Craiger’s Cinema Corner

***1/2  out of  ****

If one is willing to excuse some of THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM’s logical shortcomings (like a hero that seems to defy death on too many occasions and a secret, CIA base of operations that seems far, far too easily breached by the same hero), then it works stupendously as an exercise in relentlessly paced action and tension. 

The film – the third in the Jason Bourne trilogy of films, and in turn ever-so-loosely based on the best selling novels by Robert Ludlum – will be fondly remembered by me as the best of the series and a spy thriller of virtuoso action set pieces and adrenaline-pumping intensity.  THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is like a feverous and tenacious beast of a film that is tightly woven, lean, mean, and has a forward momentum that hurtles by with an unstoppable aggressiveness.  Leaving the theatre I felt tired and winded, like I was actually with Bourne on his search for his pre-amnesia identity.   

That experienced sensation is a compliment, not a criticism, because ULTIMATUM never once – not even during its “slower” moments – allows for the viewers to stop and collect themselves.  Very rarely has an action film created such an ethereal, in-the-moment resonance.  Films like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN gave you a same sense of haunting immediacy with its grunt p.o.v. of war combat and I think that what ULTIMATUM does is kind of the same; it makes you feel as you are with Bourne, side-by-side, breath for breath, as he runs, jumps, punches, kicks, and drives his way through his enemies in search of the truth.  You don’t simply passively and complacently watch the endlessly thrilling action in this film; rather, the action kind of pummels you over the head with its veracity and breakneck velocity.  As an assault on the senses, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM is a masterstroke work in the genre.   

This should not come of any surprise.  The Jason Bourne films – which started with the decent THE BOURNE IDENTITY in 2002 and followed by the superior BOURNE SUPREMACY in 2004 – have always existed as wonderfully conceived spy thrillers that stood well apart from the pact.  The first film, directed very competently by Doug Liman, introduced us to Bourne as an amnesiac killing machine that was created by a secret cover faction of the CIA.  That film placed an intriguing twist on the genre by making the main antagonist of Bourne…himself.  He is an unmitigated force of lightning violence, but he can’t remember why or how he became so.  This simple and effective hook became the sort of MacGuffin that launched the whole series of films.  He escaped capture at the end of IDENTITY and things got even more personal when – through a series of complicated events – the life of his lover was taken.  Even worse was the fact that he was framed for a political murder that he did not commit. 

For my money, THE BOURNE IDENTITY was a solid and efficient spy thriller, but I found myself enjoying SUPREMACY even more, especially after re-watching them both back-to-back in preparation for ULTIMATUM.  In terms of overall story, SUPREMACY was a basic revenge thriller and political who-dunnit that did not really explore the damaged psyche of Bourne more fully.  Yet, I appreciated it more the second time around for its action and marveled at the thankless job Matt Damon did in presenting Bourne not so much as a ruthlessly strong and dexterous superman, but more as an emotionally damaged man of introverted aggressiveness and unhinged focus.  One of my initial complaints of SUPREMACY was in the shooting style of its action pieces, which kind of were Expressionistic by focusing on energy and mood, not flow and symmetry.  They were done with such a loose, free-flowing, cinema vérité style that I initially thought they were utterly distracting.  Upon a second viewing – and coupled with seeing ULTIMATUM – I now think that it ultimately works because of the way it fosters such a visceral feeling in the viewer.  It kind of has the realism of a documentary at times. 

To an even larger extent, the same can be held true for ULTIMATUM, which was also helmed by SUPREMACY’s director, Paul Greengrass.  The director’s last film, UNITED 93 – the best film of 2006, if not one of the finest of our current decade – showed the limitless talent and confidence that Greengrass had over edgy and difficult material.  ULTIMATUM is decidedly less of a controversial and relatable piece of film making than UNITED 93, but Greengrass’ impeccable and oftentimes unmatched sense of pacing is on display here in full force.  The real star of ULTIMATUM is Greengrass, who showcases his command over staging masterful action and creating palpable tension.  His style here is nearly flawless in execution; there is not an ounce of fat on this film: at 116 minutes, nothing extraneous is left.  It’s staggeringly efficient with its headlong swiftness and full-throttle vigor.   ULTIMATUM, along with SUPREMACY,  seems like that highly infrequent crossing of mainstream action milieu with the stylistic trappings of an art house film and Greengrass never falters once in the way he handles everything with such a calculating deftness.   

However stylish and evocative the direction of the film is, the other selling point of ULTIMATUM is Damon himself, who arguably has carved himself out one of the better action hero performances of recent memory.  As with all of the Bourne films, Damon does a exemplary job of not playing Bourne larger than life (which could have been a temptation with a lesser actor) and instead plays him with a subtle, buried level of teeth-clenched intensity and bravado.  The actor himself is often overlooked for what he does in these films when he’s not involved in large-scale stunt and action sequences.  It is his low-key and minimalist style that makes Damon such a compelling actor, and he plays his super spy with remarkable abilities as down-to earth as possible, making us relate to him more, despite his almost otherworldly ability to cheat death at any given moment. 

ULTIMATUM essentially takes place shortly after the events of the last film and Bourne once again is a wanted man by most levels of the US Government, but is able to miraculously stay one step ahead of them at any given time.  Of course, the singular intrigue that these films create is our willingness to root on Bourne in his quest to discover who he is and how he actually came to be a figure that could easily win a fistfight against John Rambo.  It’s a never-ending cat and mouse game between the Feds and Bourne: he wants to find out why they want him dead and discover his lost identity and the Feds want him dead because he is proof of the government’s top secret, off the books, black ops section of the CIA that does all types of illegal actions, like assassinating those they don’t wish to have alive anymore.   

At the beginning of the film he thinks he has found the break he has been looking for in the form of a reporter (Paddy Considine), who may have a source that could lead Bourne to the Intel he needs.  When that lead goes horribly wrong, the intrepid spy with memory loss ends up going on a worldwide trek through London, Tangier, Moscow, Madrid, Paris, Turin, and finally back to his New York.   The CIA seems to have insurmountable surveillance gadgetry and the latest computer devices to catch Bourne, but his wits outmatch their hardware.  The department’s black ops head, Noah Vosen (the always stern and dependable David Strathairn), has a clear purpose of finding and killing Bourne.  Agency director Erza Krammer (Scott Glenn, decent in a small, but crucial, role) also does not want to see Bourne come home alive.  At least Bourne has some allies in the form of Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who risks their careers in the end to help Bourne recapture his past.   

It is safe to say that some of ULTIMATUM’S story speeds by with a bit of routine predictability.  The instant we meet Krammer and Vosen we know the two will be an uncaring thorn in Bourne side, not to mention that Landy and Parsons will be allies in his cause.  Also, it’s safe to assume that Bourne will also rigidly evade capture at any given moment when it appears that this secret CIA group has enough intelligence capabilities to capture a dozen bin Ladens.   

Yet, this film is not about the verisimilitude of its underlining story, but with its overall tone and implementation of its fearsome stunts and action pieces.  There are many in the film that are real showstoppers.  An early sequence that shows Bourne trying to assist the news reporter from escaping assassination in a train station is kind of brilliant in its build-up and payoff, as is a later scene, which builds to a moment of comeuppance for Bourne against the CIA (which, as stated, does not speak highly for their own security).  Probably the best sequence in the film is a daring and ruthlessly thrilling foot chase that involves Bourne, Parsons, and a pursuer through the streets, balconies, and rooftops of Tangiers, which eventually culminates in a spectacularly choreographed fight that makes you kind of gasp alongside the combatants.  No doubt, when the action kicks into gear, ULTIMATUM is an almost insurmountable force.  The film is not triumphant because of its narrative finesse, but solely because of its pummeling, mind-altering stunts and action.  Sure, a lot of them may be as outlandish and silly as those seen involving John McClane, but under the watchful and remarkably confident eye of Greengrass, ULTIMATUM reaches a staunch level of gritty, primitive realism that the last few DIE HARD films wished they had. 

Watching this third film in the Jason Bourne trilogy – with its savvy, roller coaster pacing and bruise knuckled-action – left me feeling utterly fatigued.  However, as an action film to be actively experienced, this is one of the unequivocal best in awhile.  It left me – like a drug addict wanting another fix – desperately yearning for more, which is more than I can say for the summer’s other lackluster and unfulfilling sequels, like SPIDER-MAN 3, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, and HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX.  ULTIMATUM is not only one of the best summer action films, but also one of the best three-quels of recent memory.  There is, however, a more-than-slight hint that Mr. Bourne will survive this film outing and return again to the silver screen.  Something tells me that he will be back to make this film series a Bourne Quadrilogy.  That’s why ULTIMATUM is a rather atypical third entry in a series, one that is clearly better tailored and made than the two previous ones that preceded it.  It also does not compel you to pray for the series’ quick end; it makes you actually root for more. 

In Bourne’s case, here’s hoping. 

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

***1/2  out of  ****

RESCUE DAWN is a film about man’s obsessive battle with the elements around him.  At face value, it looks like it is another in a long line of POW films, but the film is a rather atypical Vietnam War entry in the sense that it deals with internal conflicts instead of large scale battles and bloodshed.  There are moments in the film that breathe with a certain familiarity, but RESCUE DAWN rises above some of its perfunctory and mundane elements by becoming a rich, absorbing, and creepily atmospheric war film.

The themes alone should come of no surprise if one considers the man behind the camera.  Werner Herzog himself has gained a reputation as a director with borderline primeval instincts and limitless passion.  He has made such powerful and evocative films like FITZCARRALDO, whose main character shared much of the same compulsions as Herzog himself (the film contained a now infamous feat where Herzog and company moved a 340 ton steamship over a mountain, without any discernable visual effects; a staggering achievement that reflected the film’s overall story arc).  Most of his films have focused on heroes of that have impossible dreams and aspirations and hope to attain them against insurmountable odds.  His characters have always had a sort of operatic gravitas in terms of their emotional substance (Herzog’s films have often been characterized as Wagnerian in scope and presentation).  Again, this only helps to re-enforce the sensibilities of the director.

