What if Superman were an asshole? Not only an asshole, but a drunk as well? I’m sure that was part of the pitch for Hancock, a lackluster entry into the summer blockbuster season. This film, though not incompetent (it looks as bright and shiny as most other films that revolve around vehicles being tossed about like toys) fails to work as an exciting superhero thriller, as well as a meditation on the nature of immortality, which seems to be have impressed some critics.

Will Smith is the title character, a boozing malcontent who lives in a trailer and quite often sleeps on city benches, hungover and pissed off. He helps out the citizens of Los Angeles, but inevitably does so much damage (he drops an SUV full of machine gun-toting thugs on to the spire of the Capital Records building) that people wonder whether his efforts are worth it.

When Hancock ends up saving the life of a PR guy, Jason Bateman, he is thanked with a home-cooked meal. Bateman’s wife, Charlize Theron is naturally suspicious of the effect of the dipsomaniacal Hancock on her young son, but Bateman smells an opportunity. All Hancock needs is good publicity.

Yes, the first half of this film is all about the exciting world of public relations. I hope all of you can handle the rollercoaster ride! Bateman convinces Hancock to voluntary allow himself to be incarcerated, and then when crime goes up the city will turn to him to rescue them. Sounds like a pretty half-baked plan, but this being a dumb summer movie, it works like a charm.

Then the film takes a sharp turn, and becomes something else entirely. I won’t spoil it, but even with the humdrum nature of the first half, this turn is not welcome and really it’s downright silly. The film has no internal logic and has rules that seem to exist simply to accommodate the story twists. I suppose the climax of the film is supposed to be some big emotional pay-off, but all I could manage was a yawn.

There’s lots of blame to go around. Primarily it’s the script, which has all sorts of holes in logic and no particular point of view. The direction, by Peter Berg, is in the Michael Bay school of shit blowing up, and like Michael Bay, has no subtlety, originality or individuality. And as for Will Smith, well, a lot of people find him charming, but I am not one of them. An actor of incredibly limited range, he’s not particularly convincing as a cretin in the first half, or particularly likeable when he’s supposed to have changed. I just didn’t care anything about his character.

The end of the film suggests a sequel is possible, depending on the audience reaction. To which I say, to use a Smith catch-phrase, “Aw, hell no!”

A slow week, with nothing I care much about, so despite some complaints, I’ll do alpha order again.

Diminished Capacity (trailer)
Director: Terry Kinney
Again with the Matthew Broderick. Why won’t this guy just stop already? This is the third low-budget film with him in it to open in the last couple months. So here’s my proposal to solve the problems with the indie glut: STOP PUTTING MATTHEW BRODERICK SHIT IN THEATRES!
MC/RT: 51/19

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (trailer)
Director: Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side)
Gibney’s other two feature docs were both meticulously researched, well assembled pieces of journalism. As such, I have a great deal of respect for his work. However, Hunter Thompson doesn’t seem like the ideal subject for a documentary; what’s there to offer that we don’t already know? I might go see this anyway, but the trailer seems to reinforce the perceptions of Thomspon that everyone already has.
MC/RT: 76/85

Hancock (trailer)
Director: Peter Berg (Very Bad Things, The Rundown, Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom)
I’ll probably see this, but it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm about it. Berg has emerged from the absolutely hateful Very Bad Things - one of my least favorite movies ever - to become a capable if underwhelming studio hand. I don’t expect this to suck as much as I just expect it to be … well, capable if underwhelming.
MC/RT: 49/36

Heartbeat Detector (trailer)
Director: Nicolas Klotz
From the IMDb: “A psychologist discovers troubling links between Nazism and modern-day big business.” Hmm, that actually sounds interesting. Starring Mathieu Amalric, from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
MC/RT: 68/76

The Mother of Tears (trailer)
Director: Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno, Trauma, The Card Player)
Latest from Dario Argento, whose work I am unfamiliar with and, I think, unlikely to really understand. I’ve never been big on the horror genre, and have little use for high levels of gore. I don’t mean to be dismissive if this is your thing; it’s just not really something that interests me a great deal.
MC/RT: 52/50

I was going to do a Top Ten for the year so far, but a funny thing happened when I tried to do this. While I was reviewing the eligible 2008 releases (43 so far), I couldn’t come up with even five movies that I felt deserving, much less ten. It has not been a very good year so far in terms of new releases. So instead, I want to touch on the highs and lows of the year so far, along with a mention of other titles that were noteworthy, if not necessarily deserving of Best Of status.

The best new release I’ve seen thus far is Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories. The film stars Michael Shannon as the oldest of three adult brothers whose father abandoned them years ago and began a new family, with four sons. The two sets of half-brothers grew up as bitter rivals, and emotions come to a head after the father dies. Shannon may be the most creepily intense actor in movies today; see William Friedkin’s Bug if you don’t believe me. Among the more interesting insights the film has to offer is that most of the characters seem to know full well that their actions are irrational and unproductive, but their hatred is self-sustaining and out of their control.

Incidentally, Shotgun Stories was released yesterday on DVD.

Another overlooked independent film is The Fall, directed by Tarsem. Already a film of legend before it opened, Tarsem spent years in production while filming all over the world, and relying on his own money for funding. The result is a spectacularly imaginitive film about a little girl who befriends a suicidal man in a hospital. He tells her stories about a mysterious masked bandit and his fight against an evil tyrant, and we see the stories come alive in her imagination.

