So, I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies.Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.
And now, you can follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp
Note Bene: It’s been a long week for and I have some great news to share next week about a writing project that has a lot to do with a documentary and John Hughes. Stay tuned…
PUBLIC ENEMIES – Arizona Screening
So, is it bad that I hope this is the real summer movie that Christian Bale is in?
I know a lot of whiners out there want to take the movie to task for using digital but I, for one, applaud Michael Mann for using what worked for well for him in COLLATERAL and MIAMI VICE. Those two movies benefited from a technology that brought a different film going experience to the multiplex. It’s obvious some people like it, some not but Christian Bale and Johnny Depp? I’m sorry but Bruce Wayne in his non-Batman throaty scratch and Depp playing a role that doesn’t require him channeling Keith Richards is a movie I want to see.
So, if you’re free June 25th and can make it to Harkins Fashion Square for a sneak preview then I will have passes for you, some of you anyway. Shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and I’ll enter you for a chance to win.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 – Review
It’s nice that my parents finally have a summer movie to call their own.
The biggest problem I have with this film, which is about as close as a Paint-By-Numbers exercise in filmmaking as you can get when you consider how rote Tony Scott’s direction is in this clone of a movie, is how utterly vapid and cardboard the characters are.
You’ve got a tougher than sun dried leather man in John Travolta playing the film’s resident badass, Ryder. His foil, the angel to his devil on his shoulder, is Walter Garber played by Denzel Washington. For those who need the crash course in what this movie is about, it seems that Ryder wants to hijack a subway car for a lump sum of cash. Garber is a dispatcher who just happens to be at the other end of the call demanding that money but the issues that are glaringly obvious as soon as this plot starts to push forward like a labored moving subway car is that the movie can’t capture the same riveting intimacy as the 1974 classic because Scott wants to employ all the frenetic camera movements, and we’ll get into this shortly, in his wheelhouse. The problem is that this isn’t a movie that is served by quick shots, sets drenched in hazy green lighting, stylized slo-motion clips or, quite literally, spastic camera jiggling. 1974’s version of PELHAM worked because it didn’t have the same access to effect work as Scott obviously does and, here’s the thing, wants to remind you that he’s in charge of directing this thing.
This film doesn’t need to be treated as an equal to the previous PELHAM, it is obvious it has no concern for it, but if what we have in the first 1/3rd of this movie is so appallingly numbing with its insistence on pushing its literal vision on an audience there shouldn’t be any reason why any other part of the film should be regarded with any care as well. Lucky for us, Scott doesn’t.
The performances that are eked out of Travolta is nothing short of campy and should be placed in the realm of bombastic simply for the sake of it, Denzel seemingly sleepwalking through a role that has about as much weight as a dozen balloons filled with helium. This ought to be a film about a savvy mastermind who wants to mete out his revenge in a thoughtful, dramatic fashion and who has no qualms about taking the lives of those he’s taken hostage. A simple illustrative comparison of what made Hans Gruber such a sinister bad guy was that he was at once suave, intelligent and dangerously cold blooded. Both films used the idea of having a crime take place in a tight, confined space, and I realize these are two different kinds of films, but Hans was a character that was used to a lot better effect than Travolta hamming it up here was able to do. Travolta is PLAYING the part of being a telephone tough guy but he isn’t tough, he’s all bark. It’s only because the script calls for him to pop a guy or two that you believe he’s capable of killing as he certainly doesn’t earn any genuine intimidation when he’s on the screen.
Now, Denzel, on the other hand, deserves a little bit more credit but not much. Playing a character who’s on probation for suspicion for doing something so morally objectionable certainly doesn’t display any of the affectations of someone who is at the precipice of losing it all. The character he plays isn’t as likable, to drag this comparison back to DIE HARD, as Sgt. Al Powell who also had to use nothing but a microphone to sell his character. Denzel had to act against a microphone and does a pretty decent job. I say decent because there isn’t any way I could care less or more about his circumstances. I don’t know whether I should think he’s just an innocent man caught up in a dire situation or if he’s just as bad as the guy leading the hijacking; obviously, there is an overt difference between the two but the problem is the movie doesn’t make that distinction. It lets that sort of float out there in the ether of flashy editing. The movie misses a great opportunity to differentiate the two men or to completely muddle the idea that maybe they aren’t different. We just don’t know and that’s the failure of the film: it doesn’t want to invest in any emotional tethering.
I want to feel a certain amount of pity for Denzel. I want to believe that there might be a way to get through to Travolta. I certainly want to feel something. But with all the other circus characters that are introduced James Gandolfini (the Mayor of New York), John Turturro (the negotiator), and a host of others just become dizzying distractions to what is already a mess of lifeless corpses. I simply don’t care about, nor am I given much reason to, anyone here. Sure, Denzel is the real protagonist here but simply because someone is put in a dire situation doesn’t mean you earn the right for me to care. There is a real opportunity missed in turning the one moment of this film where the line between thief and thief is blurred and making that a touchstone. No, we’re just pushed along because Scott has a finish line, and dammit, we’re going to make it. The final 20 minutes of this film are genuinely anticlimactic in the very worst sense. There is no danger, no imminent danger to anyone, no real threat and that’s one of the greatest crimes committed against audiences who deserve to be thrilled and who are only left mildly piqued by what they’re given.
That brings us to Tony Scott’s direction.
I’ve never really seen a movie that embodies the idea of over stylized than I did as Scott employed the very same tricks here as he has with DOMINO and DEJA VU. Not only that but should a viewer be more consumed with wondering why a scene suddenly ends with a freeze frame or wondering why the camera seemingly is having an epileptic fit in the middle of a scene or why any number of overtly in-your-face shaky cam sequences are employed one after another? No, as the filmmaker’s job is not to be there but to lead you to one moment to the next without ever making their presence felt. If I am wrong about that assumption then I take back all I’ve said about being aware every few minutes that this was absolutely, positively, without question a Tony Scott film.
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