In RESCUE DAWN Herzog flirts with many elements that have permeated his other films, but here the emotional context is less grandiose and is brought down to a palpable level of realism.  That is not to say that Herzog enthusiasts will be disappointed with this effort (it has his quintessential knack for lush and beautiful cinematography, sparse use of music, daring performances, and a low-key and simplistically compelling shooting style), but RESCUE DAWN does a virtuoso job of telling a harrowing story of one man’s predilection to surviving one hellish ordeal after another.  The film is not just ostensibly about heroism, but how one can been driven to an almost instinctual perseverance to overcome deadly obstacles.  In small ways, RESCUE DAWN is pure Herzog done with much more subtle brushstrokes.

Instead of focusing on battles and politics (which oftentimes are the only prevailing aspects of many war films), Herzog deals with one man, the real life Dieter Dengler, a German born American pilot that dreamed of fighting for his country.  He eventually joined the US Navy during the Vietnam War era and eventually was stationed on a carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.  Once there he was assigned to a highly classified and secret bombing mission over Laos.  Unfortunately for him, he was shot down by the enemy and was captured and placed in a prisoner of war camp, where he faced all sorts of horrible physical and mental hardships.  The fact that Dieter was able to overcome is captors and escape is amazing in hindsight.  Only seven men - including Dengler - have managed to escape from a Viet Cong POW camp and survive.

It’s no wonder why this material appeased Herzog.  It’s also very easy to see how he managed to conceive not one, but two great films about Dengler’s story.  RESCUE DAWN is not the first story of Dengler to have Herzog’s fingerprints on it; he made the 1997 documentary LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY, which dealt with - more or less - the story of the real life Dengler where Herzog took the POW survivor back to the location of his captivity.  Now, ten years later, RESCUE DAWN represents the filmmaker’s desire to make a feature film out of the material, which Christian Bale playing the lead.  Like LITTLE DIETER, RESCUE DAWN has Herzog returning to the jungle to deal with Dengler’s hellish and unimaginable story.  What’s intrinsically fascinating is how breathtaking and engrossing the feature film is compared to the documentary.  It makes for a compelling study: two works done by the same director, but told in two decisively different manners.

Dieter (in another scene-stealing performance by the ever-versatile Christian Bale) is shown in the middle of his naval career in 1965.  The opening scenes have a free-flowing and loose spontaneity.  Dieter and his fellow pilots are briefed and instructed on their top-secret Laos bombing mission and even joke through a painfully flaccid and horribly performed Naval training newsreel that details how to survive being shot down in Viet Cong enemy territory.  Dieter and his buddies don’t think too highly of the training film, nor of their upcoming mission.  To them, it seems like another day at the office.

But things go disastrously wrong for Dieter when his plane is abruptly shot down.  Incredibly, he does not go into instant panic mode.  He uses the dense jungle foliage to mask himself from his enemies and hopes that the Americans will quickly come in for a rescue.  However, some time passes and it grows increasingly clear to Dieter that he will not be picked up any time soon.  Things go from bad to worse when he is captured by the enemy and taken to their POW camp.

As is the case with most standard POW camp genre films, Dieter meets up with a colorful and eclectic group of other deranged detainees, all of whom appear to have been there for quite some time.  He meets up with Duane (in a career high performance by Steve Zhan), a sort of soft spoken and complacent prisoner, and Gene (in a undeniably creepy performance by Jeremy Davis), who is another prisoner that seems beyond depraved and unstable.  Their daily ordeal of living as prisoners is unspeakable cruel.  They are fed little, if anything, and are tormented routinely.  One moment  that is especially haunting and disturbing shows Dieter being tied up and hung upside down with an wasp’s nest wrapped around his head.  Sleeping every night is seemingly impossible.  All of the prisoners are shackled by their hands and feet and are placed in opposite directions of one another while sleeping on the bare ground.  This way, if someone passes gas or defecates in their pants, the person beside them has to smell it all night.  That alone would drive any man to insanity.

The prisoners’ lives are a constant uphill battle of unbearable, humidity-laced heat, insect bites, dysentery, starvation, and sleep depravation.  Most of the men have very little hope, if any, of being let go or found.  Escape seems like a fantasy.  Dieter, however, refuses to by a submissive prisoner that will accept his plight.  He will escape, with or without the help of his POW posse.  After all, their cages are made of bamboo, which seem harmless enough, and he is able to quickly devise a way to escape his shackles on a nightly basis.  His initial plan is to escape from the camp at night and essentially run for it.  His naiveté with his situation allows for the pragmatist in Duane to knock some sense into him. “Don’t you get it, ” he pleads with him at one point, “It’s the jungle that’s the real prison.”

Realizing that simply darting out for the jungle would be a moronic plan (no one would last more than a day or two there without food or water), Dieter decides to take his time and launch a more well-laid out and thoughtful plan.  Seeing that that the rainy season would be his best opportunity to escape (the rain would be cooler - to a smaller degree - not to mention that it would be harder for the enemy to search for foot prints), Dieter and his clan start to stockpile on food and begin to monitor the coming’s and going’s on their captors.

One day, when opportunity strikes, they escape their chains, secure weapons, and daringly escape the camp.  After Dieter and his fellow POWs make it out, they decide to split up and Duane is left with Dieter.  It is here where the film’s real emotional center rests.  They have escaped their first prison, but soon grow to realize that the jungle around them becomes a second unwanted prison.  Survival outside becomes ever more difficult.  They not only are scared of being re-captured, but food and water is scarce and the threat on jungle predators looms over their shoulders constantly.  Even worse, their grasp of reality slips with every hour.  Both start to hallucinate and hear voices.  Perhaps even more disparaging is their frequent failure to lure in passing American helicopters to come and pick them up.  At one point one plane nearly kills the two with machine gun fire, mistaking them for the enemy.

What makes RESCUE DAWN such a intensely realized war drama is that it never once glosses over and trivializes its characters, nor their dreaded predicaments.  Herzog also very astutely never makes his “heroes” figures that deserve instant worship.  This is a warts ‘n all presentation of heroism.  There could have been a tremendous temptation to make Dieter an invincible an infallible superman, but RESCUE DAWN shows him for what he really was: an everyman solider thrown into unthinkable circumstances that has to battle and elements - internal and external - that he has to face in order to survive.  Dieter is by no means perfect (he’s often impetuous, gullible, and hot-tempered), but as the film progresses so does his character.  He inevitably grows hardened by his experiences, and this affords him opportunities to help launch his escape plan.  Like the classic Herzogian, archetypal figure, he’s a protagonist with both a slippery grasp of reality whose increasing mental instability fuels his internal rage and compulsions. 

Perhaps better than just about any Vietnam War film I’ve seen, RESCUE DAWN makes the environment around Dieter and company a character in itself.  Never before in a film have the jungles been so simultaneously beautiful and lush alongside being dangerous and foreboding as they are here.  Herzog films the lushness of the landscapes with the painterly eye of a travelogue video from hell.  Filled mostly in Thailand, he gives RESCUE DAWN such a unmistakable sense of realism and haunting, eeriness. 

As Dieter and Duane lurch forward through all of the weeds, leaves, intersecting tree branches and foliage, you can feel their exhaustion and suffering.  Herzog is an undisputed master of simple, suggestive camera work and cinematography.  He does not engage in wild and frantic editing, nor does let his style overwhelm the flow of the film.  His minimalist approach only heightens the intensity of the men’s struggle for survival.  Unlike other ‘Nam films, RESCUE DAWN has very little combat and fighting in it.  It’s a refreshingly introverted war film.  The violence is all emotional and from within; It’s less about the politics of war and more about universal themes of battling despair and misery.

The actors are absolutely crucial to the film’s overall effectiveness, and RESCUE DAWN has a three of the best performances of the year in it’s three main stars.  First, there is the great Christian Bale, who continues to amaze and astound me with his boundless versatility and range.  His supreme dedication to his craft is unwavering here (his see-saw physical transformations are almost inconceivable; he went from losing a staggering amount of weight to play the main role in THE MACHINIST to gaining it all back to play the Caped Crusader in BATMAN BEGINS and now goes back to looking withered and skeletal in RESCUE DAWN).  Beyond the obvious physicality of the role, Bale makes Dieter a tortured and ambitious figure of hope.  If he does not secure an Oscar nomination here - which has seemingly eluded him for years - then it will be decided letdown.

Steve Zhan, an underrated actor, is equally staggering as the long-suffering Duane, whose dementia and lack of hope are, at times, heart-breaking.  And then there is the  frequently impressive Jeremy Davis, who churns out one little supporting performance after another of silent and chilling antagonism.  His performance in the film is a tightly woven bit of bottled up hostility and anger.  You gain the impression that he would go berserk and explode on someone if being a POW had not exhausted his physical ability to do so.

If there were one area where RESCUE DAWN falters a bit then it would be with its brief epilogue, which details Dieter’s post-rescue life just after he is hoisted away by a US army helicopter.  The concluding moments are not as tactile as they are a bit forcefully sentimental.  Fortunately, they do not undermine the rest of the film that preceded it, and RESCUE DAWN confidently emerges as a gripping and provocative exploration into internal struggle and despair.  During a time when we are dealt up endless war films bathed in blood and carnage, it’s refreshing to see a genre film like this that places more stock in psychological battles.  Oftentimes, it is the obsessive drives of men that make war films resonate more powerfully and Herzog knows this impeccably.  The fact that RESCUE DAWN is his second crack at the same material only further reveals his dedication, assuredness, and - yes - his own inner obsessions as a filmmaker.  The film may not be on par with his best work, but it still stands highly as a unique and harrowing portrait of overcoming the deepest, darkest pits of captivity.

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

***1/2  out of  ****

There is a very small moment in the long-awaited SIMPSONS MOVIE which reveals why the TV show that predicated it was such a subversive and irreverent laugh-fest.