If you’ve seen The Cell, also by Tarsem, you know he is an unparalleled visual artist. The Fall matches and perhaps exceeds the visuals in the earlier film, while thankfully stepping up the storytelling as well. It doesn’t have the depth of the somewhat similar Pan’s Labyrinth, but it’s a pleasure to watch and a good yarn in the best sense of the term.

The best major studio release so far has been, without question, Pixar’s WALL·E. Jackrabbit Slim wrote a review for this site, and my comments can be found in that thread. It’s not a perfect film, but Pixar’s consistent high level of creativity and quality - and in a genre that typically brings out the worst in studio instincts - can only qualify as miraculous at this point. 

Speaking of studios, a trend I’ve noticed this year is that the big summer releases are being drastically overrated. ‘Good’ is being turned into ‘great,’ and completely average films are being enthusiastically greeted. As examples, I offer up Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (review by Jackrabbit Slim), which earned a 79 Metacritic rating, and Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk (review by Jackrabbit Slim), which earned a 61 Metacritic rating. Both were serviceable entertainments, but little more than that, and the high volume of praise for both (near-unanimous in the case of Iron Man) puzzles me. I certainly allow that other people just feel differently than I do, and I also allow that both represent a big step up from the Roland Emmerich debacles of summers past. But I can’t help but believe that if these had been released several years ago, before terrible summer movies became a given, those ratings would be lower than they are now. I guess what I’m saying is that it feels like the world is grading on a curve.

On the other hand, maybe the world is just crazy, because the worst film I’ve seen this year is Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which scored a mind-numbing 65 on the Metacritic site. I reviewed the film for this site, and I think history is already on the way to vindicating me on this point, but the intial enthusiasm for this one reminded me of the initial response to The Phantom Menace. If anything, it’s even more unfounded in this case.

Another one I hated, but in a different way, was David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels. The film tracks two loosely intersecting stories, the first of a marriage on the rocks (featuring Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell), and the second of a high school romance (Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby). The storyline concerning the high schoolers didn’t bother me too much, but the Beckinsale-Rockwell storyline disgusted me with Green’s relentless insistence on stacking the deck against the Beckinsale character. In the course of the film, she has to deal with a cheap affair with a friend’s husband, the Rockwell character’s obvious mental illness, and the dramatically pointless death of her young daughter. That’s a lot to ask of an audience, and I felt that Green approaches all of this with a very heavy and manipulative hand. And it all leads to a Tragic Ending, which is one of the most cruel - to the characters and the audience - in recent memory.

Speaking of movies that are cruel to the audience, no year-in-review piece can be complete without a mention of the most polarizing film of the first six months, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (my review here). The film caused a minor earthquake upon its release in March (at least critically, if not in terms of box office) due to its relentless violence and seeming nihilism. I found value in it, though, and if nothing else it helps to illustrate the moral callousness of a film like Snow Angels, by emphasizing the inherent manipulativeness of onscreen violence.

Finally, a few honorable mentions, as it were - I didn’t like them enough to warrant a formal Best Of list, but they’re good films to seek out on DVD if you missed them. In no particular order:

Redbelt, David Mamet (review by Jackrabbit Slim)
Reprise, Joachim Trier
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Nicholas Stoller (review by Jackrabbit Slim)
The Visitor, Thomas McCarthy (review by Jackrabbit Slim)
Summer Palace, Lou Ye
Chop Shop, Ramin Bahrani
The Bank Job, Roger Donaldson
Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh (review by Jackrabbit Slim)

This is a few months old, but one of the funniest things that I’ve seen in a while: Improv Everywhere stages an impromptu musical at a Los Angeles area mall.

Love the cover of the new issue of Poets and Writers, in which Marilyn Monroe is seen reading Ulysses (and she’s made it all the way to the end, too! “I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”)

It would be easy to make wisecracks about the world’s most famous “dumb blonde” reading one of the world’s most difficult books, but Monroe did strive to educate herself, especially around the time she was married to Arthur Miller. Can’t vouch that she actually did read Ulysses all the way through, though.

I’m not a full member of the Marilyn Monroe cult. I think she’s certainly one of the best examples of a “movie star,” and she is an icon that represents all sorts of things. But I’m troubled about how many young women I’ve come across (including a lot of nude models and the like) who idolize her. The woman came to a very sad end, I would think she should be a cautionary tale, not someone to look up to.

When movies are based on a well-known TV series, the two criteria they have to fill out are whether they satisfy fans of the series and satisfy those who’ve never seen the TV series and accept it on its own terms.

In the case of ‘Get Smart’, as a major fan of the original TV series (which has had enduring appeal over the years in Australia) I was able to judge it on both counts. The TV series was a satirical spoof of the plethora of the spy movies of its era; it’s underlying premise concerned the ‘good guys’ at CONTROL led by bumbling agent Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams in the TV series, Steve Carell in the movie) and his faithful female sidekick Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon on TV, Anne Hathaway in the movie) attempting to stop the dastardly evil doings of KAOS. The film more or less recreates this basic plot structure, although in the detail there are significant differences.

