Five Different Reviews for You from Zu...
In the very very beginning of this whole thing, the four of us wrote for just ourselves. But now that we have such a wonderful group of readers, we may be reposting things so old that nobody read them but us. I will start by just reposting some of my oldest reviews here before continuing to only report what I see :
When I decided to join this blog and be one of the cinematixyz writers, I had to lay down personal ground rules. I couldn't just come in and start reviewing movies from memory since I have seen thousands of movies. I also could not just randomly start talking about personal favorites because I would be here all month and still not even be close to my top hundred. So I decided that I would just discuss whatever movie came my way, whether it was one I had seen before, a newbie, an old classic, or a friends choice. Netflix, cable, rental, library or gift..it didn't matter. If I sat through a movie somewhere, I was going to make a post here on it. And this afternoon, I saw Summer of Sam.
I had seen it before but it wasn't one of those films that burned itself in my memory. This one is really tricky because it will be really enjoyable for a few scenes, then lose it's momentum. Then it will find it's groove again before quickly losing it. I think that the same topic, with the same director shooting the same actors in the same scenes would have been raised a notch if edited differently. The overall mood is wonderful though, without shoving it down your throat. Some directors have a hard time setting the correct mood in period pieces that are within recent memory. When a film is on a place and time so far back that nobody alive remembers it, there is room for error. Nobody is going to notice if Scarlett O' Hara's petticoats are missing a layer of lace and most people don't raise an eyebrow if Queen Victoria's coronation robes are the wrong color.
Since 'Summer of Sam' takes place in New York in 1977, Spike Lee had the difficult task of recreating a point in time within recent memory. One false move and audience's would revolt. Granted, there were historical inaccuracies that halted my suspension of disbelief when spotted and I could have done without the constant cutting to David Berkowitz spazzing out at home and trying to beat the demons out of his head. That didn't happen and it made him seem laughable, not frightening. The overall mood, however, was well woven and believable in a way that the folks working on 'The Wedding Singer' didn't achieve. In that movie, I felt the entire film come to a crashing stop for a few seconds while we listened to a song from 1985 as if to reiterate "Hey! Look! This film is taking place in 1985! Remember this song?". In 'Sam' the music was in the background, as most music is as we live day to day life and people continued to speak, kiss, drive, or do whatever else they were doing as music from 1977 comes over the radio. It dressed the scenes like a good set piece or costume and cemented in the feelings from that year. The only time I have seen a movie helped rather then hindered by actually yielding to the music of the day in the scenes was in 1999's Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola is gifted in many ways, but especially knowing how to balance music within her films.
Spike Lee has that gift as well as using color and design to portray temperature. We feel this gift as we sweat through 'Do the Right Thing' and I felt it again watching 'Summer of Sam' today. He also knows how to mix the personal story of many different characters without it coming off like a soap opera. Usually, I don't like fictional characters to pop up in a story set in a specific place and time. The historical inaccuracies usually prevent me from enjoying the picture. Sometimes it is necessary to tell the tale and this would be a good example. Just like in 'Titanic', placing a few non-people within the real setting helps us to relate in a way that we might not have been able to had the film been just on one person who was actually a focal point to the events. This film is not on David Berkowitz so it wouldn't make sense to pick one detective or one victim to tell the story. Berkowitz is merely one of many characters and while the summer had little to do with the man himself, it was shrouded in the violence and paranoia that his actions caused. If it had focused on just the killer or the case, we wouldn't have been able to explore the many other aspects that made New York what it was that summer, that year, or even that decade.
By pulling back from Berkowitz, Spike Lee is able to bring us to the Bowery, back out and then close up on riots in Harlem, then the camera backs up, as if it's a tiny airplane and swoops down on Studio 54, the Bronx, CBGB's, hair saloons, restaurants and then, yes, back into parked cars to witness another young couple getting shot. It would have been a disservice to the audience had Lee made this film all about the killings and he would have had a tragedy of a movie on his hands, like 'Zodiac' was. Instead we get flashes of the city from different points of view and the only thread holding it together is the date. And of course, a feeling of general dread.
As the film so wisely shows, the feeling of dread may have been attributive to knowing there was a psychopath on the loose but in reality, there was dread long before the killing began and long after David Berkowitz was caught. It was, after all, New York City in the seventies with all it's crime, all it's filth, and all it's economic depression. A murderer on the loose was just the proverbial cherry. There were always murderers on the loose. There was always something lurking in the corner. Son of Sam just put a fine point on a time that was already teetering on the edge.
Adrian Brody, Mira Sorvino, and John Leguizamo are spot on as always. Sorvino can't help being a cutie and both lead actors have that chameleon-like quality that is always a shocking treat. Further proof of Leguizamo's ability to lose himself in a role is the day I saw that he was on the same subway car as me. I looked right at him, then around, surprised that nobody else noticed him. He gave me a small smile that said 'that's right, today I am playing an every day New Yorker and I am such a good actor that noone can tell it's me... I'm just blending in'. Of course we also see Spike Lee himself in the role of a 1970s reporter keeping New Yorkers abreast of the hotbed of activity taking place in every direction. I read that he got some bad feedback from the families of Berkowitz's young victims and this is what caused him to shift his focus from the horrible crimes to the reaction from members of the community. Wise move, since it is the thing that makes the film work.