 

Being the overwhelmingly incompetent and irresponsible father that he is, Homer Simpson dares his young son, Bart, to skateboard through their hometown of Springfield…butt-naked.  Bart lovingly and daringly obliges.  When he skates by the perpetually naive and adorably dim-witted tyke, Ralph Wiggum, the youngster stares at Bart in his B-day suit as he flies by, thinks for a second, and then matter-of-factly states, “I like men now.”

The original TV show - which has lasted an unprecedented 18 seasons; the longest sitcom in the history of the medium, spanning 400 episodes - has innumerable moments just like the one mentioned.  Ever since its inception as a series of crudely animated satiric shorts for The Tracy Ullman Shown on April 19, 1987, the fictional Springfieldian family has spawned a pop culture phenomenon.  After lasting three years as filler material for the Ullman show, the characters became so popular that they made the transition into their own half-hour sitcom on the Fox network.  This year marks the franchise’s 20th anniversary and the show just has been renewed for an astounding 19th season.  You just don’t that kind of longevity without doing something right.

It’s easy to overlook the staggering influence of the show and its prevailing strengths over its long-standing TV run.  Surely, its last few seasons do not hold up to a 1999 Time Magazine labeling of it as the “Best TV Series of the Century”, but much of the series can take an easy claim to that accolade.  Sure, the freshness of the franchise is dwindling, as is its tenacious comic edge and sense of nail-biting satire, but what THE SIMPSONS MOVIE does is remind one of how truly inspired and hilarious the best episodes of the series were.  Not only that, but after watching the film one should be required to sit down and ponder the enormous impact that sitcom has had on modern culture.  Much of the show’s catch phrases are now a part of normal, everyday vernacular.  Homer’s annoyed and disparaging grunt of “D’oh” and Monty Burns’ chilling usage of the word “Exxxxceellent” are so ubiquitous that the former is now a part of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Surely, for a simple TV show to achieve such notoriety is a most rare thing, indeed.

I guess that anticipation for a SIMPSONS movie has approached PHANTOM MENACE-sized proportions over the years.  Surely, the grave concern with the legions - and I mean legions - of its die hard fans is that a film coming so late in existence of the franchise would be ripe to disappoint.  It certainly is a rather odd move for creators Matt Groening and company to release a big-budget feature film of his creation so late in the game (to their credit, though, the idea of a SIMPSONS movie has been germinating for nearly a decade).  Yet, I am willing to concede by understanding that the makers of the show wanted to make this SIMPSONS film the film that exasperated fans have been waiting for.  The pressure to make this feature length version a work that would do justice to “The Best TV Show of the Century” must have been irreproachable daunting.

The film - directed by SIMPSONS alumni David Silverman, produced by James L. Brooks, Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai, and written by no less than 11 of the series’ best writers - should not cause fans to lose any sleep over its relative worth.  What it does - and does so with an extraordinary efficiency and consistency - is match the best TV episodes in terms of providing cutting edge satire, clever and ruthlessly sly capriciousness, and - most crucially - a rapid fire number of riotous laughs and a bewildering number of sight gags and pratfalls.  THE SIMPSONS MOVIE certainly benefits from its higher production budget and scope (it’s overall look is more polished and it’s produced in a long, Panavision wide-screen format, allowing for the visuals to have a lot of breathing room), but some its more lavish aesthetic flourishes don’t overwhelm the fact that - like its TV counterpart - it is filled to rim with amusement and side-splittingly hilarious merriment.

If the last few years of SIMPSONS TV episodes have left viewers yearning for more, then the MOVIE will certainly wet and satisfy those appetites.  What has always been striking about the TV show is how much actual comedy the creators cram into each one of those 400, 20 minute-plus episodes.  What the writers have done with the movie is to stay rigidly faithful to the series’ remarkably consistent laughs-to-running-time ratio. 

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE just may contain the most laughs per minute of any modern comedy I’ve seen.  Certainly, there are several moments of the film where the scenes inspire a bit more groans that hearty hilarity (a would-be funny sub-plot that involves President “Schwarzenegger” is not as funny as it could have been), but the film at least makes an effort to throw endless amounts of jokes - one right after the other - at the viewer in hopes of never letting them get restless.  It is to the film’s ultimate credit that it completely goes for broke by attempting for non-stop gleefulness.  Not all of the humor works successful, but there is no denying the film’s astonishing consistency with bludgeoning us with hilarity.  There is rarely one minute of the film that goes by that doesn’t inspire, at the very least, a chuckle.  If anything, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is kind of a pleasantly exhaustive 85 minutes; you become fatigued just from laughing too hard and for too long.

The film is an unstoppable giddy ride right from the opening sequence, which features a movie within the movie staring everyone’s favourite despicably violent cat and mouse team, Itchy and Scratchy.  It’s slowly revealed that the Simpsons are watching the duo’s new film, which in turn is based on a short TV show.  At one point Homer (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) stands up and pitifully asks why anyone would ever waste money to see a TV show on the big screen.

The self-referential comedy and subversive satire don’t end there.  There is a brilliantly conceived bit that shameless plugs the Fox Network (home of the TV Simpsons) that would make Monty Python proud.  Then there is a wickedly sly bit with Lisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith) as she canvasses, door-to-door, on an Al Gore-fuelled-frenzy to save the planet (the sight gag with the last house she visits is one of the film’s best).  She further has a moment after that while she gives a lecture to the people of Springfield that looks a lot like Al Gore’s in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.  In that film he had to use a hydraulic lift to hoist himself to the point on the big screen chart that showed where earth temperatures are heading in the future.  In Poor little Lisa’s instance, the lift breaks down.  D’oh!

I guess if there was a place where the satire is a bit soft-pedaled then it would be in taking jabs at religion, the President, and the environment, all of which are not necessarily cutting edge.  Ultimately, the meagerness of some of the film’s satire is not cause for alarm, because the great jokes that occur so frequently and ferociously make one laugh so much that you kind of forget about the film’s lack of genuine inspiration from a story or themes standpoint. 

The film is also quite appropriately rated PG-13, most likely because a couple of foul words and a middle finger gesture by one character in a very funny scene. Perhaps it was Bart’s (Nancy Cartwright) naked skateboarding stunt that shunned the MPAA.  This might be the first film in history that has very brief, full frontal male nudity involving a child to receive a PG-13.  As we get a lightning fast glimpse of Bart’s privates, you initially want to ponder whether or not a cartoon kid exposed constitutes child pornography, but one is so busy laughing at the film’s spirit - not to mention the laughably simplistic rendering of Bart’s genitalia - that you are able to quickly discard such ridiculous thinking.

The film’s story - and I will try to appreciate the filmmakers’ insistence to not give too much away - revolves around proving, once again, the monumental stupidity of Homer.  It seems that he has taken a liking to his new pet pig.  Unfortunately, his little piggie likes to poo-poo a lot.  After attempting to hide the excrement in a rather large receptacle, he is forced by his wife Marge (Julie Kavner) to get rid of it.  Instead of finding a tactful and appropriate manner of disposing of the material, he abruptly dumps it all in the nearby lake. Why?  A local eatery is selling off their donut supply, and he wants to get there quick before the product is all bought out.  Hmmmmmm….liquidation pastries.

Needless to say, Homer dumps the crap in the lake, which single-handedly destroys the city’s ecosystem (multiple eyed creatures amusingly emerge from the new petrified lake).  Unfortunately, the US President has been coerced by his unscrupulous and evil EPA aid (voiced by “A. Brooks”; or Albert Brooks) to quarantine the town.  Well, he at least gives President Schwarzenegger five “unthinkable options”, but Ah-nauld points his finger at the first one he comes across, stating that he was hired to “lead”, not to “read”.  Within no time, the government has placed an immeasurably large dome over the entire town.  The entire population is reduced to a post-apocalyptic gang of revengers that soon discover that it was Homer’s negligence that caused the entire epidemic.  Realizing that he is a dead man, Homer takes his family away from Springfield and hopes to gather up what wits he has to both save the town he loves and his place in it.

Again, it’s not the story that is the film’s prevailing key asset, but the film’s stunning array of consistent jokes.  While spending a lot of time taking strong smacks at contemporary family values and modern advertising, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is as vital and strong as ever with its overall spirit and tone.  The old shows themselves walked an interesting balancing act between being offensive and sublime.  It’s cheerfulness and warmheartedness often was balanced off by its dark and acerbic laughs. 

That’s the key to THE SIMPSONS TV show and it’s in abundance in the film.  For every cackle that’s missed, a new one comes blazing by to make up for it, alongside some fairly tender moments between characters.  A film like this is so stuffed; it has moments of poignancy where a teary-eyed Marge chastises her husband alongside moments where Homer wonders whether or not he should kiss a pig on the lips to overcome his curiosity about it.  Oh, the film also manages to have a celebrity cameo (a staple of the TV show) by none other than Tom Hanks, who has one of the film’s best dead-panned lines: “Hello, I’m Tom Hanks.  Should you see me in person, then…please…leave me be.”  The fact that 11 writers wrote over 100 drafts of this comedy shows.  They’ve left nothing to chance.

Those that are concerned that the film’s new look on the big screen will also be sacrilegious to its TV show origins needn’t worry either.  If anything, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is rigidly faithful to the remarkably simplistic animated style of the sitcom; only slight cosmetic upgrades have been made.  Characters are given a bit more depth and shading, and the panoramic vistas of the wide-screen format add considerably to the density of the whole enterprise.  The film retains the series’ carefree and minimalist style, which I think is crucial to allow for the comedy to come through.  More complex renderings of characters and locations would be distracting.

