Blu-ray Review: Shooting the Mafia (2019)

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"The mafia kills. So does silence." The words appear on a sign at an anti-mafia rally early on Kim Longinotto's eye-opening documentary Shooting the Mafia and also serve as a great tribute to the photographer at the center of the filmmaker's biographical portrait, Letizia Battaglia, who — as the translation of her surname suggests — battles the mob by refusing to adhere to the code of silence that has kept them in power in Sicily for so long.

If a person goes missing in Corleone, Sicily, Longinotto's film informs us, no one says a word for fear of retribution. Ruling not only the meat, fish, fruit, and vegetable markets but also the funeral industry, we learn that if a person can no longer pay the mob to keep their loved one buried, they'll simply dig up their bones from the cemetery to make room for a family that can line their pockets.

Turning her lens on the economic devastation and political corruption caused by La Cosa Nostra, as the country's first female photographer hired by a daily newspaper in the form of the liberal L'Ora in the 1970s, Battaglia used her camera to prove that when it comes to the mob, fear is a luxury that Sicily can simply not afford.

An ambitious, sprawling but too often vague and disjointed chronicle of both Battaglia and the mafia's impact on Sicily over the past fifty years, it's a nonetheless fascinating introduction to a courageous iconoclast who picked up a camera at forty and was changed by it to the point that — looking back — feels she wasn't a real person before she had it in her hands.

Sharing her recollections of growing up in a world dominated by men, you feel her frustration when she discusses being locked up by her father as a beautiful teen to the point that she couldn't go out onto the balcony in case she would tempt male passersby. Later contrasting this with a spicier memory of meeting one of her many lovers on the balcony after her mercurial husband had fallen asleep, you get the sense of how being controlled and yearning to break free from men who wanted to silence her prepared her for the next forty years of her life.

Missing huge gaps of biographical information and bafflingly light on specific details including the years certain events happened, although she uses moving clips from classic Italian films to help bring Battaglia's memories to life, Longinotto struggles to tell a cohesive story throughout and seems uncertain how much of Battaglia's life to go into as opposed to her work.

Opening on Battaglia's stark, artful, hellish portraits of the aftermath of brutal mob slayings and simple yet stunning images of Corleone residents striving to live their lives under mafia rule, the film presents us with half intriguing, half murky information about our subject as well as Sicily. At its most gripping in the second half of the film when it charts how judges Falcone and Borsellino put their lives on the line to bring the mafia to justice in a historic trial with hundreds of defendants, Shooting the Mafia works extraordinarily well when it zeroes in on one specific timeline.

Unsure what story she truly wants to tell, when Longinotto focuses on the downfall of two of Corleone's most notorious mob bosses, we're left with the startling revelation that this piece of the puzzle is actually far more interesting than anything that had come before it. An intriguing if narratively unsuccessful documentary about a heroic photographer who breaks Sicily's years of silence to shout at the mafia as loud as she can with each click of her camera, I only wish the film had been as clear cut, laser focused, and determined as the woman at its center who refuses to be contained.

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Movie Review: Loving Pablo (2018)

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Greeted by the sight of armed men waiting for her as soon as she lands at Pablo Escobar's estate for a private party in 1981, when Colombian journalist Virginia Vallejo (Penélope Cruz) first meets her host (played by Javier Bardem), not only does she not recognize him, she fears that he's going to kidnap her for ransom.

Explaining the guns away by saying that they're meant to protect guests from the exotic animals he has on his property, even though he doesn't abduct her outright, very soon it becomes clear that the married son of a poor farmer turned successful businessman has stolen Vallejo's heart.

Though at the top of the list of Colombia's nouveau riche, we discover that at the time of their first meeting, very few people – outside of the Medellín Cartel, that is – knew precisely how Escobar and his associates acquired so much wealth so quickly.

However, once he shows her one of his philanthropic endeavors to build housing for the poor and sees the children of the slums running through garbage just to get a glimpse of him, Vallejo decides that it's less important how he's made his money than how the man dubbed "The Colombian Robin Hood" uses it.

Building up his profile on her television network to acquire enough fame and power to get elected to political office a year later, by now the source of Escobar's outrageous revenue has become increasingly obvious as, instead of "Robin Hood," the businessman from Medellín has become internationally known as "The King of Cocaine." And as Vallejo soon discovers, if anyone gets in his way, he either buys them off or has them killed.

Based on Vallejo's bestselling 2007 memoir Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar which chronicled not only their romantic relationship but also corruption at the highest levels of the government of her country which, thanks to Escobar, became known as "the murder capital of the world," the film, written and directed by Spanish helmer Fernando León de Aranoa, takes some liberties for dramatic effect.

And dramatic, as it turns out, is the key word for Loving Pablo, which is so over-the-top in places that – in the aforementioned scene wherein Vallejo lands on Escobar's property – before I discovered that Vallejo was a reporter, I simply assumed Cruz was playing a soap opera star who'd wandered over from the set of the latest film by Pedro Almodóvar.