This makes for an interesting piece of cinema and while I felt it veering off it's course a few times, it usually managed to steer us back. This wasn't one of my favorite movies of all time, it was enjoyable enough for what it was. If you are looking for a movie that is historically on the mark, this one will just piss you off. But if you want to remember how bad the good ole days really were or get a peek into a time you may have missed, I would say it's worth a view or two.
In keeping with my personal vow to review every film that I happen to see, it must be said that I just caught The Color Purple on T.V. Indeed, It's one of my guilty pleasures. So now ya know. I *love* this film. In the words of 'Mister' "I always have and I always will." Up until Schindler's List, it was my favorite Spielberg picture. Every time I admit that, I get strange looks. However as much as he is the master of fantasy and wonder, I seem to be drawn to his serious dramas the most.
I think The Color Purple is perfect in many ways. Perfect cast, perfect costumes and music, spot on cinematography. For someone so acutely aware of when a film is getting too sugary, it never hits the saccharine mark for me. I also must confess that as a guilty pleasure, I have sat through this film about 20 times in almost as many years and yet I still fight tears every time Miss Celie and her sister are separated and again when they are reunited.
Here is where I must go ahead and raise a point that I know has bothered some people. In Alice Walker's brilliant book (which I highly recommend) there is no mistaking the key relationship between Shug Avery and Miss Celie. There is no clever innuendo, no hidden passages. This was a loving sexual relationship and it must have been tough to translate to a main stream film of the 1980s. I have heard alot of guff about how Spielberg ruined the book by never mentioning that and only hinting. Normally, I am a book purest and get very upset when directors take it upon themselves to change a perfect manuscript.
This is a special case though and I think he did the right thing. The book's main character is an African American. She is a woman. And she is a lesbian. So where was he to put the emphasis? Is this a black story? A woman's picture? Or is this a piece on lesbianism? The most important elements to Celie's story centers around her powerlessness. First off, she is powerless because she is black and in the Deep South at the turn of the century. But taken a step further, she is also powerless within her own social circle of other African Americans because she is poor. Taken even further, she is completely without voice in her own group of other poor country folk because of her sex. She is female, alone, without family, without protection, and when we first meet her, without hope. The fact that she is also a lesbian is so secondary to the rest of it and almost a direct result of all the other social issues that imprison her. So putting it front and center in a movie version would have taken away from the importance of the rest of the story. While book readers accepted it as a part of the story and a part of the character, moviegoers of the 80s might not have been so understanding. Like children tasting something tart, they would have spit out the rest of the medicine they so badly needed. I know why Spielberg only briefly hinted at the intense relationship between Shug and Celie. To keep the middle aged couple in Iowa watching. To keep the teenagers in South Dakota watching. They were just barely along for the ride when they thought it was about a poor black woman, but to throw in that she was also gay might have lost viewers and this was a story that deserved to be heard by many. For the purists however, he gives you just enough information to know exactly what the deal is between those two friends. Had he made the film today would he still just have hinted? It's an interesting question.
There are other slight changes from the Pulitzer Prize winning book but nothing too dramatic and most changes are very necessary in order to translate it to film. Hopefully if you haven't already checked out the book, you will because it is beautifully crafted. The thing that sticks most in my mind is that Alice Walker wrote the whole thing from the point of view of the highly intelligent but uneducated Miss Celie. So she had the task of writing a tale on the most basic of human issues: Pride, Class, Hope, Longing, Loss, Faith and Time. But she writes as Miss Celie would write, in the most basic vocabulary possible. She uses the smallest words to discuss the biggest of Ideas and it is done in such a way that one forgets that these are suppose to be the thoughts of an uneducated teenage girl. That is much harder to do then it sounds. The Pulitzer was well-deserved.
Yet so was an Academy Award and that famously never happened. It's a much discussed fact in Oscar History that The Color Purple was nominated for 11 awards and did not score a single one. Granted, 1985 had it's fair share of amazing films, but the Academy must have been too busy snorting lines off a table or something because the best films of the year were partially or completely absent from the awards. I watch The Purple Rose of Cairo and Brazil once every few years even though they were not properly represented at the Oscars and yet you couldn't pay me enough to sit through Witness or that year's best picture winner, Out Of Africa again.
It is hard to put my finger on precisely what it is about this movie that is so special to me. At first I thought it was that I related to the intense bond two siblings have when they have gone through extreme difficulties together. Then I thought it might be that I understood what it was like to be oppressed by those in positions of authority. Then I thought maybe what I enjoyed the most was the in-depth look at a certain place and time in our history that doesn't get the proper attention most of the time. In actuality it is all of these things and much more. The Color Purple is just a good book that was made into a good film. Period.
I just finished watching an amazing German film on the Rosenstrasse protest in 1943. First off, it's a German film. Well actually, very few films are entirely of or from one nation and this one is no exception with its generous heaping of Swiss contributors and a healthy dose of Dutch. For the most part though, it is German made with German actors, language and point of view. This can be quite tricky. I have seen other films set in war time Berlin crash and burn from the delicacy of it's own material. This was so well done though that I forgot I was watching a modern foreign film. I became so wrapped up in the character's conflicts that I stopped paying attention to specific shots. I hesitate to say too much about it's plot here because it's one thing to warn about spoilers and another to ruin a potential viewers enjoyment of this well made picture. I think it's safe to assume though that the only people who could make such an intensely personal film about Germany is it's own people.
