. It's not devoid of style, far from it, it is a style that is built around Randy. It's fluid, but gritty, much like Randy in the ring. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and Aronofsky shows that he can work with a script and not force a script to fit his style of film making.

Aronofsky also proves again that he is incredibly strong with actors. They say half a directors job is in the casting and the choices Aronofsy makes are spot on. Marisa Tomei is on a roll after a great turn in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) . This time she crafts a woman who has become so guarded and protective that she is afraid to do anything. You can feel the back and forth argument going through her all the time and as soon as she lets her guard down for even a moment of happiness, she refuses to lose control and brings it back in. Not the thought out progression of a character's emotions, but a person who has been through the shit and doesn't want to go through it again. Oh, and she looks amazing for a woman her age. Apparently she's making forty the new twenty-five and getting away with it.

Evan Rachel Wood is excellent in the few scenes she is given as Randy's abandoned daughter. You feel with her as she rediscovers a father she never had and then has to let those emotions die so she can form her own life. The high of watching her and Rourke dance in an abandoned dance hall is equal to the shattering moment where she wants him out of her life and he understands why he must go. It's tough, raw and soulful. Wood has been and continues to be a talent to keep watching.

The more it sits with me, the more admiration and adulation I have for this movie. If this is not the years best for me, it is easily in the top two or three. It's worth a repeat visit to the theater, DVD purchase, second DVD purchase when they put out the special edition and even buying a film print just to say I own it. It's that good.