Speeding through more than a decade of complicated history, including international drug smuggling and corruption as well as the personal lives of Vallejo and Escobar, although Pablo uses subtitles to translate Spanish to English, I found myself wishing it also would've served up a timeline or a secondary documentary style voice-over to tell us where we are in the scheme of things.

A longtime passion project of Javier Bardem, the Academy Award winning star (who also produced the film made by his Mondays in the Son director) shared in the film's production notes that he turned down the role of Escobar in a number of productions over the past twenty years because "they didn't invoke any feeling beyond a stereotype."

Though it's Vallejo's story overall, in Aranoa's adaptation of her memoir, we do indeed see several different sides to the figure as Escobar goes from a greedy up-and-comer climbing up the power ladder to a paranoid madman who barely reacts while his men use a chainsaw to remove someone's limbs in a private prison under his control.

Yet while it's his real life wife, fellow Oscar winner Penelope Cruz, who steals the movie from start to finish, Bardem is predictably excellent in the role, in spite of his tendency in the first act to – like Marlon Brando in The Godfather – mumble so much as Escobar that we wish we had subtitles for him even when he's speaking English.

Though fortunately we either become accustomed to the rhythms of Bardem's Escobarian mumbles to understand enough of his dialogue (or he learns to enunciate more clearly as Colombia's Robin Hood becomes a country conquering cocaine king), unfortunately the film's rushed storytelling and lack of cohesion damage the overall character arc.

While most viewers with Netflix are more than familiar with Escobar via their acclaimed albeit gritty series Narcos, there's no denying Bardem's star power, especially in the final sequence leading up to Escobar's death, which is so compelling that you wish the rest of the movie had worked nearly as well.

Fans of the two stars will enjoy watching the couple act opposite one another onscreen as Cruz manages to distract us from the film's hundred mile an hour pacing – elevating every scene she's in to the level of a high class soap – and practically winking at the audience alongside the always terrific Peter Sarsgaard's DEA Agent as if to say, "I've got this."

Criminally under-utilized, Sarsgaard might as well be playing a man named DEA Agent for all we actually know about what surely must be a composite character.

Despite that, Aranoa manages to show us just what he's capable of as a director in a truly thrilling sequence early on in Pablo as a semi truck jackknifes across a Florida highway before a cartel plane lands right behind it and people in waiting vehicles hurriedly load its contents into vans and trucks nearby all to the tune of "Let it Snow."

While the dark humor is right out of Scorsese, the scene itself is reminiscent of Doug Liman's underrated American Made, and once again illustrates just how good Pablo could've been with the right script and tone.

Trying to tell a story that is far too massive and complex to be compressed into a 125 minute running time, although it's made with superior ingredients, including not only Cruz and Bardem but also a standout score by The Secret In Their Eyes composer Federico Jusid, in the end Loving's recipe never quite comes together as a whole.

And while Aranoa's latest work isn't one I'd recommend rushing out to the theater to see, given its irresistible combination of sudsy drama and campy excess, Loving Pablo is sure to reach more viewers in its run on cable – holding those staying in on a Saturday night hostage with entertainment so over-the-top that you'll feel as though you've just gotten off the plane with Vallejo.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

TV on DVD: Cracker -- The Complete Collection (10 DVD Set)

Own the Entire Award-Winning Series
3/10/09

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In the debut episode of the 25-time award-winning British ITV television series Cracker, the amnesiac prime suspect accused in a series of brutally bloody slice-and-dice killings tells the forensic criminal psychologist interviewing him that he is “the one who needs the psychologist.”

And sure enough, the man on the receiving end of this observation is one about which the audience has already most likely had similar thoughts just moments after we’re first introduced to Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane’s brilliant, arrogant, deeply flawed, yet fascinating character Dr. Edward Fitzgerald.

Known throughout the series as Fitz—series creator and mastermind Jimmy McGovern (Fitz’s real-life alter-ego) created a British police drama unlike anything else on the airwaves. Inspired by his disappointment with the cool overly procedural and detached Helen Mirren hit Prime Suspect--McGovern, who wanted to introduce a criminal psychologist to her series in the second season—instead centered an entire show around the individual he was determined to make just as seriously flawed and demon-plagued as those with whom he must analyze and interrogate.

While the terms “groundbreaking,” “genius,” and “visionary,” are thrown around fairly cavalierly in a buzz-fueled media where blurbs rule as opposed to insightful articulation-- in the case of Cracker, all three words are not only justified but demanded.

Sharing his belief that the show’s success was in its audacity to become what he feels “was the first post-feminist drama series,” which benefited from its frank tell-it-like-it-is characters since in the early ‘90s, “everyone was getting sick of political correctness,” so that “the timing couldn’t have been better,” McGovern’s unique blend of complex Edgar award-winning mystery storytelling and emphasis on the neuroses, emotions, and problems of its characters on both sides of the law made this Manchester set drama a critical smash.

An admitted hypocrite who reveals that he drinks, smokes, and gambles too much—correctly surmising that “I am too much”-- Fitz is the type of anti-hero from the days of Cagney and Bogart in the films he worships whose ability to size up anyone with whom he crosses paths in two minutes makes him not only invaluable in assisting the local police department but far too gifted for his own personal devices.

