Furious on Film 01.17.08: Issue 122

Posted by Arnold Furious on 01.17.2008

Top 20 for 2006, Las Vegas history, the continuing curse of the three-quel, silent robberies, Johnny Depp in a bad wig and the badness of anime meeting chick flick. Plus more!

Furious on Film 01.17.08: Issue 122

Top 20 for 2006, Las Vegas history, the continuing curse of the three-quel, silent robberies, Johnny Depp in a bad wig and the badness of anime meeting chick flick. Plus more!

Welcome to Furious on Film. It was after around 75 issues that I decided I liked the title Furious About Film better but I've never gotten around to changing it. You know how things are. You get used to one thing and suddenly you've been working the same job for five years that was only supposed to be a stop gap. You haven't gotten around to getting that flat with your mate. You haven't been to see your old friends in years because they all got married and moved away. That and your film column still has the same title and you're still using the same made up name you originally intended to ditch sometime in 2002. Sometimes making changes is hard. Even small ones. But one change I have successfully initiated over the past 122 columns is changing my viewing habits. The sheer number of great films I've seen since forcing myself into more challenging cinematic endeavours is staggering. I couldn't even begin to list them. Suffice to say there are hundreds of films that I've seen as part of Furious on Film that I'd probably never have seen otherwise. That's my change. My gift to myself. And hopefully to some readers out there. If I give someone a reason to check out something different or a more challenging film then I like to think I've done something useful with my time. So here's a new thing for the introduction. It's a little list called "Furious Recommends". On it I'll list off the previous years best 20 films, as I see it. Seeing as my 2007 list is pitiful right now I'm instead going to throw out the 2006 list until I've seen enough films to qualify me to do a 2007 list. So here is it. 20 recommended movies from 2006.

HM – Zwartboek, Talladega Nights.

1. United 93
2. An Inconvenient Truth
3. Casino Royale
4. The Departed
5. Children of Men
6. Apocalypto
7. Blood Diamond
8. The Lives of Others
9. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
10. Clerks 2
11. Letters from Iwo Jima
12. Paprika
13. This is England
14. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
15. Kidulthood
16. Last King of Scotland
17. Stranger Than Fiction
18. Jet Li's Fearless
19. The Queen
20. A Scanner Darkly

SHILL – My good friend Lewis Muirhead asked for a plug. Ask and thou shall receive.

PLUGGAGE

This week I have the following cinematic delights for your reading pleasure;

Ocean's Thirteen, Rififi, The Libertine, Whisper of the Heart

But first…

ONCE UPON A TIMELINE; Las Vegas, city of sin

• 1829. The Las Vegas Valley was discovered by Mexican merchants.
• 1885. Settlers move into the area and farming is the main reason for their arrival.
• 1905. Las Vegas is founded as a railroad town. The name translates to "The Meadows" courtesy of the Spanish speaking Mexicans discovering the valley. Mormons started passing through there in the late 1800's.
• 1911. Vegas grew quickly and became a city after just six years of its life.
• 1917. The Las Vegas Railroad company goes broke. A further railroad strike in 1922 leaves Vegas cut off and desperately short on cash.
• 1926. US Highway 91 reaches Vegas giving it a fast land connection to California. However in the late 20's Vegas wasn't doing well for itself and the rest of the state looked down upon it.
• 1930. The Hoover Dam begins construction. The influx of workers boosts the population of Vegas from 5000 to 25000.
• 1931. Perhaps the most significant happening in the history of Vegas; gambling was legalised. It became organised and regulated. With the huge numbers of bored dam workers in the area the city found itself rather wealthy by the time of the dam's completion in 1935. The city was already considered as somewhat loose moralled. Things improved somewhat in terms of sleaze when prostitution was outlawed in 1942.
• 1941. El Rancho Vegas opens. It'd be the first club on what is now known as the Las Vegas Strip.
• 1946. Gangsters had moved into Vegas pretty early on and post-war they were opening their own casinos. Gangster Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo in '46 publicly putting a face on the mob's interest in Vegas gambling.
• 1947-1957. The Flamingo didn't do too well and Siegel was shot dead in California but over the following decade other casinos opened up. The Strip was soon lit up by mob owned hotels and resorts. The mob were legit in Vegas though. With gambling legal they used their muscle to ensure their businesses succeeded. The paperwork, for once, was mostly legit.
• During the 50's. Vegas also made positive moves in other directions to make Vegas a worthwhile place to live. Included adding a university and the Convention Center, which has been over the years a huge boost to business in Vegas.
• From the highs of the 50's things went badly wrong in Vegas. There was the lost tax revenue because the Strip wasn't officially built within the city limits of Las Vegas. The city was also heavily divided by race with blacks banned from mob owned casinos but they still wanted to gamble so other low-rent casinos were set up across town. The racial segregation was surprisingly peaceful with the only exception being riots at the high schools when they integrated in the 60's.
• 1980. Vegas suffered its lowest moment when a fire killed 87 people at the MGM Grand. It remains the worst disaster in Nevada State history.
• 1990's. Vegas rebuilt and boomed becoming one of the fastest growing cities in America. The traditional casinos of the 50's were bulldozed to make way for larger and more luxurious modern casino's that catered to the whole family. Vegas went from being sleazy to being a holiday resort. The boom continues to this very day.
• 2001. Vegas has become so cool (thanks to Fear & Loathing, Swingers, Casino, Con Air and other movies in the 90's not to mention it's own rep) that Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Brad Pitt got together to make a cool movie about Vegas. Oceans Eleven was a re-make of a Rat Pack movie from 1960. A crime caper that saw a group of cons knock over three casinos in one night. Well, five in the original. Three in the re-make. It was met with critical and financial success and spawned two sequels. The first of which was rubbish.

