Blu-ray Review: Godard Mon Amour (2017)

Now Available 

Responsible for turning a silent black-and-white movie set in 1920s Tinseltown called The Artist –which featured a trained dog and complex dance choreography – into perhaps the unlikeliest Best Picture winner in modern history, Academy Award winning director Michel Hazanavicius returns to the backdrop of cinema once again for his latest effort which zeroes in on one artist in particular.

Less a straightforward biopic than a portrait of French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard as a middle aged man, Godard Mon Amour's success depends upon not only how much you know about the director – who along with his contemporaries helped usher in a whole new style of filmmaking – but his films themselves.

Paying homage to his subject throughout, unlike the way that Hazanavicius was able to consistently weave references to classic cinema into The Artist's narrative (which has become the director's signature), Godard's sequences all too frequently deviate from rather than enhance the film's overall storyline, which is centered on the thirty-seven year old filmmaker’s relationship with his nineteen-year-old wife, Anne Wiazemsky.

While some moments are undoubtedly amusing, far too often the unnatural segues feel like signposting and – by calling too much attention to themselves – feel more like a spoof reminiscent of Hazanavicius's breakthrough, zany box office smash OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies. Thus while the experimental Godard Mon Amour will appeal to Godard buffs, chances are it'll be lost on everyone else.

Skipping past his most iconic period helming such New Wave classics as Breathless and A Woman is a Woman (starring first muse and wife Anna Karina), Hazanavicius's film – based on second muse and wife Wiazemsky's novel Un an après – opens in 1967 on the set of Godard's politically charged La Chinoise where the couple fell in love.

A flop in its era (and perhaps a bad omen for the couple's inevitably doomed relationship), the film, which focused on a group of revolutionaries and was loosely based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's book The Possessed, was banned in China and panned in most reviews save for those penned by Godard's friends.

Signalling – along with the now revered Weekend – a major change of pace, tone, and subject in Godard's filmography, Hazanavicius's Mon Amour picks up where La Chinoise left off.

Set in the filmmaker's most controversial period wherein he embraced New Left and Radical Maoist ideology, publicly disowned his earlier work, and – speaking in slogans as his wont – stated that "Godard is dead," Hazanavicius opts to lighten the mood in his adaptation of Wiazemsky's novel.

Knowing that spending more than twenty minutes in the company of the director at his most insufferable would be the cinematic equivalent of a root canal, Hazanavicius keeps things moving, vacillating in tone between mischievous slapstick (as in a recurring bit where Godard keeps breaking his glasses in street protests) to sardonic yet self aware drama.

Yet although understandably it'd be a mistake to play the entire thing straight, by diving in after both the start of their relationship and once the director's style of filmmaking and beliefs became more radicalized, Mon Amour suffers from a lack of a strong foundation or jumping off point into the period of major political unrest in France that immediately follows.

Repeatedly we find ourselves looking at Godard more as a privileged, out-of-touch jerk and less as someone whose life we feel invested in… except for wanting Wiazemsky to get the hell away from him and for Godard to wake up and smell his hypocrisy.

While obviously a film isn't required to have a likable main character, we shouldn’t have to be a film buff to understand our leading man on more than a surface level.

And unfortunately, as hard as it is to connect to Mon Amour's Godard, even though it's her story and point-of-view, it's ten times harder in the case of Wiazemsky because we know so little about her, aside from the fact that she's expected to be the sycophantic supportive wife and mirror him instead of having her own opinions about the world.

Gamely played by Stacy Martin who generates empathy and understanding with a knowing look – particularly when shared with the wife of a couple who used to socialize with the two before it became impossible to share a meal with Godard for fear he might start screaming obscenities at an elderly war veteran – the actress's performance helps bring the film back to Earth as needed.

Also anchoring Godard when possible, versatile actor Louis Garrel – whose breakthrough ironically came in Bernardo Bertolucci's New Wave and Godard inspired, Parisian 1968 set sexy coming-of-age picture The Dreamers – brings the filmmaker to life through a variety of moods from romantic to insecure to argumentative.

Before he became an Academy Award winning filmmaker, Michel Hazanavicius was an art school grad turned TV adman and that training as well as his passion for cinematic homage shines through, not only when he spoofs A Woman is a Woman's famous book title fight scene, for example but also in his commitment to the era, which he captures as if through the lens of a Godard film.

Featuring pops of red, stellar production design, and clever use of montage, the film never fails to compel us on an aesthetic level, even if its script and pacing leave much to be desired as – like a desperately long car ride from Cannes to Paris wherein Godard can't help but insult everyone – Mon Amour's 107 minute running time feels much longer.

With a target audience largely limited to New Wave enthusiasts and Godard aficionados (and even then the latter is likely to be divided in their reaction), although it feels like a missed opportunity to chronicle the artist's life in a more three dimensional manner, Mon Amour is still worth exploring as an ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful Godardian cinematic experiment.

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DVD Review: Tropic Thunder-- 2 Disc Director's Cut

Hitting DVD & Blu-Ray on November 18

Order It Today

Read the Original Soundtrack Review

Read the Original Theatrical Review

In honor of November 18th's DVD & Blu-ray release of the Ben Stiller's summer comedy Tropic Thunder, I'm offering you an insider's view of the DVD that DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment were kind enough to send my way. However, before I go into the DVD features, first I'll serve up the first four paragraphs of my original theatrical review of Tropic Thunder, originally published on August 13, 2008.

Tropic Thunder



Director:
Ben Stiller

Former highbrow theatrical director turned filmmaker Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is in trouble. When the explosives expert (Pineapple Express scene stealer Danny McBride) working on his big budget Vietnam epic film debut misinterprets Cockburn’s temper tantrum for a cue, four million dollars in explosives are wasted, everything is blown to smithereens, and the worst thing is that the camera wasn’t even rolling. Unable to control the actors on his set and already one month behind schedule after just five days of shooting, the British thespian is soon punched in the face very hard by a grip, upon orders shouted via webcam by sleazy studio boss Les Grossman (a hilarious and nearly unrecognizable Tom Cruise).

