Review: "The Parallax View" is a Bit Askew (Remembering Alan J. Pakula)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 199 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Parallax View (1974)
Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA – R
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR: Alan J. Pakula
WRITERS: David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (based upon the novel by Loren Singer)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gordon Willis
EDITOR: John W. Wheeler
COMPOSER: Michael Small

DRAMA/MYSTERY with elements of thriller

Starring: Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Kenneth Mars, Walter McGinn, Kelly Thordsen, Jim Davis, Bill McKinney, and Paula Prentiss

The subject of this movie review is The Parallax View, a 1974 drama and political thriller directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula. The film is based on the 1970 novel, The Parallax View, which was written by Loren Singer. While David Giler and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. are credited as the film’s scriptwriters, acclaimed screenwriter, Robert Towne, also contributed to the screenplay, but did not receive screen credit.

Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty) is the kind of rash and reckless reporter who needs to defend his reputation, both to colleagues and to his editor. So when a colleague comes to Frady and tells him that all the reporters who witnessed the assassination of a leading U.S. Senator are being murdered, even he is skeptical. The reporter was a witness, and she is frantic with fear that someone is out to murder her. After her mysterious death, Frady comes to believe there is some truth to the story. His investigations leads him to a shadowy and nebulous conspiracy involving an enigmatic therapy institute called The Parallax Corporation. Frady infiltrates Parallax to become a patient, unaware of how much they know about him.

The Parallax View is a fairly good suspense thriller with a good take on conspiracy theories. Director Alan J. Pakula uses lots of long tracking shots that follow the action and film narrative from a great distance. This heightens the film’s sense of mystery and confuses the audience in such a manner that they can sympathize with Joe Frady’s confusion. The film has many twists and turns, and often the audience must wonder who knows what. How successful has Frady’s infiltration of Parallax been, and who is the hunter and who is the hunted?

The film’s major flaw is flat and stiff acting that sticks with the movie until the last act, and the Parallax Corporation itself seems like a B-movie convention or the kind of trite villain found in potboiler fiction. Still, The Parallax View is a good movie about bureaucratic intrigue, government chicanery, and especially makes a good point about the intervention in political affairs by mysterious and private interests. I highly recommend this to conspiracy theory fans.

6 of 10
B

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Review: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is Anything But Extraordinary (Happy B'day, Alan Moore?)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 108 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy violence, language and innuendo
DIRECTOR: Stephen Norrington
WRITER: James Dale Robinson (based upon the comic book by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill)
PRODUCERS: Trevor Albert and Don Murphy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dan Laustsen (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Paul Rubell
COMPOSER: Trevor Jones

SCI-FI/FANTASY/ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER

Starring: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, Richard Roxburgh, Terry O’Neill, and Tom Goodman-Hill

The subject of this movie review is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a 2003 superhero film directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade). The film is based on the six-issue comic book series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One (1999-2000), written by Alan Moore (Watchmen) and drawn Kevin O’Neill.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen may have an unusual name, and the advertising for the film may leave you dumbfounded, wondering just what the heck this film is about. Don’t fret. The plot is not that important. LXG (the title abbreviation, a thing that is so trendy and important for action films these days) is a simple, lumbering beast that is mildly entertaining, if you set your sights low enough. It’s not the dumbest of action pictures, and maybe it isn’t at all dumb, just not special, but it could have been. Sadly, it’s a by-the-numbers rendition of a concept that could have been so much smarter and more unique than most summer movies, but director Stephen Norrington and screenwriter James Dale Robinson, a former comic book writer, stay the course and make a standard action thriller that’s set in a non-standard action movie world.