And as a result, whenever he’s unable to gamble with people’s lives by assisting the police, he tries to lose himself in risky backrooms gambling away his finances and unhealthily working towards a heart attack in a mess of a private life where his skills as “an emotional rapist,” hold everyone around him-- especially his long-suffering wife Judith captive.

In order to understand the criminal mind, Fitz eerily must put himself in the criminals' shoes, skin, and mind-- empathizing with them in ways that chill us to our very core as he discusses their thought processes and primal urges to help them crack. And in doing so, he argues in the first episode’s bravura opening, that instead of initially reaching for books on philosophy and psychology (which he violently hurls at a lecture hall filled with university students), you first must force yourself to explore the darkest recesses of your soul.

Further revealing that he’s rehearsed his father’s death without the satisfaction of an "opening night" numerous times, the guilt ridden extremely lapsed Catholic runs hot and cold on people—especially those closest to him in the series’ most effective relationship-- namely his initially professional but later flirtatious and romantic tinged partnership with Manchester Police Department’s sole female detective sergeant, Jane Penhaligon (Geraldine Somerville).

Nicknamed “Panhandle"-- Jane’s character—much like Fitz’s is the underdog and outsider in the perpetual boys' club of the department and as the copper who is always sent to deliver bad news, it becomes her duty as well to perpetually chauffeur Fitz around from location to location where the two reach a chemistry that sizzles within the first season.

With highly complicated and shockingly brutal crimes that span multiple episodes (typically two to three) before reaching a resolution, each fifty minute episode is included in Acorn Media’s recent release of the entire collection of the show, only previously available from HBO.

A comprehensive set that includes the original first three seasons which aired from 1993 to 1995-- the ten-disc collection also includes two stand-alone feature length mysteries made a decade apart in 1996 and 2006 respectively, as well as a forty-five minute new retrospective, interview filled documentary.

Although the show also aired here in the states on A&E and BBC America and was also remade into a short-lived and poorly received American version starring Robert Pastorelli—each episode of UK's Cracker is so compelling that in my view they always moved far beyond the limitations of traditional television storytelling and work much better when viewed in mini-marathons to absorb all eleven addictive mysteries to best appreciate the nuances, red-herrings, and subtle ways that certain jokes and throwaway lines come back to haunt people in the most unexpected of ways.

While in America in the '90s, we were treated with high caliber police dramas such as NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street-- honestly, they pale in comparison to the gritty authenticity of Cracker. And moreover-- when viewing this show for the first time in 2009-- I’m amazed by how much I feel McGovern’s work has inspired some of our most effective and highly praised dramas featuring anti-heroes in such critically lauded shows as The Sopranos, Dexter, Mad Men, The Shield, Rescue Me, and House M.D. which all seem to be going for (most notably in the case of Tony Soprano) Fitz’s unique mixture of angel and devil that we alternately root for and shrink away from sometimes within the same five minutes.

From the first riveting episode directed by Michael Winterbottom(24 Hour Party People, A Mighty Heart) to the very last one helmed by Antonia Bird(Priest, Total Eclipse), the gritty urban noir hasn’t lost any of its ability to startle with some truly incredible cases including three that I found to be the series’ strongest: “One Day a Lemming Will Fly,” “Men Should Weep,” and “Brotherly Love,” all penned by Jimmy McGovern.

Ironically, as McGovern reveals, “Lemming” was the hardest episode he had to write since it was supposed to have been completed by a theatre writer who “handed in an appalling script,” leaving McGovern no alternative but to “write it from scratch in something like a week.” Centering on the case of a teenage boy found hanging in the woods—what begins with the appearance of a simple suicide grows into an incredibly complex murder investigation as witnesses come forward reluctantly, family members reveal some biases they’d had about their son, and Fitz pursues one strict line of inquiry and promises to share the suspect’s “burden,” if he confesses.

When a confession is offered and simultaneously Fitz and Panhandle’s relationship tentatively starts moving to another level, Fitz is dealt an ego-shattering blow that his fierce desire to be right may have blinded him to what really happened. Moreover, his hypocrisies are unearthed in a way that puts the master manipulator and smooth talker on the receiving end of some dead-on analysis of his own.

While it would’ve been extremely satisfying to offer a clear-cut resolution or follow up on this case, brilliantly yet maddeningly, McGovern stays with the emotions over the crime and leaves interpretations up to us as it moves towards the final credits.

In two of the most alternately upsetting yet shocking episodes—which following the death of one major character earlier on should’ve found us a bit more prepared—the crimes hit much closer to the station. In the first, as a serial rapist brings out the worst in some of the ensemble as “Men Should Weep,” leads into an extremely chilling yet unforgettable conclusion in “Brotherly Love” that uses the set-up of three episodes each to produce six hours of some of Cracker’s finest and most troubling television that leads to a turning point in the lives of every major character, including those no longer standing by the end.