Out of desperation, he turns to Nick Nolte’s Four Leaf Tayback, the former Vietnam soldier who wrote the book they are adapting — not to mention the type soldier who may not have gotten the memo that the war is over. Visibly relishing his role, Nolte’s Tayback is often framed in a corner spouting off sentence fragments and irrational, obscenity-laced anecdotes that frighten and amuse all at the same time. Advising the mild-mannered Brit to get the actors “off the f***in’ grid” and into “the s***,” Cockburn heeds Tayback’s advice. With the hope that improvisational filmmaking will get the movie back on track, he sets up his “own little personal slice of ‘Nam.”

However, shortly after depositing his cast of five diverse leads deep into the heart of the jungle in order to show his pampered actors he’s really running the show, things go terribly, shockingly wrong. And soon enough the cast find themselves in a real life mini-war of their own when instead of guerilla filmmaking, the men become the target of heroin-trafficking guerillas who’ve mistaken them for DEA soldiers (yeah, I didn’t get that either). Obviously, this proves to be much more than the actors can handle, as they’d signed on with their contractual clauses for perks like gift baskets, TiVo, and luxury items, only to find themselves dodging bullets instead.

Heading up the group is Tropic Thunder’s director and co-writer Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman, a has-been, Rambo-styled action star whose most recent film wherein he played a mentally challenged character — Simple Jack — not only ruined his career but was also named one of the worst films of all time. With his barefooted agent (Matthew McConaughey) behind him, Speedman tries to get back into Hollywood’s spotlight but is worried he’ll be upstaged by his costar, the five time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr. channeling Russell Crowe), an Australian method actor so committed to his craft that he underwent skin pigmentation surgery in order to play an African-American for Cockburn’s film..."

Click Here to Read the Entire Review


The 2-Disc Director's Cut DVD

Although it's dubbed the "director's cut," I couldn't honestly tell a distinct difference between the theatrical version of Tropic Thunder with the feature film presented on the first disc of this set. Yet, for true fans of the movie and those interested in filmmaking in general, the 2-Disc set is ideal with Stiller providing enough added hilarity and down and dirty, gritty behind-the-scenes movie-making 101 examples to make it a terrific investment.

Offering audiences the chance to watch the film with two different commentary tracks including one consisting of the more creative and technical side from the filmmakers of Thunder-- the second track is the more free-wheeling DVD commentary offered up by the cast, including Downey who joked in the film that he doesn't break character until he's recorded the DVD commentary.

Also, perhaps to answer the bad press the movie received shortly before its premiere regarding the "Simple Jack" controversy as Stiller's action movie character Tugg Speedman had recently played a mentally challenged man resulting in a few instances in the film where the word "retarded" is bantered about (more to poke fun at Hollywood ego and industry exploitation than anything else)), there is a quality Public Service Announcement added onto Disc 1 wherein the tagline promises that the only "R" word those with intellectual disabilities deserve is "respect." While it feels a bit forced, it's a worthwhile sentiment and actually should've possibly played before the film as one of the many commercials or trailers as opposed to being buried in a separate menu of Thunder's first disc.

However, fans can rejoice in Thunder mania that fills the entirety of the second disc as we discover co-writer, director and star Ben Stiller's passion for his screenplay that dates back twenty years. In "Before the Thunder," Stiller notes that while he was busy making one of his first and most important screen appearances in a bit part in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, most of his friends were auditioning for the war movies that were incredibly popular in the late 80's such as Platoon and Hamburger Hill. Noting the ridiculousness of actors who shared with him that their two week boot camp really helped them get into character and bond, Stiller became inspired by the absurdity of pampered actors not realizing how very different it is to actually be in a war as opposed to a movie about war and initially toyed with the premise of a group of actors returning from movie boot camp with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Upon realizing that he just couldn't find away to make it work comically, he set it aside until ten years later when he and actor Justin Theroux (Charlies Angels 2, Mulholland Drive) began e-mailing back and forth various scenes they wrote in the hopes of keeping each other laughing. It's easy to get caught up in Stiller's twenty year passion with Thunder's excellently packaged DVD set as we go into each and every extra which run the gamut from standard "pat each other on the back" electronic press kit generic enthusiasm to some truly hilarious and inventive additions including a fake Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness styled documentary called "Rain of Madness" which chronicles the fake "movie within the movie" and another similar bonus dubbed "Dispatches from the Edge of Madness."

In numerous candid behind-the-scenes interviews and clips including original videotapes from the auditions and various tests, we discover just how damn funny the film's straight man played by Jay Baruchel actually is as we glimpse the film's epic table reading and the way that Downey managed to just launch into his character head-first in a way that made Baruchel share that, "I hadn't laughed this much since Dick Cheney shot that guy in the face." With Downey admitting that they aren't satirizing Hollywood on the same level as Altman's brilliant Player by joking that "we're kind of destroying any leg [we have] to stand on in the future," in Stiller's lampoon styled "love letter to what we do," we realize just how much effort was put into making the comical film look so professional.

In "The Hot LZ," "Blowing Shit Up," "Designing the Thunder," and more, we witness some of the epic undertakings by Stiller and company, whether it's creating a cinematic compilation mix tape of their favorite war scenes for the epic opening sequence which took three weeks and fifty stuntmen to shoot or gauging the level of explosion offered up by the special effects man who Stiller says may be "slightly insane but in a good way," during the incredibly complicated shoot by veteran 2-time Oscar winning cinematographer John Toll (Legends of the Fall, Braveheart, Thin Red Line).

In an entertaining special feature dedicated to "The Cast of the Thunder" which is broken down by the last name of each actor, the cast members riff on their own characters as well as their cast-mates discussing what must have been a creatively freeing shoot filled with improvisation and laughter as well as interesting surprises as the American Humane Association handler for Bertha the water buffalo that carries Jack Black unexpectedly delivered a baby that they named after the comedic actor.