It’s 1899; the British Empire is in trouble, and the rest of the European powers with it. The colonialist, imperialists bastards, it would serve them right to die for the genocide and cultural destruction they reigned across their empires in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. However, for the sake of the movie, the British crown and Europe must be preserved lest millions of innocent lives be destroyed, at least, that’s what the protagonists keep telling the audience. It seems an evil warmonger named The Phantom is using advanced weaponry like tanks to ferment war fever. Mycroft Holmes (Richard Roxburgh), some high muckity-muck in the circles of British power gathers a band of special people to battle the Phantom. Mycroft wants to form a league, and the special people he gathers for his team are people we, who read a fair bit, will recognize as famous literary characters from the 1800’s.

The leader of the group is the adventurer, Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), the same character Richard Chamberlain played in two 1980’s movies. A hero of turn-of-the-century English fiction, Quatermain was kind of a precursor to Indiana Jones. Other literary characters who spring to life in this film are Mina Harker (Petra Wilson) from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) from writer Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Doctor Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng) of the famous novel of the same name, and Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), a man who is invisible like the character from The Invisible Man. The studio added Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain’s famous juvenile, who is now an adult and a Secret Service agent. Together they form The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The movie is pretty much a standard thriller with lots (and I do mean lots) of explosions and gunfire. It all seems a bit out of place. LXG is really a period adventure, set in the 19th Century with lots of 19th Century architecture and lavish period costumes. With all these literary characters, you’d think that the film would have been a little more thoughtful and imaginative. In the end, the story is so much like other noisy movies. LXG is based on the comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, and that comic stood out because it was so different from other comics featuring heroes with special powers, knowledge, or abilities. Obviously, the comic’s uniqueness and concept wowed Fox Studios, so what do they do? They buy the film rights to the comic and promptly turn it into another pedestrian fast food film for the fickle masses.

These characters might be called “extraordinary,” but they are really quite dull and mundane. Allen Quatermain is so boring that it’s best to ignore the character. Just think of the League as seven freaks and Sean Connery dressed in raggedy clothing. Take The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for what it is and not for what it could have been; in the end, I liked it the way I sometimes like trashy food. Dog knows I went in expecting so very little. It’s clear the director and writer were too clueless to do something special, but even the heavy handed predictability can be entertaining at times, about as often as not, just another movie that’s a not too painful way to kill two hours.

4 of 10
C

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Review: Robert DeNiro is Legendary in "Raging Bull" (Happy B'day, Martin Scorsese)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 170 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Raging Bull (1980)
Black & White (with some color)
Running time: 129 minutes (2 hours, nine minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
WRITERS: Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin (based upon the books by Jake La Motta, Joseph Carter & Peter Savage)
PRODUCER: Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael Chapman
EDITOR: Thelma Schoonmaker
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, Mario Gallo, Frank Adonis, Joseph Bono, Frank Topham, Johnny Barnes, and Jimmy Lennon, Sr.

In 1980 and 81, Robert De Niro won several acting awards including the Oscar® for Best Actor in a Leading Role” for his portrayal of the boxer Jake La Motta in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Filmed in black and white, the movie harks back to classic Hollywood film noir and the black and white boxing telecasts Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Chapman grew up watching, “Friday Night Fights.” The film covers La Motta’s struggle to earn a middleweight title shot (which he would win) to his downfall as a middleweight boxing champion and the start of his career as a night club act when he middle-aged and overweight.

It took awhile for me to warm up to this film because all of the characters are so unlikable, even the ones who occasionally earn sympathy like La Motta’s wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty in an Oscar® nominated supporting role) and his brother, Joey (Joe Pesci, in the film’s other Oscar® nominated supporting role). La Motta as a boxer was physically tough, but he was allegedly emotionally self-destructive, and hard headed i.e. mega stubborn. He severely physically and emotionally abused Vickie and Joey, and combined with his unreasonableness, it is easy to see why he was not liked, although he was and is respected as a boxer.

De Niro’s turn as La Motta is considered one of the top acting performances in the history of American and world cinema. He manages to make La Motta a total asshole, jerk, bully, maniac, psycho, but beneath all that is a man worthy of sympathy. La Motta is proud and stubborn, and guides his life by his own strict code of total machismo, and although he is (in the film) a paranoid chauvinist, he is the way he is because that’s how he survives. Being the man he is gets him to the top when everything and almost everyone works against him. That De Niro can make this man worthy of derision and admiration; that he can take a fictional version of a real person and make both the real and surreal worthy of respect is a work of art on De Niro’s part.

