The Dregs of 2012: Rock of Ages and Savages

Last week I ripped into Snow White and the Huntsman, a paragon of Hollywood's brain dead blockbuster mentality. Well, that film's aggressive mediocrity suddenly seems refreshing. Courtesy of HBO, I viewed Rock of Ages and Savages this weekend, two excretions that redefine awful. If 2012 produced worse movies, please keep them to yourselves.

Rock of Ages (2012, Adam Shankman)

That Rock of Ages sucked was a given; musicals conceived on the same principle as KBox's '80s night don't leave much room for quality. But I wasn't prepared for how aggressively obnoxious it is. This movie spews venomous contempt for its audience, assuming nostalgists would flock to see Foreigner and Pat Benatar mangled by miscast stars. Thankfully, its poor box office proved it wrong.

Oklahoma ingenue Sherri Christian (Julianne Hough) arrives in Hollywood hoping to find music stardom. She lands a job at The Bourbon, a rock hotspot run by Dennis and Lonny (Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand), and falls for bar back Drew (Diego Boneta). Drew gets his big break opening for rocker Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise), but after Drew thinks Sherri slept with Stacee he dumps her, falling under the spell of cynical agent (Paul Giamatti). Sherri starts working as a stripper; Drew fronts a boy band. Somehow factoring in is Patricia Whitmore (Catherine Zeta-Jones), devoutly conservative wife of Los Angeles' Mayor (Bryan Cranston), who nurses a grudge against Stacee.

Rock of Ages is crassly cynical, an endless parade of '80s hits randomly assembled, plot and characters an afterthought. The shallow romance is crossed with inexplicable plot twists; Drew dumps Sherri over a misunderstanding, so of course Sherri becomes a pole dancer. Drew sells out in a painfully contrived arc, while Patricia's villainous machinations go nowhere and amount to nothing. The cast sings and dances well, but without characters to play it's for naught. Maybe onstage it's a blast; the movie's a torture session.

The songs are the main attraction, making their bizarre presentation all the more inexplicable. "Waiting for a Girl Like You" becomes a mawkish duet; Patricia performs "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" juxtaposed with her husband getting spanked (!!!); Sherri's boss (Mary J. Blige) uses "Anyway You Want It" to extoll the virtues of stripping; Stacee Jaxx belts outs "I Want To Know What Love Is" while boinking a Rolling Stone reporter (Malin Akerman). And can we please have a moratorium on "Don't Stop Believin'?" Journey's mawkish ballad sucked to begin with; Glee kicked it to death. Its presentation as a heartfelt love song makes a powerful purgative.

Julianne Hough (Footloose) and Diego Boneta are hopeless; Hough can at least sing, but neither can out-act an Old Navy mannequin. Tom Cruise received inexplicable praise for his extended cameo; he's his usual cocky twat, except drunk. Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand get the movie's one funny moment, coming out to "I Can't Fight This Feeling." Catherine Zeta-Jones is just awful, while Paul Giamatti, Mary J. Blige, Malin Akerman and Bryan Cranston flounder about haplessly. With this cast, Rock of Ages must have been fun to make; too bad that's not conveyed to the audience.

Savages (2012, Oliver Stone)

This brings us to Savages, the latest failure from Oliver Stone. Far removed from his Maestro of Excess days, Stone has produced 17 years of movies overwrought (Natural Born Killers), overreaching (Alexander), banal (World Trade Center) and baffling (W.). Here Stone injects a straight genre flick with overdoses of pretension and overbearing style. It isn't pretty.

A trio of Laguna Beach slackers run a lucrative marijuana business. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is a mentally-scarred Army veteran; Ben (Aaron Johnson) a stoner surfer; O (Blake Lively) is a rich girl who loves them both. Things get hairy when Mexican kingpin Lado (Benicio Del Torro) contacts them with an enticing offer. This leads to a series of double crosses, kidnapping and shootouts, with Lado's wife (Salma Hayek) and a crooked DEA Agent (John Travolta) further mucking things up.

