Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

American Gangster

I wanted to really like this movie. It has Denzel, Russell Crowe, it's set in the early 1970's, and the soundtrack is terrific. Regretfully, I have to say, my review is mixed. [Unlike the IMDB review, which was favorable.]

We watched the director's cut, not the theatrical version. I always try to watch the director's cut, because I feel like usually they are better, but not always. In this case, having not seen the theatrical release, maybe it was better. It was certainly shorter, I can say.

Denzel and Crowe give their usual excellent performances.

The pacing, though, was off. There were too many scenes that just dragged on, and instead of heightening tension, the scenes made the film sag. A good film script is one in which, in each scene, you "Get in, make your point, and cut" as one of my writing teachers used to say.

Frank Lucas is inarguably a fascinating character. He was a Harlem drug dealer who purportedly shipped pure heroin from Asia in the coffins of dead American soldiers. He sold the heroin on the street with no middleman, and ticked off the Italian mafiosos in New York. He made millions. He got all his 5 brothers into the business. He also got arrested and went to prison, taking down a large number of corrupt cops at the same time.

His nemesis was Richie Roberts, a seemingly honest New York detective, who goes to school to be a lawyer. I didn't really need to see all the drama about his divorce. It didn't advance the story. He was such an unapologetic skirt chaser, it was hard to like him.

Lucas, however, was eminently likeable, for a lot of the film. The point at which he is shown to be a monster is when he shoots a man in the head, right on the street, then goes back into a diner to finish his lunch. His brother stare at him in horror.

I let the kids watch this movie with me, although it got an R rating. There were a couple of points when I had to fast forward thru a brief sex scene, but overall, I think it was good for them to see this. We had a lively discussion about drugs, and dealers, and how it is never OK to do drugs. I think a lot of parents shy away from discussing specifics. My kids speak English as a second language - I wanted them to know what things are called. I wanted them to see the graphic scenes of junkies dying from overdoses. I wanted them to see the brutality of that drug-infested world. I told them a junkie lives a tortured life.

Of course, my kids had alcoholic birthmothers. They know too well what addiction looks like, and how the people around addicts suffer. My son had a furrowed brow and looked much older when we discussed it. I wanted them to understand, though, that an addict starts off with complete innocence, and once they are hooked, then the drug controls them. They are sick, not bad people. I didn't hit that too hard, just mentioned it. (As one recent comment on my other blog reminded me, I need to be careful about not dissing the birth parents, and I try not to ever do that.)

Back to the movie. It was worth watching, particularly if you like gritty dramas. The performances were excellent. I just thought it needed to have been edited more effectively, and some subplots trimmed.

I looked up Lucas and read a bit about him yesterday. He was quite a colorful character. If you want to read more, Google him.

Richie Roberts is now a criminal defense attorney. Yikes.

Actors I Love

There are certain actors that I have learned to trust, over the years, to make interesting movies. Notice how I didn't say "good"? Some of the movies are not good. Sad, but true. However, these actors are always interesting to watch, even when the movies stink.

Here's my short list:
Steve Martin
Russell Crowe
Denzel Washington
Jody Foster

Probably my all-time favorite Steve Martin movie is Bowfinger . Why? Well, Bobby Bowfinger is a pathological liar, and let's just say he reminds me of an old boyfriend of mine. The movie skewers Hollyweird so thoroughly, and is so funny, I defy anyone with a brain cell not to laugh. Having worked a teeny bit in indie films, I can tell you those sorts of things happen there ALL the time - pilfering cameras, trying to look cool, getting footage that is only accidentally good. So true.

Russell Crowe I first got interested in when he made the film Viruosity. Here's the tagline: A virtual-reality serial killer manages to escape into the real world." I remember seeing the film and liking it, but I don't remember details, to be honest. I will need to order that from Netflix. It also stars Denzel, another wonderful actor to watch.

Now, unlike millions, I do NOT find Russell Crowe sexy. He looks like a movie actor version of Barney Rubble.He SHOULD have been in The Flintstones movie! Really! However, he has an indefinable magic that makes his characters appealing. I liked A Beautiful Mind - he embodied brilliance and hillbilly-ness together in one deeply warped package. Terrific movie - until I read the book and realized the movie was 85% fiction.But Whatever..