Oceans Thirteen (2007)



EXPECTATIONS – I was surprised at how much I loved Oceans Eleven. I mean, I really loved that movie. Steven Soderbergh has made some pretty cool films. Out of Sight was really cool. Traffic was really cool. Oceans Eleven is completely out-cools almost every film, ever. It just oozes cool. It's the cheeky but suave distant cousin who you don't really know but will happily lend money to because somehow they make you feel better about yourself when you do so. Then they went and ruined everything. Oceans Twelve. An entirely, and I mean ENTIRELY, superfluous sequel that did nothing for me on so many levels. The thrill of the first film had worn off and the characters had outstayed their welcome. It had gone from a great ensemble performance to a bunch of guys trying to out-do each other. It also Catherine Zeta-Jones, which is strike one before we even got underway. The reviews were mixed and the box office was an uneventful minor profit (compared to the $100M of profit for Oceans Eleven). Effectively it ended the series. The cash cow was milked dry. End of story. Case closed.

Erm…ok. So where did that theory go wrong? Well. Apparently they over-reached on Oceans Twelve and spent too much money. So the budget was cut back to the original budget of $85M. After all you've still got all these major stars. Clooney, Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle AND Al Pacino for this particular ride. The result was the worst box office return of the trilogy at $117M. Clooney has gone on record as saying this was the last Ocean's movie. But shouldn't the last one have been the last one? I'll be the judge of that!

TRAILER –



PLOT – When long time friend of the Ocean Gang, Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) buys into the construction of a new casino with his business partner Willy Bank (Al Pacino) he finds himself muscled out. That's where Danny Ocean (George Clooney), Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) and the rest of the gang come back into play. Their job this time is one of revenge. To take Bank's casino for $500M on the opening night. Things are complicated when they need the financial backing of old enemy Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). He insists they steal Bank's jewels awarded to him for winning Five Diamond awards on all his other new hotels.

OPINION – If Oceans Twelve was entirely superfluous then I guess we'll have to invent a new word to mean "more entirely than entirely". But Oceans Thirteen is so much worse than that. If it was just pointless then I could handle that. But that's not my biggest beef with Oceans Thirteen. These are bigger beefs I have with it. Number one: the entire premise of the film is completely stupid and relies on everyone who the Ocean Gang are up against being borderline retarded. Number two: the ‘Miss Daisy' of Oceans Thirteen is theoretically impossible, impractical and did I mention it was impossible? Number three: Oceans Thirteen is downright nasty and unpleasant. Number four: in previous Oceans movies the women had important roles to play. In Oceans Thirteen the only major female character, Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin), acts like a gibbering fool sucking up to Bank in every possible way like a schoolgirl teacher's pet to Bank's teacher. Then when her character can't be humiliated anymore she falls for a lousy plot device that turns her into a cougar in heat falling over herself to get at Matt Damon with a fake nose.