On the positive side, GS is reasonably successful as a comedy. That’s in part to the script which while being no classic by any stretch, does have its moments of wit and at times generally carries the right light-hearted tone.

But its comic success is largely attributable to the central performance of Steve Carell; if he hadn’t worked the film would’ve been a disaster but he manages to salvage it with a dead-on performance. The descriptions I’ve read that he’s half-impersonating Adams and half-doing his own thing are pretty apt; he shows due reverence to the original character but does enough to make it his own and most importantly (like Adams) is able to create humour from very little by underplaying situations where most would overact. He’s a fine talent.

Also, one criticism of the film that I can’t really fathom is that Carell’s version of Maxwell Smart is more intelligent then Adams’ version. In an era where movie ‘heroes’ are so often obnoxious morons, I think it’s refreshing that the filmmakers didn’t go down the path of turning Max into a semi-Neanderthal.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag. Anne Hathaway and Dwayne Johnson are solid in their key supporting roles but Alan Arkin as the Chief doesn’t really hit the mark. David Koechner is as one-note as he’s been in every film I’ve seen him in and Terry Crews is prominently billed, but does absolutely nothing of note.

Whatever strengths the film has, I don’t think much credit can be taken by director Peter Segal. I’ve never been a fan of his work and only a few comic set pieces (a ‘dance off’ between Max and 99, Smart trying to eavesdrop on a conversation in a toilet, Smart trying to avoid laser beams) really hit the spot. But his great weaknesses are his uninteresting and incoherent handling of the action scenes and the misguided way he handles the plot. As fans of the TV series would know, the plots on the original would be full of absurd comedy and satirical elements but none of that is present here. Instead its treated in a far too serious and heavy-handed fashion (and isn’t that interesting to begin with); when the plot and action took over I lost interest.

And that misguided style filters down to the central villain, Siegfried. In the TV series he was played to the hilt by Bernie Kopell (who has a brief cameo here) as a comic buffoon. In this film, he’s played with boring earnestness by Terence Stamp (echoes of Malcolm McDowell’s endless array of ‘bad guy’ performances in recent years) and it falls completely flat.

Its this tone that prevents me from fully liking the film. I would’ve been able to forgive its patchy comedy if it had a likable, light and jaunty style like the series; instead it’s too often bombastic and excessive (as if it was justifying its budget) as is the case with so many modern-day mainstream Hollywood films. If they make a sequel (which it’s clearly set itself up for) then hopefully they use a better director.

Despite many opportunities being missed, this is marginally above average and better than I expected. And at least it’s better than ‘The Nude Bomb’.

It appears that Bryan Singer’s short tenure as Superman director might be nearing its’ end.

Writer Mark Millar (Wanted, Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming Kick Ass) reports that he and an unnamed A-list director are pitching a Superman reboot to Warner Brothers:

Source
“Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to reinvent Superman for the 21st century…I’ve been planning this my entire life. I’ve got my director and producer set up, and it’ll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think.”

Millar also discusses the news at his official site.  While he hopes that an announcement can be made by this Christmas, he also stresses that development is in it’s very early stages.  Regardless, it’s hard to imagine that Warner Brothers wouldn’t seriously look at the writer’s concept after Wanted’s opening weekend.

Obviously this isn’t terribly surprising.  Bryan Singer’s proposed sequel, which was originally scheduled for release in 2009, has seemingly stalled in the very early stages of development.  The last major news to break from the production was that Singer’s Superman Returns writers had been let go, with no replacements named to date.  Add in the fact that WB nearly greenlit a rival Superman-starring project this year (in the form of George Miller’s Justice League: Silly Subtitle I Can’t Remember) and it’s pretty clear that they’re exploring their options.

No word on who the director is at this point, although some believe it’s Wolfgang Peterson.  Peterson matches all the criteria laid out by Millar and had previously been developing a Batman vs. Superman feature earlier in the decade.

Also of note: Millar confirms that Superman Returns lost over 200 million dollars for the studio.

Because the last one got very long.

Predict the #1 film for the weekend of July 4-6 2008.

Remember, this means discounting the box-office grosses of Wednesday and Thursday.

Deadline is Tuesday 1th of July, at 6 pm (blog time).

For rules and updates on how the competition has fared so far, go to the main AGEBOC1-thread.

Current standings

filmman - 17p
Brian - 15p
James - 14p
Jeanine - 6p
Nick - 4p
Joe Webb - 4p
Jackrabbit Slim - 0p

Renowned comic book artist Alex Ross has designed a top-notch Obama for America t-shirt:

It’s currently available for purchase at Graphitti Design’s website.

Eddie Murphy to NBC/Universal’s Extra:

I have close to fifty movies and it’s like, why am I in the movies?” he said, adding, “I’ve done that part now. I’ll go back to the stage and do standup.

Previously: Greatest news of 2008?

Movieweb has an excerpt from an interview with Christopher Nolan and Gary Oldman on a panel for the upcoming The Dark Knight. Oldman was asked if he thought, considering Ledger’s death, whether the Joker might return. His response revealed not only his opinion on the matter, but also the potential identity of the next big Batman villain in the (inevitable) third film.