Remember my reviews of Hanna and Prophecy, where I ragged on auteurs helming genre movies? Here's Exhibit C. Stone returns to the jerky photography and feverish editing that made JFK and Nixon unique, but it only makes Savages incoherent. It's a slack-witted collection of shootouts, decapitations and rape scenes posturing as character study. Our heroes are friendly drug dealers who just want to screw and, like, invent renewable energy and stuff. After a long, bloody denouement, there's a twist more insulting than "It was all a dream." What a brilliant head fake! Bertolt Brecht's got nothing on you, Oliver.

Don't worry, the brilliance isn't confined to the ending. Writers Stone, Shane Salerno and Don Winslow supply dialogue befitting a Steven Seagal flick. "I had orgasms," O narrates a love scene with Chon; "he had wargasms." Whoa. Even better: "Ben was basically Buddhist... Chon was basically a Baddist." That's deep, man. Deeper still are Stone's potshots at Wall Street and the War on Drugs, deeming America "a nation of whores." Apparently this parade of sadistic violence, inept photography and brain-dead plotting is a statement, Stone's Traffic maybe. Both feature drugs, oft-kilter colors and Benicio Del Torro, right?

Taylor Kitsch ruined his shot at stardom with three massive flops in 2012: between this, Battleship and John Carter, he's forfeited any goodwill from TV's Friday Night Lights. Good riddance, as he makes Julianne Hough look like Maggie Smith. Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) isn't much better; the talented Blake Lively (The Town) can't overcome the godawful script. Benicio Del Torro and Salma Hayek fare better, playing their villains this side of burlesque. John Travolta shows up long enough to ruin several scenes.

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What wonders does the 2013 summer movie season have in store? Stay tuned to find out!

Oliver Stone's Clown College

(This is semi-OT and may express political views. If you just read this blog for the movie reviews, come back this afternoon.)

Oliver Stone hasn't made a good movie in fifteen years, so it's not surprising he's desperate for attention. He has an upcoming documentary series in which he condescends to tell us about "the secret history of America," in which he posits his feverishly-paranoid, conspiracy-tinged worldview as an objective truth that has incredibly eluded trained historians.

It's not surprising that the thrust of Stone's documentary appears to be regurgitated Howard Zinn: that American history is an easily-decoded series of evils perpetrated by corporate America and the political elite on lower classes and other countries.

More disgusting than that is his comments on the likes of Hitler and Stalin, pretty much the only two people you'll get 95% of people to agree are evil.

"You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person youmay hate," Stone said during the show's trailer, which promised to put historical villains "in context."

Stone apparently knows nothing about how historians actually operate. The whole idea behind writing history is "putting things in context." You haven't stumbled across some mind-blowing secret, Oliver.

Of course, there's the question of what context he wishes to put them in, but we'll return to that.

Stone's comments regarding Hitler, the Holocaust and the "Jewish-controlled media" have drawn the most attention, earning the ire of people both left and right. I have little to say about this: it fits in perfectly with his plethora of other paranoid ramblings about corporate America and what he calls in Nixon "The Beast."

Stone tells us that:

"Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect."

You're right! The thousands of books on World War II and the Third Reich make no effort to explore the context of Hitler, why he came to power, why he launched the most destructive war in history and the world's largest genocide.

"He's not saying we're going to come out with a more positive view of Hitler," emphasized professor Peter Kuznick, the lead writer on the project. "But we're going to describe him as a historical phenomenon and not just somebody who appeared out of nowhere."

And who is this revelation going to startle? Certainly not William Shirer, Richard J. Evans, Ian Kershaw, Martin Gilbert, Allan Bullock, Joachim Fest and the many other reputable historians of the Second World War. Heck, anyone who's read a fair amount of Nazi and WWII-related literature is unlikely to find this shocking.