Basically Oceans Thirteen is a steaming pile of crap. It looks great and Don Cheadle just about makes up for his terrible performance throughout the film with a great little cameo part impersonating a stunt bike rider. The rest of the cast are just ‘there'. Ellen Barkin does the best she can with a frankly ridiculous character but everyone else is just hanging around. They probably had fun making the movie but it sure isn't fun watching it. The plot is just ridiculous. And not in a fun way like with Die Hard 4.0 or the original Oceans Eleven. No, its ridiculous in a way where I'm sitting there watching the movie and thinking "this is patently ridiculous and I'm in no way entertained". Case in point; the dice. The dice at the casino are made in Mexico. We'll look past the fact that never happens and all Vegas casino dice are made in Vegas where the casino's can keep an eye on them so nothing happens to them. So Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck) gets a job down there complete with stupid fake moustache. He gets all revolutionary because the workers aren't getting a fair shake and starts a strike thus wrecking the plans of the group. Ok…so a guy that's in on a plot to manufacture dodgy dice in order to get revenge for their buddy suddenly decides that he'll ruin that plan by creating a problem out of nothing. Although I'm shocked the other workers didn't spot his fake accent or his fake moustache. Neither of which he's sporting when he's outside the plant on strike. Don't you think the people who owned the plant would be suspicious? Perhaps they'd consider checking the batches of dice they send out afterwards? Then Turk (Scott Caan) goes down to fix it and joins in the strike proving himself to be equally stupid and they BOTH end up working in the Mexican factory. SURELY by this point someone would have noticed something was wrong. Nope. Then they head back to Vegas and somehow BOTH end up working in the casino. How does Bank manage to miss this? He's well aware that Danny Ocean is coming after him because Ocean goes and tells him. So Bank obviously goes and checks on his rival and the guys he works with….no he doesn't. He ignores it. Then somehow allows not only Ocean but his entire gang operate at will inside the casino. Including being goaded into giving Frank (Bernie Mac) a job right in the middle of the casino on opening night. The same Frank who was carted out of the casino in Oceans Eleven. There must be records somewhere on these people. Willy Bank is a fucking idiot for letting the events of Oceans Thirteen take place. Not that all this matters as the exit strategy is so ridiculous it belongs in a Michael Bay film. By the end all the feel good vibe is gone. I don't care if they rip off Willy Bank or not. I don't care if Terry Benedict gets a measure of revenge or not. I don't care if Reuben lives or not. It's never explained what's in Basher's letter so Reuben's slow recovery is pointless. The subplot involving the Five Diamond judging really doesn't pay off. It's just an excuse for a series of gags. When posting the trailer one of the comments on it was "this movie sucks". Amen, brother.

BEST BIT – Don Cheadle's bit where he's preaching about the value of money in hand and being paid in cash. "But I'm talking about the heavy bikes". It was the only time during the whole film I really enjoyed myself.

RATING - *. Whatever happened to Steven Soderbergh? The guy that gave us Erin Brokovich, Traffic and Oceans Eleven? What happened to that guy? I miss him. Oceans Thirteen is vacuous Hollywood trash from start to finish. It's smug, irritating and pointless. Thank Christ there won't be a fourth film.

Rififi (1955)



EXPECTATIONS – This was recommended to me by one of the FuriousRage.com crew, one Mo Sherrifdean. I tend to pay attention to his recommendations because he really does know his shit. He made me watch a great deal more Akira Kurosawa than I ever would have done without prompting. I've never regretted it. The promise of a 20 minute burglary scene devoid of dialogue garnered my interest. To the top of the rental list it went and here we are. Incidentally the Hollywood remake machine has Rififi pencilled in for 2009 starring Al Pacino if you were interested.

TRAILER – Sadly with horrible dub.



PLOT – Released after spending 5 years in jail for burglary Tony le Stephanois (Jean Servais) finds the world has changed. His girlfriend Mado (Marie Sabouret) has shacked up with gangster Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici). Out of frustration and desperation Tony takes an offer from his former colleagues Jo (Carl Mohner) and Mario (Robert Manuel) to rob a local jewellers. The daring heist has to be planned out but Tony can't take into account the human element.