When asked if he thought they should recast Ledger for the third film, or just not include the character, Gary thought it was a good idea, “I don’t see why not. I mean, they did it with Katie Holmes’ character. I understand that this is a different circumstance, but I think another actor could do the job. I think Heath would want another actor to do the job.”

Oldman then took a moment to think about it some more, “Maybe we don’t need the Joker. Because we’ll have The Riddler.”

Sounds great to me. Nolan is basically taking all the really cool, non-superhuman, but still creepy, villains and hopefully clearing away all memory of the Schumacher Batmans. Even if I’m personally holding out hope for a demented, slightly Eastern European, arms-dealing Penguin.

Anyone have any casting suggestions?

Well, Pixar has done it again. The animation studio has, in this person’s view, had an amazing streak of quality films that appeal to both children and adults. I thought only one was a clunker, and that was Cars, and it hindsight it probably suffers in comparison to classics like The Incredibles and Toy Story 2 and is still better than most animated films. Now Pixar and director Andrew Stanton have given us a science-fiction love story that is also a cautionary tale about the environment and corporations run amok.

It is the year 2775. Earth is so choked with garbage that the human race has abandoned the planet. All that’s left are robots who compact the refuse into cubes and stack it. These are labeled WALL-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class. We only meet one of them, so I’m not sure if he is the only one, but he’s a lonely little mechanical fellow. His only friend is a cockroach (if you thought if was tough to make rats cuddly in Ratatouille, be amazed as you warm to this six-legged vermin). WALL-E has a personality, though, and likes to collect things that he finds among the junk. He has a de facto museum of humanity in his domicile, where he likes to watch a video of Hello, Dolly. In a way he’s the cinematic heir to the silent slapstick kings like Chaplin and Keaton, as he frequently is at physical odds with his surroundings.

Then one day he gets a visitor. Or rather, Earth does. It’s a sleek, ovoid-shaped robot with a feminine voice. After determining WALL-E is harmless, she doesn’t blast him to bits and eventually they communicate. She’s called Eve, and her directive is classified. WALL-E shows her his place and the lovestruck robot woos her, but once she finds he has a scraggly plant growing in a boot full of dirt, she zooms back to her point of origin.

Turns out she’s a probe from the “cruise liner” where mankind has been living for seven-hundred years. The suspiciously Wal-Mart like corporation that has taken over the world have taken on people in what was supposed to a five-year trip until the Earth was cleaned up, but things got a little behind schedule. Humans are now coddled so much they are grossly obese and don’t even walk, instead gliding around in hoverchairs and looking only at computer screens in front of their face. How procreation and elimination are handled are left to the imagination.

So it turns out that the plant is a very important thing, and the rest of the movie is spent with WALL-E and Eve trying to keep it safe. This is all suspenseful, funny and touching. Though the two robots have a very limited vocabulary (mostly they just say each other’s names) the relationship feels real. Legendary sound man Ben Burtt supplies the voice of WALL-E.

Of course there are all sorts of subtexts here. One is the environmental message, and it’s a bit daring for a Walt Disney picture to start off a kid’s animated film with a bleak vision of the future. Then there’s the slap at Wal-Mart, which is clearly the model for Buy ‘n’ Large, the superstore that has taken over the world (Fred Willard plays their CEO, and he’s not animated). Finally, there is the depiction of the overfed and infantilized humans. Some have seen this as an insult of middle-America of some sort, but this is op-ed bloviating. It only stands to reason that a civilization waited on hand and foot and discouraged from exercising would become this way, and it would be an all-around bad thing. Is that a shocking point of view?

It’s a given that the animation is brilliant. I was especially captivated by the details in WALL-E’s lair of the trinkets and gewgaws he’s collected, from a plastic spork to a Rubik’s Cube. As those of us who appreciate good cinema sit around and grouse about how movies are going to shit, driven by studios who just want to cater to the tastes of teenage boys, we can take comfort that in the arena of animation, Pixar has been churning out one classic after another, rivaling (and dare I say surpassing) the golden age of Disney.

Some reperatory news this week, the Facets Cinémathèque is running a series called Miloš Forman: The Formative Years. They’re running Competition, Black Peter, Loves of a Blonde, and The Fireman’s Ball. Unfortunately, I probably won’t get to the first two, and I’ve seen The Fireman’s Ball, but I’m really looking forward to Loves of a Blonde.

Also up this week is Otto Preminger’s Laura, which I haven’t seen, and one other special week-long run that’s listed below.

Alphabetically:

Brick Lane (trailer)
Director: Sarah Gavron
A young Bangladeshi woman emigrates to London for an arranged marriage. As is usually the case with these things, the trailer plays up the melodrama, making it look like a feature-length soap opera.
MC/RT: 60/62

Finding Amanda (trailer)
Director: Peter Tolan
Uh-oh, another Matthew Broderick sighting. Playing (according to the IMDb) “a television producer with a penchant for drinking and gambling … sent to Las Vegas.” There’s no way that can be good.
MC/RT: 56/37

Monsieur Verdoux
Director: Charles Chaplin (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator)
Chaplin’s 1947 thriller has gotten a new release. He stars as a man who marries rich women only to murder them, and originally was slated to be directed by Orson Welles before Chaplin had second thoughts. I’ve never completely warmed up to Chaplin’s Little Tramp, but I also haven’t seen any of his non-Tramp films, so I’m looking forward to this with very keen interest.
MC/RT: not listed/96

