Review: "Lions for Lambs" is a Political Film That Roars (Happy 50th B'day, Tom Cruise)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 20 (of 2008) by Leroy Douresseaux

Lions for Lambs (2007)
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R for some war violence and language
DIRECTOR: Robert Redford
WRITER: Matthew Michael Carnahan
PRODUCERS: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tracy Falco, Andrew Hauptman, and Robert Redford
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Philippe Rousselot (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Joe Hutshing

DRAMA/WAR

Starring: Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Michael Peña, Andrew Garfield, Peter Berg, Kevin Dunn, and Derek Luke

Lions for Lambs is a 2007 drama from director Robert Redford. The film stars Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise in a story that connects the actions of a veteran television reporter, a powerful U.S. Republican senator, a college professor, and a stranded platoon of soldiers trapped in Afghanistan.

Tom Cruise re-launched United Artists as viable movie studio with Lions for Lambs, the Robert Redford-helmed look at America's “War on Terror.” Using a complex three-pronged narrative, Redford (who also stars in this film) connects the lives of the movie’s characters by politics and bloodshed. While a young, but powerful Washington senator goes toe to toe with a reporter, who on the down side of her career, on the issue of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, an idealistic professor and Vietnam veteran tries to keep a promising student engaged, while two of his former pupils struggle to survive behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.

At an unnamed California university, the anguished Professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) calls Todd (Andrew Garfield), a talented, but aimless student who usually misses class into his office for a heart to heart conversation. Malley is trying to reach this privileged, but disaffected student to hopefully encourage him to do something to make change rather than just be cynical about the current state of affairs. Two of Prof. Malley’s students volunteered to join the U.S. military and now serve with Special Forces in the “War on Terror.” This bold decision by Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña) has left Malley both moved and distraught, but he wants to share their determination to make a difference with Todd.

Unbeknownst to Malley, Arian and Ernest are stranded on a snowy mountainside in Badakhshan, Afghanistan as Taliban fighters move in and their commanders struggle to get them out.

Meanwhile, charismatic Presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) is giving probing TV journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) a bombshell of a story, as the two go toe to toe over the “War on Terror.” Sen. Irving has used his influence to launch a new phase in the war in Afghanistan – one that will affect the fates of Arian and Ernest, as arguments, memories, and battle weave these three stories ever more tightly together.

Much has been made of the lack of success at the box office of films dealing with Iraq (Rendition, In the Valley of Elah), which is really no surprise considering how disconnected so many Americans are from the “Global War on Terror,” not to mention how unpopular the Iraq War is among Americans and in other nations. This unpopularity and lack of connectivity is precisely why a film like Lions for Lambs is so important. Lions for Lambs is so indicative of our current state of affairs as Americans as to be painful. No wonder the film received mostly middling to negative reviews and was a dud at the box office. Like Spike Lee’s scandalous 1987 film, School Days, Redford’s film insists on throwing the painful but necessary truth in our faces, and so many Americans would rather be chasing the latest consumer toys or obsessing over meaningless pop culture tittle-tattle. It has been said that Lions for Lambs is too “talky,” supposedly a handicap for a film.

Lions for Lambs does talk a lot, but it has something to say and we should be listening.

Still, Cruise (who gives the film’s best and sharpest performance, by far) and Streep arguing history, politics, and war as a ruthlessly ambitious politician and a jaded reporter, while American servicemen die is a sign of the times. Watching Redford’s old school activist professor trying to get Garfield’s cynical and spoiled rich boy get engaged in change while the student’s classmates shed blood for him is deeply saddening. While Peña’s Ernest and Derek’s Arian are lions in this supposed war for our civilization, the lambs are back home holding the keys to the lions’ fates.

Redford’s film clearly asks that a country embrace a more selfless agenda and do some serious soul searching, instead of acting and lying in our own self-interests. It’s good when a Hollywood movie tackles the national mood and asks tough questions. It means that American cinema still matters beyond being mere corporate product.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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Comic Book to Screen: The Amazing Spider-Man #6 Review

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #6
MARVEL COMICS

WRITER: Stan Lee
ART: Steve Ditko
COLORS: Stan Goldberg
LETTERS: Artie Simek
32pp, Color, .12¢

The Spider-Man film franchise reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, is just hours away from releases to theatres (as I write this). That’s why I decided to go back to the comic book beginnings of the new film’s villain, The Lizard. Writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Steve Ditko introduced The Lizard nearly 50 years ago in The Amazing Spider-Man #6, which had a November 1963 cover date.