Additionally, it’s equally compelling in some of the series’ most provocative tales including the fact-inspired Hillsborough Disaster case that moved into a startling look at blue collar white male angst and culture clash fueled prejudice as Trainspotting’s Robert Carlyle’s troubling motive “To Be a Somebody” results in the death of one of Manchester’s finest and guest star Liam Cunningham’s closeted homosexual tendencies are tested when he falls for a troubled, seventeen year old orphan in “Best Boys,” which—similar to “True Romance” and “To Say I Love You”—illustrates the twisted lengths people go to for love.

While when the series as we knew it ended with “True Romance,” from McGovern’s replacement writer Paul Abbott (State of Play), eventually and most likely due to popular demand, Fitz returned in a mediocre but entertaining special entitled “White Ghost” in ’96 and once again in a collaboration with McGovern a decade later for the politically charged “A New Terror.”

And while they’re both adequate, “A New Terror,” especially feels like a major let-down in comparison to the original series. Likewise, despite the fact that the opportunity to watch Coltrane in any episode as Fitz is better than the alternative-- in my opinion, the show only worked to the best degree in its original three season run heyday in what is arguably England’s best contemporary police drama created thus far.

Packaged in a compact box with a DVD holder book that keeps all ten discs including the great 45 minute interview (unfortunately missing Geraldine Somerville) in accessible slide in “pages,” thankfully it also boasts subtitles and/or closed captioning on every episode for the deaf and/or hearing impaired which you’ll find yourself especially grateful for the opportunity to read Fitz’s lines when the drunken Scottish monologues slur together occasionally in order to savor every word.

A riveting series with Coltrane’s tour-de-force in a role that will make you view his Potter alter-ego Hagrid in an entirely new light—for mystery lovers and fans of whip smart, provocatively written dramas, you’ll definitely want to help yourself to this particular Cracker.

Killshot (2009)

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1/18/09:

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A decade after he tackled the Bard in Shakespeare in Love, director John Madden moves onto America's Bard-- Elmore Leonard, that is. Leonard is our generation's Raymond Chandler and an undeniable master of-- what author Carl Hiaasen once called (as quoted by Dave Barry)-- the "south Florida wacko genre" being that most of his works are set primarily in Miami. While to writers and paperback junkies he is revered, to some he is categorized like he's the literary equivalent of fast food as in the case of a certain high school creative writing teacher of mine who called Leonard the scribe of "good old boy" crime novels while expressing her fierce dismay that her formerly Jane Austen obsessed student habitually brought a different library paperback home every weekend to teach herself the real way to write dialogue.

And it's precisely the man's dialogue that has made Leonard an idol even to such contemporary master wordsmiths as Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino-- the latter of whom not only adapted Rum Punch into his underrated Jackie Brown but also helped bring Killshot to the screen. A solid addition to the Elmore Leonard filmography, Killshot is a vintage character-driven-- almost 1940's Humphrey Bogart gangster movie modeled-- crime film that works like a chamber piece.

In other words, it's in the same tonal realm as Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, Chris Eigeman's Turn the River, Courtney Hunt's Frozen River, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight or-- to use the most current example-- lead actor Mickey Rourke's most recent film, The Wrestler.

As he did in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (although this was filmed a few years prior), it's ultimately Rouke who propels the film and sets everything in motion giving a multi-layered performance as the professional Toronto mafia hired killer who rarely speaks but packs a big wallop.

And fittingly, if there's one quiet character in a sparsely populated filmic version of the Elmore Leonard universe-- and doubling the pressure he's the lead-- devotees know damn well that we're going to need a quirky foul-mouthed chatterbox to pick up the slack, feed us the delicious conversational snippets we crave to balance it all out.

And filling this role exceedingly well in Killshot is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a small-time crook who makes up for his inexperience with ridiculous ambition and little success. The product of a bad foster care system who-- although he outwardly ridicules his live-in lover Donna's obsession with Elvis-- carries himself with a little bit of The King in manner and speech.

Following his overlooked lead performances in Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss, Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin (which on closer look seemed to influence his 10 Things I Hate About You costar Heath Ledger's Brokeback Mountain portrayal), Scott Frank's The Lookout (incidentally written by the man who penned numerous Leonard adaptations), and Riann Johnson's modern day noir Brick, Gordon-Levitt continues to impress.

Additionally, he's always a commanding force who stays with you even when he's only shown briefly as in his heartbreaking final scene in Stop-Loss. And in Killshot Gordon-Levitt channels stars from a decade past Rourke's '40s style, blending together Elvis, Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Paul Newman as the quintessential swaggering, aggressively ignorant yet ridiculously arrogant, charismatic, but ultimately deadly Elmore Leonard villain that Don Cheadle nailed so well in Soderbergh's Out of Sight.

As Richie Nix-- who quickly explains his name is spelled differently than Stevie Nicks's (as if they'd get for mistaken for relatives)-- he gets a majority of the laughs and shockingly steals focus from Rourke who is still fresh from having made the comeback of all comebacks in his Oscar nominated work in The Wrestler.

Opening with a few blisteringly quiet yet violent scenes of Rourke's "Blackbird" at work in a duo of hits-- the first of which leaves one brother dead (from Rourke's gun) and one in jail for life-- he's reluctantly lured back to his day job for one major hit on a mob boss which, given his tendency to leave zero witnesses, makes the Blue Caddy he was provided with for the gig the only payment he receives.