Also including deleted and extended scenes as well as "full mags," to illustrate the number of choices that were made by Stiller and his editor, we finally discover just what happens to Matthew McConaughey's character at the end of the film and learn that the scene stealing dance by a nearly unrecognizable Tom Cruise was the brainchild of Cruise himself, who impulsively started dancing without music during a makeup test.

Featuring promotional material as well-- one amusing bonus consisted of a great MTV Movie Awards promotional spoof as Stiller, Black and Downey all toy with each other's egos by trying to figure out the best way to sell their movie. While it's nearly impossible to absorb the plethora of features included on the disc or listen to all of the available and optional commentary, the 2-Disc Director's Cut really makes one appreciate Thunder on an entirely different level.

Moreover, it makes one realize just how easy it is to overlook the master craftsmanship behind everything as we're far too busy laughing at the performances to fully appreciate the effects, production design and stunning cinematography that makes it seem nearly as authentic as the films it references, even so much as to set up the DVD menus as though we were getting ready to watch Platoon or Apocalypse Now. Of course, once the movie begins with fake ads for "The Fatties" and "Booty Sweat," we realize we aren't exactly in Oliver Stone territory... but it's always nice to escape the realities of war by laughing at men rushing out to go fake one.

Marigold

Ali Larter Goes Bollywood...

I must admit that I’m not sure why Ali Larter isn’t a bigger star. I mean yes, of course, she earned her big cinematic break playing a Varsity Blues bimbo but she made intelligent choices thereafter with the cult teen scarefest Final Destination. And despite a Hollywood absence for a few years to take a break from the sex-kitten characters being offered her way (Allure, 7/08), she’s rebounded much better than other late ’90s starlets who also first portrayed bimbos, such as American Pie’s Shannon Elizabeth. I guess, in retrospect, Larter and her fans should be grateful that she doesn’t have Elizabeth’s primarily straight-to-DVD career but the potential for Larter is undeniable.
Case in point: before her TV series Heroes “jumped the shark,” you couldn’t open a magazine without press covering it with multi-page spreads and articles, yet all the ink spilled seemed to surround the likable, funny Japanese newcomer Masi Oka’s Hiro and Hayden Panettiere’s perky “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” character. Yet, honestly, while the sunny young Panettiere was used as the face of the show to maximize its youth appeal as the new Buffy, as far as women were concerned on Heroes, it was Larter and not Panettiere who played the best character in season one (before I gave up on it last Fall). As a New Age Film Noir heroine, Larter played a combo of the virgin and the whore dual personality all rolled into one without the cheesy melodrama of a daytime soap and we never knew which side of Larter’s character we’d see next.
And while granted she’s no Meryl Streep, in the film Marigold as well as a recent independent screener called Crazy I was lucky enough to view (currently making the rounds in the film-festival circuit), she gets the chance to show a range that we haven’t seen before and both films involve music. While in the biopic Crazy, she plays the long-suffering wife of a talented guitarist, in writer/director Willard Carroll’s likable sleeper Marigold, Larter takes her biggest risk yet and gets her diva shot at Bollywood glory.
Due to the rightful insistence of casting directors that she’s just not “sympathetic enough,” D-List actress Marigold Lexton (Larter) whose own boyfriend describes her as a “four-star bitch,” has made a career appearing in numerous direct-to-DVD sequels of famous films. After earning a horny fanbase with turns in "Fatal Attraction 3" and "Basic Instinct 3," Marigold’s career has taken such a status dive that as the film opens she boards a twenty-hour flight to Bombay in coach class and bumps along during a hellish twelve-hour cab ride to Goa for her latest gig in Kama Sutra 3.
After screaming at her agents and boyfriend via cell phone the entire way (and clearly loving the chance to play a hammy stereotype as Larter kills even Carroll’s most throwaway lines), eventually her feet touch land in Goa. However, instead of a red carpet, she quickly discovers that due to the shady dealings in the background Sutra’s Indian producers have landed in jail and the German bankers fled to Singapore to avoid a similar fate when financing fell through. Further distraught when her fed-up agent fires her over the telephone and she realizes she was only provided with a one-way ticket to India, the unkind Marigold relies on the kindness of strangers in the Bollywood film community as she tries a way back to the states.

Although instead of a temporary layover, her stay is lengthened the duration of a film shoot, when she’s shocked to discover that while blonde actresses are a dime a dozen in synthetic La La Land, in Goa, her exotic golden-tresses and experience working even in, as Kathy Griffin would call, D-List films, makes her a valuable commodity. Soon, the director is reworking his Bollywood production to feature Marigold in a starring role and although (much like Larter), her character has zero musical or dancing training, her new friends quickly take her under their wing, including the gorgeous and guileless choreographer Prem (Bollywood sensation Salman Khan). A romantic relationship predictably develops but culture clash and prior commitments (both with Marigold’s lackluster relationship back in the states and Prem’s familial obligations) threaten to get in their way.

A true fairy-tale for the film’s duration—tinged with beautiful visuals and featuring seven original songs about the various stages of love (of which only some are successful), Carroll’s Marigold is an earnest and warmly romantic guilty pleasure. And as the director noted on the DVD that it's an “affectionate homage” rather than a parody of the genre, he manages to produce a Bollywood-light film that even the uninitiated will find appealing without immersing themselves fully into the genre. Famous for their multiple-hour running times and sudsy plots that nonetheless engross (like the Academy Award-nominated three-hour “cricket-match musical,” Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India), Bollywood isn’t for everyone. Like sushi, country music, and the comedy of Dane Cook—you’re either a fan or you’re not and oftentimes it’s hard to analyze why.

