Furious on Film 07.26.07: Issue 99
Posted by Arnold Furious on 07.26.2007
Magicians doubles, inept Germany soldiery, naked deaf Japanese girls and the Nazi’s are having a party!
Furious on Film 07.26.07: Issue 99
Magicians doubles, inept Germany soldiery, naked deaf Japanese girls and the Nazi's are having a party!
You know what I'm about by now. With just 1 week to go until the epic release of Furious on Film #100! Let me know your thoughts on how you figure the list may possibly shape up via the usual email address; arnold.furious@virgin.net. There's also a chance to vote for change. Your options will become clear after the usual introduction. Bit worried about getting it done now as I've presently written 100-76. The rest remains unwritten. Bugger. But then next week I don't have to watch any films for the review bag. Seeing as it's straight up list-a-mania.
Warning – could well contain minor spoilers throughout. Films are rated on a ***** scale. This week we have…
The Prestige, Where Eagles Dare, Babel, Triumph of the Will
With Furious on Film #100 out next week I felt it wasn't necessary to do my usual honourable mention spot. I still have a few that I wrote ready to roll but they'll be tacked on the front end of next week's column instead. Yes, the Furious 100 makes its epic return in a new form to honour the greatest 100 film makers of all time. Of course this is just my opinion and chances are you'll disagree with at least some of the picks although hopefully not the top five or so as I pretty much had them planned out right from day one. Everything outside the top ten got moved around constantly. It's still not a finalised list and I've starting writing the actual column. I keep seeing new films and changing my mind. For instance this week I watched films from two of the directors who had the good fortune to make the list based on their previous work. That and after watching Inside Man it occurred to me that Spike Lee wasn't on the list. At all. I'd just totally forgotten about him. So I sat down and looked through the 100 and thought about who I needed to get rid of. Obviously some of the lower down guys were disposable but I'd already written the blurbs for the bottom 23 names. Someone higher would have to go. I was left with this choice and it's one I'd like you, gentle reader, to make for me. It's your only chance to shape the list but here's the choice; Spike Lee or…Richard Attenborough. Before you think about that remember that Attenborough won the Academy Award for Gandhi in the early 80's and also made a Bridge Too Far, Cry Freedom and Chaplin. Lee's own resume is pretty strong. He made the seminal Do The Right Thing, the much hyped Malcolm X, Clockers, Summer of Sam and Bamboozled. But which do you like better? Your choice, your chance to alter the list. Vote now!
The Prestige (2006)
EXPECTATIONS – Chris Nolan has already had quite the career and if it ended today would be hailed as a genius and one of the great directors of our time. He's up there with some of the best directors in the world right now and one of the top guys from the latest generation of film makers. His debut feature Following is one of the great films, done on the budget, of recent times. I would forgive him remaking it because the storyline is absolutely superb. The film really only lacked some quality actors as the script was fantastic. Unfortunately the professional rivalry in a dubious profession may be too similar thematically to the Prestige. Nolan went on to showcase his abilities with the stunning Memento. A film made backwards that makes perfect sense and thanks to the themes involved manages to have shocks and surprises about the past. It really is quite brilliant and got Nolan a mainstream Hollywood directors job. His first film was the somewhat low key debut of Insomnia. It made about $67M, which is a pretty good haul for a film that wasn't really on a par with what Nolan is capable of. It probably didn't help that Nolan didn't write the film himself. Often some directors are better off seeing a project through from start to finish. Of course after that he took over the reigns on the Batman franchise and WHAMMO, instant megastar director. Thanks to a whopping budget and an amazing screenplay Batman Begins was not only a visual feast but one of the premier blockbusters of the past decade. It also allowed Nolan to start a professional relationship with Christian Bale that will probably be talked about for years to come. Their second film is this film, the Prestige.
WHAT'S IN A NAME? – Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."
TRAILER –
PLOT – Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) start out as friends in the magic business but become rivals after Borden's mistake leads to the death of Angier's wife onstage. Borden goes on to develop a trick called the Transported Man, which Angiers becomes obsessed with and tries to steal even sending his new assistant Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) to him to infiltrate the act.