Unwelcome both on the Michigan reservation where his Native American grandmother was a medicine woman and in his old Toronto stomping ground, soon the lone gunman acquires an apprentice, schooling Richie in after the naive crook attempts to hijack the veteran killer.

As they crash at Richie's pad he shares with Donna (Rosario Dawson), they team up for Richie's foolish idea for a big score to blackmail a real estate developer. But when the plan goes awry and the separated married couple Carmen (Diane Lane) and Wayne (Thomas Jane) become witnesses following a bad case of mistaken identity, the two unwittingly become targets of The Blackbird whose one consistent modus operandi is to never leave anyone alive who has seen his face.



Essentially a film that works on the primal goal of survival as its main through-line, it's a deceptively structurally simplistic thriller that uses the basic conflict of "bad men want to kill good people" and although it's aptly described as a thriller, it works on the same near horror like level of films like The Night of the Hunter, Panic Room, or Red Eye since any other plot is unimportant compared to the essential one to outwit the sociopaths and stay out of the morgue.

And Madden and scripter Hossein Amini know their plot well, whittling away any excess with a vicious hand like they were wood carvers, sharpening it up until it squeezes into a sparse eighty-four minute running time, wisely making the decision not to overflow Killshot with unimportant subplots or any over-the-top showdowns (as in Red Eye's finale) that would detract from the logic of the character driven drama.

Likewise it gives Lane a great chance to get out of chick flick territory which she does by ripping into this film with the anger and intelligence of perhaps realizing she had to alternate it with starring in the formulaic and manipulative Nights in Rodanthe. And while she is given considerably less to work with than the villains who always rule the land of Leonard, much like Rourke whose very presence makes him instantly compelling, instinctively we latch onto Lane from the first moment up until the ending when-- true to the title-- bullets will fly and one has to be quick to avoid getting dead.

DVD Review: Kidulthood (2006)

Now Available on DVD

"Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now."
-- Bob Dylan
"My Back Pages"
(1964)

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong."
-- The Beach Boys
"Wouldn't It Be Nice"
(1966)

"Poor young grandson, there's nothing I can say
You'll have to learn, just like me
And that's the hardest way
Ooh la la, ooh la la, yea yea

"I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was stronger."
-- Faces
"Ooh La La"
(1973)

"It's the hard knock life for us
It's the hard knock life for us
'Stead of treated, we get tricked
'Stead of kisses, we get kicked
It's the hard knock life."
-- Jay Z
"Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)"
(1998)

"Everybody knows

It sucks to grow up
And everybody does
It's so weird to be back here.
Let me tell you what
The years go on and
We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it
You'll try and try and one day you'll fly
Away from me."
-- Ben Folds

"Still Fighting It"
(2001)

Music has always been the universal refuge for teenagers. By locking their bedroom doors to hide away in the "world where [they] can go and tell [their] secrets to," as Brian Wilson memorably sang many decades ago, stereos are cranked and musicians always managed to articulate just what exactly was going through their minds at any given moment.

Whether it was their latest crush to their latest heartbreak or-- more often than not-- an outlet for all their daily frustrations as lives became increasingly fast-paced over the years, music has never failed to tap right into the psyche of a teenager and provide their ultimate and incredibly personal soundtrack. From wistful wishes to age overnight and become free to longing for the day when one can enjoy their youth complete with the knowledge of age to lamenting in the terror they face at school or just simply acknowledging how much "it sucks to grow up," the melodies and genres have changed but the sentiment basically stays the same. Namely, growing up-- much more than breaking up-- is incredibly hard to do and even harder in the twenty-first century.

Blending music together with imagery and obviously drawing inspiration from classic works like Nicholas Ray's still timely Rebel Without a Cause, John Singleton's Boyz in the Hood, Larry Clark's Kids, and Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen-- young actor turned screenwriter Noel Clarke and acclaimed short filmmaker Menhaj Huda fix their attention on the incredibly gritty dark side of urban London with their controversial and award winning film Kidulthood (which was followed up with a sequel Adulthood).

Daring, incisive, and incendiary-- if you can make it past the brutal opening five minutes which makes one nearly mistake the film's schoolyard and fifteen year old characters for a prison yard of hardened criminals three times their age, you'll find yourself mostly mesmerized by a side of London that hasn't been captured on film so far.

As the articulate Clarke notes on the DVD Making-of-Featurette (which is divided into seven parts totaling roughly thirty minutes), he drew from his own background and the events he observed of adolescents in his neighborhood for this culturally relevant and breakneck paced chaotic tragedy set over the course of a day and a half. Wanting to heighten the tensions of teens who always feel as though their timeline is exaggerated to emergency levels of urgency and the "all or nothing" alternating sense of entitlement, helplessness, and energy they put into their fast, hazardous lifestyles by keeping things moving fairly quickly-- the brevity of the timespan also aids in the viewing experience as it's an incredibly trying film that tests our limits as soon as it starts.