Denzel, OTOH, is brilliant and sexy. I would watch him read the phone book.I well remember seeing him a zillion years ago on TV, in The Wilma Rudolph Story, and thinking, He lights up the screen. I also watched every episode ever made of St. Elsewhere - back in the days when I watched TV.

I have the film American Gangster downstairs but haven't watched it yet. I will see it this weekend and write a review.

Jody Foster has been a favorite ever since she was a kid and I saw her in Freaky Friday - the original. I have seen all her movies since. One of her best - which few people saw - was a film called Stealing Home. It mixed a baseball metaphor with a slightly mentally ill young woman who is still a loving person. I could relate on many levels. That's one you should rent.

I liked her recently in Flight Plan, a thriller. However, I wish I could sit her down and say Honey, you need to gain about 10 lbs. When one gets older, one learns a sad truth: fat fills out wrinkles. I am 45. People are always amazed by that. Of course, I am way TOO fat, and I'd trade fat for a few wrinkles at this point, but there has to be a balance. A little fat on one's body, when you're over 40, looks better than the size 2 starvation-thin look. Jody needs to look a bit softer.

I asked some of my friends to send me their lists of folks they will watch in any movie. I got ONE response! Jeez. Nobody shares my passion for movies! This is from my friend John, who has been a close friend since 9th grade. Of course, his list is all female:

Angelina Jolie

Charlize Theron

Ashley Judd

Jodie Foster

I will periodicly update this list, because I have a nagging feeling there are actors I have left out.

Eastern Promises

I have to say, I was disappointed in "Eastern Promises." I had looked forward to seeing it.

We started watching this movie night before last and then stopped. When we stopped, my 16 year old daughter was outraged, wanting to keep on watching until the end. "I like this movie! I don't usually like the movies you get about Russians!" she protested. [Nevertheless, bedtime is between 9 and 9:30. Unlike her little brother, she gets the added bonus of me not fussing at her if she wants to stay up and read a while.]

Last night when the movie ended, however. I must confess I was irritated. More on that in a minute.

First, the title is annoying. "Eastern Promises"? Sounds like a geography textbook. Has nothing to do with London [where the fiml is set] or Russia.

Second, I was expecting a clever thriller, which is what a couple of reviews led me to believe that it was. Well, I guess if you're a moron it's suspenseful, but I was not wondering about anything, by the end. I was more fascinated by how the 3 main guys playing Russian mafia were doing with their Russian accents, since they were American, French, and German. In my view, Viggo Mortenson [the American] did the best job. The French guy "looked" more Russian, as my daughter said. I agreed. Viggo got the accent right, though. And there were a couple of scenes where he had a fair amount of dialogue, and it sounded utterly natural.

Naomi Watts played the young British midwife who delivered a baby of a young girl who had been kidnapped by the main mafia don. She was excellent, as always. She embues characters with a lot of depth, even when the roles are rather sketchily written. She was the best thing about the idiotic recent remake of King Kong, for instance. This part, however, didn't give her enough to do.

There were aggravating inconsistencies in the story. The Russians in the film are supposed to be trafficking in young Russian girls and using them as prostitutes against their will. How exactly all that worked was never clear. That's a fascinating part of the story. Instead of exploring it more, we got long scenes of sex and gore, like Viggo's character cutting the fingers off a corpse, or fighting thugs in a bath-house, naked. There's even one scene of him having rather realistic looking sex with one of the prostitutes. [I covered my son's eyes up for that one, and turned down the sound.] There was a lot of discussion of tattoos. I didn't really see the necessity for so much of that.

Maybe because I had just finished watching "Reds," my expectations were too high. This film didn't have the character development, the discussions about ideas, the cultural depth. I didn't realize until I was looking online earlier that it was directed by David Cronenberg, who directed The Fly. I liked that movie when it came out, years ago, but it was not serious.