This is rank condescension. Nazi Germany is probably the most written-about phenomenon of the 20th Century, analyzed from pretty much all angles possible and scrutinized to death. That doesn't mean, of course a fresh perspective of it can't be found, but it is rather obnoxious, boneheaded and self-serving to claim that you are the first to look at the Nazis "in context." What else have historians been doing for the past seventy years?

Of course, Stone shows where his true interests lie with this JFK-flavored commentary on Barack Obama:

Stone also warned that the same military industrial complex forces that he's explored in movies such as "JFK" and in "Secret History," are now corrupting Barack Obama.

"You can understand why Obama is following in Bush's footsteps in Afghanistan," Stone said."Obama is very much trapped, we believe, in that system. And so that's what we're going to try and show you — the way it works."

More directly, consider:

We want to move beyond opinions … Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM.

So putting Hitler and Stalin "in context" means putting them in the context of a worldview that reflexively blames America for everything bad that has ever happened.

There is a grain of truth to this observation, but it's a gross, ideologically-driven oversimplification. It ignores the political and economic situation within Germany which enabled Hitler's rise to power, and effectively absolves Hitler of blame for his actions, not unlike Pat Buchanan. It's "The Beast," the American bogeyman, and perhaps even those pesky Jews who put Hitler in power, amirite?

"Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated."

What an ingenious observation. Someone ought to make a movie about that subject.

I'm not even sure what this means, anyway. "Just a man"? In the strictest definition, yes, but most men do not rise to control of a large nation-state and wage a genocidal war. "Could easily have been assassinated"? So could anyone.

It's not only Hitler who Stone feels gets an unfairly bad rap, but (less surprisingly) Joseph Stalin, who Stone calls

the man who “fought the German war machine” and hence as an individual who cannot be judged as “only ‘bad’ or ‘good.’”

Of course Stalin fought the Nazis, albeit after signing an alliance with Hitler and carving up Poland and Eastern Europe with him. Unless you're Luxembourg, that's what you do when a foreign army invades your country. He also instituted a horrendously tyrannical regime that ruthlessly slaughtered political dissidents, crushed all dissent, assassinated opponents perceived and real, subjugated Eastern Europe to Communist rule, and generally served the interests of Joseph Stalin.

His current apologists in Russia notwithstanding, it's hard to see how anyone could view Stalin in a good light.

Parenthetically, he also seems to claim that "Truman's decision to drop the Atomic bomb" is an "overlooked" part of American history, too - ignoring the ongoing, quite intense debate over its justification and righteousness among historians. But this is simple idiocy, not horribly offensive in and of itself.

Stone's comments don't compare favorably to right-wing nutjobs either. His comments about putting Hitler "in context" seem uncomfortably close to David Irving's coda to Hitler's War, in which he promises

to clean away the "years of grime and discoloration from the facade of a silent and forbidding monument" to reveal the real Hitler

Not to mention Pat Buchanan's recent book which blamed Churchill and Great Britain for the war and the Holocaust, more or less absolving Hitler of guilt - a book that I found myself dissecting in excrutiating depth for a class project.

Funny how the extremes converge on issues like this.

I'll make one final point before moving on:

Stone may have something resembling a point that the popular discouse of history, as opposed to its academic practice, is fairly simplified. Not everyone is a historian or even a history buff; pervasive, one-dimensional views of events and people exist anywhere someone doesn't care to look further into an issue.

The conclusion, however, is not that Hitler and Stalin have been unfairly portrayed; it is no fault of historians that Hitler and Stalin are demonized. These men were as close to objective evil as is possible. "Putting them in context" is what every historian seeks to do. Their approach may be flawed, faulty or biased, but this is a flaw inherent in human beings. Context can help explain why something happens, but it does not change essential facts. And taking things out of one context and putting them in another (as Stone is hinting he's done) is something else entirely.

And, dare I suggest, Stone is about the last person to lecture any historians on bias, honesty or "putting things in context." I would certainly trust a Richard Evans or Edvard Razinskii over a nutjob film director. And certainly you lose any high-ground by ranting about the "Jewish media."