OPINION – This film really rubbed me up the wrong way. I went into it expecting a cinematic delight and for the first half of the film I was thoroughly entertained. The magic scenes are fun enough. Watching Michael Caine make birds disappear is good stuff in my book. Especially when you find out how the trick works. The beginning of the rivalry is well done and I believe in the film for about half of it. Then it really starts to go to shit. I can't really describe how without giving away spoilers so unless you've seen the film you may want to look away for a while here. *SPOILERS START*. Nolan makes a clinical mistake in The Prestige by telegraphing his ending. Why would anyone be fooled by the circus trick and lame attempt at distraction that is Fallon? Why put such heavy makeup on a character unless you're trying to cover him up? It was obvious once the trick had been introduced that Borden had a double. After all Angier has no trouble finding someone who looks exactly like him so why couldn't Borden? And then disguise him as Fallon so he has an excuse to always be around. It seemed entirely simple and straightforward and I was REALLY hoping to be swerved in the final act and have it revealed that Fallon was a distraction to real truth. Only there was no swerve. It was just really predictable. Fallon was Borden's exact double because they were twins. Great. Only I saw that coming from the introduction of the Fallon character and the introduction of the trick. It almost seems stupid of the other characters to ignore it. The art of misdirection is what allows magic acts to work. But there's no misdirection in the Prestige. It's all laid out for the world to see. Then it takes forever to get there. The stunt with Angier's being killed in the opening scene has the trap door lead directly to a water tank. Why? As soon as it's revealed that the top hats are transported but also remain in the same location then it's obvious what will happen to Angier when he uses the machine and they've even shown us what happens and still there's a need to explain it for the few people who've missed what's going on. I felt like the Prestige was insulting my intelligence by being so obvious and pretending to be complicated. It's a pity that the grand scheme and the big reveal is so badly done because the execution of parts of it are terrific, the diaries especially, and is unfortunately only there to set up the bigger picture and the twist I already know about. *SPOILERS END*. Emotionally the picture is detached. The lead characters are not at all sympathetic. The women are one dimensional. It's frustrating to see a potentially great film be ruined by a drawn out third act with no drama involved in it. Telegraphing your ending is something that only works if the ending is what the audience wishes to see. If you're aiming to shock and surprise then telegraphing your ending is the last thing you want to do. This major point is where the Prestige fails and does some miserably. What I'd like to know from you, gentle reader, is whether or not you found it equally predictable or am I just watching too many films here? It's not just the ending that irks me though. I pretty much hate it from the point where Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) is introduced. His character is ridiculous and in no way helped by the fact it's played by David fucking Bowie. He's a terrible actor and always has been but no one else in the Prestige is a bad actor. His arrival stands out like a sore thumb. There he is hamming it up, chewing at the scenery while everyone around him tries hard to keep a straight face. Was that supposed to be a German accent? And what's with Hugh Jackman's Angier? I know he's obsessed with Borden's trick but is he obsessed or is he just stupid? He copied the trick then still couldn't figure out how it was done. YOU'VE JUST DONE IT. YOU'VE DONE THE FUCKI…I give up. I'm in the same boat as Michael Caine's character. I'm sitting back and telling people they're idiots and no one is listening.
BEST BIT – Borden tying the knot. And his diary entry and how he's not sure what knot he tied.
RATING - **1/2. Strong to start with but the attempt at misdirection is woefully off base and the characters go totally downhill in the second half. Ok, example; Angier manages to emulate the Transported Man trick. It's a success until Borden fucks with it and makes him into a laughing stock. So he goes away, comes back and does the trick again despite the entire audience knowing damn well he has an identical double knocking around and suddenly it's a great trick? Why? Just because the double appears in the different part of the building. What makes that so amazing? I'm going to try and forget about this one. I'd advise everyone to do the same.
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
EXPECTATIONS – Director Brian Hutton went on to make the very solid Kelly's Heroes two years later. The star is Richard Burton although he's strongly supported by Clint Eastwood. Burton was quite the star in the 60's. He's coming off the Longest Day, Zulu, Cleopatra and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Eastwood comparatively is coming off the back of his Spaghetti Westerns but is still three years shy of Dirty Harry when he became a real huge star. I like Clint in most things. In fact I don't remember a Clint Eastwood performance I outright hated. I think Unforgiven is pretty over rated but he was still good in it. Burton I'm not so fond of.
TRAILER –
PLOT – Major Jonathan Smith (Richard Burton) leads a team of crack British soldiers along with Lt Schaffer (Clint Eastwood) behind enemy lines in World War II in an attempt a rescue a key member of the armed forces. The missing general is being held in a remote castle. It's Smith's job to get in there and get him out but he also has to deal with a possible spy in his own team.