My Winnipeg (trailer)
Director: Guy Maddin (Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands, The Saddest Music in the World, Brand upon the Brain!)
I’ve not seen a Guy Maddin film before, though I don’t know why I missed The Saddest Music in the World; I remember seeing the trailer several times so it must have played in Dallas. Anyway, this is his recreation of his childhood in Winnipeg, hiring actors to play his family. You know what, just watch the trailer, no point in me trying to say what it’s about. Obviously a must-see.
MC/RT: 85/95

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (trailer)
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
The ads say it’s France’s answer to James Bond, although it’s in spoof form. It actually looks moderately amusing, but in a busy week like this one it will be hard to find time to see it.
MC/RT: 61/74

WALL-E (trailer)
Director: Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo)
Hooray! A Pixar movie. I’ve been trying to get a picture of the L trains that are decked out in Wall-E ads, because I think it’s cool, but have been unsuccessful thus far. If I happen to get one, I’ll share.
MC/RT: 91/98

Wanted (trailer)
Director: Timur Bekmambetov (Day Watch, Night Watch)
Oh man, someone gave the director of Night Watch a Hollywood film and Angelina Jolie. And judging by the trailer, he’s proceeded to make an obvious Matrix ripoff while using Angelina Jolie in the least imaginative way imaginable. Not sure I can take it.
MC/RT: 64/74

I think that’s nice.

Earlier this year, the trades reported that Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon were tossing around ideas for a fourth Bourne Identity picture. Both director and star immediately tossed water on the rumor, suggesting that talks were little more than exploratory and that we shouldn’t hold our collective breaths waiting for another sequel.

Well, either the guys were being coy or a fantastic script has fallen in their laps because Bourne Producer (and uncredited director) Frank Marshall tells IESB that he’s aiming to have the fourth picture in front of cameras next summer for a 2010 release.

Thoughts? Are they pushing their luck with another installment? Would you like to see them continue the series (ala Bond) indefinitely?

I found the first one bland and never fell in love with the second…yet I’d rank Ultimatum among the best action films of the last decade or two. As far as I’m concerned, these guys are just hitting their stride.

The trailer for the latest Guy Ritchie film, RocknRolla, is out “exclusively” over at Empire’s site. JS said in an earlier thread that he has trouble forgiving Peter Berg for Very Bad Things, well I have trouble forgiving Guy Ritchie for Revolver (I don’t even dare go near Swept Away). Worst piece of garbage I have ever seen. Seriously, I get ill just thinking about the film. I mean, Ray Liotta crying in speedos under neon lights. Yeah, the wastebasket is over there in the corner.

Still, this looks all right. It’s obviously Ritchie going back and doing a Lock, Stock… and Snatch carbon copy so he can get some kind of career back, and I’m fine with that. Those two were great fun. Besides it has Tom Wilkinson and Mark Strong in it, two of the best actors working today. This could be as bad as Revolver and I’d still be dutybound to see it because of that.

Also, Ludacris is now known as Chris Bridges.

Finally got around to delivering something I don’t feel absolutely ashamed with (now, anyway). Sorry for the wait, guys.

A few words of caution before the review

It’s perhaps best to mention that I have never written a script review before this one. I have read a few, understand the form, but am by no means a voracious script reader. I have certainly never written one. So if I am missing some particular aspect of this screenplay that one knowledgeable in screenwriting would see, then I apologize. If so, hopefully someone in the comments will point it out for me.

There will be what some might term spoilers in the review, but only if you lack basic historical knowledge. If you are unaware that Hitler survived all assassination attempts and died in a bunker in Berlin in the last weeks of World War II, then you first need to rent Der Untergang, then retake high school. I hate spoilers as much as the next guy (unless it’s to save me from some particularly idiotic film), but some things you ought to just know.

What is interesting in the story about the July 20 plot is not just what went wrong, but the character of the people behind the assassinations attempt(s), their reasons and their fates. I won’t talk about those things, though there’s plenty of historical data about it available around the net if you’re interested.

Still, I’ve added a summary, so that people who just want the gist from some unprofessional blogger can get that quickly. Scroll down to the end for that.

Basic details on the screenplay

Written by Christoper McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Nathan Alexander (former assistant to Mr McQuarrie). Draft is 116 pages long, dated January 8, 2007.

Review

The script has a terrific opening, beginning with this radio broadcast.

HITLER (V.O.)

My comrades. Once again - I don’t know how many times it has been now - an attempt has been made on my life. I speak to you tonight for two reasons. First, so that you can hear my voice and know that I am unhurt. And second, so that you may know the details of a crime without parallel in German history…

Right from the beginning the script makes clear that the attempt on Hitler’s life met with failure. It then flashes back to 1943 and introduces us to Major-General Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), standing by the side of a Russian airfield, waiting for Hitler to land, about to make another attempt on the Führer’s life.

These first ten minutes or so of the script are great. They show how Hitler had become a feared demi-god around this time, even around his own people and the atmosphere this bred in the corridors of even the highest command. Anyone could be dragged off to Gestapo and be shot for high treason.