While ultimately, as far as I’m concerned, I really enjoy the genre, I do grant that I couldn’t watch too many of them in a short time period. In the same token if pressed—genre-wise, I’d say that I wished I could spend one day living life as though it were a frothy French romantic comedy; American musicals would be a close second. With this in mind if you blended together the sweet with the sour of both genres and poured on the soapy melodrama while grating on generous amounts of cheese, you’ll have formulated the ultimate Bollywood musical that it’s fun to get lost in, at least for two hours.
However, while I’m a casual fan, writer/director Willard Carroll is a die-hard Bollywood devotee. The filmmaker, a few years back crafted one of my favorite underrated Altman-esque ensemble pieces, Playing By Heart (which I forced everyone I knew to rent). Afterwards, he found himself fascinated by the genre after only taking in one Bollywood musical--incidentally starring Khan-- when he was in India. When he arrived back in the states, complete with a new obsession, he programmed a one-man international film festival, absorbing, analyzing and viewing an admitted “150-200” films before he set out to begin crafting his own.

And although it will never top Playing By Heart which is still one of my favorite films—ironically Heart is one so synonymous with its cast (including Connery, Jolie, Rowlands etc.) that it wasn’t until after I began researching Marigold, that I even realized the helmer of this one was one and the same. Still, Marigold is affable Saturday afternoon fare for single girls or a lightweight date movie for nights curled up on the couch, sure to find a bigger audience on cable television, as long as-- that is-- Bollywood doesn’t send you running.
Yet unlike Gurinder Chadha’s Jane Austen inspired blend of American musicals and Bollywood fare—Bride and Prejudice—Carroll wanted to pay tribute to what he liked but avoid parroting the genre altogether in what could have been an unsuccessful satire. Couple this with the fact that—as he reveals on the DVD—Ali Larter was living in his guest home and suddenly one day while observing her doing laundry, he realized he had his very own remarkable leading lady to get the job done. And likewise, he gave her a chance as a friend and supportive professional that most in the industry wouldn’t have, as he says, believing in her even more than the actress does herself.
While unfortunately it's a bit skimpy on DVD extras, the studio more than makes up for it with a fascinating behind-the-scenes thirty-minute making-of featurette on the Marigold DVD, taking film lovers further into the cinematic process of such a visually stunning work. And although therein he admits that although the process of the two stars couldn’t have been more different with Larter’s cerebral questioning and longing for rehearsal and the veteran Khan who has the ability after the bare minimum of run-throughs to just complete a complicated number flawlessly, soon they inevitably clicked. And in doing so, much like the film itself—thereby managing to meld the west and east together in a very harmlessly yet unexpectedly entertaining way.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Read the 2-Disc DVD Review

Director: Ben Stiller

Former highbrow theatrical director turned filmmaker Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is in trouble. When the explosives expert (Pineapple Express scene stealer Danny McBride) working on his big budget Vietnam epic film debut misinterprets Cockburn’s temper tantrum for a cue, four million dollars in explosives are wasted, everything is blown to smithereens, and the worst thing is that the camera wasn’t even rolling. Unable to control the actors on his set and already one month behind schedule after just five days of shooting, the British thespian is soon punched in the face very hard by a grip, upon orders shouted via webcam by sleazy studio boss Les Grossman (a hilarious and nearly unrecognizable Tom Cruise).

Out of desperation, he turns to Nick Nolte’s Four Leaf Tayback, the former Vietnam soldier who wrote the book they are adapting — not to mention the type soldier who may not have gotten the memo that the war is over. Visibly relishing his role, Nolte’s Tayback is often framed in a corner spouting off sentence fragments and irrational, obscenity-laced anecdotes that frighten and amuse all at the same time. Advising the mild-mannered Brit to get the actors “off the f***in’ grid” and into “the s***,” Cockburn heeds Tayback’s advice. With the hope that improvisational filmmaking will get the movie back on track, he sets up his “own little personal slice of ‘Nam.”

However, shortly after depositing his cast of five diverse leads deep into the heart of the jungle in order to show his pampered actors he’s really running the show, things go terribly, shockingly wrong. And soon enough the cast find themselves in a real life mini-war of their own when instead of guerilla filmmaking, the men become the target of heroin-trafficking guerillas who’ve mistaken them for DEA soldiers (yeah, I didn’t get that either). Obviously, this proves to be much more than the actors can handle, as they’d signed on with their contractual clauses for perks like gift baskets, TiVo, and luxury items, only to find themselves dodging bullets instead.

Heading up the group is Tropic Thunder’s director and co-writer Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman, a has-been, Rambo-styled action star whose most recent film wherein he played a mentally challenged character — Simple Jack — not only ruined his career but was also named one of the worst films of all time. With his barefooted agent (Matthew McConaughey) behind him, Speedman tries to get back into Hollywood’s spotlight but is worried he’ll be upstaged by his costar, the five time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr. channeling Russell Crowe), an Australian method actor so committed to his craft that he underwent skin pigmentation surgery in order to play an African-American for Cockburn’s film.

While admittedly it’s a risky move to play “blackface,” Downey loses himself completely in the role. He’s a tongue-in-cheek marvel the entire way; vowing to stay in character until he records the DVD commentary track, he immerses himself in a sort of Black Power homage to '70s stars like Richard Roundtree in a way that makes one giggle even before he opens his mouth to deliver another questionably politically incorrect line.

Of course, this is much to the chagrin of the cast’s real African-American actor, Brandon T. Jackson’s Alpa Chino. Still annoyed that the only good black role in the film was given to “Crocodile Dundee,” Chino, who hopes the film will up his credibility from just peddling his soft drink Booty Sweat, doesn’t let him get away with anything, especially when Lazarus lectures him about the “n word” and Chino calls him out on quoting the theme song from TV’s The Jeffersons.

Rounding out the group is Jack Black’s troubled comedian Jeff Portnoy. Much like the other characters we first meet in a series of fake trailers preceding the film, Portnoy is hoping the film will prove his range as well, since he’s mostly known for his drug arrests and overly flatulence-based humor starring in Eddie Murphy-like comedies with titles like "The Fatties: Fart 2". However, when his drug stash gets lost amidst the chaos of their new surroundings, he begins to suffer from withdrawal in a series of escalating scenes with range from disgusting (trying to eat an animal who ingested his last supply) to hilarious as he orders the men to tie him to a tree when they realize they have to storm the drug dealer’s compound in order to rescue Speedman who erroneously assumed this was all part of the movie. Why tie him to a tree? So he won’t do all the heroin in sight, Portnoy explains in a twisted but freakishly logical speech.