Spliced together stylishly with excellent urban cinematography by Trainspotting lensman Brian Tufano and set to hip-hop anthems popular in the West London street culture of its period, the film begins with a horrifying bout of bullying by a girl gang who mercilessly beats the tall, beautiful Katie whom they nickname "Big Bird." Warning her not to say a word for fear of her life, she leaves school to oblivious and self-involved parents, retreats to a loud stereo in her room where she coolly hangs herself to avoid facing the same fate the next day.

While some of the kids cherish the next day off as though it were a snow day and begin making plans to party, others face crises of their own as our main character Trife (Ami Ameen) learns that his estranged girlfriend Alisa (Red Madrell) is pregnant and plans are set in motion by Katie's brother and others to get even with some of her tormentors including the slightly older and unspeakably ruthless Sam (Clarke). Much like Spike Lee's tough-minded message picture Do the Right Thing, Clarke sprinkles some much-needed humor throughout but it's an extremely grim work that pulls you in with its Requiem for a Dream styled first-person P.O.V. shots (in one vicious scene near the end as Trife is bullied into joining his criminal uncle in brutal vengeance) and music video styled edits as it joins together the plots of both the boys and the girls by the thread of Trife and Alisa's relationship.

Using their bodies as currency, numbing themselves with drugs, dodging in and out of schemes from trying to pick up a lovely older woman to ultimately stealing her purse, and using sexuality and blackmail to get what they want, the plight of the film's characters doesn't really get you truly invested until about midway through. This is largely because as they fan apart away from their groups, they start getting a bit less self-involved and venture out into the harsh realities and conflicts of the daylight and interpersonal relationships where they find the don't have to follow school yard rules and can dart in and out of apartments, houses, stores, local transportation and more.

While the blending together of numerous cultures and racial tensions are briefly touched on throughout as in one scene where a young black man can't get a cab and ultimately, several cabs later and defying all logic or sense of justice, he confirms their prejudice by "getting even" and bolting without payment, Clarke and Huda's thesis is often overshadowed by its shock value.

The film boasts uniformly remarkable and powerful performances by its young cast, including a noteworthy turn by Ray Winstone's daughter Jaime Winstone who plays Alisa's skanky, manipulative party-girl friend Rebbecca (and in a killer line jokes that she doesn't want to look like a tramp, after prostituting herself out numerous times for drugs and money to buy dresses).

Despite a chilling if ultimately predictable finale-- Kidulthood may not stand the test of time like some of the others in its "genre" (especially considering Rebel and also City of God) but it'll definitely alarm anyone who manages to sit through it. Hopefully it will instigate a wake-up call to its target demographic as well as any parents who check it out. For unfortunately, while we've come a long, long way from Brian Wilson longing to seek quiet solace in his room; now we have to worry about those who bully others to death.

Needless to say, Kidulthood taps right into the same angst, concerns, and hellish years in the life of a teenager set on growing up far too quickly. Painful, searing, and bolstered by its talented stars-- the film which scared away basically every studio, producer and distributor who came into contact with it until it collapsed due to its "radioactive" nature in presenting a very angry portrait of British youth is now available on DVD from Image Entertainment.

TV on DVD: Adam 12-- Season 2

Check out Video Exclusives and Episodes in our Screening Room

Film Intuition Log #1:
"One Adam-12, One Adam-12: Seasons 3-7, Please Report to DVD."

Whether they're volunteering alongside school children in preparation for the local Police Olympics or taking on a biker gang while on a picnic, veteran officer Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and probationary rookie Jim Reed (Kent McCord) are able to downshift from everyman to crime-fighting men in blue in a moment's notice.

Created and produced by legendary television visionary Jack Webb as an NBC spin-off from his wildly popular police procedural series Dragnet, "one Adam-12" became the new catchphrase following Dragnet's popular "just the facts, ma'am," tagline and while it seeped quickly into American culture, it was as deeply rooted in authenticity as its predecessor. Although partially filmed in the Universal Studios back-lot, outdoor filming also occurred in Toluca Lake, Studio City, North Hollywood, and Hollywood Hills as well as the then "newly completed Rampart Division station of the Los Angeles Police Department." Additionally, the secret to Adam-12's success was in its strict attention to detail as it featured "department issue badges, vehicles, and Los Angeles patrol stations" during its "seven season run... from 1968-1975," according to the official press release. Similar to Dragnet, the show's complicated plots were derived from actual LAPD cases, yet Adam-12 revealed an unprecedented grittiness in its depiction, ushering in a new far more dangerous era of policing as the show revealed the beginnings of the S.W.A.T. division, an increase in helicopter patrol, and the latest technology that we now take for granted.

While I feared it would seem hopelessly dated by today's standards, especially as a viewer who'd never seen the series before, I found myself quickly engrossed in the newly releasedwo-disc Season 2 DVD set from Shout! Factory and the way that, although methodology has changed, some of it still holds so true today. And while it opens with a slightly dull and less-than-action packed episode, it serves as an important introduction to those such as myself who'd been unacquainted with the original as we become familiar with the dedicated, gifted veteran and lifelong bachelor Malloy and his young overly eager Boy Scout like trainee Jim Reed who has a far more natural way with people but matures considerably under his partner's tutelage.