However marginal the aesthetic style of The Simpsons is, it nevertheless has essentially dictated years of subsequent copy-cat impersonators.  Shows like THE FAMILY GUY and AMERICAN DAD have an almost plagiaristic look when compared to The Simpsons.  Thankfully, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE adheres to Matt Groening’s staunch willingness to have - as he has often stated - a “deliberately imperfect” look.  Lame and large scale CGI upgrades would have destroyed the film’s overall effect.  If there was ever an animated film that required a two-dimensional look and feel, then it’s this.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE is cagey, crafty, and hilarious enough to appease not only the devoted fans of everyone’s favourite yellow-skinned family, but also the agnostic viewer as well.  Stern familiarity with the TV show is in no means mandatory here, which is kind of amazing considering the show’s 19-year-plus legacy on the small screen.  The film may take shots at some very easy political subjects and could have went a more challenging route with its satire, but the film nonetheless retains the series’ cutting edge smartness, sophistication, and irresponsibility.  It represents a brilliant chasm between the new and old; a big-budget film that works marvelously on its own accord that fondly initiates memories of the very best the TV show had to offer.  Perhaps most importantly, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE has more gigantic laughs than any other film this year and is an undeniable hoot to sit through as a result.

Whoo-hoo!

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

***  out of  ****

Rod Kimble is a decent-minded – albeit cataclysmically naïve and goofy – young lad.  He has no job or any occupational aspirations.  Hell, it does not even appear that he has ever even been to school.  His real passion in life is stunts and attempting to perform all sorts of gravity defying theatrics with his bike.  His idol is his biological father, who once worked for Evel Knievel and then later branched out on his own.  His step dad thinks he’s an irrepressible wuss and will never attain manhood.  This only fuels Rod’s deep and inner desire to become a world famous stuntman that everyone will remember.  He’s on a quest to attain self-awesomeness.

The problem with Rod is not with his limitless imagination and tenacious drive; his determination is kind of infectious.  Rod’s faults are primarily from a skills standpoint.  He is not only a bad stuntman, but a stupendously awful and hideously incompetent one at that.  That’s what ultimately makes Rod a sympathetic figure.  He never invites our scorn and ridicule because – gosh darn it – he seems really, really earnest and sincere with his yearning to become the next Knievel.  The problem with that thinking is that no one around him – even his best friends – have the willingness to tell him that a moped will not suffice as a vehicle to jump trucks with.  As the film’s hilarious – and brutal – opening sequence shows, this wimpy bike, combined with Rod’s genuine lack of talent, does not make for a recipe for success. 

HOT ROD is a very funny comedy largely in part to two key factors: (a) it’s undeniably peculiar and oddball with its underlining material, but it’s never mean-spirited with the comedy it generates and (b) Andy Sandberg so fluently inhabits the title role of the uber-geek with delusions of grandeur that you leave the film with a sly grin on your face.  His performance as Rod is remarkably broad, but there is genuineness to it.  He is the kind of character that has a sort of overstated weirdness, and the personas he exists with are equally bizarre.  Like NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, HOT ROD has an offbeat, quirky appeal with its characters and story, but in its case the people in it are more likeable.  With Napoleon his monumentally nerdity was almost presented as an unwanted curse; he almost deserved being ostracized by his peers.   In Rod’s case I kind of admired his unstoppable willpower and focus, even when he constantly displays what an idiot he is. 

HOT ROD works by being both frequently hilarious and by showcasing Sandberg’s obvious talents.  With his youthful good looks, floppy, curly locks that remind me of Harpo Marx, and a childlike innocence and vigor, Sandberg is able to generate large laughs with relative ease.  He’s only 27, but he has already established himself as one of the most promising young comics.  His career was spawned not in nightclubs, but on the Internet.  Alongside his Berkeley, California buddies, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, they established “The Lonely Island” that made a quick name for themselves doing comedy shots online.  SNL producers noticed, and Sandberg joined the ranks of the show. 

SNL has been a real mixed bag over the last few years, which is kind of euphemistic phrasing on my part for saying that it has really blown.  However, the best thing to emerge on the struggling variety show has been Sandberg, who –  alongside SNL regular Chris Parnell – created a digital short for the show called “Lazy Sunday”, which was a rap song sung by two white Manhattanites on their quest to see THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA.  An unapologetic riot, that short became an Internet sensation and quickly put Sandberg on the map.  Other equally hilarious shorts would come afterwards, such as ones involving a young Chuck Norris and – in my personal favourite – he cast Natalie Portman in a hardcore rap video where she displayed her raw, animalistic side and ripped into young STAR WARS fans, and fantasizing men, that idolized her. 

Now comes HOT ROD, executive produced by former SNL’er Will Ferrell and featuring a re-teaming of Sandberg, Taccone and Schaffer (the latter directed the film, the former co-stars as Sandberg’s half brother).  What’s instantly clear with the film is that it’s a parade of buffoonery and overall simpleminded stupidity.  It’s one of those comedies that seems blissfully unconventional, often throwing out cadence and narrative flow out the door.  There is not much of a story or arc to the film, not to mention that nothing really compelling happens.  What it does do – and does with expediency and assuredness – is provide a series of comedic vignettes that mix klutzy bravado, pop culture sarcasm, over-the-top sight gags, and a refreshingly kooky and spirited bit of 80’s nostalgia.  The film is bumbling in its complete idiocy, but its funny…very funny…because of its brain-dead appeal.  This is one of the first films that is inspired by the You Tube generation. 

Rod (Sandberg) has one of the most complex and…well…emotionally distressing relationships with his step-father, Frank (Ian McShane, in a droll performance).  You see, Frank is a pure bred A-hole to Rod.  Since he is not his biological father, Frank treats Rod like a piece of sticky gum that accidentally attaches itself to his shoe.  He refuses to acknowledge Rod’s maturity and manhood in general.  On a weekly basis Rod puts on all sorts of protective gear to meet his step-dad in the basement of their suburban home in hopes of finally kicking the tar out of him.  Unfortunately for Rod, he is a hopelessly inferior fighter to the wise old grisly force that is Frank.  Frank, of course, refuses to respect Rod, but only will if he manages to prove that he can better him in a fistfight.  Rod, an aspiring stunt man, can’t convince him that easily. 

Tragedy strikes when Frank gets terminally ill and requires one of those “conveniently priced” (as stated in one of the film’s best dead-panned lines) heart transplants costing $50,000.  Bad part is that Frank’s HMO will not cover the cost.  Not realizing that one phone call to his HMO with a veiled threat to reveal their lack of assistance to Michael Moore could have saved Frank, Rod engages in a wicked plan.  He wants to raise money so that he can plan the jump of a lifetime, a motorcycle leap over 15 school buses.  Why 15?  Well, because Knievel jumped 14.  How Rod has this epiphany occurs during one of the film’s most uproarious sequences, which is a send up of a very famous dance montage in FOOTLOOSE.   After a dance-tantrum, which culminates in one of the wackiest falls down a mountain ever, Rod realizes his destiny.

What’s interesting is the motivation behind Rod’s plan.  He does not want to raise the $50,000 in hopes of saving his step-dad’s life.  What he really desires is to raise the 50K to save his dad’s life in hopes of finally beating him lifeless during one of their weekly sparring contests (“How can I beat ya to death if you’re already dead,” he pitifully screams to him at one point).  Realizing that his drive to pummel his healthy dad to a bleeding and bruised pulp is so insatiable, Rod gets some help from his buddies Kevin (Jorma Taccone), Rico (Danny R. McBride), and Dave (Bill Hader) and subsequently is befriended by the town babe, Denise (Isla Fisher, a real life babe) to raise some start up cash to bring his dream of being a grade-A stuntman – and future father beater – to fruition. 

Let’s just say that his money making schemes occur in some of the film’s funniest sequences.  To raise the money, Rod reduces himself to all sorts of humiliating stunt work.  At one children’s Birthday party he sets himself on fire and is forced to use fruit punch and lemonade to put himself out.  He tries – an embarrassingly fails – at jumping a swimming pool with his moped.  Another party has him hanging upside down while the kids whack at him like a pinata.  To make matters even more difficult, he starts to develop a serious crush on Denise, but she is dating an absolute pig-headed man in the form of Will Arnett (comic gold in just about any part).  Will Rod successful jump the 15 cars, get the $50,000, win the love of Denise, and get the opportunity to beat his step-dad into a coma? 

Is Natalie Portman a badass bitch? 

At times, its apparent that HOT ROD seems similar to JACKASS in the way it showcases idiots partaking in silly and moronic stunts that involve inflicting bodily harm on themselves.  Yet, JACKASS was a cringe-worthy endurance test in bad taste, whereas HOT ROD is more of a throwback comedy with dim-witted and likeable characters parading around in a swarm of 1980’s references (subtle winks to the before mentioned FOOTLOOSE inspire giggles, as do echoes of THE KARATE KID; the film also is wall-to-wall with 80’s tunes from bands like Europe). 

Many scenes inspire bountiful laughs, such as one where Sandberg and Taccone’s repetition of the phrase “cool beans” develops into a pseudo little musical interlude.  Another bit of linguistic comic merriment occurs when Rod tries to convince all his friends that he is the only one that likes to party.  There are also smaller moments that generate huge chuckles, like a Tai-chi training exercise, a dream sequence where Rod is in heaven and sees a fist fight between a taco and a grill cheese sandwich, and a closing moment with Arnett as he sheepishly tries to win back the love of Denise as she walks out on him.  Bill Hader has an extremely amusing moment when he reveals the result of a wicked accident.

Then there is Sandberg himself, who leaps headfirst into the film’s puzzling smorgasbord of ridiculous stunts, pummeling fistfights, and unapologetically dumb pratfalls that eventually command a kind of befuddling respect.  Not all of the jokes work and some fall flat on the faces, but there is no denying Sandberg’s willingness to pull out all the stops.  Even when the film teeters well over the top – as is the case with the shot involving his climatic school bus jump – you’ll find yourself laughing too hard to even begin to question the film’s oddity.   

HOT ROD is the kind of silly and preposterous comedy that seems like it was made by a bunch of college kids with a video camera that had nothing better to do.  Yet, calling it an 88-minute amalgamation of the best parts of You Tube is kind of fitting, because the film joyously embraces its juvenile vibe and low-witted sensibilities.  Ultimately, a very amusing performance by Sandberg, a bewildering number of absurdist sight gags and jokes, not to mention a youthful pluck and enthusiasm to the whole proceedings, makes HOT ROD very appealing comedy.  The film may be randomly moronic and insipid, but is it ultimately spirited and funny?  