OPINION – The heist scene, 30+ minutes of near silence, is one of the most breathtaking and tense scenes ever committed to film. Director Jules Dassin spends some time bringing together all the elements for this. The need for silence, the cough Tony has gained in the damp prison and a brief flirting glance from safecracker Cesar (director Jules Dassin) at the diamond ring during the scouting of the location. Everything that's set up is paid off. And the tension is palpable. Sweat pours from Tony's brow as he tries to remain silent before getting to the alarm that can detect impact. He reaches for his chest…and coughs. We wait. Will the alarm go off? The others watch on nervously hoping the same thing. I wasn't really getting into Rififi until that heist scene. Everything that happens beforehand is there to set up things during the heist and then what takes place afterwards. At times it was a little tiresome. I could feel my eyelids fighting me. Then the burglary started and I was wide awake. I didn't want to miss an instant. Director Jules Dassin was born in America but was forced to move to France in the early 1950's when he was accused of being a Communist (odd how often that comes up when relating to brilliant artists being forced out of America). The result was this intriguing mix. Part French art house cinema but part 30's noir. Paying tribute to both his country of birth and country of residence. It's probably not the greatest heist film ever made. I can think of at least one from the 50's that I prefer (The Killing) but this precedes Kubrick's masterpiece. And Dassin's Rififi has a lot of similar plot points and visual styles to the Killing. Perhaps Kubrick was inspired by Dassin's masterpiece? Dassin has certainly inspired an assortment of other heist movies with the mood and style of this picture and a film that spoofed it to a large degree, Topkapi, that inspired much of the style of Oceans Eleven. Many directors fail because they don't understand the need for suspense and/or tension. The late great Alfred Hitchcock was a master of these tools of the trade. Jules Dassin, based on this one viewing, isn't far off the old master. Frequently he puts characters in danger and makes a point of telling the audience beforehand. So you spend agonising seconds waiting to see if they're shot or arrested. Then layers of tension are added and drawn out. Most of the second half of the film boils down to one guy constantly waiting for a phone call. That's pushing 30 minutes. Maybe longer. The level of tension remains throughout as Tony chases down Pierre. If this was an American film it would star Humphrey Bogart and be magnificent. As it stands it just stars someone else. And is still magnificent.

BEST BIT – The entire low-tech (umbrellas?) heist sequence. Not a word spoken for over 30 minutes of celluloid as four men work as one to finance their, albeit bleak, futures.

RATING - ****1/2. My only complaint is that I wasn't always convinced of the characters motivations in the first quarter of the film. In particular Mado who seems just too submissive for a strong willed woman. Her early beating at the hands of Tony is visually shocking, even if her nudity is obscured by camera work (zooming in on a photo of the couple happy in the past), and it's hard to buy her standing up to people after seeing that. Some of the other characters seem a little rough until the heist when they all become more human and develop their personalities without any dialogue. Quite the thing of beauty.

Sidenote – the novel that Rififi is based on was far denser and the heist was just a minor part. The writer Auguste Le Breton was so infuriated he threatened to shoot Dassin over it. Dassin himself didn't want to do the movie at all but had to make A film because he was so poor after being booted out of America. I think everything worked out in the end.

The Libertine (2005)



EXPECTATIONS – I kept seeing the trailer and I do have a sense of belief in Johnny Depp. Especially when he's playing debauched souls (Captain Jack Sparrow included). I'm also quite fond of history and the 2nd Earl of Rochester, on which Depp's character is largely and historically based, was a real person. This happens to be from a period I've studied slightly so I figured it'd be an interesting watch. It also has John Malkovich and Samantha Morton in the other lead roles and Jack Davenport giving us a minor Pirates of the Caribbean reunion. At least for Jack and Norrington.

TRAILER –



PLOT – John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (Johnny Depp) is a hard drinking, bisexual writer during the reign of King Charles II (John Malkovich). When Charles commissions Wilmot to write him a play to show the strength of the English playwrights he comes up with a bawdy and libellous account of Charles' court. During the preparation Wilmot takes time to coach, and make a mistress of, Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton); a struggling actress. He wagers he can make her the finest stage actress of the era.

OPINION – The Libertine opens with Johnny Depp pro-loguing the film. His second line is "you will not like me". Au contraire Monsieur Depp. There's nothing more fun than watching an actor at the top of his game just having fun. Johnny Depp flings himself into the part of Rochester with reckless abandon. In the process falling in love with the word "cunt". Most of his drunken antics are recycled from Pirates but in the Libertine they take a more sinister road. Rochester basically fell apart thanks to syphilis and liver disease. Watching Depp's deterioration onscreen is quite saddening. The effervescence just ebbs away from him. It's really quite remarkable. In the scenes where he retains his energies he's even more remarkable. Although there are odd moments where I feel like I'm watching Jack Sparrow the majority of the time his character feels fresh, realistic and not out of place in an English court. Name me another Hollywood actor who could pull that one off? It helps that the dialogue in the Libertine is so crisp. Or perhaps it is just Depp's delivery of the lines that makes them crisp as the other characters seem to do less well. We can debate all day the qualities of Tom Hollander and…JOHNNY VEGAS, who play Rochester's lowlife associates but never is their dialogue as good as Depp's. Perhaps it's just his stardom that makes his lines so good. After all Sam Morton has some terrific lines but delivers them as if she is acting on stage. If that was the aim then bravo. Depp's lines include such corkers as; "In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: The stupid and the envious. The stupid will like you in five years time. The envious, never." Delivered with all the pomposity of an English lord for added effect. Later when his play is being made the lines come thick and fast, including my personal favourite but Johnny is really hitting his stride with the character by this point screaming "you are one of life's understudies" at Jack Davenport. And in a mad writing frenzy screaming "bring me ink". His servant shows up with a bottle of wine. "Not drink lump, INK". In reality the Earl of Rochester produced a poem containing the same sentiments as the stage play in the Libertine. I can live with this little alteration of history because it allows a midget to ride a giant phallus around a stage while a throng of women in their nightgowns frotter themselves senseless with gigantic wooden dildos. And with that I feel there's nothing more to say.