Notably switching gears from its opener-- perhaps crafted specifically to draw in audiences who may have missed the first season-- we're soon entrenched in the increasingly dangerous adventures the two ordinary men find themselves in as they track a serial rapist and murderer preying on young beautiful female hitchhikers around lover's lane. As is frequently the case throughout the series, Reed and Malloy must endure the constant scrutiny of the public who overstep their bounds throughout-- either trying to antagonize the officers, getting in the way, or causing quite a stir. When some of the situations prove far too much for young Reed-- a devoted husband and father to be-- such as when he arrests his first sex offender, Malloy is warned to reign in his partner who has less than one year on the force as Reed finds it hard to keep it together in a world where people who prey on children breathe the same air.

Fully humanizing the officers and doing much to fight stereotypes of both the officers (and diverse civilians), the two manage to always maintain integrity even when they're put in the most dire situations as Reed is threatened by a man who swears he'll get him once he's released from jail and Malloy finds himself held hostage when he wanders into the wrong restaurant for lunch.

With a natural antenna and a cop's intuition that only years of service can create, Malloy (Milner) continues to amaze such as when he notices that a local shopkeeper who'd never taken a day off in his life is suddenly nowhere to be seen as they cruise down the street in their Plymouth Belvedere and Kent McCord (as Reed) plays off of him well. Fearless and willing to try anything from hearing a baby crying and venturing into an apartment that's rumored to have a lion in it or assisting a young neighbor kid who returned home from a party on drugs, Reed and Malloy balance each other out.

Predictably, they develop a mental shorthand that's fun to watch as they exchange amused glances when faced with an overly chatty colleague, must try and stop a frightening sniper, deal with an elderly man who's tired of his wife's disruptive karate practice or trying to figure out how they could intervene when a man steals an airplane for a joyride and Reed deadpans, "What do ya do-- pull 'em over to the nearest cloud?"

With some events that have to be seen to be believed which makes it all the more riveting when you realize it's all strictly taken from "just the facts" as their Dragnet contemporaries would've said, perhaps its greatest legacy is upon discovering that episodes from both shows "have been used for training purposes by police academies in the United States, especially when teaching recruits correct handcuffing procedures" as well as the accurate depiction of "hand signals used by officers... to the methods used in field interviews, and even such minor details as routinely locking the doors of the patrol car before leaving it unattended to interview victims or witnesses."

In a New York University doctoral study conducted in 1976 by Joesph S. Coppolino, he concluded that not only did Adam-12 excel in its correct portrayals "as realistically reflecting police work" but also noted that the show influenced the way police officers acted as well, as Wikipedia further noted that since the series was the first to show arrestees being given the new Miranda Warning, suspects "would correct actual officers... [who] used a slightly different wording."

And although, like most civilians, I assumed that the catchy "one Adam-12" dispatch call that opened every show referenced Malloy and Reed directly, I realized upon further research that it broke down as one (their Central Division or Rampart Division location, Adam in revealing they were a two man patrol and twelve to referencing their precise beat. Likewise, I was thrilled to discover that the 2-Disc DVD set comes complete with two catchy, free Adam-12 ringtones so that you can experience the dispatch call for yourself, if your cell phone is compatible.

View One Version of the Opening Credits

Complete with actual LAPD commentary, a historic police based photo gallery, a "Ride Along Fact Track" and "Tour of Reed & Malloy's Training Center," the fast-paced and addictive twenty-six episodes of Season 2 may all run roughly 22 minutes each but they pack enough drama for a show twice its length. Police procedural television at its best and minus all of the grotesque violence and gratuitous Dennis Franz nudity of 90's shows, Adam-12 offers a wonderfully retro trip back in time as we ride-along with the endlessly hardworking Reed and Malloy who spend every waking minute doing their best to clean up the city of Angels.

Burn After Reading

Public Service Announcement:
Don’t bring highly classified data to the gym.

Last year in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Oscar nominee Casey Affleck stole the entire film away from his leading man, Brad Pitt. One year later, it’s Brad Pitt’s turn to steal some thunder of his own in Burn After Reading from Focus Features (quickly turning into the new Miramax).

And that he does and more in the newest film from the Coen Brothers — managing to nail every scene he’s in, get the most laughs and keep us wanting more of his character as opposed to the assorted band of oddballs and amoral madmen assembled in the filmmakers’ nihilistically absurdist take on espionage comedy.

Coming off the heels of last year’s brilliant but bleak Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men, which David Edelstein noted Joel and Ethan Coen wrote at the same time as Burn, I wish I could say it was the antidote to the inevitable and pessimistic gloom that pervaded in their film about a country that’s hard on people. However, instead of the bright, cheery comedy advertised in one of the year’s best cut trailers (both red and green band), we get a comedy that’s more unsettling than laugh-out-loud funny despite some truly inventive work by Pitt and Frances McDormand as two ambitious gym employees who try to sell top secret CIA data from a dropped computer disc.

