Holiday releases come in all shapes and sizes
Steven Spielberg’s strengths and weaknesses are both on view in Munich (Rating: *** out of four), though fortunately for audience members, the former wins out by that proverbial country mile. Munich is a strong film, an important work, and already a lightning rod for controversy and (one hopes) healthy debate. But another instant Spielberg classic? Not quite.
With a script drafted by heavy-hitters Tony Kushner (Angels In America) and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Munich is largely a fictionalization of the events that transpired after that tragic day at the 1972 Olympics in Germany, when a group of Palestinian terrorists known as Black September slaughtered the Israeli athletes they were holding as hostages. The movie reveals that, in an effort to exhibit their toughness to the world, the Israeli government sent a select band of assassins to eliminate everyone who was responsible for the Munich massacre.
Spielberg and his writers bring to vivid life this motley crew of enforcers: Avner (Eric Bana), the sensitive leader of the group; the fiery getaway driver Steve (Daniel Craig, aka the new James Bond); the meticulous “clean up” man Carl (Ciaran Hinds); the jittery bomb maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz); and the pensive forger Hans (Hanns Zischler). But these characters aren’t positioned as Israel’s version of The Untouchables, with clear-cut visions of right and wrong. Instead, as they carry out each hit on their eye-for-an-eye agenda, each man reacts differently to the consequences of their actions. Is this brand of retribution just? Or are they in effect embracing the same ideology that drives the terrorists?
Spielberg’s muddying of the moral waters is already drawing heat (primarily from Jewish leaders), but it’s to his credit as a filmmaker of consequence that he asks the hard questions and doesn’t flinch from any unsettling truths that might emerge. This is perhaps the least sentimental of any motion picture in the director’s strong filmography, with a couple of scenes that stand among the most memorable he’s created in recent times.
But that’s not to say that the director keeps his finger steady on the trigger at all times, and when his instincts as a popcorn showman emerge, it’s at inopportune times. The manner in which he uses the fate of a young girl to manipulate audience emotions is tactless in this context, and the brute force of one excellent scene involving the extermination of a female killer — it’s shocking from the first frame to the last — is softened by the very next sequence in which the characters discuss the matter in almost apologetic tones.
Overall, though, Munich continues the maturization of that rare director who’s able to glide easily between movies that entertain and movies that educate — no small feat for any filmmaker.
The Academy isn’t exactly known for its embrace of comedy — only in its humorless universe could Ben-Hur win the Best Picture Oscar in the year of Some Like It Hot — but in the 1968 race, voters were in a giddy enough mood to hand the Best Original Screenplay Oscar to Mel Brooks for his comic gem, The Producers. Don’t expect similar accolades for this latest version, also called The Producers (Rating: ***), since a funny thing happened on the way to the podium. Brook’s commercial failure but cult success was resurrected by the comic legend himself as a Broadway musical, one so successful that it earned a record 12 Tony Awards to go along with its enormous box office booty. That a movie version would follow is no surprise; what’s startling is how the picture plays as little more than a static filming of the stage play, barely more mobile than those one-set Shakespeare dramatizations that used to pop up regularly on PBS.
The blame for that falls squarely on Susan Stroman, who directed the stage hit and brings the same limited vision to the big screen. What may have looked energetic to a live audience comes across as myopic to moviegoers, yet because this property was never that expansive to begin with (even in the ’68 model), it’s by no means a death blow. On the contrary, The Producers functions in much the same way as the recent screen adaptation of Rent by emphasizing melody and mirth over movement — in fact, it works even better thanks to the presence of master ham Nathan Lane.
In the Gene Wilder role of the timid accountant Leo Bloom, Matthew Broderick strains too hard to be funny — you almost feel sorry for the guy, praying he doesn’t give himself a hernia through all those pained expressions. Lane, on the other hand, is a riot in the Zero Mostel role of Max Bialystock, the struggling producer who determines that a dreadful show called Springtime for Hitler is his ticket to riches. Lane’s brand of old-school shtick is exactly what this project calls for, and he’s ably supported in his efforts by Uma Thurman, who’s a saucy delight as the Swedish secretary Ulla, and Will Ferrell, whose kamikaze style of comedy finds a suitable outlet in the role of Springtime’s Fuhrer-loving scripter, Franz Liebkind.
Now as in 1968, the showstopper remains the staging of the “Springtime for Hitler” number, complete with dancing Germans, a Busby Berkeley-styled Swastika formation, and Brooks’ voice booming from off-camera, “Don’t be stupid; be a smarty. Come and join the Nazi party!” In the case of The Producers, it’s an invitation that’s hard to turn down.
Memoirs of a Geisha (Rating: ** 1/2), director Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the Arthur Golden novel, plays like a Disney version of a Zhang Yimou movie, though the end result isn’t as dreadful as that designation might suggest.
Zhang Yimou is the world-class filmmaker responsible for many of the best movies to emerge from the Far East over the course of the past two decades. Films such as Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou and To Live were instrumental in illustrating to the Western world the social and cultural conflicts that have plagued China for centuries. Memoirs of a Geisha, while set in Japan, examines many of the same sorts of clashes, yet Marshall (Chicago) isn’t able to transform his film into anything more than a standard melodrama filled with pomp and pageantry. As movie artifice, it’s above average, but it goes no deeper than that.
The cast features a who’s-who of leading performers from the East, though because none of the primary actresses are from Japan, the film’s been swallowed up in a maelstrom of controversy. Nationalities notwithstanding, the performers are up to the task at hand. Two Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon alumni handle the key roles: Ziyi Zhang plays the penniless foster child who grows up to become the legendary geisha known as Sayuri, while Michelle Yeoh essays the role of her mentor, Mameha. The Last Samurai’s Oscar nominee Ken Watanabe has the principal male role as the Chairman, the older man who catches Sayuri’s eye at an early (pre-pubescent) age and finds himself the center of her adoration over the ensuing years.