Of course, there’s the obligatory straight man played by likable Jay Baruchel as Kevin Sandusky but he’s mostly ignored by the hammy antics of our leads. Filled with Hollywood in-jokes, the film at times feels like an overly long Comedy Central roast of the industry, as each character gets to exorcise their demons and impersonate those they’ve encountered in Tinsletown. And while — much like the funny but uneven Zoolander — there’s enough good stuff involved to keep you interested, you can’t help thinking you’re watching a series of skits that were awkwardly stretched into a feature length film.

From the ads, one would assume that Downey is the highlight and indeed, of the main cast, he’s the one we can’t take our eyes off of, managing to show his chameleon-like nature and astronomical depth following turns in Iron Man, Charlie Bartlett and last year’s brilliant, underrated Zodiac.

However, this being said, the true revelation of the film is none other than former couch jumping Scientologist poster boy, Tom Cruise. Yes, you read that correctly — as the smarmy, amoral, balding, bespectacled, gold chain wearing, chest hair revealing, profanity driven studio head who likes to freak dance to Flo Rida, Tom Cruise all but steals the entire film away from everyone else. In fact, it’s similar to the way that Ben Stiller guest starred in one of Mission Impossible 2’s best spoofs (included on the DVD) as Cruise’s obsessive stunt double.

Playing it ridiculous couldn’t have been a better professional decision for Cruise, given the scathing media attacks and popular opinion backlash over the past few years. Additionally, he reminds us again, just how good he can be when he isn’t preoccupied by arguing with Matt Lauer or criticizing Brooke Shields. While it’s safe to say his role is a composite of many types, as are a majority of the characters featured in the film, Grossman’s overreliance on Diet Coke did make me recall that it’s also the beverage of choice of a certain former head of Miramax (although, like Cruise’s characterization, I’ll let you do your homework in discovering the identity).

As far as his directorial career goes, it’s Stiller’s most ambitious film and it’s certainly impressively executed as it begins with an outstanding sequence that pays homage to the film’s greatest influences, Apocalypse Now and Platoon. However, it’s also guilty of Stiller’s comedic tendency towards “everything and the kitchen sink,” in trying to squeeze in far too much, preferring quantity over quality. Ultimately, I realized the film may have been better off if it had either dropped his character altogether or blended his with the underused Baruchel or Jack Black’s, in order to make the comedy more consistent and strengthen the storyline.

And while on the surface, that may seem like a crazy idea, in the words of Downey’s memorable Kirk Lazarus, “Crazy’s better than nothin’.” Fortunately, while not nearly as hilarious as most critics would have you believe, Tropic Thunder is elevated far above “crazy” or “nothin’,” thanks mostly to the always memorable Downey. However, the real saving grace is again in the surprisingly hysterical turn by Cruise that actually kept viewers in their seats during the credits to see him continue to dance with the most joy since he slid through the entryway in his socks in Risky Business.

Strictly Background (2007)

Partying with Drew Barrymore one day and chasing Tom Cruise the next, an extra's work is never done in Jason Connell's award-winning documentary.



Director: Jason Connell

Whether the shoot requires a man who can operate a forklift, a young man who plays a violin, a Caucasian grandmother who smokes, or a professional manicurist, chances are an extra can be found among the 45,000 active background actors currently living in the Los Angeles area.

With no questions asked as more than 1,000 new extras sign up every week, it seems as though in this economic climate, it’s easier to get work on a major Hollywood production than it is to get a job at McDonald’s, as one of the professionals featured in documentarian Jason Connell’s award-winning festival favorite Strictly Background notes.

However, despite this, we learn that most new registrants quit within the first year and others who’ve been involved in hundreds of films begin to weigh the pros and cons of forking over the nearly fifteen hundred dollar entry fee to join the Screen Actor’s Guild. While the guild leads to more respectability and a larger payday, unfortunately as one interviewee explains, it also caused 80% of their work to dry up as the guild mandates a relatively small number of their employees on any given production, as opposed to the cheap “non-union” extras who make as little as fifty dollars a day and can be hired by the hundreds.

Although most of us wouldn’t imagine voluntarily going through the endless hassles encountered by the ten endearing background actors that former extra and filmmaker Jason Connell follows around over the course of Strictly Background, it seems these folks wouldn't have it any other way. Throughout Background, their passion and sheer love of filmmaking — especially embodied via the hustle and bustle of a busy set as well as the production process itself — is incredibly inspiring to those who are fascinated by the cinematic medium, whether they're "Connell's extras" or viewers of the DVD.

Whether they’re rummaging through racks of clothing at thrift stores collecting odd ties, shirts, and ensembles by the hundreds to fit any given period or character they may be called upon to play or wearing their fingers to the bone dialing casting hotline numbers to see when another new production is scheduled, the ten professionals in Connell’s film are all unique.

In industry terms, one could say they each have a memorably "distinctive look" ranging from high end, non-speaking background work for Marvin Rouillard as he dances alongside Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith or plays a priest in Wedding Crashers, or as Cecilia Hartfeld gets a smile from Jack Nicholson while playing a regal party guest of Greg Kinnear’s in As Good as It Gets. Then there are those memorable “characters” that seem to specialize in certain types of films such as Mark Nobel having a drink a few stools away from Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa, Cary Mizobe playing one of several drunk Mongolians checking out Drew Barrymore at the beginning of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, or the pretty blonde Terry Bolo trying to get as much “face time” as possible with the camera even if it means stripping over the opening credits of Carrie for twenty dollars while the lonely Sissy Spacek sits alone brushing her hair.

Aside from a few who dreamed of film stardom from the time they were children, most relay stories of wanting to be a police officer or fireman. And interestingly, others held down solid, prestigious employment before deciding to give up corporate work after their kids left the nest which, according to casting agent Jeff Olan in the film, isn’t that uncommon.