OPINION – Where Eagles Dare is so ridiculously over the top that it goes through bad and all the way back to good. Snakes on a Plane has got nothing on the level of ludicrousness in Where Eagles Dare. Firstly all the Germans can't shoot straight. They're less accurate than Stormtroopers. Also the British are somehow immune to bullets. Only Burton is struck and merely shrugs it off. Meanwhile the Allied forces find that their bullets somehow get sucked into the German troops. The accuracy of the Allied bullets is quite phenomenal. All the German troops are shot including a corridor full of idiots who line up for Clint Eastwood to shoot them. It's not like he's even trying to conceal himself or make himself a harder target like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, which is loaded with almost as ludicrous scenes. Clint just stands there with two enormous machine guns, which would be impossible to hold, in the middle of the corridor while Germans run into his bullets. The scene is so totally preposterous that I found myself just laughing at how inept the German soldiers were. The whole film is like that. There's one scene where Clint tries to sneak up on this one soldier and stab him so he doesn't raise the alarm but he notices and raises the alarm. So Burton shoots him. Why not just shoot him? They'd already been firing weapons all over the place. Then there's the last 20 minutes of the film, which is one big escape scene where they flee the castle via a mixture of things they set up in the first half of the flick. This features a series of Germans falling prey to the unerring accuracy of Clint Eastwood's shooting skills. Especially the one in the tower at the air field where Burton shouts "get the control tower" or something like that and Clint fires off a few rounds killing the air traffic controller in impossible fashion. Why didn't he just move? The glass was the only weak spot but he just stands there waiting to get shot. But like I said at the top it's so ridiculous it comes all the way back round to good again. It's almost a parody. I certainly ended up treating it as one because it was so funny. There are some really drawn out and boring scenes leading up to the escape. Especially the LONG scene where they ride the cable car up to the castle. I think they were probably trying to build tension but all it did was bore me. There's also the fact the Germans have this bizarre language thing going on. The vast majority of them speak English without any trace of an accent. This is basically to allow the Brits/Clint to infiltrate the German territory without the need for subtitles. Although how no one spots Clint's American accent in the bar is beyond explanation. Equally beyond explanation is why some of the Germans have an accent and some don't and in one scene there is actual German being shouted in the background. The words ‘make you mind up' come to mind. Oh, and then the absolute peak of the farcical nature of Where Eagles Dare; the radio conversations. Burton's character is carrying a code book for use with the radio. But they don't talk in code. They talk openly often using real names and locations and divulging information about the mission on open airwaves. Why have a code book? Why would you do something so stupid as talking openly over the radio? And how did no one notice this? It's completely insane. I've not even covered the "don't bury him" bit, talking about the mission in a PUB and the dynamite. Oh, and the hand grenades. The Germans throw them at Clint but he just picks them up and throws them back. They can't do anything right!
BEST BIT – The explosion heavy chase that ends the film.
RATING - ** for the sheer stupidity and humour that I got from it. But it's not the classic war film it claims to be. Even Kelly's Heroes is much better than this.
Babel (2006)
EXPECTATIONS – I consider myself a pretty big fan of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. I went as far as to rent the 9/11 series of short films just to see Inarritu's take on the days events. I think Amores Perros is incredible and 21 Grams is a very strong film. This was the first film that got Inarritu noticed by the Academy Awards as it was nominated for seven and took one of those home. Two of the cast were nominated and it was up for the ‘big two' of best film and best director. My thoughts coming in were that such notice should in theory equal out to this being his best work. But then that would depend on the Academy Awards being right and that's a rarity.
TRAILER –
PLOT – A couple holidaying in Morocco (Brad Pitt & Cate Blanchett) run into a tragedy when a farmer's son shoots at their coach and injures Susan (Blanchett). Meanwhile their kids are at home being looked after by the Mexican au pair Amelia (Adriana Barazza) who needs to take the children to her son's wedding. The bad news is it's over the border in Mexico and they're being driven there by her drunkard party animal nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal). At the same time the gun's origins are traced back to Japan where the previous owner lives with his troubled sexually promiscuous deaf daughter Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi).
OPINION – Babel is a film about how language is a barrier. It's a political barrier when the US government claims Susan has been shot by a terrorist thus complicating her trip to the hospital. It's a barrier for Brad Pitt's Richard as he has trouble communicating with the locals and getting his wife to safety. It's also a problem for Chieko who, being deaf, can't speak any language other than sign and relies on lip reading to get by. She feels increasingly isolated because of this. It isn't an issue for the kids living with Amelia though as they've grown up around both English and Spanish and therefore understand what's happening. But once you're past the basic set up of Babel being a film about language barriers and how they exist and damage people's lives you find the film doesn't have a whole lot else to say. The bits with Rinko Kikuchi are really good. Especially the clubbing scene with no music (because she's deaf) and the flashing scene. The bits with Adrianna Barazza are really good. Her relationship with several cast members are explored and I was genuinely excited about where her tale would end. Those two plots don't interweave though. Unlike Amores Perros where everything ties together or 21 Grams does Babel just drifts on and doesn't really have an ending. Which is frustrating when you dedicate that much time to the film. I guess the main reason to watch it to the end would be to see Rinko Kikuchi walking around butt naked. I would start doing nudity ratings for each film I check out if it hadn't already been done (NSFW, obviously) . Gawd bless you, Mr Skin! My point, as it was, is that Babel is a long film for no apparent reason. Some of Inarritu's ideas are quite entertaining but the main one, Pitt & Blanchett, is both dull and melancholy. The film wouldn't really work without those scenes but nevertheless I felt I could probably do without them. After all in his phone calls to Amelia the character of Richard explains what happens to his wife. That entire arc is then devoid of drama. I'm not sure why they did it that way. Probably to get all the stories running at the same time. But unlike in Amores Perros the timing of each story isn't crucial. It could have run as a series of connected short stories and been just as interesting and still end on the Rinko storyline as the film does. Basically I'm disappointed that Babel is frequently flat and doesn't have the same sense of coming together and there's never a moment of jaw dropping superb direction. Whether it be a plot twist or a camera move. Compare this to his previous work and Babel isn't as good as it could have been. Still the Japanese section was quite entertaining and I enjoyed seeing places I'd been appear on film. I also like how Rinko is able to walk home from Shinjuku. That shows how insanely rich the father character must be and yet she's still isolated because of her deafness. Even if she does have friends. Her story also makes the most sense of the collection with the characters involved making logical choices. Each of the other stories features some level of daft decision making. Why can't Susan get back on the bus? If the Moroccan kids wanted to test out their rifle why didn't they pick a more sensible target? Why on Earth would Amelia let Santiago drive drunk with those kids in the car? The screenplay has too many gaps in the logic. I was far more interested in the back-story behind Rinko's father and the rifle.