McQuarrie has a style that makes for an easy and fun read. It’s quite cinematic already, pointers here and there. I don’t know how Bryan Singer will go about it, but the script is full of tense moments that I can’t wait to see how they’re handled. Sometimes they end in humor, sometimes in violence.

The plot can be divided into three acts; the set-up, the execution and the getaway. The set-up introduces us to the characters (click the picture below for a quick run-through. Sorry for my inexpert photoshop skills), mainly Colonel Stauffenberg and him joining the conspiracy.

They’ve assembled a hell of a cast, since aside from the ones pictured, we also have Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Fry, Thomas Kretschmann, Ian McNeice, Carice van Houten, Tom Hollander and Eddie Izzard. The occasional humor is quite dry and one of the best things about the film will likely be seeing all these awesome actors square off.

There’s all of them, and then there’s Tom Cruise. I’ve had my problems with Tom Cruise in the past, but I’ve also been a huge fan and this role actually reads like it was written for him. This could turn out to be both good and bad; good because it plays to his proven strengths, bad because it’s another alpha-male hero role.

Here Stauffenberg is given a more central role than he might actually have had. Operation Valkyrie was developed by General Olbricht (played by Bill Nighy), who is given somewhat short shrift here, being the one constantly warning of the dangers. Here the plan is suggested and basically forced forward by Stauffenberg.

OLBRICHT

We’ve already considered Valkyrie.
It isn’t suitable.

STAUFFENBERG

Not as it’s currently written.

Of course, I’m just going by Wikipedia. I’ve no doubt McQuarrie and Alexander have researched the hell out of the story and know what works better and why. Most of the things in the script appear to stick to what I’ve read of the historical record.

The above indirectly brings me to my main problem with the script, though. There’s a lot of declarations made by the characters. Big declarations. Speechifying to each other even, if you will. This too might be part of how they actually spoke at the time. These were men who believed themselves to be at the center of history, after all, and their actions could have an impact for generations to come afterwards (not that much of a presumption, really). “No one among us can complain about his death, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus. A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defense of his convictions” is one actual quote by Major-General Henning von Tresckow.

Some of the quotes are pretty sweet, and read well, but read the below and imagine it said by Tom Cruise.

STAUFFENBERG

But my pregnant wife, our four
children, the Germany I first swore
to defend… They demand that I be
something different. They demand
that I fight for their future even
if it means…

And for a moment his voice breaks and he chokes back
what may be tears.

STAUFFENBERG (CONT’D)

Even if it means that I never see
them again.

In that moment we see a side of Stauffenberg we were
starting to doubt existed. We see his humanity.

Like I said, this reads well but, and maybe it’s just me, I can see plenty of opportunity for awkwardness here. On the other hand, this is Bryan Singer’s responsibility, and I can also see Cruise hitting out of the park. Must say that seeing the trailer made me a bit wary, though.

After the first act, where the main players are introduced and the plan to assassinate Hitler is set in motion, the story gains a lot of speed. The script is at its best when it’s just a straightforward thriller. That half-hour or so after those first ten minutes, when the drama is set up and the characters introduced, is the slowest part and not the most intriguing, this despite a major battle scene being squeezed in there. This would be my guess as to why the studio didn’t go for the Academy Award qualification for the film this year. It’ll probably be a good thriller, but it’s not a great drama.

Which is too bad, really. The people behind the July 20 plot were fascinating people and deserve more exposition than they get here. Who knows how history would have looked if they had succeeded. And you can’t avoid the contemporary relevance of the story, where these men were willing to risk execution as traitors to get rid of a leader they saw was leading them towards disaster. But McQuarrie and Alexander have to choose between the film being more of a drama or a thriller, and they make the right choice, since as a thriller this succeeds admirably from the second hour onwards.

Summary

I enjoyed reading it. It’s more of a straightforward thriller than a drama, which would be the explanation I’d give for why they felt they could push up its release date to February 2009. While it’s very well made (it doesn’t deviate much from the historical record), with some some scenes that could turn out great, and an obviously relevant message today, it’s never given that great, sweeping, epic push. It’s characters are many - and it’ll be a joy to see some of the actors inhabit them - but their motives and thoughts are rarely discussed more than declaring “he must be stopped”. There are one or two scenes that try to give it some greater meaning, but they don’t feel like enough. This makes for a thriller that from its second hour onwards rarely stops in its tracks and will probably entertain once it’s out (particularly fans of historical thrillers), but not one likely to be nominated for Best Picture.

My main worry, though, is in some of the dialogue. There’s a lot of big declarations and “soundbite quotes” made by the characters, which sound good on the page, but might come off as too on-the-nose and obvious on screen. Many of these are made by Stauffenberg and Tom Cruise is, I’m sorry, not known for nuance.

Nonetheless, looking forward to seeing what Bryan Singer does with this. Should be a pretty good one.

Predict the #1 film for the weekend of June 27-29 2008.

Deadline is Tuesday 24th of June, at 6 pm (blog time).

Current standings

filmman - 17p
Brian - 15p
James - 12p
Nick - 4p
Joe Webb - 4p
Jeanine - 2p
Jackrabbit Slim - 0p

This is certainly the first Kazakh film I’ve ever seen, but it’s parentage is pretty complicated, as it a German-Kazakh-Mongolian-Russian film, filmed largely in Mongolia and China and directed and co-written by a Russian, Sergei Bodrov. It was nominated for the Foreign Language Film Oscar last year, and while I liked it a tick better than the winner, The Counterfeiters, it is vastly inferior to the snubbed Four Months, Three Weeks, and 2 Days.