Despite his admission that most extras eventually disappear over time, for some — such as the ones chronicled in Connell’s documentary — extra work has become a lifestyle and one confesses that he’ll only quit when he’s unable to make it to the set. Overwhelmingly patient and able to keep it all in perspective, like the average joes who moonlighted as Hollywood Boulevard "characters" in the Morgan Spurlock-produced Confessions of a Superhero, Connell's interviewees seem endlessly willing to put up with the prospect of having to get up three hours early to change buses and trains just on the off-chance they'll be chosen on “spec.” Ultimately realizing that whereas one month you could be given countless jobs as the next finds you struggling to make ends meet, and while at times it becomes overwhelmingly stressful (including a heartbreaking confession by one character who hit rock bottom after too many failures), overall they seem endlessly driven to their craft.

And although they’re resigned to the set’s morally questionable “extra’s holding” area for hours on end and liken the chaotic “cattle calls” to appear in large groups such as needed in battle scenes to “Nightmare City,” mostly the film’s featured performers are eager to contribute in any way to the bigger picture whether it’s pantomiming conversation, dancing in the crowd, chasing Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds, or watching a baseball game in the same crowd as The Fan’s Robert De Niro.

Considering their role as a legitimate part of acting, as Cary Mizobe astutely argues, “We’re not just… a bunch of lumps just walking around in the background all blurred out,” as frequently they must improvise background action or rely on skills required in playing a sushi chef one day and a mournful funeral attendee the next while staying in character for six hours as the latter. Despite some of the seemingly classist rules of set etiquette such as the universal understanding never to speak to or make eye contact with a celebrity unless they initiate it or the extras are directed to do so, a few have some touching stories about celebrities who showed their true colors by respecting them for the needed collaborators they are since without extras, as those in Strictly Background repeatedly state, film and television couldn’t exist.

To prove this point in a rather unique way, the deft filmmaker employs a terrific technique of playing clips from the actors’ work, sometimes either letting the scene run once without calling our attention to the extra first, or else just highlighting the extra by changing the color scheme to black and white to illustrate where they are and what an integral part they play in the finished product, especially in a powerful Shawshank Redemption prison sequence or in a memorable fight from Million Dollar Baby.

And humorously, as the film begins, Connell shows a clip from Airplane! featuring one of the actors and shows the principal lead walking down the aisle after deleting everyone from the seats of the plane. Imagine how many fewer laughs we would’ve had, had we not gotten the full reaction of the chaotic goings-on without a packed plane full of onlookers all privy to Leslie Nielsen, Julie Hagerty, and Robert Hays’ antics!

While it’s a fiercely competitive market and age discrimination does enter into the availability of jobs as the clients — especially the women — grow older and, as one male notes, filmmakers use inflatable extras to steal their jobs in crowd scenes, Connell does an admirable job of putting the previously neglected “extras in the spotlight” as the film’s tagline reads.

Recently released on DVD, the film, which has so far earned six awards including Best Documentary while being featured as an official selection at festivals across the globe, is a must-see for those who share — much like the stars of Connell’s film — a sheer passion for moviemaking and the idea of that a star can still be born in pursuit of the American dream.

With terrific music throughout the film by musician Frank Lenz, the disc includes twenty-five additional features including extra clips divided up by the cast as a group and then additional scenes with each individual cast member, offering further insight into the people we’ve grown attached to over the brief 84 minute running time. All of these ingredients add up to ensuring you'll never look at a major film the same way again, without beginning to wonder just what the lives are like for those near the edges of the frame.

Granted, one of the questions raised in the film’s publicity asks, “What would you do for three seconds of fame?” and I’m sure it’s safe to say that most of us couldn’t even begin to fathom the voluntary lifestyles of cattle calls and 4:30 a.m. alarm buzzers. However, by presenting the extras with such integrity and honesty and giving them the close-up they richly deserve, Connell has ensured that all ten are sure to live on in our hearts for much, much longer.

Son of Rambow

Director: Garth Jennings

Something tells me writer/director Garth Jennings won’t be asked to film an anti-piracy DVD public service announcement anytime soon.

Set in the early 1980’s, Jennings begins his whimsical ode to childhood daydreams and the magic of movies with a seemingly insignificant event as Sylvester’s Stallone’s violent classic Rambo: First Blood is released in the film’s sleepy English community movie theatre. While outside the theatre, religious protestors rail against the sinfulness of cinema, inside the grand building, middle school aged Lee Carter (Will Poulter) slumps down in his oversized red seat. Armed with his older brother’s video camera, the nonplussed Lee relaxes with a cigarette as he records the movie’s bloodbath blow-by-blow, apparently bored by both his act of piracy as well as the film’s body count. Shortly thereafter, the worlds of both the purported film-going sinners and the bible-thumping saints collide amusingly as troublemaking Lee gets kicked out of his class and meets up with the only other student relegated to the hallway, young Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), booted from the room due to movies instead of misdeeds as his religion prevents him from watching even educational television.

After a mutual accident gets them in trouble, they bond quickly with Lee’s rebellion and escalating lies and Will learns how life is lived outside of his family’s religious order of "The Brethren," when he accompanies Lee after school to find him living largely unsupervised in the back part of the family’s retirement home business with absentee parents who spend most of their time abroad. When Lee’s bossy, self-obsessed older brother (Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick) orders Lee to finish his work pirating Rambo, Will gets his first taste of film which hits him like a shot of adrenaline straight to his heart as the young, artistically inclined, daydreaming boy begins seeing the world around him as an extension of Rambo’s, finding adventure around every corner.

Combining Will’s new thirst for violent excitement with Lee’s goal to win a young filmmaker’s competition sponsored by the BBC, the two boys set out to make their own sequel. While working on the project they title Son of Rambow because of a naïve misspelling, Lee and Will’s friendship is tested by both their duties to their family as well as their newfound popularity, when the two outsiders garner the attention of the impossibly cool, 80’s New Wave inspired French exchange student Didier (Jule Sitruk). Informing Will that he will deign to be the star of their film, Didier along with his adoring entourage of hangers-on and groupies pull rank and drive a wedge between the boys over the course of a long summer.

