Furious on Film 03.29.07: Issue 82
Posted by Arnold Furious on 03.29.2007
It's the same f*ckin' thing in politics, Dog. You find an edge, you gotta exploit that sh*t. That's why y'all sent all them motherf*ckin' teenagers to Iraq. Die over some motherf*ckin' oil money. Send the motherf*ckin' CIA up in the 'hood with all the f*ckin yayos. Slangin' in the hood man. It's the same sh*t in politics.
It's the same f*ckin' thing in politics, Dog. You find an edge, you gotta exploit that sh*t. That's why y'all sent all them motherf*ckin' teenagers to Iraq. Die over some motherf*ckin' oil money. Send the motherf*ckin' CIA up in the 'hood with all the f*ckin yayos. Slangin' in the hood man. It's the same sh*t in politics.
Fuck the intro. You know what I'm about by now. Except I'm now using my teaser line to throw out a classic quote from a film of the past in an attempt to tie it into what I'm talking about in the column. Sort of. Last week was Ming the Merciless, a terrorist of sorts, wishing death upon those crazy enough to fly. I later thought I probably could have dug out a quote involving Icarus. Ah, well.
Warning – could well contain minor spoilers throughout. Films are rated on a ***** scale. This week we have…
Syriana, 36, Jurassic Park: The Lost Word
Top Ten Films by Decade
1980's
As per usual it was a tough choice. I know damn well there are a lot of people out there who would champion Ran or Raging Bull or Das Boot to be higher up. And several people I know think Die Hard is the best film ever. It's probably also a shock to most to see the Blues Brothers flying high at #3 but it happens to be one of my favourite films, ever. I grew up on it and it just has every aspect of a great action, comedy and musical. Of the lists I've done so far I think my 80's top ten is the most personal. Half the list make it based on my strong personal memories regarding them. We're now limited to three honourable mentions on the 411 Top Five's but here at FoF I'm not limited at all so here's a bunch of films that so very nearly made the list; The Right Stuff, Ghostbusters, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Platoon, Back to the Future, After Hours, Princess Bride, Aliens, Predator, Empire of the Sun, Full Metal Jacket, Lethal Weapon, The Colour Purple, Akira, The Terminator, Grave of the Fireflies, Last Crusade, Dead Poets Society. In fact the 10th position was totally up for grabs until I remembered how awesome Peter O'Toole is in that film and how much his ‘fun while drunk' character reminds me of myself. The only problem with it is that whenever he isn't onscreen it's noticeable.
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark
2. The Shining
3. The Blues Brothers
4. Ran
5. Empire Strikes Back
6. Raging Bull
7. Das Boot
8. Cinema Paradiso
9. Die Hard
10. My Favourite Year
Syriana (2005)
EXPECTATIONS – Stephen Gaghan is a sophomore director whose only previous experience was Katie Holmes project Abandon in 2002. I didn't see it. I think the reason for that being a) it was in a fairly lowbrow genre and b) it didn't make any waves at the box office or with the critics. That would make Gaghan a bit of a non entity BUUUUT he did write Traffic. In fact he won an Oscar for it. Abandon was pretty much a trial run to see if he could direct. When it turned out he was capable he got given something more substantial. He wrote Syriana adapting Robert Baer's book and the complex script earned him another nomination at the Academy Awards. The cast doesn't really have a big star lead because the two big actors, Matt Damon & George Clooney, have relatively small roles. In fact everyone's role in small because of the scope of the film. Clooney won best supporting actor at the Oscars for her performance.
TRAILER –
WHATS IN A NAME? Syriana is a term used by Washington think-tanks to describe a hypothetical re-shaping of the Middle East.