Simply put, it is the story of the young Genghis Khan. For Westerners like me, who knew nothing about him, you’ll learn a lot, such as that Genghis Khan is not a name but a title (something like supreme ruler). As a boy he was called Temudgin, and was the son of a Khan of a small clan. When he was nine his father took him out to find a bride, and after picking out his favorite, who would be the love of his life, his father gets poisoned by enemies, leaving the young fellow at the mercy of his father’s rivals.

Over the next several years, he endures lots of tough times, being enslaved and imprisoned and falling in and out contact with Borte, his beautiful wife. Eventually he perserveres and defeats his enemies, and is poised to rule an empire that would encompass almost all of Asia. This is the first film in a projected trilogy, so I guess we’ll see that in the sequels.

The film is a somewhat quaint biographical epic that reminds one of Cecil B. DeMille (not David Lean–his stuff was far better). It has the sweep of DeMille, with hundreds of extras, but also the ham-fisted dialogue (early on we get the old chestnut, “I didn’t know that this day would change my life.”) We also get lots of battle scenes, with more blood than DeMille, in glorious arterial sprays, but also lots of shots of warriors falling off horses in slow motion.

There are also a lot of gaps in the story. I appreciate that Bodrov didn’t make this movie longer than it is, but there are some jumps that hurt the film. At one point Khan is at his lowest, in a jail cell. He escapes, and the next thing you know he has a huge army that is explained in one line of voiceover. Also, in the climactic battle he is outnumbered by his opponent, but says he will win through strategy. Unless he has contact with an early form of The Weather Channel, we never find out what that strategy is.

The heart of what is wrong with this film is the script. It plays like a History Channel documentary, without much shading. The most interesting character, and the best acted, is Khan’s blood brother, Sun Hong Lei, who gives an intriguing performance. Otherwise, it’s just hero is captured, hero escapes, hero builds army, and that goes through a few gyrations. I wonder if Shakespeare knew this story–he would have done something interesting with it.

If last year’s “The Pixar Story” was indeed a loveletter (as I stated in my review here) with full cooperation from Pixar, David Price’s new book The Pixar Touch seems like a soft unauthorized biography at times. It airs some dirty laundry of executives but never delves deep enough to cause too many ruffled feathers. 

The tale told is engrossing while the actual storytelling is sometimes maddening. Price unearths much new information (to the genearl public) but occasionally backs off just when you’d like to know more. His acknowledgements state that he was able to get interviews with current and former Pixar employees (and his notes are extensive) but the big players (Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter) are conspicuously absent. Indeed in the epilogue Price pats himself on the back while chastising Pixar’s internally produced “biography” (To Infinity and Beyond) for glaring over some significant details (calling it a “public relations version of the company’s history”) - however there are a few stories where he ends up doing just that himself.

There are clearly (to me anyway) 3 sections of the book: the personal biographies, Pixar’s wandering in the desert (i.e. - before Toy Story) and then movies. Price begins the book with mini-biographies of each of the people who helped make Pixar what it is today: Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. These biographies are a slow start but they lay adequate groundwork for things to come. The men are painted as geniuses in their field even at a time when there was no field (computer animation) to speak of. Ed Catmull was lucky enough to graduate from the top computer science program in the country (at Utah) and then move to New York to work for an extremely wealthy eccentric. When Catmull decided to go after the best and brightest in the burgeoning field of computer graphics he is able to get them with seemingly no problems. I’m certain there is a story here about how everyone who came to work for and with Ed just so happens to be the top drawer super genius, but the book with rare exception never delves into it.

Equally frustrating for me are the descriptions of how Pixar begins producing tangible products. We are just told that this rag-tag “fraternity of geeks” turned out the most amazing pieces of software and hardware that was unrivaled in its day yet never caught on. I’d like to know how they did it! Computers are my field, so how did they create one of the most advanced graphics computers using 1980s technology? How did the artists communicate with programmers and how did they write the graphic software that had never been done before? These points, which may not be interesting to all parties but certainly are to me, are glossed over with a sentence or two (”So then they came up with RenderMan,” etc…) and left me wanting.

Steve Jobs gets the standard treatment but the stories surrounding him yield the most startling revelations. If you’ve read anything about him you know that he’s something of a cantankerous visionary: he sees things that no one else sees, but if you disagree with him or try to get in his way he will shun you or seek to professionally bury you. He is certainly the savior of Pixar: buying the company from George Lucas for the paltry sum of 5 million dollars, sinking $50 million of his own money in over the next 9 years, taking the company public (one week after the release of “Toy Story”) to earn himself a cool 1.1 billion dollars, and ultimately closing the deal with Disney to become their single largest shareholder and a member of the board of directors. The path was not always so rosy, however. Price shows that while press releases showed Jobs’ undying optmism for what Pixar was doing he really wanted to sell the company in the early nineties. He thought he was buying a hardware company from Lucas and really wanted to bury Apple for ousting him. This point is made very clearly in the book: only Catmull, Lasseter and a few other people knew the goal of Pixar all along was to make the first (and continue making) 3-D computer animated movie.

