Gateway Cinephiles

2008
Director: Errol Morris
Viewed: May 29, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Most Americans who follow current events have seen the pictures. We think we know what they represent. We think we have a handle on the story that they tell. During 2003, prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were sexually humiliated and molested, terrorized with dogs, brutalized, tortured, and murdered. By Americans. The abusers were military police, military intelligence, private contractors, and CIA interrogators. Errol Morris’ new film, Standard Operating Procedure, opens the photo album on Abu Ghraib and initiates an inquiry both indebted to and a world apart from the fleeting sensationalism of the mainstream media’s coverage. The film’s taste for the dramatic might provoke accusations that Morris is aiming for cheap agitprop. Nothing could be further from the truth. SOP is a spellbinding film about a grave and inflammatory topic, a vital rumination that upends one stone after another and then holds up a microphone to the emerging grubs. Morris’ refusal to utilize the Abu Ghraib scandal as a political cudgel might be noble or disgraceful, depending on your outlook, but with SOP, he has unquestionably crafted a haunting work that digs deep and cuts deeper.

(more…)

2008
Director: Steven Spielberg
Viewed: May 26, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

Let’s get the Bad News out of the way first: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the weakest chapter to date in the now-grizzled archeologist’s adventures. To put that statement into context, consider that I have stubborn admiration and affection for the series’ previous low point, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Given the mark the original trilogy left on my young mind, and given that it’s been so long since Harrison Ford last took up the fedora and bullwhip, I’m finding it somewhat difficult to put the new film into the proper perspective. What I can’t deny is that there’s a sense of melancholic disappointment to Kingdom, a sharp slap of reality that fades to a lingering sting. It’s like running into a an old schoolmate after nearly twenty years apart, and finding that the former star athlete and class president is now a termite inspector living in a trailer with five kids. Kingdom is a fine adventure film, and it superbly accomplishes its tricky task of updating the series for a new age. Yet there’s something a little shocking and unwelcome about unearthing a new Indy film at long last, only to discover that, in many ways, it’s just another action-film-as-amusement-park-ride in a bloated summer season.

(more…)

2008
Director: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Viewed: May 21, 2008
Format: IMAX Theatrical Print

[Full Disclosure: Although its trailers had intrigued me, the overall critical drubbing that Speed Racer has received (35% on Rotten Tomatoes, 37 on Metacritic) dissuaded me from seeing the film in its first week. However, a beautifully written and overwhelmingly positive review by Dennis Cozzalio re-piqued my interest, prompting me to catch Speed Racer at a late IMAX showing. In most cases, I avoid reading reviews for films I know I’m going to see, lest the reviewer’s impressions creep into my own. I violated this rule of thumb for Speed Racer, and I will acknowledge up front that Dennis’ work likely lent a positive bias to my review, in that he helped me see the virtues of this apparent flop.]

Right out of the gate, let me lay out some facts about Speed Racer: 1) It is absolutely batshit crazy. By this I mean that it refuses to play by the rules and exhibits abnormal, even alarming, behavior. 2) It is not, despite initial appearances, an empty vessel of day-glo gloss and digital mayhem. 3) It is an ideal family film for parents to share with older children and preteens. 4) It is a work of ambitious filmmaking, and in the final analysis, it succeeds more often that it stumbles. 5) Did I mention that it’s CRAZY?

(more…)

2007
Director: Stephen Walker
Viewed: May 19, 2008
Format: Theatrical Print

If someone had summarized the premise of Young@Heart to me a few weeks ago, it would have raised my condescension hackles to critical levels. “This is a documentary film about a community chorus that performs rock, pop, R&B, and soul songs. Oh, and all the performers are over 70 years old. Funny, huh?” Fortunately, Young@Heart is not the terrible documentary it should have been. In fact, I’ll go further than merely admitting and retracting my suspicions, however well-founded. Young@Heart is a damn good film. There’s nothing especially artful to it, and it probably would have worked just as well on cable television as on the big screen. Yet it pulls off a tricky storytelling feat: It treats a subject matter strewn with perils in exactly the right way, juggling an array of reflective themes about age, death, art, performance, pop culture, and human worth. It’s a triumph of the first principles of documentary film-making: take an interesting topic, construct a narrative, keep things moving, and make it sing.

(more…)