PLOT – A merger between two major oil producing companies, Connex and Killeen, leads to four parallel stories coming together. CIA agent Bob Barnes (Clooney) is having a hard time working after a failed missile deal in Lebanon. Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) is the lawyer charged with investigating the potential wrongdoings in the Connex/Killeen merger. TV energy analyst Brian Woodman (Damon) starts into a strange relationship with the future Emir of Iran and Pakistani immigrant worker Wasim Khan (Mazhar Munir) loses his job with the oil company because of the Emir giving the oil rights to a Chinese company. All of this comes together as the CIA send Barnes to assassinate the future Emir and supplant him with his weaker minded brother.
OPINION – Get all that? Good! Syriana is a nicely complex thriller that draws from different levels of society to tell a far more rounded story than you'd get with just one person's perspective. We get the people in power, the people aiming to seize that power and the people who are affected by these decisions. Everyone in the film makes big decisions that change the way they live their lives forever. I've not even mentioned some of the support players here; Chris Cooper (great as always), Christopher Plummer, Amanda Peet, William Hurt (who seems to make a living with strong cameos these days) and O Brother Where Art Thou's Tim Blake Nelson in a great supporting role. The best thing about Syriana, beyond its ambition to make a really complex film available to a mass market, is it never stops off to tell its audience what to think. There's a lot of heavy subject matter so it's easy to get lost if you don't pay attention. I discovered this after about five minutes of paying equal amounts of attention to the film and the sandwich I was eating. The sandwich got put down and quickly forgotten. Syriana really draws you in and it does so because it's so well written and has such strong characters. Amazing that with so little time devoted to each one the characters really jump out of the screen at you. While it's not the best script ever, and honestly I think Syriana should be a longer film to get more information into it, it does the job. I think it might be the most complex two hour film ever made. I think its complexity is drawn from the fact it doesn't follow a traditional plot. There's not really a beginning, middle and end in the conventional sense. Yes, characters are introduced and we follow them through a story but there's no one scene where suddenly all the different people come together in one room and a big shootout ensues. The four main characters barely interact and yet the plot drives all four of them forward but in different directions. Trying to keep track of everyone becomes a little tricky. You need to give them film your full attention. That's not to say there aren't moments where Syriana is firing on all cylinders and it's at those points you're glad you paid attention. As Barnes races across the dessert in his jeep or as Woodman strolls back to his family at poolside at the Emir's place or when Tim Blake Norton's character goes off on this insane rant about how corruption protects America and that's how they always win. Where Gaghan goes in the right direction is by making it about how people are affected by oil. It's not about following the money but rather a series of interlinked films about people and what happens to people when they're placed in certain situations. Will a desperate man commit a desperate act? How about four desperate men? I've heard certain critics put Syriana as their best film of 2005 (Roeper did, I believe) and while I don't believe that's the case it's well worth seeing. After all it's rare these days for a film to actually make you think and present important political and religious statements that affect us all. Syriana does this and it's a credit to Stephen Gaghan for making such a challenging film.
BEST BIT – The three endings (especially the HOLY FUCK nature of the big explosion). Looks like someone didn't have a choice to make…
RATING - ****1/2. A gripping thriller that works on many levels although it's a little tough to get into in the beginning. My only complaint is it's not long or detailed enough to contain everything the script wants to go into depth on. Some characters that deserve more time onscreen (Munir, Norton, Hurt) just can't get it because we have to move the plot along and get to the ending in 120 minutes. Apparently it was originally longer and tested badly. I hate test audiences. Just let them release the fucking film how they want to. Film makers know far more about making films than the retards they get to make up test audiences.
36 Quai des Orfevres (2004)
EXPECTATIONS – Olivier Marchal directs his sophomore picture here making it 2/2 in terms of sophomore directors. He made his debut directing Anne Parillaud in Gangsters. Here he gets to work with two other major French film stars in Daniel Auteuil (Manon des Sources, Cache) and Gerard Depardieu (Jean de Florette, Green Card, Cyranno de Bergerac). Also in his cast is Valeria Golino (Hot Shots, Rainman). I have a rule about foreign films, if I recognise three actors it means I have to watch it. Seeing as my only previous use of this rule was Irreversible I figure it works out pretty well. 36 was recommended to me by Lovefilm.com when I was seeking out some foreign films to watch. While their record in recommendations isn't great they've come up with a few decent films for me.