Scorsese has always been upset that Raging Bull did not win the Academy Award for Best Film, and many critics and film fans are still angry that Scorsese lost Best Director (to Robert Redford, nonetheless), Raging Bull is more the work of De Niro’s acting than it is of what Scorsese and the rest of the filmmakers (including editor Thelma Schoonmaker who also won an Oscar®) did. Don’t get me wrong because this is a very good film, and Scorcese put boxing on film like no one ever had and probably will ever again. However, the only thing great about Raging Bull is De Niro. Redford deserved his acclaim that year.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
1981 Academy Awards: 2 wins: “Best Actor in a Leading Role” (Robert De Niro) and “Best Film Editing” (Thelma Schoonmaker); 6 nominations: “Best Actor in a Supporting Role” (Joe Pesci) and “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” (Cathy Moriarty), “Best Cinematography” (Michael Chapman), “Best Director” (Martin Scorsese), “Best Picture” (Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff), and “Best Sound” (Donald O. Mitchell, Bill Nicholson, David J. Kimball, and Les Lazarowitz)

1982 BAFTA Awards: 2 wins: “Best Editing” (Thelma Schoonmaker) and “Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles” (Joe Pesci); 2 nominations: “Best Actor” (Robert De Niro) and “Most Outstanding Newcomer to Leading Film Roles” (Cathy Moriarty)

1981 Golden Globes, USA: 1 win: “Best Motion Picture Actor – Drama” (Robert De Niro); 6 nominations: “Best Director - Motion Picture” (Martin Scorsese), “Best Motion Picture – Drama,” “Best Motion Picture Actor in a Supporting Role” (Joe Pesci), “Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role” (Cathy Moriarty), “Best Screenplay - Motion Picture” (Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin), and “New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Female” (Cathy Moriarty)

1990 National Film Preservation Board, USA: "National Film Registry”

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Review: "The Raven," Nevermore? How 'Bout Nevermind

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 86 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Raven (2012)
Running time: 110 minutes (1 hour, 50 minutes)
MPAA – R for bloody violence and grisly images
DIRECTOR: James McTeigue
WRITERS: Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare
PRODUCERS: Marc D. Evans, Trevor Macy, and Aaron Ryder
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Danny Ruhlmann
EDITOR: Niven Howie
COMPOSER: Lucas Vidal

MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Dave Legeno, and Sam Hazeldine

The Raven is a 2012 mystery-thriller from director James McTeigue. This film is the most recent one to take its name from the Edgar Allen Poe poem, “The Raven” (first published in 1845). The Raven stars John Cusack as Poe, who is trying to solve a series of horrific murders that are seemingly inspired by his stories.

The film opens in 1849, and Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack) has just returned to Baltimore, Maryland. Broke and drunk, Poe is hoping to get some funds from the newspaper, the Baltimore Patriot, for publishing one of his reviews. What he finds instead is a general disinterest in him and his recent work. Poe also hopes to marry a young socialite, Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), but her father, Captain Hamilton (Brendan Gleeson), would rather just kill Poe.

Things can’t get worse, can they? But they do when police Inspector Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) confronts Poe. Baltimore is rotten with unsolved murders, and the latest are two ghastly slayings that Fields believes is connected to Poe’s writings. Taunted by an unknown madman, Poe and Fields are forced into a cruel game of wits in which they must uncover the killer’s identity or more people will die.

When I first started reading about movies, I came across the term “high-concept.” It was used to describe a movie premise that could be pitched briefly and concisely. Imagine a movie that can be described in 20 words or less. The Raven is basically a high-concept: Edgar Allen Poe has to uncover the identity of a murderer who gets his ideas from Poe’s stories. That sound’s clever especially when you consider that Poe basically invented the genre of detective fiction as we know it with his stories starring the character, “C. Auguste Dupin.” Poe also died under mysterious circumstances, and this film’s story offers a fanciful version of events during Poe’s last days.