Hells ya.

Read hundreds of reviews by CrAiGeR at:

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

****  out of  ****

HAIRSPRAY is a bright, sugarcoated, candy colored, and robustly entertaining film musical that enveloped me within its first few minutes and never let go.  Its free- wheeling, toe-tapping energy is utterly infectious.  As an exercise in playful rambunctious energy, whimsicality, and unapologetic joviality, the film is a grand bit of crowd-pleasing spectacle.  It’s as sweet as a lollipop and as light as the mist from an aerosol can.

HAIRSPRAY pleasantly harkens back to some of the best musicals, which wisely embraced their carefree and sassy spirit.  I defy anyone’s humanity that does not have fun with HAIRSPRAY; only diehard cynics and cinematic Scrooges will not find it to be a snarky and mercilessly enjoyable time at the movies.  And - God help me for saying this - but the fact that it has John Travolta in drag dancing with Christopher Walken in a romantic duet should not dissuade you in the slightest. 

Of course John Travolta should be in this!  He did - after all - create a pop culture frenzy with his sizzling disco theatrics in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and later gave his fans more in GREASE, one of the most beloved of all musicals.  And - of course - Travolta in drag should not be the red herring of HAIRSPRAY that far, far too many critics would love to point out.  After all, his character of Edna has a proud and renowned history of being played by men in drag.  Sure, in HAIRSPRAY Travolta may not be the suave, debonair, and guilelessly macho figure that he showed of in GREASE and FEVER, but he nevertheless shows that he can still be a showstopper.  Like everything else in the film, Travolta’s refreshing spunk and pure cornball appeal is done with a tactful, note perfect moderation.  HAIRSPRAY is a camp-filled, unfussy riot that exudes childlike lightheadedness.  Travolta as a woman is not a detriment, but oddly an absolute necessity.

Much like 2005’s musical comedy, THE PRODUCERS, HAIRSPRAY is another in one of those remakes of a remake.  It first saw the light of day as a 1988 comedy made by the frequently inaccessible John Waters, who made a real notorious name for himself in the 1970’s by making transgressive cult films.  Movies likes PINK FLAMINGOES and DESPERATE LIVING lovingly pushed the boundaries of good movie taste.  FLAMINGOES alone represented Waters at his most esoteric and absurd, and by that I refer to its notorious closing moment, an unbroken shot of a dog defecating and one character eating its poo.  Yeah…that inaccessible.

So, in pure hindsight, when his HAIRSPRAY was released in 1988, it marked a clear departure for the flamboyant director.  It was his effort to go a bit more mainstream (it was his first feature to be rated PG, most of his other efforts were given a self-imposed X rating for their crude content).  However more innocent and simplistic HAIRSPRAY was, it still retained some of Waters’ trademark quirkiness and inventiveness.  Like Mel Brooks’ original 1968 comedy of THE PRODUCERS, HAIRSPRAY eventually saw the light of day as a Broadway musical and went on to sweep the 2003 Tony Awards. Now comes HAIRSPRAY the film musical which is, again, a remake of a remake, and in that highly rare genre of film, it’s categorical the best.

This new film musical has an astonishing forward momentum of musical energy and liveliness that does not waiver throughout.  The opening number sets the film’s joyous level of sassiness.  It’s 1962 in Baltimore and a plump, robustly cute and bubbly Tracy Turnblad (in a star making performance by newcomer Nikki Blonsky) wakes up from her bed and jubilantly declares to the world her yearning to be a big, big star.  Her enthusiasm and confidence is limitless and matched only by her boundless charm. 

She sings “Good Morning, Baltimore”, one of the many of a handful of the film’s great song and dance numbers, as a triumphant tribute to one girl’s love and admiration for her city and place in it.  This opening sequence rightfully sets the whole film’s uplifting and contagious vibe; this is not going to celebrate the nihilism and cynicism that too often permeates modern movies; this will be a commemoration of frivolous merriment.  Make no mistake about it - Blonsky is a real whipper-snapper that is impossible to hate.

Tracy has big plans.  She absolutely worships an American Bandstand clone named “The Corny Collins Show”, which in turn is named after its host, the very appropriately named Corny Collins (James Marsden, in a very funny and effective performance).  Tracy and her best friend in the whole world, Penny Pingleton (in a cute performance by Amanda Bynes, who seems to spend the film orally fixated to a sucker) slave away with time wasting monotony at high school everyday.  Each class is like an endurance test of fortitude and patience.  The real prize of spending a day at school is watching Corny Collins and his group of teenie-boppers dance away on his after-school dance program.  The swingers on that show represent a life that Tracy wants.

Unfortunately for her, she has some very large roadblocks along the way.  It’s not due to her lack of talent (she has the pipes and the dance moves that eclipses anyone else on the show), but she is not a slender bombshell that only appears to be on the show.  Also, Tracy faces a lot of opposition in the form of her equally pudgy and fiercely conservative mother, Edna (Travolta in drag, and unmitigated delight).

Edna is the kind of homemaker that prefers to stay at home…a lot…and does not like the public eye (when she finally makes it outside late in the film, she states, “There’s so much…air out here, can I not go back inside to a stuffy room?”).  She sees the spark in her daughter’s eyes, but she has her own plans for her.  “Dancing is not your future,” she tells her early on. “One day, you’re going to own Edna’s Oxidental Laundry.”  What she fails to comprehend is that - gee whiz - maybe Tracy does not want to carry on her mother’s business.  She passionately screams back to her mom, “I want to be famous!”  At least her dad, Wilbur (Christopher Walken, playing his part with characteristic Walkenian appeal and a geeky affability, minus his usual creepiness factor), supports his daughter.

Tracy faces other obstacles.  One day good ol’ Corny Collins has an open tryout.  Tracy cuts class to go, but all of her abilities are matter-of-factly dismissed by the show’s producer, Velma Von Tussle (played with a perfectly hateful vileness and lecherousness by Michelle Pfeiffer).  You see, she has big plans for her daughter, Amber (Brittany Snow), a miraculously untalented dancer, whom she wants to crown Miss Teen Hairspray.  To make her an even more spiteful creature of hate, Velma is also someone that is trying to boycott the show’s “Negro Tuesdays” that allows for blacks to come on the show and dance, albeit segregated from the white kids.  These Tuesdays are planned by Maybelle (Queen Latifah), the owner of a record shop.  She fears that her friends and family’s days are numbered on Corny’s show.

However, Tracy learns a lot of new - and risqué - dance moves from her school’s fellow black students, whom she hooks up with in detention.  One of them, played by Elijah Kelley, takes an instant liking to Tracy and begins to show her some slick moves, the kind that - in the 1950’s - Elvis was performing on live TV, much to the scorn of parents and moral conservatives (granted, Elvis never spanked himself in a stage performance like Tracy does).

Corny spots her one day a digs her moves so much that he gives her a shot, much to the disapproval of Velma.  Soon the cast iron witch takes a tougher control of the show, so much to the point that she cancels Negro Tuesdays. This, of course, makes Tracy look at herself and make some soul searching choices.  She can either shamelessly continue her overnight celebrity status on the show in attempts at trying to win the boy of her dreams, teen hot-throb Link Larkin (played by Zach Effron, looking like the bi-product of a three way between Superman, Elvis Presley, and Ray Liotta) or she can risk it all by supporting her black friends on a march and protest of the show.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect about HAIRSPRAY is that it contains noteworthy themes of racial injustice and intolerance, especially at a time when the Civil Rights movement was just started to break wide open.  The film deals with the issues of social unrest and it does a subtle job of even infusing the message within many of the song lyrics.  Of course, to criticize the film for glossing over the larger history of this delicate time misses the point.  A solemn and overtly serious handling of the film’s subtext would have buried the liveliness of the film.  A film like this walks the delicate balancing act between being a depressing and euphorically uplifting.  Without being too heavy-handed with the material, the film finds the right equilibrium between the two.  It never becomes pandering, nor a whitewashed, look at history.

However, this film will not be remembered for its legitimate civic lesson on equal rights and racial bigotry during a fragile time; rather, it should be appreciated for its exhilarating potency and delightful capriciousness.  The film has a plethora of fantastic song and dance numbers and most of the cast seems equal to the task.  An early sequence with the conniving Velma shows her cheerful wickedness (Pfeiffer really has redefined herself here; she plays a cold-hearted villain so well), and Elijah Kelley shows off his acrobatic and groovy dance moves to great appreciation.  He is a real talent.

Of course, every number that includes Blonsky is joyous and goofy.  However, my personal favourite has to be a love ballet between - yes - Walken and Travolta, where the two dance the night away proclaiming their admiration for one another.  Amazingly, the fact that it is performed by two men does not illicit instant groans of discomfort.  Walken, playing somewhat against type as a nerd, is such an innocently likeable presence and Travolta does such a virtuoso job of losing himself in the role of Edna that you kind of forget the male star baggage and buy the relationship between the two characters.  Seeing Walken gracefully strutting alongside the equally fluid and smooth Travolta (even in pounds of fat makeup) is one of the film’s sublime pleasures.  When Wilbur and Edna proclaim their mutual adoring of one another, it’s noble-hearted and sweet, not…how shall I say…icky.

Most important among HAIRSPRAY’s accomplishments is its amiable and bouncy fun factor.  As a fast paced, buoyant, and rousing throwback to the classic, primary colored musicals of the 50’s, HAIRSPRAY wallows in a refreshing sensation of its own unpretentiousness.  With fever pitched dance numbers, bright production design, a cast of immeasurable likeability, and a serious message of racial tolerance that is not hammered down too hard,  HAIRSPRAY is a wondrous blast and vivaciousness and shameless exuberance.  Newcomer Nikki Blonsky steals every scene (she’s a cauldron of happiness), but it’s also hard to overlook John Travolta’s very publicized part of playing a middle-aged and overweight female homemaker.  Although initially seeing him in a dress and silk stockings is jarring and momentarily cringe worthy, you quickly kind of loose yourself in the spirit of his performance.  It - much like the rest of the film - is a unapologetic hoot.  HAIRSPRAY is a wonderfully glossy and old-fashioned screen musical that relishes with its unthreatening level of warmheartedness.  It’s simply one of 2007’s most fun-filled entertainments.