Unlike other films that directly involve the Holocaust, we don't go anywhere. There isn't any brutal scenes of concentration camps. No train rides. No gas chambers. This film isn't so much about Jews being dragged from their homes and places of employment but on the spouses, children, and parents left behind. More specifically the "Aryan" half of a mixed marriage. A lot of people seem to forget or dismiss the fact that before national socialism took over, there were countless mixed couples falling in love and getting married. Of course there were also the couples that fell in love DURING Nazi occupation and threw caution to the wind, as lovers so often do, and proceeded to get married anyway before mixed marriages became illegal.
So what happened to all the loving gentile women married to Jewish men once their men were taken away? This film shows you. It's so false to dismiss ALL German's as 'bad' and to assume that if someone were a gentile living in Germany in the 30s and 40s, then they must have been a Nazi. Well, this is obviously too easy to be true. There were many -good- Germans that couldn't stand the Nazis and just tried to lay low and not make too many waves. We must not forget that joining things such as the Hitler Youth or certain woman's groups was NOT optional. Alot of kind Germans didn't join the party because they agreed. They joined because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they didn't.
Rosenstrasse's focus is on the women that refused to run and refused to divorce their Jewish husbands. Sure, tons saw the writing on the wall and opted for a quickie divorce. Yet there were just as many who didn't. At the start of things, they thought they would be alright. There were special laws for such cases. The Jewish spouse of an "Aryan" woman was suppose to be safe from what they called 'evacuation' or deportation. Then that changed and when the only Jews left in Berlin were one half of a mixed marriage, they came for them as well. They rounded them all up and imprisoned them in a building that was designed to be a Jewish sanctuary. I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on it's prisoners.
But the women weren't just going to let their men go and they did what all women in love do. They found where their husbands were being held and they waited in the freezing cold. They waited at night and all day, they tried to bribe guards, they chanted, they prayed, they cried and they yelled. Yet they would not leave Rosenstrasse (Rose Street). There is some debate as to how much or little this protest and intense act of civil disobedience had on the eventual outcome but I think that the fact that they changed the name of where the women kept their vigil to Block der Frauen says it all.
This isn't a film I would recommend to action fans. It has a quiet grace to it that some modern minds might see as slow. I didn't find it slow at all but so interesting and absorbing that time passed quickly. I like to think of myself as one that knows quite a bit about this particular time and place but I was ignorant about these events and impressed by the complicated actions these women took for the most simple of reasons; love for their spouses. It's a totally different war once seen through the eyes of the women involved. Wars are thought to be won by men with their big guns and loud tanks but in the end it's the care of the nurses, the hope of the mothers, and the devotion of the wives that tends to the soul of men.
'Rosenstrasse' was a *delightful* surprise and a film I hope to see again some day.
I've been reading and watching T.V. a lot in the past few weeks and not watching films as much as I usually do. Even though some might argue that the miniseries HBO has produced in recent years is television and not actual film, the quality of productions such as 'John Adams' convinces me otherwise.
Even though I have only just begun the series and only seen the first two episodes, I am so impressed that I felt the need to jump the gun and tell you guys how gorgeous this film is. For those of us that enjoy history, the depth of the lesser known tales plus the intricate character study is mentally pleasing. Yet I think it's safe to assume that you don't -have- to be into historic dramas to enjoy this film.
As I mentioned, the scenes are just breathtaking in their accurate beauty. In the past when I have watched history based movies, the cityscape whizzes by so quick that I find myself backtracking often or rewinding to see the CG in slow motion so that I can get a better grasp of time and place. Upon closer inspection I can usually spot the errors in the artificially created worlds. But in 'John Adams', you can clearly see late 18th century New England. The sets weren't sets but houses that looked lived in and the costumes looked like clothes that had been well worn and lovingly tended. The attention to detail is beyond impressive, especially to those of us that get so hung up on historic inaccuracies that it can interfere with the enjoyment one has when watching a good film.
We tend to picture the American Revolution as they wanted us to see it, with our forefathers and mothers posing in their best clothes for the only painting done of them from life. Thomas Jefferson didn't want us to read the first 17 drafts that he wrote. He wanted us to see and read the final product. Those are beautiful images and words but they aren't how things really were on a day to day basis. The streets were dirty and noisy. There were soldiers and horses and snow and ice and mud. Men only shaved once a week after their Sunday baths. Even wealthy women had but one good wig and short fingernails on their hard-working hands. Even the idle class labored strenuously in their daily lives. In 'John Adams' the characters still keep their dignity but we also get to see how they looked to each other most days.
Another bone of contention for me in most movies set during the American Revolution is the voices. Most directors don't think to employ diction coaches or tell their actors to toil over their accents. They just allow their actors to sound purely English, pure Boston, or like what they are; a 2010 card carrying member of S.A.G. Here however they get it right and we are reminded that this was a hybrid time and a hybrid place. They were no longer British but not quite American yet either. The stereotypical modern Bostonian accent is the direct descendant of the way the colonists spoke which was just a watered down British accent. It's that special "in-between" that the actors in 'John Adams' absolutely nail to my utter personal delight.
As for plot, it shows you how these people and their problems were not as cut and dry as the history books later claimed. Not everybody agreed and not every colony was on board. In my studies I have found that the 18th century is a special target for revisionist history. Yet with every scene of this film, I could sense the research and determined digging that must have gone into bringing this story to the screen. If the rest of the series is like the first couple of episodes, I will know that every award it received was not only fair but richly deserved. I feel like I know these people. It is no small task to get a person born more than two centuries after the events to feel the ice under foot and smell the fabric scorched by musket shells during the 'Boston Massacre'.
