Human Calculation

In the buzz and critical fervor that passes through with each new Eastwood film it would be easy for film fans to dismiss his work as deliberate, discardable award-bait as opposed to the well constructed story-telling pieces they are.
Eastwood remains a talented story-teller who keeps his destination insight at all times. He uses the story of the South African Springbokks rugby team as an accessible means to demonstrate and effect social change. When I initially heard about the film Damon as protagonist seemed frustrating (ANOTHER film where a minority is saved by a kind, benevolent white guy?), but in fact the story remains centrally Nelson Mandela's, (Morgan Freeman) who realizes that all the oratory in the world won't change minds until he can point to concrete examples of social agency.

Hmmmm. Interesting.

Freeman does sterling work here. Like his director, it's so easy to put Freeman in a simple box. He is all too often the sage, almost magical black man (Shawshank Redemption the Almighty movies etc). Here we see that all to rare sight of Freeman the actor. His voice, his physicality, his mannerisms are all a perfect representation of one of the most recognizable men in the world. This doesn't feel like coasting or award grubbing. My one gripe with the Mandela of this film is that the movie goes out of its way to have one character say of Mandela "He's a man, not a saint." However, Freeman's Mandela is so eloquent, charming and thoughtful you'd be hard pressed NOT to think of him as worthy of canonizing. As Francois Pienaar Matt Damon has radically transformed his body back to the peak physical condition it was at pre-Informant! As the heroic team captain Damon is not pushing himself into new territory, though his accent and physicality feel spot on.

While heavy handed and frequently predictable, Peckham's story is able to have it's cake and eat it too. He retains the serious gravitas of a story that is both historically relevant (South Africa's struggle is as much cultural as it is racial) and yet framed in a sports context feels comfortable, conventional and is able to hit the expected beats. Sure it's predictable but Eastwood knows these elements and knows how to milk them for all they're worth. Will the all-business secret service agent bond with his new rugby loving partner? What do you think? Sure it all feels predictable but Eastwood and his actors make it work. For all its predictability Eastwood knows how to make those familiar tropes hit audiences right in the gut. When we finally get to that essential game winning moment that literally has the entire country watching I defy you not to get choked up. It's cheesy, but it works.

Watching the world burn

You've seen it, I've seen it (twice), everyone has seen it. Is there really anything I can say about Dark Knight that hasn't been seen or observed a hundred thousand times before in the last month or so? I doubt it. It's just too late, sorry, no full review. Here's just a couple of personal highlights from me. We're riding my ego here like the Bat-pod. Which leads me to-

• The Bat-Pod-I don't know how it happened that I never found out ahead of time that the Bat-Pod actually was the coolest escape-pod in the history of anything that comes from the destroyed Bat-Tank. I was trying to engage the film in a non-fanboy way until BAM Batman slid under the truck, capsized it like an AT-AT and then did that bad-ass vertical 360. SO COOL!

• Anyone else get a pseudo-Obama vibe from Harvey Dent? A public figure everyone is pinning there hopes and dreams on? Anyone?
• Congratulations Aaron Eckhart, welcome to being an honest to god movie star. You've met Mr. Downey I assume?
• Heath Ledger is of course awesome. Same goes for the opening heist and the amazing magic trick. My favorite Joker moment is in the interrogation room when he turns the tables on EVERYONE! Nolan continually had the Joker be at his strongest when you'd think he was at his weakest.
• And may I just say bravo for making the Joker's schemes being honest to goodness moral quandaries (a quandary Jack Donaghy!) with no simple solutions. After years of crappy movie super-villain plots it was great to see how threatening (and genuinely frightening) a good villain can be.
• As great Ledger is (and he's pretty damn great) my favorite character in the film (and favorite performance to boot) is Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon. His return was a triumphant moment for both my audiences. He gets put through the ringer, but just like Michael Caine was in the first film he serves as the moral center when everything goes to pot. His desperation at the prospect of losing Dent is heart-breaking and both his moments with his son are perfect. I'll admit to getting a little nerd-teary when he gets promoted, a moment that gets perfectly punctuated by the Joker's creepy-ass applause (a moment I've since heard was improvised on set).
• Man I wish they could go back and CGI replace Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal in Batman Begins.
• Neither the trip to Japan nor the almost secret identity reveal felt superfluous to me as the both show Batman as a detective (something that had been lacking in every single Batman film up to this point). It's a facet of the character that was a pleasure to see.
• I am a little bummed that the wanna-be Batman thread never gets picked up again. It had a lot of potential. It would've nicely echoed the idea of Batman as a malleable symbol.
  