The Lizard is Dr. Curtis “Curt” Connors, a reptile expert who works in the Florida Everglades; he also lives there with his wife, Martha, and son, Billy. He had been a surgeon who enlisted in the U.S. Army and performed surgery on wounded GIs during the war (probably the Korean War). During his time in the service, Connors’ arm was injured and had to be amputated.

Years later, as a research scientist, Connors began to develop a serum that could restore missing limbs and organs. Connors was basing his research on certain kinds of lizards that had the ability to re-grow lost limbs. He finally developed a serum, which he tested on himself. While his lost arm did grow back, Connors subsequently transformed into a reptile humanoid monster that was super-strong and had a nearly impenetrable hide.

The Amazing Spider-Man #6 (entitled “Face-to-Face with the Lizard!”) opens with the Lizard making his fearsome first appearance by chasing a trio of hunters from a swamp that he has claimed as his own. Back in New York City, Spider-Man is reading the front page of the newspaper, the Daily Bugle, upon which there is a headline that challenges Spider-Man to defeat the Lizard. Of course, the challenge comes from J. Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man hater and the publisher of the Bugle, where Spider-Man’s alter-ego, Peter Parker, is a freelance photographer.

Parker wants to get down to Florida to investigate the Lizard, but he can’t afford to buy a plane ticket. Using his Spider-Man identity, he tricks Jameson, who refused the first time Parker asked, to agree to finance the trip. The trick turns on Parker when Jameson insists on accompanying him. Once in Florida, Parker ditches Jameson, switches to Spider-Man, and heads to “the Lizard Area.”

Spider-Man’s first encounter with the Lizard goes badly for our hero, so he swings his way to the home of Dr. Connors. There, Spider-Man finds Connors’ wife, Martha, crying. She is the one who tells him the back story of how Connors transformed into the Lizard. Spider-Man has another encounter with the Lizard, which involves Connors’ son, Billy.

Using his scientific knowledge, Spider-Man amazingly concocts an antidote to the serum that created the Lizard. Time is running out for Spider-Man because the Lizard is about to dump Connors’ serum into the swamp, which will turn the countless reptiles living there into monsters like the Lizard. Unable to match the Lizard’s strength and power, Spider-Man uses his speed and his wiles to defeat the villain and to administer the serum to him. Shortly after swallowing the serum, the Lizard transforms back into Dr. Connors.

Parker rejoins Jameson who is furious that the young man disappeared on him. Jameson even tears up the photographs of the Lizard that Peter took. Back home, Peter finds that his bad luck has not changed, but he takes it in stride.

I have lost track of how many times I’ve read The Amazing Spider-Man #6 (as well as other early issues of the series). Steve Ditko and Stan Lee offered what amounted to an epic in 21 pages. Today’s comic book writers would take the single issue that is “Face-to-Face with the Lizard!” and turn it into a six-issue story arc, with each issue containing 20 to 22 pages of story. A smart director and screenwriter(s) could turn “Face-to-Face with the Lizard!” into an entire movie.

Ditko, who drew the story from a plot by Lee, draws most pages containing eight to nine panels; even pages with action sequences have six panels. All those panels make for a story that moves rapidly, compacting the story in small spaces so that it strains to break free. Reading it, I can feel all the energy that wanted to burst forth. This is the comic book in its purest form.

I heartily recommend reading “Face-to-Face with the Lizard!” to any Spider-Man fan, whether they have ever read comic books or not. It is available in both paperback and expensive hardcover collections.

IMAX 3D Theatres Have "The Amazing Spider-Man"

Columbia Pictures' The Amazing Spider-Man(TM) Swings Into IMAX® 3D Theatres On July 3

Climax Features Expanded Aspect Ratio Designed to Maximize the IMAX Canvas

IMAX Exclusive Early Release in Russia

LOS ANGELES, July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IMAX Corporation (NYSE: IMAX; TSX: IMX) and Columbia Pictures today announced that the highly anticipated 3D action-adventure, The Amazing Spider-Man, will be released in the immersive IMAX® 3D format in 447 IMAX® theatres worldwide. Domestically, the film will launch in IMAX on Tuesday, July 3 - simultaneous with the film's North American wide release - in 307 theatres. The film began its rollout to a total of 140 IMAX theatres internationally on June 27. Additional playdates will be added as pending bookings are confirmed. To date, the Spider-Man motion pictures have generated more than $2.5 billion in worldwide box office receipts. Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 were also released in IMAX.

The film will benefit from an IMAX exclusive one week early release in the 20 IMAX theatres currently open in Russia beginning Friday, June 29.