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

1/2*  out of  ****

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY is a comedy of unapproachable, Herculean stupidity and awfulness.  It seems to go out of its way to straddle two fences: one is marked by juvenile and puerile laughs and sight gags and the other is characterized by a sanctimonious pontificating about gay and lesbian rights.

Films this cringe worthy and putrid are not ones that you simply dispose of and forget about.  They linger with you like some sort of sickening virus.  I left the screening feeling like the only doomed survivor of an airplane accident that was stranded alone on a desert island with no hope in sight.  Movies should not make one feel so worthless.  I want the 115 minutes of life that CHUCK AND LARRY unceremoniously robbed of me.

I am not sure what is more offensive about this train wreck.  Is it the fact that it’s another in long, long - sigh - long line of witless and banal Adam Sandler comedies that seem like they were written by five-year-olds?  Is it the fact that the film contains enough gay stereotypes and homophobic jokes to make one gag, but - in the end - wishes to be a staunch advocate of equal rights for all homosexuals?  Is it the fact that we get a barrage of horribly phony sentiment about the plight of gays in western society and that the film wants us to feel sympathy for one group while giving us inanely offensive caricatures of other ethnic cultures?

Or…how about the fact that the film’s second credited screenwriters are none other than Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, the former that wrote and directed great films like ELECTION, ABOUT SCHMIDT, and SIDEWAYS, also winning a Screenwriting Oscar for the latter.  There is no doubt that after watching the film it is clear that either (a) Sandler and company kidnapped Payne at gun point and forced him to drain away and reduce himself down to amoral levels to write this fifth or (b) an evil, Bizarro-like clone of Payne was created to contribute to the screenplay.

I am not sure which I adhere to.

I did not buy this film’s flagrant preaching about its issues for one single second or frame.  Not at all.  C’mon, this is a dumb, juvenile Adam Sandler comedy that - in some scenes - has jokes about farting, pooping, and bums peeing their pants, but - for Heaven’s sake - it wants to tell us that gays are treated badly and that we should stop persecuting them. 

There is one moment in the film where Sandler, in a PATCH ADAMS-inspired moment of horrendously contrived melodrama, states that he “hates” the word “faggot” because it’s demeaning and uncalled for. He subsequently continues by saying that he used to speak the word far too much and that now - gosh darn it - he’s a better man because he realizes how badly he treated gays in the past.  This is the same Adam Sandler that, in his last comedy, stuck his ass in David Hasselhoff’s face and farted in it.  Asking me to buy Sandler’s epiphany here is one of the most incredulous straining of reality that I have ever seen in a commercial film.  For an actor that has made a career out of making fun of homosexuals, I find his efforts here to be earnest and noble shockingly insincere.

CHUCK AND LARRY is the kind of comedy that gets down on its hands and knees and begs for the talents of the Farrelly Brothers.  Those two have made a career of tackling politically incorrect subject matter by making it obscenely funny and simultaneously sincere with its characters.  Films like STUCK ON YOU and SHALLOW HAL come to mind, which had humor revolving around morbidly obese people and conjoined twins.  Yet, those films were funny because they had laughs with their handicapped personas; they never laughed at them at their expense.

Every joke and pratfall in CHUCK AND LARRY is so intolerably committed at the expense of the main leads and those around them.  This is a film that wants to serve up a lot of raunchy humor directed at gay lifestyles but - at the same time - it wants to stand up and proudly proclaim that people that make fun of gays are losers.  By the end of the film, when this sentiment of tolerance is spouted, I did not feel enlightened.  I felt like I wanted to vomit.  You can either go for broke and shock and offend with the subject matter or be a self-righteous, PC parable about respect and leniency.  Since CHUCK AND LARRY tries to do both, it inevitably becomes something altogether more distasteful.

All of this, of course, should come at no surmise whatsoever.  Sandler himself is back in full force as a inhumanly unstable and unlikeable hooligan, the kind that he played to irritating, finger-nails-on-a-chalkboard perfection in other moronic comedies like BIG DADDY and HAPPY GILMORE.  He also brought back his director of those two films to add further insult to injury.  Furthermore, he seems to continue to make the same awful missteps that those other comedies made: serve us up a grade-A degenerate, sexist, misogynist male pig and - through a series of silly events - allow him to see the light at the end of the tunnel so he can become a better man.  In BIG DADDY he lead us on to believe that his character should have custody of a child when it was proven that he in no way should raise a kid.  In CHUCK AND LARRY he inevitably learns that calling someone a fag is bad.

Well…laddie-frickin’-da.

This monumentally bad comedy also commits another sin: it’s a comedy with no laughs.  Nadda.  Zip.  Zero.  A smile here and there, perhaps the barest, most minute example of a snicker, but not one genuine display of hearty merriment.  The film suffers from a rigidly one note premise: two straight men marry and pretend to be gay so they can get pension rights from their jobs.  One of the men, Larry (Kevin James, a funny and appealing actor saddled with bad material) has an issue.  After his wife’s death he was so taken away with morning her that he forgot to change his beneficiary of his life insurance policy to his children.  He discovers that it is too late to do this based on a legal technicality.  He also works as a firefighter, which is a dangerous job that threatens his life, so if he were to perish then his cute little kids would have nothing.

Fearing the worse, Larry decides to take a desperate course of action.  He will go to his partner on the job, Chuck (Sandler, phoning in a comedic performance with the minimal of effort) and fake being gay so they can form a domestic partnership.  If they do so Larry will be able to name Chuck as his new beneficiary and - presto - kids looked after for life.  Of course, Chuck begrudgingly agrees, but neither of the two are smart enough to think about how anyone in their right minds would believe them.  After all, Larry was a happily married man and Chuck is an unmitigated man-whore that engages in wild and rough intercourse with multiple female partners.  Not only that, but what they are doing is insurance fraud.  But…Chuck’s kids are so cute, so it’s worth the risk.

Worried about being discovered, the two hapless “gays” decide to get some legal help, most likely because government stooges are beginning to snoop around their homes looking for clues to expose them for the frauds they are (one of the agents is played by Steve Buscemi, whose appearance in yet another Sandler comedy further appears to be the result of the existence of bad blackmail in Sandler’s hands against him).  They go to see a lawyer named Alex (Jessica Biel), who is red, smokin’ hot.  Of course, she tells them that they should legally get married to throw off the government. 

Well, the two do get hitched in Canada by an Asian justice of the peace played by Rob Schneider.  Why does Schneider play his part Asian? I dunno, maybe because this film feels thinks that horrendously offensive ethnic stereotypes are funny.  Then again, Schneider was in DEUCE BIGALOW: EUROPEAN GIGOLO, a movie that contained a scene where he danced with a woman that had a congenital birth defect that gave her a penis for a nose and when she sneezed the fluid that came out was…well…use your imagination.  Obviously, Sandler and Schneider thought that gag was a riot, so why not make the latter’s character in CHUCK AND LARRY have slanty eyes for big laughs?  Alongside this year’s NORBIT, CHUCK AND LARRY continues a recent deplorable tradition of non-Asians playing Asians in makeup to horrible effect.

Anyhoo’, problems arise when Chuck begins to form a bond with Alex.  She thinks Chuck is gay, so she warms up to him and becomes close.  Chuck starts to fall for her, but has to mask his feelings because he has to act gay.  We are then subject to gratuitously stupid sequences where we see the two of them partaking on a “girl’s” day out, which culminates with a scene back at Alex’s apartment where she strips down out of her rain-drenched clothes right in front of Chuck.  He, of course, is aroused and is made even more uncomfortable when Alex asks him to grab her breasts to see whether or not he can tell if their real.  Clearly, this scene exists for Sandler to engage in his typical masturbatory objectification of women in his films.  Not that there is anything wrong with seeing Beil in her underwear, mind you.

All of this builds up to - you guessed it - an impassioned court hearing that is presided over by none other than Richard Chamberlain.  Here the boys have to go through a series of questions to prove their gayness.  The results are unequivocally embarrassing.  We get not one, but two would-be audience cheering speeches, one by Sandler, saying how he now knows that gay slurs are bad and the other by Dan Aykroyd, playing Chuck and Larry’s boss, who gives a motivational speech that may go down as one of the most mortifying ever. 

Then, of course, we get all of the other former homophobic co-workers who inevitably show up to give their support of their buddies.  They have their SPARTACUS moment.  Oh wait, there’s a third speech provided by Ving Rhames, who also plays a fellow fire fighter that comes out of the closet and emerges as the second worst caricature next to Schneider’s Asian.  I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to tell that the boys will get off, will reveal to the world that they’re not gay, and that Sandler will end up with Alex, despite the fact that a woman of her class and dignity would never, ever end up with a troglodyte like Chuck.

Is it possible for a film to be equal parts tasteless and offensive alongside being a total comic dead zone?  I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY proves that you can.  I am not sure how to even conclude with describing my utter discomfort and misfortune while sitting through this regrettably disagreeable comedy.  The audience I was with - packed to capacity - laughed uproariously at nearly everything: the wretched homophobic jokes, the ghastly Schneider in yellow face, the preening Ving Rhames playing up to every homosexual stereotype, hell, even gags at the expense of the morbidly obese.  Well, I did not share in their enjoyment of the film, but I was the only one in the theatre laughing out loud during the final ten minutes where characters lecture on acceptance and respect of their fellow man...gay and straight.

Lacking in laughs, packed with an abundance of sexism and downright racism, and paradoxically making fun of the gay community while trying to lead the charge of the world respecting them, I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY barely rises above the level of worthless, detestable trash.

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

***1/2  out of ****

I love Canada.