The struggles of these characters make for adequate screen entertainment, though the movie curiously mutes the tragic dimension of women being bartered over and sold like trinkets in an open-air marketplace. Yet the piece’s strongest embers of emotion come courtesy of a pair of supporting players. As the scar-faced Nobu, a brusque, pent-up businessman who mellows in the presence of Sayuri, Koji Yakusho delivers a performance that’s every bit as impassioned as his turn in Shall We Dance (the Japanese original, not the J-Lo remake). Best of all, though, is Gong Li, Asia’s finest actress and the star of the aforementioned Zhang Yimou titles. Gong, who just a few years ago would have been hand-delivered the starring role of Sayuri, instead plays Hatsumomo, the seasoned geisha whose petty cruelty toward the younger woman turns into genuine hatred once she realizes that her own prominent spot on the social ladder is being threatened. Gong doesn’t disappoint in her American film debut, slicing through the movie’s genteel façade with a performance dripping with danger and sedition. Clearly, this is one foreign thespian whose immense talents didn’t get lost in translation.
It wouldn’t take much for Fun With Dick and Jane (Rating: ** 1/2) to emerge as a superior remake, given that the 1977 original looks especially dismal these days, a laughless comedy whose most interesting point of note is that it features Carson couch potato Ed McMahon in a rare fictional role. Otherwise, the movie employs two actors of marginal comedic abilities — Jane Fonda and George Segal — in a lumbering yarn about a well-to-do married couple who turn to crime once the husband loses his job.
This new version one-ups its predecessor right out of the starting gate by casting two bona fide comedians in the central roles. Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni play the new Dick and Jane, who find themselves in a similar predicament once the CEO (Alec Baldwin) of Dick’s company bails out, leaving thousands of employees without jobs, pensions or benefits. After working a series of low-paying odd jobs (the picture’s funniest sequences), the couple eventually turn to robbing local shops with a squirt gun, earning enough dough to engage in even more elaborate heists. All of this eventually leads to a master plot to get back at the avaricious boss who screwed them (and countless others) out of the American Dream.
Softballs are briefly lobbed at former Enron CEO Ken Lay and George W. Bush, the two men most emblematic of the materialism and greed that continues to divide the haves from the have-nots, but otherwise, this is strictly a congenial, end-of-year trifle aimed at providing families with somewhere to go after all the presents have been opened. It’s a pleasant enough diversion, offering a few chuckles, allowing Carrey to occasionally mug, and keeping the paying customers satisfied.
One of the countless comic highlights in Robert Altman’s Hollywood expose The Player finds screenwriter Buck Henry pitching a sequel to The Graduate. Truth be told, I’d rather have seen his proposed film than Rumor Has It… (Rating: **), which uses the Charles Webb novel (and subsequent Mike Nichols adaptation) as a starting point for a sloppy comedy that ultimately goes nowhere.
That’s a shame, because scripter T.M. Griffin actually comes up with a clever premise. Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston), a newspaper obituary writer who can’t decide whether or not to marry her easy-going boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo), learns through a series of events that Webb’s best-selling novel The Graduate was based on the experiences of her own family. Over 30 years ago, both her mother (now deceased) and grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) had slept with Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner), who in more recent times has become a billionaire thanks to the booming Internet trade (the movie’s set in 1997). Convinced that Beau can help her sort out her own ambivalent feelings regarding her family, she maneuvers to meet him in person, only to find that, like her mom and grandma before her, she can’t resist his roguish charm.
The hook turns out to be the most entertaining aspect of the film, as Sarah strives to learn exactly how all the pieces of the Graduate puzzle fit together. But once she becomes romantically entangled with Beau, the picture grinds to a halt, losing its comic conceit and getting bogged down in the mundanity of its older man-younger woman relationship. Director Rob Reiner then proceeds to make matters worse, repeatedly mistaking frantic for funny and basically turning these initially promising characters into gibbering idiots (only Costner and Ruffalo manage to retain some measure of dignity).
Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, now more than ever.
What could be more idiotic than releasing a foreign slasher flick in the high-profile summer movie season? How about releasing a foreign slasher flick on Christmas Day?
Just as France’s High Tension bombed this past June, expect the Australian import Wolf Creek (Rating: *) to suffer a similar fate in the upcoming weeks. Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t there something distasteful about releasing a movie this sadistic and nihilistic on a day that’s supposed to be all about spirituality and generosity? Not that Wolf Creek would look good any time of year: The early buzz that suggested this was another Texas Chainsaw Massacre must have been generated by studio flaks and Sundance Festival sycophants working in tandem, since Wolf Creek is a far cry from that 70s classic of “feel-bad” cinema.
Writer-director Greg McLean’s film strands three college-age kids (Cassandra McGrath, Kestie Morassi and Nathan Phillips) in the Australian Outback, whereupon they meet a hulking roughneck (John Jarratt) who proceeds to slice and dice them as he sees fit. Wolf Creek bills itself as “Based On Real Events,” a dubious claim since the film is rife with the sort of boneheaded plotting that can only be found in sub-par thrillers of this nature. Furthermore, since there were no witnesses to some of the grisly deaths on view, how can this be based on anything but McGrath’s own misogynistic leanings?
As if releasing this on December 25 wasn’t disturbing enough, there’s also a scene in which one of the young protagonists finds himself attached to a wall crucifix-style, with his arms outstretched and nails hammered through the palms of his hands.
Father, forgive them, for they clearly know not what they do.
This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2005.