The Raven the movie is not clever. It’s just a bad movie. There were times while I was watching this that I could even convince myself that the filmmakers tried hard to make a good movie, but I just as often found myself thinking that at some point, the people involved with The Raven knew they had a really bad movie on their hands.

This movie is clumsy, but even worse, it’s ridiculous – from preposterous concept to silly ending. The whole thing is just a procession of absurdities. I like John Cusack, but he is awful in this, and the (dis)credit cannot go to the screenplay alone, which is amateurish (to put it mildly). Sometimes, Cusack seems disinterested and bored and other times lost. Poe deserves better.

1 of 10
D-

Friday, November 16, 2012

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"Star Trek into Darkness" Preview to Get IMAX Premiere

WORLD PREMIERE EXTENDED PREVIEW OF J. J. ABRAMS’ "STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS" TO DEBUT IN IMAX 3D ON DECEMBER 14th

The first 9-minutes FROM THE ANTICIPATED SEQUEL WILL BE RELEASED EXCLUSIVELY IN DIGITAL IMAX 3D THEATRES WORLDWIDE

Paramount Pictures will release the first 9 minutes from J.J. Abrams’ eagerly-awaited “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” exclusively in IMAX 3D months prior to the film’s official release in May 2013. This first-look at the movie will play in approximately 500 digital IMAX 3D theatres beginning December 14th.

“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS,” the sequel to Abrams’ 2009 hit film that redefined the Star Trek universe for a new generation, marks the first time exclusive footage has played in IMAX 3D and only the third time a first-look will be released in IMAX.

“Our longtime partners J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and the Bad Robot team have really hit it out of the park – the footage is absolutely incredible," said Greg Foster, Chairman and President, IMAX Filmed Entertainment. “Their use of the IMAX® Camera and canvas is sure to impress current and future Star Trek fans alike, and we’re thrilled to once again work with our friends at Paramount Pictures to offer this extended ‘first look’ at this highly anticipated summer blockbuster.”

To further the IMAX experience, “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” used IMAX cameras to capture several sequences. Exclusively in IMAX theaters, sequences filmed with the extremely high-resolution cameras will expand to fill more of the screen with unprecedented crispness and clarity, putting moviegoers right into the explosive action and vast scope of the film.

“STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” is written by Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci and directed by J.J. Abrams. Abrams is producing with Bryan Burk through Bad Robot Productions, along with Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci.


About Paramount Pictures Corporation
Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. Paramount controls a collection of some of the most powerful brands in filmed entertainment, including Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Famous Productions, Paramount Home Media Distribution, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., and Paramount Studio Group.

About Bad Robot
Bad Robot was formed by filmmaker J.J. Abrams in 2001. The company has produced television series such as ALIAS, LOST, FRINGE, PERSON OF INTEREST and REVOLUTION, and feature films such as CLOVERFIELD, STAR TREK, SUPER 8, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, and the upcoming STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. Bad Robot is based in Los Angeles.

"In Time" is Timely and Right on Time

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 85 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


In Time (2011)
Running time: 109 minutes (1 hour, 49 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violence, some sexuality and partial nudity, and strong language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Andrew Niccol
PRODUCERS: Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, and Andrew Niccol
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Deakins
EDITOR: Zach Staenberg
COMPOSER: Craig Armstrong

SCI-FI/DRAMA with elements of action and crime

Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki, Yaya DaCosta, Collins Pennie, Toby Hemingway, Olivia Wilde, and Matt Bomer

In Time is a 2012 science fiction drama from writer-director Andrew Niccol. The film stars Justine Timberlake as a fugitive in a future where time has replaced money as the currency that determines life and death.