WHATS IN A NAME? Quai des Orfevres is the French equivalent of Scotland Yard (I was trying to think of an American version but New York doesn't really have something as iconic). 36 Quai des Orfevres (Goldsmiths Quay) is the address of the Criminal Investigations Division of the Paris Police.
PLOT – With the outgoing commissioner on the verge of promotion he wants to seal his reputation and tie up his loose ends by capturing a notorious gang that robs armoured cars. He tells both of his potential successors Leo Vrinks (Auteuil) and Denis Klein (Depardieu) that whoever puts the gang away will get his job. Klein is desperate for the job but Vrinks seems to care less until he's put in a position to learn the identities of the gang members when he aids a known criminal Hugo Silien (Roschdy Zem), his snitch. His resultant attempt at taking the gang down is botched, possibly deliberately, by Klein resulting in both men ending up under investigation.
OPINION – 36 QdO is very much like Heat. There are two big star actors bouncing off each other although they are rarely onscreen together. The most obvious homage to Heat is a running battle between the cops and the robbers but while that has the style of Heat it also has the intensity of something like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. You feel more like you're in the action. Although making a better film than Michael Mann is in no way testing, mission accomplished. 36 QdO starts off as a gritty police drama. The off duty cops shooting up a bar to try and kill a mouse and the uber-violent armoured car attack highlight the opening ten minutes. As the film progresses it gets steadily darker and darker as Gerard Depardieu channels some unseen evil to become this total scumbag who sees something he wants and starts crossing lines to get it. It's almost hard to pin point the part in the film where Klein goes from being a jerk to being immoral. He starts throwing rules out of the window in an attempt to destroy not only Vrinks' career but also his life. He sees Hugo as a problem because Hugo knows the truth of the situation between him and Vrinks so Klein utilises his power to take Silien out and he doesn't seem to care if Vrinks' wife Camille (Valeria Golino) is in the firing line. In fact he probably relishes the chance to pour further misery on Vrinks. My only beef with this course of events is that it seems to set up an epic conclusion, and hopefully one better than Heat, but it doesn't really arrive. Depardieu's character needs to get his comeuppance but how do we, the viewer, want that to occur? Without spoiling the ending it's hard to say whether the delivered solution is the best possible one. There's a showdown alright and there is a comeuppance. So I guess everything works out just fine. The gritty and realistic nature of the plot is largely down to Marchal's past experiences. He was a cop in Paris during the 80's. As they say; write what you know. Marchal knows cops and the film comes off that much stronger as a result. There's no speeches about duty and service and responsibilities. There are only people who happen to be cops. A usual sign of the success of a foreign film is whether Hollywood wants to re-make it. Already attached to the 36 remake are Robert DeNiro and George Clooney.
BEST BIT – The surprise car crash or the utter mobile destruction of the armoured car in the opening reel.
RATING - ****. Unfortunately 36 QdO loses its way in the second half. The plot gets a little bit silly and the characters become somewhat clichéd. But the two lead performances are terrific and carry the somewhat messy final third of the film. The set up is brilliant and the remake won't need much in the way of tweaking to make a very good film indeed. Hell, if both DeNiro and Clooney show up with their work boots on it could win a few Oscars.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
EXPECTATIONS – One reason for watching this; it's the only Steven Spielberg film I've not seen. I liked the original Jurassic Park (around ***1/2 after the fanfare had died down I guess) and the third film actually wasn't too bad. I was expecting something appalling but it was passable (** say).
TRAILER –
WHATS IN A NAME? Originally called the Lost Island it was changed because the studio thought people would confuse it with the Arthur Conan Doyle book. Yeah, I'm sure THAT would happen nowadays. I brought up the name Arthur Conan Doyle at work the other night and there must have been six guys on the shift all aged 16-21. Not one of them had heard of him. Kinda sad.