When the hardware division failed to take off, Jobs saw potential in their artistry and took the company through the route of animating commercials and background effects for various movies. Though this was more “profitable” than the hardware business they were still bleeding money with no tourniquet in sight. In 1991 Pixar signed the deal with Disney to produce 5 animated features for them, but in 1993 production was shut down for four months (and almost for good) when Disney didn’t like how Toy Story was shaping up. It was at this point that Jobs decided to sell the company to try and regain his $50 million. This was shocking to me as I never knew there was ever a doubt in Steve’s mind. It certainly paints a harrowing picture of the two years before the release of Toy Story. However in 1994 Jobs pulls out of the selling mindset, does a complete 180, and never turns back. No explanation is given, and one may not be known, but it would be nice if Price had taken a shot at it.

I’m trying to stay above the details here so you can read the story for yourself if you want, but after moving forward with the final signoff from Disney in 1994, the company never looks back and neither does the book. It’s a breakneck pace of racing to get more movies in the production pipeline, renegotiating contracts with Disney, competing with rival studios (mainly Katzenberg’s Dreamworks), dealing with Jobs v. Eisner, and fighting off not one but TWO lawsuits against Monsters, Inc. The machinations and revisions that each movie goes through could be books entirely unto themselves. It really makes me want to watch the commentaries knowing the little bit more I do now about the environment in which each was created.

Obviously if you’re a fan of Pixar and would like to know how the company originated this is the book for you. Pixar wasn’t an idea cooked up by George Lucas and ILM; Steve Jobs didn’t always believe they could do it; and Disney wasn’t always happy (in the beginning) to be working with them. The book ends with a curiously abrupt epilogue and a final sentence that states John Lasseter may have directed his final film. Those kind of random facts with no explanation keep this book from being a 5-star affair, but until the full story is told by all the players, this is as far inside as the average Joe like me bound to get.

h/t: Cinematically Correct

Earlier in the week, Sienna Miller quietly announced (scooping the trades) that she’d be cast opposite Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s Notthingham.  Now the uber-sketchy Daily Mail reports that Crowe’s 3:10 to Yuma co-star, Christian Bale, has been offered the role of Robin Hood in the mega-budget picture.

They also report that Vanessa Redgrave, William Hurt (who just joined the cast of FX’s excellent Damages) and Saoirse Ronan are in final negotiations to co-star.

Rotten Tomatoes seems to be having trouble this morning, so the Metacritic ratings will have to suffice. Alphabetically:

Blind Mountain (trailer at official site)
Director: Li Yang (Blind Shaft)
A young woman tries to escape from a remote Chinese village after being kidnapped and sold as a bride.
MC/RT: 59

The Duchess of Langeais (trailer at IFC website)
Director: Jacques Rivette (L’Amour fou, Out 1: Spectre, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Va Savoir (Who Knows?))
Most recent film from French New Wave director Rivette, whose work I am completely unfamiliar with at this time. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times calls it “a nearly impeccable work of art,” so I should probably go see it.
MC/RT: 73

Get Smart (trailer)
Director: Peter Segal (Tommy Boy, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Anger Management, The Longest Yard)
No particular opinions on this one, other than it’s hard to see it being anything but average. It seems too light and harmless to be either really good or really bad.
MC/RT: 53

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (trailer)
Director: Patricia Rozema (When Night Is Falling, Mansfield Park)
Not having kids, I once again find myself out of the loop here, but sources tell me that the American Girl thing is huge with young girls. For my part, I have noticed that there’s an American Girl store in town, which judging by the storefront display, houses wax figures of the Children of the Damned. Anyhow, young girls are apparently impressed by prestige, because all of the marketing for this movie centers how it stars “American Award nominee” Abigail Breslin. As kids movies go, this one seems to have had some actual effort put into it.
MC/RT: 66

The Love Guru (trailer)
Director: Marco Schnabel
Looks absolutely dreadful. Then again, I’m not sure Mike Myers has been funny since the first Austin Powers. I saw that The Spy Who Shagged Me was on TV the other night, so I watched a few minutes of it. I remember it being decidedly inferior to the original but I found it unwatchable the other night.
MC/RT: 22

Mongol (trailer)
Director: Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains, Running Free, Nomad: The Warrior [co-director])
Kazakh film about Genghis Khan that was nominated this past year for an Academy Award for Foreign Film. I was skeptical, but reviews indicate that this may be pretty decent.
MC/RT: 75

Sangre de Mi Sangre (Blood of My Blood) (trailer)
Director: Christopher Zalla
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007 … before being retitled and shelved for a year and a half (by IFC Films). But hey, that could be a good thing! Right?
MC/RT: 51

Surfwise (trailer)
Director: Doug Pray (Hype!, Scratch)
Documentary about a nomadic family of surfers.
MC/RT: 71

Up the Yangtze (trailer)
Director: Yung Chang
Another film about the Three Gorges Dam, which is currently being constructed in China. I’m not complaining; it’s a great subject, and in fact feels like one of the major events of our times. This one is a documentary focused on a cruise ship on the Yangtze River. A must-see in my opinion.
MC/RT: 88