The filmmakers even managed to light the sets and scenes convincingly. The whole film is either lit by fire, candles, or the clear sun of day as opposed to other films about this era that always left me wondering 'where is that light coming from?'.
So light some candles of your own, put on some tea, smoke a pipe and rent 'John Adams'. It's a wonderful story told in an exciting way that pays respect to the men that went before while still reminding us that they weren't giants but ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.
(PostScript- I Finished and it did not disappoint. An amazing piece of work that should be used as a teaching tool as well as just great entertainment.)
Sadly, my last review here is a set. The differences in the movies
How does one even try to compare two movies about that horrible day? Like a lot of people, I recorded many many hours of television commemorating the ten anniversary of nine eleven last month. It took me a week to pour through it all. I recorded and slowly went through about 40 hours of documentaries looking at that day and it's aftermath from all angles. Come mid September, I needed a break so I stopped watching, leaving just two films. Flight 93 and United 93. Last night I decided I had enough emotional distance to finish up watching my footage and I watch Flight 93. As we all know by now, Flight 93 goes down in history as the one that fought back. Yes, that sets it apart and makes the passengers and crew on that flight special. But I think that had the other planes been in the unlucky position of being last, they too might have taken those drastic measures. What is remarkable about Flight 93 is since it was late and therefore the last to be hijacked, they were in the position of being able to gather information and knowledge about what had happened with the other three aircraft.
Thanks to the many phone calls made to their loved ones on the ground, we have a pretty clear timeline of what that plane went through and they were in the unique place of knowing what became of the hijacked airplanes that had been taken on schedule. As we know, this one hour made all the difference in the world.
So how does one "rate" a film on such horrible events? How does one rate two side by side? Did one set of actors act more terrified than the other. Do I really want it to be so realistic that I weep for the dead again? It's a hard task, I assure you, but one I felt I should go ahead and undertake anyway. Now I'm glad that I did because there -is- a big difference in how this horrible tale is told and maybe it's a question of personal views but in my opinion, 'United 93' is the more superior of the two films. Flight 93 wasn't bad per se, but it had (for lack of a better term) an almost lifetime channel feel to it. The swelling hero music, the attention on the spouses (I realize that alot of the passengers were new parents, but almost every shot of the loved ones at home in the Flight 93 version has a baby in their arms, as if to drive home that mothers and fathers were being murdered. ) We already knew that. Drilling it home every few minutes made it seem almost sickly sweet and that's the last thing you wanna think when watching a piece like this.
United 93 takes place the same hours and in the same places but is a different film all together. First off, they used a subtle camera technique that I responded to. Unlike contributor Xim, I don't have a cinematic background. I have never made a movie so I am not sure of what the proper terminology would be but I think they used a steady cam, but in an unsteady manner. When the people on the ground and in the flight centers were confused about what was happening, the camera shots become confused as well. They were out of focus, shakey, and distorted. Then as information is accumulated, the shots come into focus. It was done oh so well and was a great technique. The camera technique is all that is needed to get an emotional response. They didn't need to tell you how to feel, as Flight 93 so often tried to do.
Next, other than keeping the story in the plane where the majority of the action takes place, the story also stays with the people affected most -at the time- such as the military men making decisions, the air traffic controllers, etc. For some reason this keeps a very dramatic film almost cerebral unlike Flight 93. Also, the two films showed the many phone calls home in two very different ways. 'Flight' has a tight shot on each person as they passed phones and stayed with them as they called their loved ones. It's almost as if the film is trying to illicit even more heartfelt sentiments and we just don't need that in a film on an event so close to our collective consciousness. 'United' shows the phone calls more accurately as many people made many calls all at the same time and jumbled together all the bits and pieces of data they were receiving into one whole story. It was based on this complete picture that the passengers of this ill fated flight were able to make their heroic decision together and the rest, as they say, is history.
I think that since this is a highly emotional story anyway, forcing more emotion (such as Flight 93 tried to do) only backfires and makes it seem like a made for TV disaster movie. United 93 recognizes that this is a delicate story that is naturally heartbreaking and any human being seeing it WILL become emotionally effected. So instead of forcing the emotion out of us, it trusts the viewer to get there by themselves and instead chooses to focus on the facts. Instead of showing us endless scenes of crying wives and mothers, it shows us the more accurate truth of confusion and the futile efforts of thousands on the ground trying to bring a safe conclusion to this saga. We now know that was impossible but they didn't know it was hopeless at the time and they did everything in their power to try and help. Shifting the focus like this gives us two different movies and one is just a much better film.
I still am not able to say I -like- one more than the other since that implies I like the events or somehow enjoyed watching a film on the sufferings of so many. But I think it is quite important to hear this story repeatedly. To know it and know it well. Not just because it's such a part of our own history but on a personal level I feel like those people would want their story to be remembered. It's the same reason I watched so many hours about nine eleven. Not out of morbid fascination but because if I had been on one of those planes, I would want to be heard and remembered. However if I had to recommended a film on this particularly awful chapter from that horrible day, I think United 93 captures everything terrible and silently beautiful about that day. In sharp contrast is Flight 93 which feels the need to remind us every minute that these people were heros. We know they were but pouring fountains of syrup on top of it just makes it seem silly and that is NOT something you want to think when watching a picture that takes place on that awful day.