BEST BIT – "In France fornication with complete strangers in the street is compulsory" – John Wilmot explains his motivation behind putting so much sex into his play to impress a French ambassador.

RATING - ***. At times brilliant, at times too pompous for its own good. The Libertine frequently treads a narrow path between success and failure. Failure being John Malkovich's ridiculous fake nose. Success being the stage play. Perhaps the most ludicrously over the top thing Johnny Depp has ever been involved in. Which, for the record, is saying something. Keep in mind this is the same man who once donned a reptiles tail and wandered around the remains of a hotel room he'd personally destroyed while questioning why the walls were covered in pornography and mustard. This film? Somewhat of a mess but by a large an entertaining one, which counts for a lot.

Whisper of the Heart (1995) aka Mimi wo Sumaseba



EXPECTATIONS – Studio Ghibli. Arguably the finest animation studios in the world. The only real competition it has right now is Pixar. During the 1990's they forced other people to up their game. If you compare what Ghibli was doing in the 1980's to any animation from anywhere else in the world you'll see it was light years ahead. The main source of inspiration at Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki. Director of Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Laputa, Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro. He wrote Whisper of the Heart and gave it over to Yoshifumi Kondo to direct. Kondo had previously worked with him as an animator dating back to 1971 and the Rupan stuff on TV. Having worked with Miyazaki on Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso, as well as Grave of the Fireflies another great animated film from Japan, Miyazaki felt he was ready to handle his own film and handed over the script to him. No pressure though…heh.

TRAILER – quality isn't too good. Nevermind.



PLOT - Shizuku Tsukishima, a young girl on the verge of high school and obsessed with reading, notices every book she hires from the library has been borrowed previously by a mysterious boy Seiji Amasawa. She sets out to discover who the boy is and gets a lucky break from following a cat she finds on the train.

OPINION – I can't believe I fell for this. Studio Ghibli. Hayao Miyazaki. I should have known from the title alone. Whisper of the Heart is a chick flick. Not thinly disguised even. Not disguised at all. It's a coming of age teenage romance film. The content is aimed pretty much at teenage girls. Shizuku is some kind of role model. If it had been filmed in real life in America then it would star Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan or Anne Hathaway. My only comfort during the 2 hour run time was that at least the film looks pretty. Not that it's any kind of real consolation. The plot is really straightforward and predictably teen comedy-esque. Also good looking movies from Studio Ghibli would be all of them. The animation in Whisper of the Heart is slightly above Castle of Cagliostro, which Miyazaki made in 1979. It does look a great deal like Tokyo and having been there I'm equipped to make these observations. But there's no escaping the plot. The lack of originality. The basic plot devices. The elder sister, the best friend in love, the love triangles, the sappy conversations about Italy and achieving dreams over working hard at school. I imagine Miyazaki was less than thrilled at the result as Kondo has been given nothing to do since apart from helping out on Mononoke. I could also do without the constant John Denver references. If you're reading and you're female then I'm sure you'd like this. Yeah, a female reader on a wrestling website…slim chance. I know there are a few but not a lot. The simple fact of the matter is I don't like chick flicks. I don't like the way they're set up. I don't like the way they come together. To appeal to me they have to have something more. Whisper of the Heart just doesn't have anything beyond a teenager's voyage of self discovery. Basically the male equivalent would be Teenwolf. Only Teenwolf had werewolves and surfing on vans and basketball. Whisper of the Heart looks really pretty and tries hard to win me over but that doesn't disguise what it is.

BEST BIT – The start. Before I realised what the content was going to be. Luckily someone's put it on YouTube. Winner.



RATING – Well it'd be **** if I was of the female gender. I reckon I'd probably give it * out of dislike and distrust of the chick flick genre but that would be harsh. So we'll split the difference and call it **1/2. Recommended as a cute film for any ladies reading though.

NEXT – The Good Sheppard, Venus, Only Yesterday and The Fountain.