In Time opens in the year 2169. In this world, people are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, but they live only one more year after they turn 25. People can extend their lives by earning time, instead of money, for their labor, and the amount a time people have is displayed by a digital clock implanted in their forearms. However, that live-saving time must also be used to pay bills, debts, cost-of-living expenses, etc. Society is divided into specialized towns called “Time Zones,” that reflect class, wealth, and status. The super-rich have been able to obtain enough time to practically live as immortals in Time Zones like New Greenwich.

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is a 28-year-old factory worker living in Dayton, a ghetto Time Zone. A chance meeting with 105-year-old Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) changes Will’s life, but tragedy strikes immediately after his windfall. Accused of murder, Will goes on the run, pursued by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), a cop called a “Timekeeper.” Will takes a hostage, New Greenwich resident, Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), and he is determined to destroy the system that makes the poor slaves to time and the wealthy masters of it.

Andrew Niccol is the director of one of my all-time favorite films, Gattaca (1997). Niccols’s work sometimes uses science fiction and fantasy settings, elements, and themes to tell stories concerning societal or political issues. In Time can be viewed as an allegorical tale about the increasing concentration of vast amounts of wealth in the hands of a relatively small group of people, happening in our own time. Call the time-wealthy this movie’s “the 1%.” In Time essentially addresses the naked greed of the modern financial class and Wall Street types that manipulate financial markets entirely for their benefit, regardless of how many people are left hungry, homeless, and destitute.

Lest you think In Time is heavy-handed, Niccol is clever in the way he uses familiar genres or elements to make his film entertaining and not strident or didactic. The relationship between Will and Sylvia recalls such true crime romance as Bonnie and Clyde, with Will also acting as a kind of Robin Hood. The characters Will and Sylvia are thematically similar to another pair of fugitives, Logan 3 and Jessica 6 of the novel, Logan’s Run.

All these citizens-turned-outlaw fugitive elements make In Time a crime fiction treat, while Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried make In Time dark and sexy. With them onscreen the majority of the runtime, In Time is never boring, and they actually bring clarity to Niccol’s concepts, ideas, and themes. Seyfriend can do sexy-but-dangerous as well as any young starlet; she’s like an irresistible, gourmet chocolate treat that might hide at least one razorblade (but you never know). Timberlake is a good, but not great actor, but he is a movie star. He sells this movie. Niccol is lucky to have them. This duo makes sure that In Time is on time when speaking about these times in which we live.

8 of 10
A

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Dwayne Johnson to Star as Hercules

MGM and Paramount Pictures to bring Radical Studios’ Hercules: The Thracian Wars to the big screen.

Radical Studios is excited to announce that its best-selling original graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars will be adapted as a motion picture to be co-produced by MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures.

Hercules is an original graphic novel written by Steve Moore for Radical Studios. It is an action-filled story based on the popular Ancient Greek mythology of Hercules. The film stars Dwayne Johnson and is directed by Brett Ratner. Hercules will be produced by Radical President Barry Levine, Beau Flynn and Brett Ratner. Peter Berg, Sarah Aubrey, and Radical EVP Jesse Berger will executive produce. The screenplay was adapted by Ryan Condal with script revisions by Evan Spiliotopoulos. Production is scheduled to start in early 2013.

Hercules is the second Radical Studios project set to reach the big screen following the recent wrap of production on Oblivion. Oblivion is an original concept conceived by TRON: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and developed by Radical Studios. The film stars Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo. Oblivion is being produced by Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Joseph Kosinski, Duncan Henderson and Barry Levine, with executive producers David Morrison, Jesse Berger and Justin Springer. Oblivion is being distributed by Universal Pictures and is set for an April 12, 2013 IMAX release and April 19, 2013 worldwide release.

Please visit http://radicalstudios.com/ to learn more about Hercules: The Thracian Wars. The graphic novel is available for purchase on the site as well as digitally through iTunes and Amazon.

Radical Studios will continue to release news and updates surrounding both Hercules and Oblivion. Stay informed by liking Radical’s Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/RadicalPublishing, following Radical’s YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/RadicalPublishing, and following @radicalstudios on Twitter.