Anxious first to try and get a “Good Samaritan” type of reward for ensuring the security of the “highly classified shit” they’ve discovered, soon their phone call to former CIA employee Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) turns into blackmail. Although it’s McDormand who makes the threat, no doubt their case wasn’t helped by Pitt’s incessant explanation about the “security of your shit” which understandably frustrates Cox, whom — awakened in the middle of the night — has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

And why should he? Although he’s been working on his memoirs after impulsively quitting the agency in a hilarious confrontational beginning as he’s officially downgraded for a drinking problem, it’s his unfaithful wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) who compiled the data on the disc as a preemptive strike before serving him with divorce papers. Unbeknownst to either of them, their moves are all being watched as the plot grows increasingly complex and chaotic when the link between the two stories — the kinky governmental employee Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) becomes involved — begins sleeping alternately with Swinton’s Katie and McDormand’s Linda Litzke. And when Osborne proves to be less than cooperative, Linda, desperate to have plastic surgery and oblivious to the earnest affection of her good-natured boss Ted (Richard Jenkins), leads Pitt’s Chad further into an international debacle as they try to sell the “secret shit” to the Russians.

You’ll notice I’m including Pitt’s phrase of choice throughout as indeed, his character is quintessentially Coen; more specifically, he’s funny as hell, fond of vague repetition of words and phrases like “oh my God” as he runs down a hallway or “shit” which he uses as a noun, adjective, and verb. And while he no doubt engages in unscrupulous behavior and is the instigator of the inevitable bloody violence that follows (it’s a Coen Brothers film after all), aside from Ted the human puppy dog, Chad is the most likable one of the bunch. Thus, much like Shakespeare’s Mercutio, he gets all the best lines, detracts from the film’s artistry, and one-ups Clooney (although they only share one fateful scene) at every turn, and unfortunately he’s the one who is used far too little throughout.

Meet Chad:

With an advertising campaign comprised of cool Saul Bass-styled posters echoing the classy spy films and Hollywood blockbusters of the late '50s and '60s (the lettering alone looks like Bass’s work on Vertigo), it’s evident that like No Country was sort of the Coen version of a western, this is their version of a spy comedy, yet it’s surprisingly devoid of humor. And that’s quite a shame as again, it had one of the best ad campaigns of 2008.

View the Trailer:

Even though initially one doesn’t think “funny” and the Coen Brothers, especially given their last film, they’ve definitely aced the genre before with not just their most-referenced cult hit The Big Lebowski but also in one of the most ridiculously hysterical chase scenes of the 1980s as Nicolas Cage tries to outrun authorities like a live action cartoon in Raising Arizona. Moreover, they’ve even inserted humor in the unlikeliest of situations from Fargo to No Country, yet when they attempt a pure comedy but don’t go all out in the execution by muddling it with nihilistic and brutal bursts of action, the results have been mixed.

Like The Hudsucker Proxy, Intolerable Cruelty, and The Ladykillers, the timing of this one is just plain off and it took a good twenty minutes to garner one genuine laugh, after Malkovich’s grand confrontation which opens the film. Although some audience members did chuckle, even at the oddest of moments as one character slices another in the head with an axe, it all seemed to be as half-hearted as the direction, more in appreciation of the directors themselves than what was actually served up to audiences. This being said, I wasn’t unprepared, knowing fully how “out there” they can go-- having seen, analyzed, and appreciated even some of their strangest works such as Barton Fink and the wood-chipper finale of Fargo. As a film host and critic I have probably explained, championed, and defended their work to friends, audiences, and strangers more than most.

And while granted that Clooney is no doubt familiar with their brand of humor — having done so phenomenally well with it in O Brother, Where Art Thou -- it’s ultimately his extremely unpleasant and repugnant character along with an under-written and icy Tilda Swinton (Clooney’s Oscar winning costar who, along with Tom Wilkinson stole his own film last year, Michael Clayton, away from him again) that bogs down the plot of Burn as a whole.

It takes far too long to introduce us to not only Pitt’s Chad but McDormand’s middle-aged Linda. Tired of half-heartedly sleeping with married losers she meets online after a dull day at work, she has made the foolish and entirely Hollywood-like decision that she’s gone as far as she can with her current body and has decided she wants to improve her looks with four drastic plastic surgeries. Obviously a commentary of McDormand’s profession no doubt cooked up by McDormand and her husband Joel Coen, this plot alone would’ve helped add to the humor and we feel shortchanged once again when, just like a final description of events featuring Clooney’s character, McDormand’s character finally finds a solution to her problems but it’s all discussed by a CIA operative played by Juno’s dad (J.K. Simmons).

If they truly wanted to make us laugh, we would’ve seen these events with our own eyes, rather than be “told” what happened and it’s not like they were overstaying their welcome with a roughly ninety-five minute running time. Ultimately, the Coens end Burn with the same type of similar dissatisfying aftertaste that became one of the biggest criticisms of last year’s abrupt end to No Country. And possibly to fix this, they could’ve found a way to delete the Clooney and Swinton plot altogether and just give us more of “The Chad” (to quote Charlie’s Angels) so we could relish in his childlike awe upon trying to discover all the “highly classified shit” he can get his hands on.