Thank you for reading,
Z
This way, you can read the ones you want and skip what doesn't interest you.
Love and Peace to you all,
Zu
When I decided to join this blog and be one of the cinematixyz writers, I had to lay down personal ground rules. I couldn't just come in and start reviewing movies from memory since I have seen thousands of movies. I also could not just randomly start talking about personal favorites because I would be here all month and still not even be close to my top hundred. So I decided that I would just discuss whatever movie came my way, whether it was one I had seen before, a newbie, an old classic, or a friends choice. Netflix, cable, rental, library or gift..it didn't matter. If I sat through a movie somewhere, I was going to make a post here on it. And this afternoon, I saw Summer of Sam.
I had seen it before but it wasn't one of those films that burned itself in my memory. This one is really tricky because it will be really enjoyable for a few scenes, then lose it's momentum. Then it will find it's groove again before quickly losing it. I think that the same topic, with the same director shooting the same actors in the same scenes would have been raised a notch if edited differently. The overall mood is wonderful though, without shoving it down your throat. Some directors have a hard time setting the correct mood in period pieces that are within recent memory. When a film is on a place and time so far back that nobody alive remembers it, there is room for error. Nobody is going to notice if Scarlett O' Hara's petticoats are missing a layer of lace and most people don't raise an eyebrow if Queen Victoria's coronation robes are the wrong color.
Since 'Summer of Sam' takes place in New York in 1977, Spike Lee had the difficult task of recreating a point in time within recent memory. One false move and audience's would revolt. Granted, there were historical inaccuracies that halted my suspension of disbelief when spotted and I could have done without the constant cutting to David Berkowitz spazzing out at home and trying to beat the demons out of his head. That didn't happen and it made him seem laughable, not frightening. The overall mood, however, was well woven and believable in a way that the folks working on 'The Wedding Singer' didn't achieve. In that movie, I felt the entire film come to a crashing stop for a few seconds while we listened to a song from 1985 as if to reiterate "Hey! Look! This film is taking place in 1985! Remember this song?". In 'Sam' the music was in the background, as most music is as we live day to day life and people continued to speak, kiss, drive, or do whatever else they were doing as music from 1977 comes over the radio. It dressed the scenes like a good set piece or costume and cemented in the feelings from that year. The only time I have seen a movie helped rather then hindered by actually yielding to the music of the day in the scenes was in 1999's Virgin Suicides. Sofia Coppola is gifted in many ways, but especially knowing how to balance music within her films.
Spike Lee has that gift as well as using color and design to portray temperature. We feel this gift as we sweat through 'Do the Right Thing' and I felt it again watching 'Summer of Sam' today. He also knows how to mix the personal story of many different characters without it coming off like a soap opera. Usually, I don't like fictional characters to pop up in a story set in a specific place and time. The historical inaccuracies usually prevent me from enjoying the picture. Sometimes it is necessary to tell the tale and this would be a good example. Just like in 'Titanic', placing a few non-people within the real setting helps us to relate in a way that we might not have been able to had the film been just on one person who was actually a focal point to the events. This film is not on David Berkowitz so it wouldn't make sense to pick one detective or one victim to tell the story. Berkowitz is merely one of many characters and while the summer had little to do with the man himself, it was shrouded in the violence and paranoia that his actions caused. If it had focused on just the killer or the case, we wouldn't have been able to explore the many other aspects that made New York what it was that summer, that year, or even that decade.
By pulling back from Berkowitz, Spike Lee is able to bring us to the Bowery, back out and then close up on riots in Harlem, then the camera backs up, as if it's a tiny airplane and swoops down on Studio 54, the Bronx, CBGB's, hair saloons, restaurants and then, yes, back into parked cars to witness another young couple getting shot. It would have been a disservice to the audience had Lee made this film all about the killings and he would have had a tragedy of a movie on his hands, like 'Zodiac' was. Instead we get flashes of the city from different points of view and the only thread holding it together is the date. And of course, a feeling of general dread.
As the film so wisely shows, the feeling of dread may have been attributive to knowing there was a psychopath on the loose but in reality, there was dread long before the killing began and long after David Berkowitz was caught. It was, after all, New York City in the seventies with all it's crime, all it's filth, and all it's economic depression. A murderer on the loose was just the proverbial cherry. There were always murderers on the loose. There was always something lurking in the corner. Son of Sam just put a fine point on a time that was already teetering on the edge.
Adrian Brody, Mira Sorvino, and John Leguizamo are spot on as always. Sorvino can't help being a cutie and both lead actors have that chameleon-like quality that is always a shocking treat. Further proof of Leguizamo's ability to lose himself in a role is the day I saw that he was on the same subway car as me. I looked right at him, then around, surprised that nobody else noticed him. He gave me a small smile that said 'that's right, today I am playing an every day New Yorker and I am such a good actor that noone can tell it's me... I'm just blending in'. Of course we also see Spike Lee himself in the role of a 1970s reporter keeping New Yorkers abreast of the hotbed of activity taking place in every direction. I read that he got some bad feedback from the families of Berkowitz's young victims and this is what caused him to shift his focus from the horrible crimes to the reaction from members of the community. Wise move, since it is the thing that makes the film work.
This makes for an interesting piece of cinema and while I felt it veering off it's course a few times, it usually managed to steer us back. This wasn't one of my favorite movies of all time, it was enjoyable enough for what it was. If you are looking for a movie that is historically on the mark, this one will just piss you off. But if you want to remember how bad the good ole days really were or get a peek into a time you may have missed, I would say it's worth a view or two.