PLOT – John Hammond (Dickie Attenborough) was apparently hiding something when he invited people to the first Jurassic Park. That being his second island where dinosaurs were being bred. Now he's been forced to sell off his company and is worried about protecting the dinosaur species. He sends in Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to observe and collect data to ensure the island gets the protection it needs.
OPINION – Spielberg once went on record as saying he didn't do sequels because they were creatively void. Perhaps he should have listened to his own advice. Lost World is a disaster from start to finish. Apparently the screen writer was sent a fan letter complaining that in the original Jurassic Park they don't get to the dinosaurs fast enough. So in Lost World we skip over as much plot as possible to get to the island in about ten minutes. That means the links to the first film are quickly disposed of. That includes Attenborough's cameo being all of three minutes and the kids from the first film get about 20 seconds. Spielberg starts sliding in his typical ‘bad father' trademarks as Malcolm has problems with his daughter who promptly stows away on their trip to the island. This leads to a ludicrous scene where she cooks breakfast while the others are out walking and somehow makes about a week's worth of mess in the trailer in the process. No sooner is that complete we get the army arriving on site and a bunch of really, really badly dated CGI shots follow. Jurassic Park and its raptors were scary and effective. Lost World looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old. The awe of seeing the dinosaurs in the sweeping epic first film is gone. The first dinosaur shots in Lost World are of stegosauri walking. That's nothing like the diplodocus feeding in the first film. It has none of the visual splendour. Mainly because the CGI is so shitty but also because the shots don't work. Spielberg was probably off counting his pay check somewhere while this film was being shot because aside from some trademark concepts and bad comedy there's nothing of his usual genius. The finale with the T-Rex being brought back to San Diego creates what should be a King Kong style wildlife v urban clash. Or even Jumanji-esque. Lost World utterly fails in this respect. The T-Rex becomes a source of comedy in several plot delaying stop off's before eventually being shipped off back to the island. Now, the ship from the island arrives loaded with dead sailors with no explanation as to why. Well, it was because raptors attacked the ship and killed everyone. But that didn't make the final cut of the film because it slowed it up. So we're left with sailors that just died and tore themselves apart in the process. And yet that would somehow slow up the plot when we've got a fucking T-Rex drinking out of a swimming pool and scaring kids in the suburbs just five minutes later. Just another dumb choice in a series of them. The continuity is bad throughout. In one of the opening scenes, obviously trimmed for time, Malcolm asks "who are these four lunatics" despite not having been told how many people are going on the mission to the island. The CGI is woeful at times. Like when Sarah (Julianne Moore) is surrounded by the stegosauri the tail swipe looks awful. It's not reflected in the water for starters. This whole film was a huge disappointment. My first reaction to all the hate was; "it's probably not that bad". Wrong. There is ridiculous scene after ridiculous scene with horrendous acting all round.
BEST BIT – Where the car flies past the trailers and over the edge. Sadly the ridiculous hanging off the cliff scene that follows it kind of wrecks the aura.
RATING - *. Not Spielberg's worst film but one of only four films he's ever made that I hate. The other three would be AI, Hook and the Terminal. AI remains Spielberg's worst film but the Lost World isn't far behind. To be fair he made the far better Amistad the same year and Saving Private Ryan in '98 so he made amends for this. Just.
Leonard Hayhurst has Ask 411 Movies. Somebody ask the man some damn questions!
Will Helm has Misunderstood Masterpieces and begins a devilishly good bad trilogy.
George Sirois has Scene Anatomy 101 with Rocky Balboa.
NEXT –
I might actually get around to watching Federico Fellini's 8 ½, which was due this week. Apologies for that. Work has been a bastard. Also next week; Thank You For Smoking, Breakfast on Pluto and the vaguely pornographic Romance.