Now available in wide theatrical release, the former crowd favorite at the Sundance Film Festival before its Arizona premiere at The Phoenix Film Festival has garnered comparisons to everything from Wes Anderson’s thematically similar Rushmore to the 80’s hits of John Hughes due to its lackluster production values. However, it’s a positive and refreshing change of pace to the overwhelming summer “event” movies and one with a touch of E.T. styled childlike wonder and winning, heartfelt humor which surrounds its underdog leads.

Above all, the film is sure to strike a chord with those of us who, much like Lee and Will, recall their outsider status as young movie lovers in schools where coolness was currency and gossip-- not theatre tickets-- granted us admission to the popular cliques. While we may have sat on the sidelines with our heads filled with imaginative wonder, Son of Rambow celebrates the creativity of the childhood film lover who, much like this reviewer, still cherishes the optimistic daydreams of a youth filled with as many adventures and hopes as the ones that populated our local movie screens.

The Last Shot

Director:
Jeff Nathanson

After his beloved but depressed dog kills herself by intentionally launching into his hot tub paws first, FBI Agent Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) becomes even more dedicated to his work bringing down the mob in the 1980’s after the Castellano hit made headlines around the globe. Hatching a radical plan to bring down crooked gangster Tommy Sanz (Monk’s Tony Shalhoub) and also ensnare John Gotti, Devine goes undercover as a movie producer in this comedic action film based on a true story by Catch Me If You Can screenwriter and first time director Jeff Nathanson.

Finding the key to becoming a fake player by impersonating high powered and slightly off her rocker Hollywood mover and shaker Joan Cusack, Devine hears script pitches from a public bench on the street from passersby until he finds the one he decides he’ll “produce.”

He greenlights the screenplay of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre employee Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick) who, tired of living above a noisy dog kennel to the stars with his high strung actress girlfriend Valerie (Calista Flockhart) jumps at Devine’s offer to work on his labor of love script Arizona which he’d penned with old west re-enactor Marshal (Tim Blake Nelson). Steven seems like Devine's ideal choice as a newbie who’s green enough to compromise his artistic vision and go along with Devine’s decision to relocate the shoot from the desert to Providence, Rhode Island which he dubs the "Arizona of the east."

Once in Providence, Joe and Steven are shocked to learn that seductive A-list actress Emily French (Toni Collette) wants a part in their film and soon they are well on their to beginning production, as Devine’s real FBI assignment starts getting lost in the shuffle.

“The True Story of the Greatest Movie Never Made,” as the tagline dubbed it, Nathanson’s Last Shot was based on Steve Fishman’s article “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” which further researched revealed documented a real sting operation to infiltrate Boston mob teamsters via beginning a fake production on a film with an aspiring director who never knew what was going on. The real director of the first sting, George Moffly, sadly, according to IMDb has yet to direct a film although he’s been involved with the filmmaking process on other pictures in various capacities.

Despite the ingenious set-up, it seems nearly impossible for the final product to give The Last Shot the justice it deserves since Nathanson’s script is always changing tone from drama to comedy (similar to his Terminal script) and there are far too many characters to keep straight. However, this being said, it’s an entertaining behind-the-scenes time-waster that's sure to amuse movie buffs.

This Revolution

Director:
Stephen Marshall

After winning an award from the Sundance Film Festival, Stephen Marshall’s name has become almost synonymous with daring. Globally conscious and prone to risk taking, Marshall, who created the first VHS global newsmagazine Channel Zero and co-founded the Guerilla News Network (IMDb) pays homage to Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool with his docudrama This Revolution. Shot in one hundred days, This Revolution centers on a young edgy reporter with a last name that’s a bit too on the nose-- Jake Cassavetes (played music video and commercial director Nathan Crooker)-- who found his priorities and world view changed after spending time filming the war in Baghdad. No longer wanting to-- as he says-- suck up to the rich corporations who run the networks, he butts heads with Chloe (Amy Redford) who in addition to being his boss shares his bed on a casual basis but politics begins to drive them apart as tough-talking Chloe who tells Jake to get her “the edgiest stuff” he can on the phone while standing next to a poster for the Lumet film Network pushes Jake away as he takes to the streets to film the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Movie posters are everywhere in the film and perhaps one of the most telling shows up within the first ten minutes in Jake’s bathroom in the form of Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously. Instinctively, we know this assignment coupled with everything he’s seen overseas will affect his view and ability to remain objective and his beliefs and convictions are tested yet again when he befriends a beautiful, rebellious and radical widowed bookseller Tina Santiago (Rosario Dawson) and her young son (Brett Deluono). Although by this point, the atmospheric film that near the end suddenly turns into Antitrust feels a bit dated and the earnest and unpolished turns by Crooker and Redford (who may not have been directed right) do hinder the success of a film that seems to swing back and forth from pretentious to cheesy like a pendulum, it’s the radiant, fiery and passionate Dawson whose performance escalates This Revolution and makes it feel distinctly authentic. In fact, she may have been too convincing as you may recall when, while filming scenes with other cast members playing a subversive group, Dawson along with others were mistaken for real activists and arrested on the spot and footage of Dawson’s actual arrest made its way into the film (IMDb). Now available on DVD, you may also be able to find This Revolution on regular rotation in the Sundance Channel programming guide as not only is Marshall a Sundance favorite but actress Amy Redford is the daughter of Sundance founder Robert Redford.