Mother was irritated with me for letting the kids watch the movie. [She walked through the room at one point and bellowed "Why do you let them watch this stuff!" during the naked fight scene.] I probably wouldn't have let Michael watch if I had realized quote how graphic the sex and violence were going to be. However, the sad fact is that my kids are far less innocent than most kids their age. Orphanages are tough places. My son lived on the streets for a while before he got sent to the orphanage. So they have seen a lot. There's not much sheltering I can do. I don't allow horror movies in my house; I have to draw the line there.

I also have a pretty jaded, cynical view of Russian mafia. The violence and disregard for human life happen there [like everywhere] and Russians can seem menacing and brutal. However, in this film it almost felt like they were exploiting that cultural bias. I can hear the pitch now: "It's like The Godfather, but with the RUSSIAN mafia!"

I think it's very possible that someone less familiar with Russia and Russians might find this a fascinating movie. If you're also not real familiar with The Godfather trilogy, you might really like it. If you are, in fact, a moron, it will likely shock the socks off you.

I just didn't care for it much at all.

Reds

There have only been a few movies in my life that changed me. Reds is one of those films.

I remember seeing it in 1982 and the images staying in my head for days. Sondheim's score, the impeccable photography, the incredible period costume and prop details. It all formed its own cinematic little world.

When I got my first VCR, Reds was one of the first movies I bought, at a time when I wasn't making any money, and it was a sacrifice to buy the two tape set. I had to see it again.

For those of you who may not remember it, Reds is the story of Jack Reed, the American man who witnessed the Russian Revolution in 1918 and wrote the book Ten Days That Shook the World. He is the only American buried in the Kremlin. His wife was Louise Bryant, also a writer. They both touted communism, free love, votes for women, the labor union movement, etc.

In a world where movies have increasingly become more idiotic, Reds is a film about grownup ideas, not about blowing things up. It introduces so many ideas at once, that you have to think about them a long time afterwards, and come to your own conclusions.

I remember telling my father I had seen the movie, and he was aghast. "It's about communists, right?!" he sputtered. "Well, yes, but it's not PRO communist. It shows how the system was flawed, right from the beginning, and squelching personal freedoms was a terrible consequence of communism." He looked at me, still rather horrified that I was seeing such a subversive film.

I loaned my precious VCR copy of Reds to a friend a few years ago and he has never returned it. I should've listened to my grandmother who told me Never loan ANYTHING to Anybody! [She came from a fmaily of 12!] Now that the film is finally out on DVD, the 25th anniversary edition, I will be buying it one of these days.

When I got ready to show the film to my children yesterday, I spent some time talking to them, my 16 year old daughter, especially. My son, at 11, had a hard time watching it and following all the dialogue. [Of course, he has been home from Kazakhstan less than a year and his English is still a work in progress.] Alesia seemed able to grasp some of the points I was making, particularly in regard to Russia.

In the film, there are "witnesses" - elderly people who actually knew Jack Reed and Louise Bryant. Their interviews break up the film. I remember when I first saw it, I found the interruptions annoying. Now that I am older, I see how fascinating it is to mix the "truth" and the fiction. I put truth in quotes because so many of their stories differ, sometimes comically so.

Reds is a film of ideas and passions. I highly recommend it. If you want to read a more polished review, look here .

The Early Show

I became a movie nut mainly because when I was growing up, in the primitive 1970's, we did not have cable. We got two channels on our TV that came in clearly [NBC and CBS], and ABC came in fuzzy, at best.

I always did my homework at school, or in front of the TV. When I got home in the third grade, I got hooked on a soap opera - The Secret Storm. I became a fanatic. I had to see it. It was like my grandmother and The Edge of Night - I can still hear the ominous theme music - I HAD to have my soap every day! When my mother found out about this little addiction, she was appalled. She made me quit cold turkey. It was rough.

I went through a lof of Charles Chips potato chips and cookies to get over the withdrawal symptoms.

I discovered I didn't much like game shows, except $10,000 Pyramid and Hollywood Squares. Those were both on mid afternoon.