Director Marc Webb and the filmmakers have crafted the climactic finale of The Amazing Spider-Man to feature a larger aspect ratio of 1.9:1 versus the traditional 2.39:1 ratio in order to take full advantage of the IMAX canvas and overall experience. This aspect ratio, which is optimized to take advantage of the IMAX screen, will allow audiences to see more of the image and result in a full panorama of the action - allowing audiences to feel as if they were swinging alongside Spider-Man.

The IMAX release of The Amazing Spider-Man has been digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of An IMAX 3D Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images coupled with IMAX's customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie. The film will also be released in 2D and other 3D formats.

About The Amazing Spider-Man:
One of the world's most popular characters is back on the big screen as a new chapter in the Spider-Man legacy is revealed in The Amazing Spider-Man(TM). Focusing on an untold story that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story, the new film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt and Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves from a story by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach are producing the film in association with Marvel Entertainment for Columbia Pictures, which will open in theaters everywhere in 3D on July 3, 2012.

The Amazing Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker (Garfield), an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben (Sheen) and Aunt May (Field). Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy (Stone), and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance - leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Ifans), his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.

http://www.theamazingspiderman.com/

The Amazing Spider-Man has been rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence.

Review: "Madea's Witness Protection" is The Lighter Side of Madea

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 53 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Madea’s Witness Protection (2012)
Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some crude sexual remarks and brief drug references
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Tyler Perry
PRODUCERS: Ozzie Areu, Paul Hall, and Tyler Perry
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alexander Gruszynski
EDITOR: Maysie Hoy
COMPOSER: Aaron Zigman

COMEDY/DRAMA

Starring: Tyler Perry, Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, Doris Roberts, Romeo Miller, Danielle Campbell, Devan Leos, Jeff Joslin, John Amos, Marla Gibbs, and Tom Arnold

Madea’s Witness Protection is a 2012 comedy from writer/director/producer, Tyler Perry. This is also the 13th film in the Tyler Perry film franchise (the twelfth that Perry has directed). In Madea’s Witness Protection, super-grandmother Mabel “Madea” Simmons shelters a businessman and his family in her home after the mob targets them.

George Needleman (Eugene Levy) is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the charity division at Lockwise Industries, but all goes bad when George learns that his boss, Walter (Tom Arnold), is running a mob-backed Ponzi scheme. Soon, George and his family: wife Kate (Denise Richards), daughter Cindy (Danielle Campbell), and son Howie (Devan Leos) leave New York City for Atlanta. There, George cooperates with Brian Simmons (Tyler Perry), an assistant district attorney investigating Lockwise’s criminal connections. The Needlemans need a place to stay that isn’t a normal part of the witness protection program.

Enter Brian’s aunt, Madea (Tyler Perry), who reluctantly opens her home to the Needlemans. Brian’s father, Joe (Tyler Perry), even discovers that he has a past connection with George’s mother, Barbara (Doris Roberts). The Needlemans’ problems, however, extend beyond George’s work troubles. Will they find that help in Madea’s wild and crazy southern home?

Tyler Perry’s Madea movies usually have two dominate plots or storylines. First, there is the storyline that depicts the antics of Madea the co-lead. The second is a melodrama, usually focusing on a female character who struggles to overcome a number of external obstacles and internal conflicts. Madea’s Witness Protection does not follow that formula. Madea’s antics are directly tied to the second main character, which is George Needleman. George’s story cannot move forward without Madea, so this is truly a “Madea movie.” It is also a bit of a stretch to sell Levy (who is 65 as I write this) as a 52-year-old man, which is George’s age. Otherwise, Levy does his usual schtick as the pitiful, put-upon, straight-laced white guy to polished perfection.

Tyler Perry in this triple role as Madea, Joe, and Brian is on automatic, although he plays Brian with self-assuredness that I don’t remember seeing before this movie. His performance as both Madea and Joe is also smoother than in earlier films. The Madea of Madea’s Witness Protection is also a lot less overbearing, not as rough, and less edgy than in films like Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion. Joe is also a lot less vulgar, not quite the dirty old man, and is certainly less untidy that in earlier films.

Madea’s Witness Protection features a Madea that is cuddlier, if such a thing is possible. She’s like a Motown spit-shine on some hollerin’ blues. She will still knock you out, but she’s ready to give you a hug and for her place in the mainstream. Madea’s Witness Protection is good, and Madea is as funny and as crazy as ever. Are we ready, however, for a Madea who goes down so smoothly?