BEST BIT – I'm paraphrasing here; "she didn't jump off a balcony…she shot herself". That one moment said an awful lot about the entire arc from Japan.
RATING - ***1/2. It's sad that Babel is getting Inarritu recognition when it's his least accomplished film to date. He continues to show skill with both the pen and the directors chair but I know he can do better than this. Compared to his first two films Babel is a disappointment.
Triumph of the Will (1934)
EXPECTATIONS – Triumph of the Will is the most famous of the Nazi propaganda films from the 1930's. Directed by Leni Riefenstahl whose work is held in high regard if not her choice of subject. I've seen clips from Triumph of the Will beforehand but never the entire thing. I had trouble stomaching the clips.
TRAILER – This is a 10 minute scene from the end of the film where Hitler speaks in front of a packed house in Nuremburg.
PLOT – Filmed at the 6th Party Congress in Nuremburg in 1934 Triumph of the Will shows how strong Germany has become under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. It was a film to promote unity and pride in the German people and to worry the rest of Europe.
OPINION – It's hard to talk about something like the Triumph of the Will. It's the kind of film that I think everyone should see or at the very least watch Hitler's speech from the closing ceremony. It's a stark reminder that he was beloved by the German people for everything he did for them. He was a hugely successful politician and leader and was one of the great orators of all time. He was so charismatic that the German people blindly followed him into a war that he felt justified in starting. There are lessons to be learned from this. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. We should all pay heed to how Hitler managed to rise to power and how such a thing should never be allowed to take place again. The film is clever in the sense that Riefenstahl captures real moments in the crowds, a schoolboys socks or a soldier swatting a flag out of his eye, to give the film a sense of humanity that the political speeches never could. It's beautifully shot and for the time is an absolute visual feast. Technically it's one of the best films of the era. Most films from the 30's don't hold up too well but Triumph of the Will looks very good for its age. Nowadays such a documentary would be interspersed with interviews with the main players. Certainly Hitler and a few higher ranking henchmen. It's a pity that these things were not common place in the past. It might have provided more insight into the situation. The speeches are interesting but repetitive. The one from Hitler at the end is the only essential speech. I found myself watching the amazing backdrops of troops marching, in almost Roman fashion, instead of listening to the speeches (well, reading the subtitles). It has the kind of budget behind it that most film makers can only dream of (maybe not Michael Bay or Sam Raimi). The visuals that happen because of the scale of the event are very memorable. Riefenstahl herself said she was fascinated by the Nazi's but claimed to be naïve to their actual goals and aims both on the battlefield and in their own country. This echoes the feeling of the secretary in Der Untergang. She doesn't realise how dangerous Hitler was until it was too late. Riefenstahl got black listed but not jailed for her activities in Nazi Germany. After the war this remarkable film maker only got the chance to do two films. While I can't agree with her decisions in life it's a pity she never had the chance to work in the west and produce the kind of films she was capable of. As a result she's left with this as her legacy.
BEST BIT – Hitler's dynamic speech that closes the rally and the film.
RATING – This is totally impossible to rate. It's a great documentary about evil subject matter. It's the kind of thing you probably should see at least once. Although for my money I was more entertained by Der Untergang (Downfall) because I knew it wasn't for real and Hitler was fading away. Triumph of the Will shows the man at the zenith of his powers. It's truly terrifying stuff. And how did Hitler like it? Here's what he said; "incomparable glorification of the power and beauty of our Movement". Nuff said.