Finishing the Game

Complete Title:

Finishing the Game:
The Search for a New Bruce Lee

Director: Justin Lin

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from film school or more correctly, dating fellow film students, it’s to beware of aspiring male directors who compare themselves to Eisenstein and Godard, especially when they’re the son of a studio president only given a shot because of nepotism and for their first project are deciding to finish what some say would have been Bruce Lee’s Gone With the Wind-- his uncompleted final film, The Game of Death. Yet that’s exactly the type of director we meet just moments into Better Luck Tomorrow director Justin Lin’s largely uneven yet mostly hilarious 70’s mockumentary that begins after we learn that just twelve minutes of Game of Death had been shot with Lee wearing that legendary yellow costume (made famous by Uma and Quentin in Kill Bill) before the master’s untimely death at the tender age of 32. Instead of honoring his memory and the beloved films Lee had finished, the studio decides that it’s time to exploit the legend and set about finishing Game of Death by searching for a new Bruce Lee stand in to sort of photograph him wandering and possibly getting into a few fights in order to pad the running time and sell lots of tickets.

Ronny Kurtainbaum (Joake Sanvig), a temperamental young director just coming out of adolescence himself without a cinematic clue save for his references to foreign greats, aligns himself with veteran casting agent Eloise (the hilarious frequent scene-stealer Meredith Scott Lynn) in weeding out the potential Lee substitutes from the overwhelming number of turnouts at the cattle call. Among the frontrunners are Roger Fan’s Breeze Loo, a Bruce Lee styled B movie actor who swears that acting is only in the eyes and that actors shouldn’t demean themselves to stage-fighting when there’s stuntmen to be hired, gorgeous and young Cole Kim (Sung Kang) who, along with his domineering Columbian girlfriend turned agent ventured out from racist Alabama to try and launch Cole’s career. Rounding out the pack is a 100% Caucasian looking Tarrick (McCaleb Burnett) who calls himself half Chinese and feels like he has the greatest shot since he’s sleeping with the casting director’s assistant, Indian Raja (Mousa Kraish) who became a doctor just to follow through on a promise to his dying mother only to give it up to become an actor once he’s an official M.D., and many others including a former TV actor turned vacuum salesman and a Oscar winner from New Zealand.

Filmed in a grainy 70’s style color palette with an emphasis on orange and yellow and a belief that gaudier is funnier (which, in this case, it mostly is), Lin’s likable, innocuous comedy was an Official Selection at Sundance and thankfully reunites the talented director with excellent material such as his terrific directorial effort Better Luck Tomorrow before he moved to more commercial fare such as Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Fun and original, co-writers Lin and his colleague Josh Diamond layer their script with the belief that-- similar to an early Woody Allen making films in the era in which they are shooting-- pouring on the jokes and ridiculous situations is the key to entertainment do in fact hit much more than they miss, even when some of the outrageous comedy of the beginning starts turning repetitive later on (inevitable for the format). Despite this, Finishing the Game has enough hilarity that you may find yourselves wanting to watch it twice just to pick up on or re-experience all of the mockdocumentary's jokes. And while those familiar with Lee’s story know that this isn’t the crew who would end up taking over Game of Death, Lin and Diamond manage to get across some deft points about Asian stereotypes and the film business that elevate the work from simply being an irreverent time waster to a comedy that sometimes culls us laughs from truth.

Slipstream

Director: Anthony Hopkins

“I perceive life as a game, a game that we play at some unconscious level,” Anthony Hopkins explained to journalist Scott Macaulay in the Fall 2007 Filmmaker Magazine article “The Hollywood Life” which chronicled his latest experimental puzzler Slipstream from its birth as a stream-of-consciousness screenplay to its wild shoot and inventive post-production that found Oscar winning Anthony Hopkins both in front of the camera and behind it serving as the writer/director/star and film score composer as well.

While the film, which explores “the strange nature of time” is a wild opus purposely created to “annoy the audience” as the actor explained may be his own version of a game, the question then becomes in asking whether or not viewers will want to take part as, like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, 8 & ½ and Last Year in Marienbad, it infuriates its audience with constant shifts in plot, character, and text that continually build on itself until we realize that it’s a film within a film within a film just like our main character, the “film’s” screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer (Hopkins) is, as Vince Vaughn may have said in Swingers, the guy behind the guy behind the guy. Although Felix is perceived to be a main character, the film focuses instead on several others as the movie begins and we meet Michael Clarke Duncan as a bouncer of sorts and two villains played by Jeffrey Tambor and Christian Slater who decide to hold up a diner, not for any monetary gain, but just for the sake of menace as Tambor and Slater ramble out an increasingly crazy story about the 50’s film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Slater’s typical Jack Nicholson styled cadence becomes far more frightening with each passing minute. Then, as soon as we’re beginning to grasp this nonsensical storyline, a “cut” is yelled and we’re taken behind the scenes of a sloppy film shoot in the desert that will soon find one actor dead and the rest all struggling to figure out how that will affect the film, with studio head John Turturro (given a majority of the picture’s best lines) arriving on the scene like a domineering madman.

Filled with Hollywood in-jokes as Turturro’s character named Harvey seems on some level to be a nod to the controversial tactics and persona of former Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, an off-screen phone call from “Dino” (De Laurentis) about casting Hopkins in Hannibal 4 as long as the price is right and a joke about films being cheesy dreams that can find Huckleberry Finn fishing on the moon similar to the image used as the Dreamworks logo. In addition, Hopkins casts his wife and the film’s producer Stella Arroyave as Gina, the wife of his character Felix and soon the film morphs from an Altman styled Player satire of the film business into one concerned with the past and of how characters came to be where they are in the face of their own mortality.

While an indisputable vanity project and one that will have most viewers reaching for the eject button within the first half an hour, it’s still an artistically imaginative ride for those willing to participate and while it’s nowhere near as effective as the films its emulating such as Marienbad or as I began to feel, literature from Kafka or Calvino, it’s of particular interest to film students who appreciate the amount of work that goes into experimental filmmaking and even more, the amount of dedication and artistry from those involved. Instead of being Hopkins’s film all the way, in the end, the real star of Slipstream and the one responsible for a large majority of its moderate success as a valuable work is the courageous editor Michael Miller who not only respected Hopkins’ vision but also added a dazzling sense of style to the picture giving it a feeling of more depth at times than it actually deserves in the process.