I discovered in 4th grade that one of our local TV stations had a show on at 4 every day called The Early Show. They showed old movies. I watched Elvis movies, Abbot and Costello, The Marx Brothers, Beach Blanket movies with Frankie and Annette, classic westerns, old Bette Davis films - everything. I don't recall ever turning on the movie and thinking "I don't want to watch that" and doing something banal, like playing outside. Nope, no matter how bad the movie was, or how obscure, I was there, lying on the floor, dangerously close to the huge console TV. I kept this habit all through middle school, and right up through high school, until I got my first job, the summer before my senior year.

I didn't realize until much later that this gave me a bizarre education.

I learned about the bible from watching The Ten Commandments, and Ben Hur. I learned about Vincent Van Gogh from an old movie with Kirk Douglas, Lust for Life. I learned about the Civil War from Gone With The Wind. And on and on.

Then I went to college. The first weekend I came home, I learned my parents were going through the Empty Nest Syndrome. My father had bought a VCR - a huge monstrosity, like a giant tape recorder. To keep my mother from griping about that extravagance, he bought her a brand new Amana Microwave oven [why did I hear the voice of the guy from The Price is Right as I typed that?!!]. My father borrowed a bunch of movies from a friend at work, and we watched movies all weekend - Gone With the Wind, South Pacific, etc. I don't remember all of them. I was ticked that he waited until I left home to buy a VCR!

However, what a thrill it was to watch a movie without commercials! Without going to a theatre! WOW! Today's generation cannot imagine the excitement of being able to do that.

My freshman year in college, I audited a course in Alfred Hitchcock movies. I had seen a lot of them already. It was fascinating. I learned that people actually STUDY movies, in a scholarly way, and throw around big words like "semiotics" and "mise en scene" and other obscure stuff. It was a whole other language.

It was right around this time that Mel Brooks came out with the movie High Anxiety, a great spoof of Hitchcock movies. If you've never seen that, get it, if you know anything about Hitchcock. I nearly wet my pants laughing the first time I saw that film.

The next year, I transferred to the University of Georgia, and majored in Drama. I was actually able to take film classes, for credit! More discussions of Serious Films. I learned something startling. I did NOT like most of the classic films - The Battleship Potemkin, Night for Day, Jules et Jim, The Rules of the Game, anything by Ingmar Berman. YUCKO! I had to drink a lot of coffee sometimes to stay awake in there. Just to be perverse, I wrote term papers about films I knew the professor thought were stupid, like On Golden Pond, and Ordinary People. He always had to grudgingly give me at least a B on the papers, because I could write well, but it galled him. He was a film snob.

The professor was also an indie filmmaker. He made a film that had a lot of shots of chickens pecking at corn, and then a violent chicken death scene. It was all allegorical. I was floored that anyone would actually give him money to make that film.

BTW - if you are a film scholar you never say "movie." How bourgeoise! How ignorant! No, you say "film" and "genre." It helped that I had studied French in High School and could pronounce everything correctly, even if I had a hard time with the concepts.

The only "serious" moviemaker I found that I really liked was Federico Fellini. His films had a sense of humor. The film Amarcord was a particular favorite. [It's full of nudity and NOT suitable for small children!]

At UGA, I joined the University Union Cinematic Arts Division, primarily because they brought all the movies to campus and I could have a say in what movies were brought in, and I could see them for FREE. What a deal. Saved my a lot of $$.

I was singlehandedly responsible for a fabulous weekend ever year called the Bad Film Festival. We brought in old films that were very very bad, but in a funny, campy way, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Glen or Glenda. We dressed up in bad 1950's costumes. All bad movies, all causing a lot of laughter.

Around this time I started my first annual Oscar Night Party. I invited everyone I knew and served potato chips and M&M's and other fancy party food, and we sat around and made fun of the tacky dresses and stupid production numbers, and drank a lot of cheap beer and wine. Good fun.

When I finished college, I kept my enthusiasm for movies, and went to the movies a lot - yeah you heard right, I saw MOVIES! I ate POPCORN! I actually sometimes LIKE movies in which a lot of things BLOW UP! I am not moved to tears by dead chickens.

When I got my first apartment, I actually inherited my father's VCR. He had bought a sleek new one that weighed less than 50 lbs. I got the old one and my grandmother's old TV. I thought I was COOL. I found I could check out movies at the public library near my office for $1 each. Sometimes I would watch movies all weekend, holed up with plenty of microwave popcorn, beer, and cigarettes. It took me a while to make friends after I moved back to Knoxvegas - all my school friends from high school were living elsewhere. And I didn't get out much.