6 of 10
B

Sunday, July 01, 2012

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Review: Mitchum Makes "The Night of the Hunter" a Classic (Remembering Robert Mitchum)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Night of the Hunter (1955) – B&W
Running time: 93 minutes (1 hour, 33 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton
WRITER: James Agee (from the novel Davis Gubb)
PRODUCER: Paul Gregory
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Stanley Cortez
EDITOR: Robert Golden

DRAMA/FILM-NOIR/THIRLLER

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelly Winters, Lillian Gish, Billy Chapin, Sally Jane Bruce, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, Peter Graves, and Don Beddoe

The subject of this movie review is The Night of the Hunter, a 1955 American thriller starring the great actor, Robert Mitchum. The film is directed by Charles Laughton, who reportedly also wrote the film’s screenplay, although James Agee is the credited writer. The Night of the Hunter is based upon the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Gubb. The film follows a reverend-turned-serial killer who stalks two children to learn a secret he believes they know.

In this Depression-era tale, self-proclaimed preacher, Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), learns from his cellmate, Ben Harper (Peter Graves), a thief and double murdered condemned to hang from the gallows, that he hid $10,000 in stolen money, and only his two children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce), know where the loot is. When Powell gets out of prison, he charms Ben’s weak-minded widow, Willa (Shelly Winters), into marrying him. However, the children have made a pact never to reveal the whereabouts of the money, and the mature-beyond-his-years John stubbornly refuses to give into Powell’s threats of bodily harm lest they give up the money. As Powell stalks them, the children take up refuge with the indomitable Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish), an older woman who takes in abandoned and abused children, and so begins an inevitable test of wills between Harry and Rachel for the fate of the Harper children.

The Night of the Hunter is probably one of the scariest Film-Noir motion pictures you’ll ever see. Haunting, eerie, and dreamlike, its hold on the viewer is as relentless as the title character played superbly, with such gusto, and honest-to-God menace by Robert Mitchum. The wedding night scene in which Harry rebuffs Shelly Winters’ Willa Harper simply and definitively says that Mitchum’s Powell is a total asshole. Actually, it’s at that point Winters’ character really begins to register in this film; before that scene, Willa Harper was extraneous. In Mitchum’s scenes with the children, Powell’s demeanor and dishonest piety mark him as an evil shit. However, when he stalks the Harper kids across cinematographer Stanley Cortez’s otherworldly rural landscapes and its seemingly enchanted river, you know that Powell is an all-too-real human murder, even if he takes on a sort of supernatural aura.

In a sense the film is like a fairy tale, some Brothers Grimm tale that taps into primordial fears and bad dreams – young lambs that find that a ravenous wolf has replaced their parents and now stalks them for a prize. There are superb performances by the child actors. Billy Chapin ably becomes the little man that John Harper must become as he takes on the responsibility of both protecting his sister and his father’s legacy, symbolized by the money that Ben Harper stole specifically to make sure his children didn’t go homeless and hungry. It is with bitter irony that it is that same money is the reason Ben’s children end up homeless and hungry. Sally Jane Bruce mixes cuteness, a precocious confidence, and innocence into a unique mixture that allows her to face Harry Powell, to even sit on his lap on occasion.

Lillian Gish’s Rachel Cooper is God’s voice to as Mitchum’s Powell is the bad spirit; she is his exact opposite when it comes to viewing God. While Powell’s God is a hyper vengeful Old Testament deity who allows a madman to roam about killing his human servants, Gish’s Cooper believes in a God who sends children who will do great things into the world – children who will grow into Kings that will in turn save all God’s children.

Some people may be put off by the film’s theatrical style and staging and its religiosity, but that adds a layer of wonderful metaphors and symbols on director Charles Laughton’s otherwise gritty fable. Carefully and deliberately, he shaped The Night of the Hunter into a true classic in the film thrillers genre.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1992 National Film Preservation Board, USA: National Film Registry

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

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Negromancer Independence Day

It's July 2012.  Welcome to Negromancer, the rebirth of my former movie review website as a movie review and movie news blog. I’m Leroy Douresseaux, and I also blog at http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/ and write for the Comic Book Bin (which has smart phones apps and comics).

There are some big movies opening this month, starting with The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3rd.  For as long as I have been reviewing movies, I have also been picky about seeing movies, so I will skip some of those July movies.  I'll explain my movie viewing habits in detail at a later date.

All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.

"Rise of the Guardians" Character Poster: Jack Frost

This character is "Jack Frost" from the upcoming DreamWorks Animation feature, Rise of the Guardians (November 21, 2012).  He is apparently the protagonist and is voiced by Chris Pine of Star Trek and Unstoppable.