I can’t possibly think of another country that I would rather live.  Michael Moore’s new documentary, SICKO - a damning, oftentimes heart-breaking, occasionally hilarious, and thoroughly disturbing expose of the U.S. health care system – only reinforced my admiration for where I reside.  Few film going experiences have left me feeling as proud of my homeland as this one did.

Why?  Because the film uses the universal health care system that our citizens possess as a very effective counterpoint to the horrible and systemic inadequacies that afflict the American HMO system.  Certainly, health care is a a very important privilege, but it should also be a fundamental right, open to all citizens, regardless of economic status.  It gives me a certain amount of relief that if a day passes by where (for example) I accidentally chop off two of my fingers that I can securely walk into any hospital and be assured that I will not have to personably go bankrupt at the expense of putting my severed fingers back on my hand.

Oh Canada, indeed.

People like my mother would certainly be a destitute cripple in a wheel chair if it were not for Canada’s so-called “socialist” health care system.  After having gone through not one, but two knee replacement surgeries, she is able to stand on her own two feet.  My country’s health care system fit the bill.  Dear old mom did not pay a dime for her surgery.  Yes, she missed months of work as a direct result of the surgery and took a huge pay cut by being on employment insurance while in hospital, but the little she lost in salary was nothing compared to what she could have lost if she were a US citizen having the same procedures done south of the border.   That’s the subtle brilliance of SICKO; it’s ultimately a profoundly insightful and sobering look at why the US health care system is, in essence, a complete and utter shame.

No doubt, if my mother lived in America, there is no way she could have afforded to have her surgery without putting her in the poor house indefinitely.  What Moore does very effectively early on in his documentary is he presents a few cases of ordinary, US citizens and how their own health concerns and problems simply were given a blind eye by their insurance companies.  The true horror story of the film is that it shows how decent, law abiding, tax paying citizens have been denied care because of two unalterable - and disgusting - facts:

1. They had no health care insurance, hence, could not afford to pay their medical bills.

2. Their insurance companies that they pay their hard earned dollars into for “support” denied their medical claims.

One couple in particular - as an early moment in the film reveals - was forced to move into their twenty-something daughter’s home because of the father’s three heart attacks.  Their insurance simply was growing inadequate to cover the mounting expenses.  They were forced to sell their home and move into a small basement room in their daughter’s house. 

Also consider the insipidly frustrating story of one man who lopped off two of his fingers in a nasty carpentry accident.  His doctor - and insurance company - gave him a choice: he could have is middle finger sewn back together for $60,000 or his ring finger done for “the bargain price” of $12,000.  Being a romantic, the man said good-bye to flipping the bird effectively with his wedding band hand and paid twelve large to have his ring finger fixed.

One finger: $12K.  Hmmm…what would two knee replacement surgeries run?  That thought alone is scary.

The lists of health care atrocities continues to pile up as Moore matter-of-factly chronicles them in the film.  There is a ridiculous story of how a woman was stuck with the ambulance bill after she was hit head-on in a collision with her car and was taken, while unconscious, to the hospital. Why was she forced to pay?  Because her health care provider deemed that she needed to make arrangements before the accident with the ambulance service to be covered (this mentality is mind-boggling; was she supposed to call right before she was nailed by another vehicle?). Then there is the tale of one woman who had a surgery, was completely covered by her health care provider, but they later retroactively cancelled her surgery coverage. Why?  Because she failed to mention a simple yeast infection before the surgery.

These stories - however shocking and appalling - are nothing compared to those of families that suffered even greater losses as a result of the lack of universal health care.  Moore reveals examples of how some people have died because of lack of care and coverage.  Utterly lamentable is the story of widow Tracy Pierce, whose husband had life-threatening kidney cancer.  Doctors at the time suggested several courses of action to help save his life, one would have included a bone marrow transplant - supplied by the man’s brother - which could have easily saved his life.  Unfortunately, his health care insurance would not cover these types of actions because they astoundingly deemed as “experimental”.  Without any coverage, Tracey Pierce’s husband died a very preventable death.

The frightening stories continue.  Beyond the anecdotes of all of these ill-fated people that have suffered and made unalterable sacrifices,  Moore shows how the botched and decrepit US health care system deals with those that are at the lowest notch of the financial ladder.  Homeless people in particular seem to suffering the most.  More often than not, these disadvantage people are essentially booted out of hospitals, often while still wearing hospital gowns,  put in taxis and are eventually dumped off at homeless shelters.  One incomparably eerie moment in the film has an actual surveillance tape that shows one poor, old woman - still in nightgown - dropped off by a screeching taxi.  She is dazed and disturbed, not knowing where she really is.

It gets worse.

Perhaps the real icing on this distasteful cake is how Moore deals with the stories of those inside the insurance companies, who, in essence are told to do all that they can to ensure that claims never go through and that corporate CEO’s and the companies make huge profits.  Moore interviews Lee Einer, whose job it was at a very large - and unidentified - insurance company to examine claims retroactively in order to find loopholes in hopes of abruptly canceling them.  He was told to pursue large claims in hopes of scoring a huge financial savings for his company.  At the end of his segment, he muses on how much he does not regret leaving his job behind.  There is also another insurance worker that is interviewed that breaks down from the anxiety of relating one story of how she could not bring herself to tell a woefully optimistic elderly couple that they would never - under any circumstances - get health coverage.

One of the film’s most interesting - and potentially courageous - crusaders is a woman doctor, Linda Peeno, a former health insurance reviewer for a company named Humana.  Before a Congressional hearing in 1996, she tearfully recounted how she denied a man “a necessary operation” back in 1987 in order to save her company millions.  Her actions caused the patient’s death, but made her employer richer.  She’s been emotionally poorer ever since.

All of this begs Moore and, I guess, ourselves to ask one painfully inevitable question: What in the hell is wrong with the U.S.?  For a nation that is easily one of the richest and most productive in the free world, it stands number 37 on a list of the earth’s worst health care countries (right in front of Slovenia).  Why can’t this country - with its endless economic resources and infrastructure - look after its sick and dying? 

Perhaps this is why SICKO is one of Moore’s most curiously apolitical works of social advocacy.  Whereas his other documentaries pointed fingers squarely at political parties and figures,  SICKO is kind a refreshingly new rabble-rousing and button pushing Moore in the sense that there is undeniable universality to his themes and messages.  It does not matter if one is a Democrat or a Republican; both parties obviously would see the desperate need for US health care reform.  This film is a strong bit of propaganda for any party to seriously invest some time and energy into it.

There are people dying left in right in the US and clearly at the expense of health care providers that are royally screwing them.  So, why does the U.S. not have a prevailing universal health care system like…say…Canada?  Perhaps it’s the fact that is seems like a Socialist concept, which gives politicians a bad taste in the mouth.  Yet, American society is ripe with state funded programs (firemen, policeman, and teachers are, in most cases, free), yet with health care it’s an undeservedly different socio-political matter.

It simply boils down to the unlimited power of drug companies and insurance provides.  When bodies like this have the power - as the documentary rightfully and wisely points out - to topple high ranking people like former first lady, Hilary Clinton - who once championed massive health care reform - and tell her to “shut-up”, then you just know that health care problems seem almost unsolvable.  Clinton herself emerged as the second highest recipient of campaign contributions from - you guessed it - the health sector.

Moore does offer perceptive on the other “socialist” universal health care of countries by visiting Canada, France, the UK, and finally Cuba. Although I think he somewhat over-glorifies these nations’ health care infrastructures without probing much into their subtle inadequacies (it seems like Canadians, in the film, mostly wait under an hour for emergency room care, but my personal wait times of 4-5 hours prove otherwise), he nevertheless strikes the right note with pointing out why they are so strikingly superior.

Some of these trips emerge as the film’s most hilarious sequences, as is the case where Moore goes to UK hospital corridor where a sign that says “cashier” is revealed not to be a area to collect money from patients; it instead pays out to patient’s for their traveling expenses to the hospital.  There is also another funny montage where Moore rides shotgun with a 24-hour French house call service where a doctor with a company called SOS Méédecins visits patients.  The doctor takes calls all night like a taxi driver.  Finally, Moore visits some Americans now living in Paris and is shocked to see how good the standard of living is in the country when compared to the States.  What he inescapably learns is that these countries simply have a better standard of living and a longer mean life span for their people.

The film’s coup de grace is a grievous and appalling story of some 9/11 rescue workers.  Many of them risked their lives attempting to save victims at the Twin Towers, but since many of them were working outside of their jurisdictions, they were refused health care based on a lame technicality.  What’s even more obscene is how Moore discloses how members of the same terrorist-cells that plotted 9/11 are given better health care at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps than the 9/11 rescue workers.

Curiously what Moore never mentions is the fact that all alleged enemies of the U/S. that are detained - in accordance with the terms of the Geneva and Hague Conventions - must be given health care.  Yet, this is a modest oversight in the sense that he uses this as another bullet to put in an already smoking gun.  What happens next is pure, vintage Moore.  He decides to take all of these neglected 9/11 rescuers, get them in a boat, sail to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and beg for the same treatment for them that the “evil doers” are receiving.

Predictably, no one answers Moore’s request.  However, after he rants  through a megaphone, a siren is heard which makes him and his entourage steer clear.  Since they have no chance to get help in the detainment camp, and since they are already in Cuba, Moore takes the crew to Havana where - to his utter astonishment - they receive free hospital stays and advanced treatment, all by simply given over their names and date of births.  That’s it. 

One woman in particular is greatly moved by her Cuban stay.  She has a $1000 per month disability, but her inhaler medication costs nearly $300 every four weeks.  In Cuba it costs pennies.  No doubt, it could be said that Moore exploits this woman’s grief and pain to its fullest, but he at least does so for an important and noteworthy cause.  And not only that, but the woman does get the help she needs…not to mention that she is given some of that inhaler medicine for nickels and dimes.