• OK I'll admit it, Christian Bale's Batman voice sounds like GOB Bluth. "Michael I'm onto you"
• Having his legs broken by Batman is my favorite Eric Roberts moment, no strike that, favorite Roberts family moment, in any film ever.
• For all it's grimness I think the film has a pretty damn inspiring ending. "The Joker cannot win." He's not saying it hypothetically, he's stating it as a fact. Batman, moreso than any other superhero, is driven by his ceaseless determination. He will not quit. It's what made the whole "I can retire now and leave this all to Harvey Dent" sub-plot kind of wishy-washy and forgettable for me.
• Bat-Manuel is the mayor of Gotham city? Who says Christopher Nolan has no sense of humor?
• I don't think it's reasonable to compare this movie to The Godfather or it's sequel. I will say though that its ok to call it "Heat with costumes."
• I like the fact that people are responding to this film not for it's action but for it's deeper discussion of justice, it's questions of circumstances defining morality and how institutions can be compromised. I still don't think it's an excuse to not bother checking out independent or foreign films. Which begs the question, anyone want to go see Baghead?
  
• It's my favorite movie of the year so far (just beating out Wall-E) but let's keep things in perspective folks, the year ain't over yet, not by a long shot.
• Is the Joker this year's Daniel Plainview? People sure do seem to respond to him. My friend Amir over at collegehumor gives one of HIS finest performance yet in tribute here.

As in "Not what I..."

Russian director Timur Bembakmatov's adaptation of Mark Millar and J.G. Jones comic series Wanted is relatively high on spectacle and low on just about everything else you'd want in a movie. In sanitizing this story (which begs the question why put a movie about a ruthless asshole hitman who self-actualizes through ultra-violence into production in the first place if you're going TO sanitize it?!?!?) the screenwriters have completely missed the point of Wanted. I won't hail the original comic series a masterpiece of graphic fiction, but it told the somewhat edgy story of a world taken over by super villains and the son of one of the deadliest of them all self-actualizing through wanton acts of amorality. It was a scathing attempt by Millar to satirize and underline the dangers of adolescent power fantasies run amok. The film version of Wanted does away with the implication of super-heroes and villains and shunts aside the boisterous and gamey sub-text leaving audiences with a visually arresting but otherwise very bland text. All that's left is a sort of Fight Club/Matrix hybrid that is entirely disposable.
For example in the comic version, once young Wesley Gibson learns the truth of his legacy he actualizes into a murderous, rape-happy, racist little shit who indiscriminately kills with no thought of collateral damage. The world has become one giant video-game. The movie softens Wesley (James McAvoy) into an unfailingly polite young pushover who even after many training montages still never feels genuinely threatening or menacing. He also still wants to do right in the end...he just isn't going to put up with the man's bullshit anymore, maaaaan. Ugh. Spare me. Wesley is pulled from a grim desk job, anti-stress medication dependency and a depressing social life into a new world of outrageous ultra-violence by the Fox (Angelina Jolie). Now in the comic the Fox is thusly named because she's an analogue of Catwoman, but in the film no reason is given, though looking at Miss Jolie it's clear there is no need to ask. I will grant that Jolie's entrance into the film is laugh out loud perfect. Wesley is standing in line at a pharmacy awaiting his medication, the camera cuts away for a moment and then BAM Jolie is standing right next to our "hero." It's perfectly emblematic for the star, she's so gorgeous, so exotic, so damn fascinating that for her to simply appear without any sort of pomp and circumstance is more than enough. For a few fun minutes the film becomes all about Miss Jolie as she saves Wesley from a hit-man bent on killing him. The sequences is fun in it's audacity but after this the film loses its oomph.
Fox brings Wesley to a group of hit-men, led by Morgan Freeman's Sloan, who serve the loom of fate. Apparently this ancient loom spits out a secret code that instructs which key people should be killed. "Kill one, save a thousand" reasons Fox. This is pretty damn specious and ridiculous logic. Now as a comic fan I've swallowed all sorts of ridiculous conceits; a French militant gorilla being in love with a brain in a jar, an ape-boy riding a giant red dinosaur and a heroin addict shaman of the Earth to name a few of the sillier ones. But I think any of these devices would fit an action film better than a fucking LOOM OF FATE! What's next, the sewing machine of righteousness? The cotton gin of doom? I should take a moment to point out the loom is an invention of the screenwriters (who each had a hand in 2 Fast 2 Furious, for what it's worth). What follows is a lot of formless action as Wesley trains, ditches his old beaten up persona and becomes the prick he's always wanted to be. All sorts of training montages and hit-jobs follow until Wesley learns there is an entirely different layer behind Sloan and Fox's story about him. For a while though the movie is rough and formless. It at least stays visually arresting (credit Bembakmatov, he of the Nightwatch trilogy-someone please get this guy some decent writers) but Wanted really did have the chance to be a the sort of super-hero satire that I am hearing Hancock is not. If you like innovative action sequences (many of which feature cars crashing into things-at the behest of a loom) you'll get your money's worth in Wanted, otherwise stay away.

One more thing, I was incredibly disappointed in both the audience and theater management as not one or two but by my count at least five children under the age of four were sitting in on this film. Now while I've griped that this film is sanitized it is till loaded with hard R content. Not a single scene goes by without bloody violence, swearing or sex. For shame on the grossly irresponsible parents and shame on the AMC at the third street promenade for letting them in.