In keeping with my personal vow to review every film that I happen to see, it must be said that I just caught The Color Purple on T.V. Indeed, It's one of my guilty pleasures. So now ya know. I *love* this film. In the words of 'Mister' "I always have and I always will." Up until Schindler's List, it was my favorite Spielberg picture. Every time I admit that, I get strange looks. However as much as he is the master of fantasy and wonder, I seem to be drawn to his serious dramas the most.
I think The Color Purple is perfect in many ways. Perfect cast, perfect costumes and music, spot on cinematography. For someone so acutely aware of when a film is getting too sugary, it never hits the saccharine mark for me. I also must confess that as a guilty pleasure, I have sat through this film about 20 times in almost as many years and yet I still fight tears every time Miss Celie and her sister are separated and again when they are reunited.
Here is where I must go ahead and raise a point that I know has bothered some people. In Alice Walker's brilliant book (which I highly recommend) there is no mistaking the key relationship between Shug Avery and Miss Celie. There is no clever innuendo, no hidden passages. This was a loving sexual relationship and it must have been tough to translate to a main stream film of the 1980s. I have heard alot of guff about how Spielberg ruined the book by never mentioning that and only hinting. Normally, I am a book purest and get very upset when directors take it upon themselves to change a perfect manuscript.
This is a special case though and I think he did the right thing. The book's main character is an African American. She is a woman. And she is a lesbian. So where was he to put the emphasis? Is this a black story? A woman's picture? Or is this a piece on lesbianism? The most important elements to Celie's story centers around her powerlessness. First off, she is powerless because she is black and in the Deep South at the turn of the century. But taken a step further, she is also powerless within her own social circle of other African Americans because she is poor. Taken even further, she is completely without voice in her own group of other poor country folk because of her sex. She is female, alone, without family, without protection, and when we first meet her, without hope. The fact that she is also a lesbian is so secondary to the rest of it and almost a direct result of all the other social issues that imprison her. So putting it front and center in a movie version would have taken away from the importance of the rest of the story. While book readers accepted it as a part of the story and a part of the character, moviegoers of the 80s might not have been so understanding. Like children tasting something tart, they would have spit out the rest of the medicine they so badly needed. I know why Spielberg only briefly hinted at the intense relationship between Shug and Celie. To keep the middle aged couple in Iowa watching. To keep the teenagers in South Dakota watching. They were just barely along for the ride when they thought it was about a poor black woman, but to throw in that she was also gay might have lost viewers and this was a story that deserved to be heard by many. For the purists however, he gives you just enough information to know exactly what the deal is between those two friends. Had he made the film today would he still just have hinted? It's an interesting question.
There are other slight changes from the Pulitzer Prize winning book but nothing too dramatic and most changes are very necessary in order to translate it to film. Hopefully if you haven't already checked out the book, you will because it is beautifully crafted. The thing that sticks most in my mind is that Alice Walker wrote the whole thing from the point of view of the highly intelligent but uneducated Miss Celie. So she had the task of writing a tale on the most basic of human issues: Pride, Class, Hope, Longing, Loss, Faith and Time. But she writes as Miss Celie would write, in the most basic vocabulary possible. She uses the smallest words to discuss the biggest of Ideas and it is done in such a way that one forgets that these are suppose to be the thoughts of an uneducated teenage girl. That is much harder to do then it sounds. The Pulitzer was well-deserved.
Yet so was an Academy Award and that famously never happened. It's a much discussed fact in Oscar History that The Color Purple was nominated for 11 awards and did not score a single one. Granted, 1985 had it's fair share of amazing films, but the Academy must have been too busy snorting lines off a table or something because the best films of the year were partially or completely absent from the awards. I watch The Purple Rose of Cairo and Brazil once every few years even though they were not properly represented at the Oscars and yet you couldn't pay me enough to sit through Witness or that year's best picture winner, Out Of Africa again.
It is hard to put my finger on precisely what it is about this movie that is so special to me. At first I thought it was that I related to the intense bond two siblings have when they have gone through extreme difficulties together. Then I thought it might be that I understood what it was like to be oppressed by those in positions of authority. Then I thought maybe what I enjoyed the most was the in-depth look at a certain place and time in our history that doesn't get the proper attention most of the time. In actuality it is all of these things and much more. The Color Purple is just a good book that was made into a good film. Period.
I just finished watching an amazing German film on the Rosenstrasse protest in 1943. First off, it's a German film. Well actually, very few films are entirely of or from one nation and this one is no exception with its generous heaping of Swiss contributors and a healthy dose of Dutch. For the most part though, it is German made with German actors, language and point of view. This can be quite tricky. I have seen other films set in war time Berlin crash and burn from the delicacy of it's own material. This was so well done though that I forgot I was watching a modern foreign film. I became so wrapped up in the character's conflicts that I stopped paying attention to specific shots. I hesitate to say too much about it's plot here because it's one thing to warn about spoilers and another to ruin a potential viewers enjoyment of this well made picture. I think it's safe to assume though that the only people who could make such an intensely personal film about Germany is it's own people.