After my first year of being a paralegal, I turned down my father's offer to send me to law school, and went back to college for an M.A. in Creative Writing. There was a magazine publisher in town I wanted to work for, and my Drama degree got me nowhere. Unfortunately, after I finished my master's, they still wouldn't hire me. I was bummed. [However, when the outfit closed down not long after I left Knoxville, I was glad I hadn't gotten a job there]. I wrote a lot of poetry. I should've majored in film studies, but the only thing to do then was either go to LA or get a Ph.D. and teach. Neither appealed to me.

Sometime in the mid 1990's, after I moved to Atlanta, I got my first used computer, [a 486! Wow!] and started writing screenplays. Really bad screenplays, with good stories. I wrote 3 full-length feature films, and joined the Atlanta Screenwriters Group. I actually was a finalist in the 2004 Perfect Pitch contest, pitching my screenplay The Theory of Hip Movement. It was about a neurotic single woman in her 30's who went through a lot of really bad dates before hooking up with Mr. Right. She was a baseball fanatic, and loved the music of Marvin Gaye. [Yeah, she was based on me, duh...]

All my screenplays are in a drawer and I would still love to see one of them produced one day, but I never got an agent and it's not something I'm actively pursuing right now. I find being a mama much more challenging and fun.

So now, the current phase of my film fanaticism. I watch 3-6 movies every week, 99% of the time with my kids. They are learning about American culture through the movies. We see old movies, new ones - everything except horror movies and what I consider Bad Movies [that's a whole other post]. Watching with my kids is great fun.

Writing about movies is one of my favorite things to do. Thanks for reading.

Movies I LOVE

I don't have much time to make this pretty, but just for fun, here is a list of movies I love. It's not comprehensive or in order, but these popped into my head first:

Bowfinger - Steve Martin plays a wily, conniving movie director - a great satire on Hollyweird

Leap of Faith - Steve Martin plays a wily, conniving traveling evangelist. Awesome gospel songs too!

The Green Mile - Sad and powerful story, allegorical and moving.

Shawshank Redemption - It's about hope. Beautiful story.

Braveheart -Mel with big hair and a skirt. Celts with blue faces. What's not to love?!

Being John Malkovich - Twisted little story, with Cameron Diaz as a frumpy lesbian. Never boring.

Harold and Maude - Classic story: young boy falls in love with senior citizen. Totally cool wardrobe, 1971 chic. Awesome Cat Stevens soundtrack.

Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story - Great true love story. Also powerful treatment of racism, faith, and skewer of Hollyweird.

Reds - Oldie but a goodie. Warren Beatty rocks as John Reed, the man who publicized the Russian Revolution.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - I still know every word to every song. When I die, my version of heaven will be to live in Truly Scrumptious' mansion. But I don't want her corsets. Yikes.

School of Rock - Jack Black teaches kids how to rock. It's his legacy for the ages, the definitive Jack Black.

The Color Purple - When I need a good cry, I have to watch it. Awesome music and cinematography, too. Only Spielberg could make rural life looks gorgeous.

Whale Rider - A little girl gives an amazing performance and we learn about the Maori tribe in New Zealand. Beautiful, magic film.

Field of Dreams - Another movie that makes me cry, every time. Watching Kevin Costner in his prime makes this one of my favorites, too.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - I love Ferris. He rocks. A timeless classic.

The Quiet Man - John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in one of the first films made on location - Ireland. A terrific story.

My Fair Lady - A sentimental Favorite of mine from childhood. I also love Hello Dolly and South Pacific - don't tell - it makes me sound really OLD. [OK, I am old. I just don't like to admit it. Then again, 45 is the new 25, without the tattoos...]

Murphy's Romance - Sally Field plays a plucky little horse keeper before anybody thought to whisper to them. Funny and endearing. A classic.

So analyze it and see if you want to keep reading. I can see the Enquirer headline now: Movies You Like Reveal Your Personality!