Moore has always maintained a reputation for being a showman and one that utilizes convenient facts to help his cause.  Yet, he’s less an objective documentarian than he is a highly subjective, emotionally invested, editorial journalist in his films.  Works like FAHRENHEIT 9/11, ROGER AND ME, and his finest hour, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, all revel in Moore’s predilection towards pushing bottoms with whatever means possible.  One can question his methodology and choices in his films, but there should be no denying the raw sentiment and evocativeness of his films’ messages.  Whether you love him or hate him, Moore is one of the eminent satirists and filmmakers of his generation and he daringly investigates polarizing issues that others fail to. 

SICKO is no exception.

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of Moore’s film is that it displays a bit more urgency, sincerity, and serenity than his other politicized, volatile, and oftentimes corrosive films.  Displaying a keenly sensitive voice and a uniquely off-camera - for the most part - presence, Moore is able to probe deep into the dilapidated health care system that permeates the United States and reveals all of its hellish paradoxes.  Yet, no one should mistake SICKO for a kinder, gentler Michael Moore documentary.  Despite the fact that it may not be the equal to BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE and ROGER AND ME, his blunt, not-so-subtle, and purposely one-sided investigation into SICKO’s underlining material is still as suggestive, alluring, and thought-provoking as ever.  Perhaps the one thing that this film does better than his others is that it shows how ordinary lives are devastated and ruined by a country’s incessantly cruel health care policy of “Do no harm…unless you have a big, fat check book.”  In a way, this makes SICKO Moore’s most bipartisan work.  It does not draw political lines.  It asks the parties to walk over them in an effort to heal a system that has been on critical life support for too long.

www.craigerscinemacorner.com

 

*  out of  ****

Because I deem myself to be fair, impartial, and level-headed, I decided to go into TRANSFORMERS with an open mind.  Before viewing this new action film – a live-action effort based on the popular 1980’s Hasbro toy line – I was more than willing to give its director, Michael Bay, one last chance to redeem himself. 

His last effort, one of 2005’s biggest box office duds, THE ISLAND, showed some promise, but it nevertheless lapsed back into some of Bay’s most annoying aesthetic tendencies.  His previous track record has been ever less stellar.  This is the same man that made films of such bombastic stylistic overkill and mind-numbing mediocrity like ARMAGEDDON, PEARL HARBOR, and BAD BOYS I and II.

Because of that, my only thoughts that prevailed my mind going into his latest offering were, “C’mon, how much worse can this guy get?  He can only get better, not worse…right?  Maybe he deserves me giving him another chance?”

Who am I kidding?

 

I went into TRANSFORMERS thinking that it would be another bloated, Bayian stink-bomb and I was definitely not disappointed.  I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault…honest.  Bay makes it too easy for me to chastise his work.  When films like this are flat, loud, and generically soulless, it almost goes out of its way to invite scorn.

 

Yet, I will not bore you with all of my long-winded pontificating about this film.  That seems like a waste of my time.  Instead, I have the next best thing.  I know a guy who knows a guy – no names – that has an exclusive secret source within the film industry that has uncovered tape recordings of a meeting between Bay and the film’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg.  I have transcribed it here for your reading pleasure, and their conversation does a fantastic job of embellishing my thoughts about the film:

 

**********************************************************************

 

Spielberg:  Hey Mike, I got a new film property for you to sink your teeth into.  After all…you need some redeeming.

 

Bay:  Okay.  Maybe you’re right.  After the box office thumping I got because of THE ISLAND, I need to get back on track.

 

Spielberg:  Great.  Okay…here it is: TRANSFORMERS…THE MOVIE.

 

Bay:  What the hell is a TRANSFORMER?

 

Spielberg:  Well…it’s a toy line that was popular in the 80’s and it was made into an animated film and…

 

Bay:  I hate toys…and cartoons.  They’re so inert and lifeless. 

 

Spielberg:  So are most of your films.

 

Bay: Good point.  Okay, tell me more.  Continue.

 

Spielberg:  Okay, well…we want to do it live action and be as faithful to the origins of the toys.  We could make a real kick ass family film.

 

Bay:  I don’t do family films.  I only believe in R-rated excess.

 

Spielberg:  Okay, but this could be a Michael Bay family film, done your way.  You call the shots.

 

Bay:  Okay…I call the shots.  Got it.  Go on.

 

Spielberg:  Okay, so TRANSFORMERS is basically about a race of robots  that can transform into any type of vehicle…like a Trans-Am or a semi truck.

 

Bay:  How about a Volvo…I like them.

 

Spielberg:  Sure…whatever.  Anyway, the bad robots are the Decepticons and they nearly destroyed the Autobots’ – the good guys – home world of Cybertron.  Basically, they’re at war.  Good robots led by Optimus Prime.  Bad ones ruled by Megatron.

 

Bay:  Hmmmm….so you want this to be a metaphorical take on Soviet/US relations during the Cold War?

 

Spielberg:  No…it’s a movie about robots fighting each other.

 

Bay: I was kidding, Stevie.  Go on.

 

Spielberg:  Okay, they end up on earth and duke it out here.

 

Bay:  Nice.  But why earth?  Why not Pluto or…maybe  Mars.  Mars looks cool.  It’s all red and stuff.

 

Spielberg:  Well…humans can’t breathe on Pluto or Mars…plus we need a human element in this film.  It just can’t be robots, robots, robots.

 

Bay:  Why not?  I’ve never relied on a plausibly realistic human element before in my movies.  That’s never been an issue before.

 

Spielberg:  Good point.  But we need actors.  Good ones.  And a good story.

 

Bay:  Well…I like Shia Labeouf…he is very good.  He could play a teenage kid.

 

Spielberg:  Nice.  He’d work.  I’d buy that.  He’s very likeable.

 

Bay:  Yeah.  Maybe he can have some sort of artifact that his…let’s say…great-grandfather uncovered.  Like…a pair of glasses.  They will be the key to the robots being on earth.  It will be my great Hitchcockian MacGuffin.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.  But, the whole concept of the “MacGuffin” is that it was an item never shown in his movies.

 

Bay:  Whatever.  It’s my Mcguffin.  Okay?

 

Spielberg:  Fine.

 

Bay:  Okay…then we can have a sub-plot that details how the US government has secretly hidden Transformers from the world.  We can have a kooky government stooge that protects the public from this, but it will be revealed to the heroes during the course of the film.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay…war on earth…alien invasion…US cover-up…this sounds a lot like INDEPENDENCE DAY.

 

Bay:  Hey…my film-watching peeps are suckers for witless, regurgitated formulas.

 

Spielberg: Good point.  But I have an idea about how to present the Transformers.  I think it would be much more effective to shown them late in the film instead of too early, to build a sense of implied menace…like in JAWS.  Never saw the shark till late and that worked.  Build up audience expectations, and then when ya show ‘em, they’ll be wowed.

 

Bay:  No way.  Can’t do that.  If I’m doing this “my way” then I’m gonna start this movie with a kick ass, hyperactive action sequence that introduces the robots and really excites the audience.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.  But, Mike, can you please tone down how you film the action sequences?  So many of them before in your other films are cobbled together and edited like they were designed to be viewed by people with Attention Deficit Disorder.  I mean…sometimes they are so migraine inducing that I get ill just watching them.  I mean…does every shot have to have a swirling, chaotic camera?

 

Bay:  Sorry, Stevie.  That’s my calling card.  This is “my film” and if I want to engage in cinematic overkill, I will make this film one that only I can make.  Big, bloated, and as extreme as possible.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.  Any other thoughts, besides making the story derivative and the action sequences completely seizure-inducing eye candy that borders on being cringe worthy?

 

Bay:  Sure do.  I think that we need to make Shia’s character really unsympathetic.  I mean, let’s say that he sells the MacGuffin on eBay to make some cash so he can buy the car of his dreams so he can nail the woman of his dreams.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.

 

Bay:  Yeah…check this out…he does not give a hoot about his precious heirloom…the glasses…my MacGuffin…the key to the robot war on earth…so he tries to sell it.  That’s how the Decepticons find out about the glasses.  They’ll search eBay.

 

Spielberg:  The alien robots that want to wipe out humanity will search…eBay? 

 

Bay:  Yeah.

 

Spielberg:  But wouldn’t it make more sense to make Shia likeable, someone for us to root for?  With him selling his granddad’s stuff for a car…seems kind of lecherous.  Don’t ya think?  Why would I care for him?

 

Bay:  Well…you’ll care about him nailing the girl of his dreams when you see who I cast as the girl.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay…who?

 

Bay: Megan Fox.  Holy Hanna…she is a babe.  I foresee using her assets to the extreme.  For example, I see in my mind her playing a 17-year-old grade 11 student in a halter top and a very, very short skirt.  She’s also very good with cars.  When Shia’s ride breaks down, I think I should shoot her like an FHM magazine spread.  Close-ups of her cleavage…her exposed midriff…and then her bent over the car.  It’ll leave my peeps drooling.  I know I am just thinking about it.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay…but is that necessary?  Won’t that be just reducing her to a dumb sex object and make her less of a character.

 

Bay:  But she’s good with cars.  That’s her angle.  Her dad showed her that…before he went to prison.  Plus she’s hot.

 

Spielberg:  I dunno…

 

Bay:  Stevie…Stevie…I live for sexually objectifying women in my films.  And if I have a chick with a nice grill…get it…grill…man I kill me…than I am gonna show it off.  Plus…I want to make her scenes stick out like MTV music videos.  Plus, the car that LaBeouf drives is actually Optimus Prime.  Ya see…he befriends Shia and tries to help him score with Meagan by playing mood music.

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.  But why would an alien robot that is engaging in an interstellar war with a group of other robots want to waste time with helping Shia bed a teenage chick?

 

Bay:  Trust me.  Even a robot would want Shia to nail this girl.  I mean…look at her.  And she’s good with cars.  What an angle, eh?

 

Spielberg:  Ooookay.  What about the rest of the film?

 

Bay:  Oh…you mean the story.  Hee-hee.  That’s a good one, Stevie.  That’ll all come together eventually.  I think the best thing to do is to focus on the super fast and bad ass action scenes first, followed by