Unlike other films that directly involve the Holocaust, we don't go anywhere. There isn't any brutal scenes of concentration camps. No train rides. No gas chambers. This film isn't so much about Jews being dragged from their homes and places of employment but on the spouses, children, and parents left behind. More specifically the "Aryan" half of a mixed marriage. A lot of people seem to forget or dismiss the fact that before national socialism took over, there were countless mixed couples falling in love and getting married. Of course there were also the couples that fell in love DURING Nazi occupation and threw caution to the wind, as lovers so often do, and proceeded to get married anyway before mixed marriages became illegal.
So what happened to all the loving gentile women married to Jewish men once their men were taken away? This film shows you. It's so false to dismiss ALL German's as 'bad' and to assume that if someone were a gentile living in Germany in the 30s and 40s, then they must have been a Nazi. Well, this is obviously too easy to be true. There were many -good- Germans that couldn't stand the Nazis and just tried to lay low and not make too many waves. We must not forget that joining things such as the Hitler Youth or certain woman's groups was NOT optional. Alot of kind Germans didn't join the party because they agreed. They joined because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they didn't.
Rosenstrasse's focus is on the women that refused to run and refused to divorce their Jewish husbands. Sure, tons saw the writing on the wall and opted for a quickie divorce. Yet there were just as many who didn't. At the start of things, they thought they would be alright. There were special laws for such cases. The Jewish spouse of an "Aryan" woman was suppose to be safe from what they called 'evacuation' or deportation. Then that changed and when the only Jews left in Berlin were one half of a mixed marriage, they came for them as well. They rounded them all up and imprisoned them in a building that was designed to be a Jewish sanctuary. I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on it's prisoners.
But the women weren't just going to let their men go and they did what all women in love do. They found where their husbands were being held and they waited in the freezing cold. They waited at night and all day, they tried to bribe guards, they chanted, they prayed, they cried and they yelled. Yet they would not leave Rosenstrasse (Rose Street). There is some debate as to how much or little this protest and intense act of civil disobedience had on the eventual outcome but I think that the fact that they changed the name of where the women kept their vigil to Block der Frauen says it all.
This isn't a film I would recommend to action fans. It has a quiet grace to it that some modern minds might see as slow. I didn't find it slow at all but so interesting and absorbing that time passed quickly. I like to think of myself as one that knows quite a bit about this particular time and place but I was ignorant about these events and impressed by the complicated actions these women took for the most simple of reasons; love for their spouses. It's a totally different war once seen through the eyes of the women involved. Wars are thought to be won by men with their big guns and loud tanks but in the end it's the care of the nurses, the hope of the mothers, and the devotion of the wives that tends to the soul of men.
'Rosenstrasse' was a *delightful* surprise and a film I hope to see again some day.
I've been reading and watching T.V. a lot in the past few weeks and not watching films as much as I usually do. Even though some might argue that the miniseries HBO has produced in recent years is television and not actual film, the quality of productions such as 'John Adams' convinces me otherwise.
Even though I have only just begun the series and only seen the first two episodes, I am so impressed that I felt the need to jump the gun and tell you guys how gorgeous this film is. For those of us that enjoy history, the depth of the lesser known tales plus the intricate character study is mentally pleasing. Yet I think it's safe to assume that you don't -have- to be into historic dramas to enjoy this film.
As I mentioned, the scenes are just breathtaking in their accurate beauty. In the past when I have watched history based movies, the cityscape whizzes by so quick that I find myself backtracking often or rewinding to see the CG in slow motion so that I can get a better grasp of time and place. Upon closer inspection I can usually spot the errors in the artificially created worlds. But in 'John Adams', you can clearly see late 18th century New England. The sets weren't sets but houses that looked lived in and the costumes looked like clothes that had been well worn and lovingly tended. The attention to detail is beyond impressive, especially to those of us that get so hung up on historic inaccuracies that it can interfere with the enjoyment one has when watching a good film.
We tend to picture the American Revolution as they wanted us to see it, with our forefathers and mothers posing in their best clothes for the only painting done of them from life. Thomas Jefferson didn't want us to read the first 17 drafts that he wrote. He wanted us to see and read the final product. Those are beautiful images and words but they aren't how things really were on a day to day basis. The streets were dirty and noisy. There were soldiers and horses and snow and ice and mud. Men only shaved once a week after their Sunday baths. Even wealthy women had but one good wig and short fingernails on their hard-working hands. Even the idle class labored strenuously in their daily lives. In 'John Adams' the characters still keep their dignity but we also get to see how they looked to each other most days.
Another bone of contention for me in most movies set during the American Revolution is the voices. Most directors don't think to employ diction coaches or tell their actors to toil over their accents. They just allow their actors to sound purely English, pure Boston, or like what they are; a 2010 card carrying member of S.A.G. Here however they get it right and we are reminded that this was a hybrid time and a hybrid place. They were no longer British but not quite American yet either. The stereotypical modern Bostonian accent is the direct descendant of the way the colonists spoke which was just a watered down British accent. It's that special "in-between" that the actors in 'John Adams' absolutely nail to my utter personal delight.
As for plot, it shows you how these people and their problems were not as cut and dry as the history books later claimed. Not everybody agreed and not every colony was on board. In my studies I have found that the 18th century is a special target for revisionist history. Yet with every scene of this film, I could sense the research and determined digging that must have gone into bringing this story to the screen. If the rest of the series is like the first couple of episodes, I will know that every award it received was not only fair but richly deserved. I feel like I know these people. It is no small task to get a person born more than two centuries after the events to feel the ice under foot and smell the fabric scorched by musket shells during the 'Boston Massacre'.
The filmmakers even managed to light the sets and scenes convincingly. The whole film is either lit by fire, candles, or the clear sun of day as opposed to other films about this era that always left me wondering 'where is that light coming from?'.
So light some candles of your own, put on some tea, smoke a pipe and rent 'John Adams'. It's a wonderful story told in an exciting way that pays respect to the men that went before while still reminding us that they weren't giants but ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.
(PostScript- I Finished and it did not disappoint. An amazing piece of work that should be used as a teaching tool as well as just great entertainment.)
Sadly, my last review here is a set. The differences in the movies
How does one even try to compare two movies about that horrible day? Like a lot of people, I recorded many many hours of television commemorating the ten anniversary of nine eleven last month. It took me a week to pour through it all. I recorded and slowly went through about 40 hours of documentaries looking at that day and it's aftermath from all angles. Come mid September, I needed a break so I stopped watching, leaving just two films. Flight 93 and United 93. Last night I decided I had enough emotional distance to finish up watching my footage and I watch Flight 93. As we all know by now, Flight 93 goes down in history as the one that fought back. Yes, that sets it apart and makes the passengers and crew on that flight special. But I think that had the other planes been in the unlucky position of being last, they too might have taken those drastic measures. What is remarkable about Flight 93 is since it was late and therefore the last to be hijacked, they were in the position of being able to gather information and knowledge about what had happened with the other three aircraft.
Thanks to the many phone calls made to their loved ones on the ground, we have a pretty clear timeline of what that plane went through and they were in the unique place of knowing what became of the hijacked airplanes that had been taken on schedule. As we know, this one hour made all the difference in the world.
So how does one "rate" a film on such horrible events? How does one rate two side by side? Did one set of actors act more terrified than the other. Do I really want it to be so realistic that I weep for the dead again? It's a hard task, I assure you, but one I felt I should go ahead and undertake anyway. Now I'm glad that I did because there -is- a big difference in how this horrible tale is told and maybe it's a question of personal views but in my opinion, 'United 93' is the more superior of the two films. Flight 93 wasn't bad per se, but it had (for lack of a better term) an almost lifetime channel feel to it. The swelling hero music, the attention on the spouses (I realize that alot of the passengers were new parents, but almost every shot of the loved ones at home in the Flight 93 version has a baby in their arms, as if to drive home that mothers and fathers were being murdered. ) We already knew that. Drilling it home every few minutes made it seem almost sickly sweet and that's the last thing you wanna think when watching a piece like this.
United 93 takes place the same hours and in the same places but is a different film all together. First off, they used a subtle camera technique that I responded to. Unlike contributor Xim, I don't have a cinematic background. I have never made a movie so I am not sure of what the proper terminology would be but I think they used a steady cam, but in an unsteady manner. When the people on the ground and in the flight centers were confused about what was happening, the camera shots become confused as well. They were out of focus, shakey, and distorted. Then as information is accumulated, the shots come into focus. It was done oh so well and was a great technique. The camera technique is all that is needed to get an emotional response. They didn't need to tell you how to feel, as Flight 93 so often tried to do.
Next, other than keeping the story in the plane where the majority of the action takes place, the story also stays with the people affected most -at the time- such as the military men making decisions, the air traffic controllers, etc. For some reason this keeps a very dramatic film almost cerebral unlike Flight 93. Also, the two films showed the many phone calls home in two very different ways. 'Flight' has a tight shot on each person as they passed phones and stayed with them as they called their loved ones. It's almost as if the film is trying to illicit even more heartfelt sentiments and we just don't need that in a film on an event so close to our collective consciousness. 'United' shows the phone calls more accurately as many people made many calls all at the same time and jumbled together all the bits and pieces of data they were receiving into one whole story. It was based on this complete picture that the passengers of this ill fated flight were able to make their heroic decision together and the rest, as they say, is history.
I think that since this is a highly emotional story anyway, forcing more emotion (such as Flight 93 tried to do) only backfires and makes it seem like a made for TV disaster movie. United 93 recognizes that this is a delicate story that is naturally heartbreaking and any human being seeing it WILL become emotionally effected. So instead of forcing the emotion out of us, it trusts the viewer to get there by themselves and instead chooses to focus on the facts. Instead of showing us endless scenes of crying wives and mothers, it shows us the more accurate truth of confusion and the futile efforts of thousands on the ground trying to bring a safe conclusion to this saga. We now know that was impossible but they didn't know it was hopeless at the time and they did everything in their power to try and help. Shifting the focus like this gives us two different movies and one is just a much better film.
I still am not able to say I -like- one more than the other since that implies I like the events or somehow enjoyed watching a film on the sufferings of so many. But I think it is quite important to hear this story repeatedly. To know it and know it well. Not just because it's such a part of our own history but on a personal level I feel like those people would want their story to be remembered. It's the same reason I watched so many hours about nine eleven. Not out of morbid fascination but because if I had been on one of those planes, I would want to be heard and remembered. However if I had to recommended a film on this particularly awful chapter from that horrible day, I think United 93 captures everything terrible and silently beautiful about that day. In sharp contrast is Flight 93 which feels the need to remind us every minute that these people were heros. We know they were but pouring fountains of syrup on top of it just makes it seem silly and that is NOT something you want to think when watching a picture that takes place on that awful day.
Thank you for reading,
Z
This way, you can read the ones you want and skip what doesn't interest you.
Love and Peace to you all,
Zu