Stone's films, or at least some of them, are great as historical fiction, but anyone taking them remotely seriously is doing themselves a disservice. And his posturing as an actual, real-life historian, instead of a purveyor of paranoia-charged cinematic phantasmagorias, is insulting.

JFK: Wrestling With Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) is both an unquestionably brilliant piece of filmmaking, and an unscrupulous, irresponsible distortion of historical fact. It is on the list with Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will and Battleship Potemkin as a key instance of "writing history with lightning" - a brilliant representation of historical fact through a willfully skewed, propagandistic and inaccurate lens. If the worldview Stone advocated were not so repulsive - and so influential - I would not bother addressing it. But in this case, the politics cannot be separated from the film, especially given the film's extraordinary influence on public perception of the assassination (with a staggering 75% people believing in some variant of conspiracy). As a work of fiction, and one man's take on history, JFK is a borderline masterpiece. As history, it's drek - and dangerous drek at that.

Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is the District Attorney of New Orleans who, like most Americans, is horrified by the assassination of John F. Kennedy and its chaotic aftermath. Several years later, Garrison begins an investigation into the assassination, honing in on New Orleans eccentric David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), flamboyant businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) and right-wing nut Guy Bannister (Ed Asner) - and their reported connection to assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), Oswald's assassin Jack Ruby (Brian Doyle-Murray), and officials even higher-up. Ultimately, the investigation snowballs, with the CIA, FBI, Mafia, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyndon Johnson, American big business, the Dallas PD, the Secret Service, right-wing nutjobs, anti-Castro Cubans, and of course "military-industrial complex" all involved in Garrison's view of events. While striving for the truth, Garrison suffers estrangement from his wife (Sissy Spacek) and kids, the dissent of his colleague Bill Brauchard (Michael Rooker), the loss of witnesses, and harrassment and discrediting by the government and media - but the DA will not stop until the truth is brought to light.

It would be futile to address the film's specific inaccuracies; websites have done point-by-point debunkings of the film's claims, and they have more time and patience than I. In any event, Stone throws out information so fast that one cannot absorb it, let alone formulate a counterargument, let alone notice the various discrepancies in what's actually being said. For just one example, the portrayal of Oswald is all over the place; depending on the scene he's a CIA spook, a KGB plant, an FBI informant, an innocent patsy - or all of the above. (More amusing is a moment where Garrison and an aide test-fire a rifle, claiming it can't be fired in 5.6 seconds, only to do so in less time!) But with the film's machine gun pace, spewing out dozens of "factoids" a minute, it's impossible to digest such discrepanices; it all adds up to a palpable atmosphere of dread and paranoia, with little basis besides strident rhetoric and unanswered questions.

Through his brilliant direction, striking editing, starkly accusatory words (from ostensibly authoritative sources), and John Williams' foreboding score, Stone leaves an indelible impression of menace - that something is wrong, the conspiracy is out there and very dangerous, and that everything we are told about America is a lie. However, upon rational consideration, Stone undermines his own argument by swallowing every bit of conspiracy lore out there, from the vaguely plausible to the completely outlandish, implicating more or less everyone on Earth (except perhaps the Mafia, whose involvement Stone strangely discounts). Stone tries to argue that who the conspirators actually were is not important, but that the motive is - a fallacy, as any number of people have motive to kill any President. If you accept that a conspiracy has infinite capacity to kill the President, cover it up for decades, silence witnesses, etc., then I suppose there's no arguing with you; but I would hope most rational people would conclude that with the available evidence pointing irrevocably in the direction of Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt, only one conclusion could be drawn.

I do not mind Stone's expressing an opinion at all, as I hope my glowing review of Nixon illustrates. But that movie made it clear it was a work of speculative fiction. Passing a film based on such wild, unproven (and I would argue unprovable) speculation off as fact, however, is something else entirely - particularly when easily provable distortions are part of the argument. Whether an artist is responsible for its work's affects is a dicey issue, but with the vast majority of Americans still believing in conspiracy, Stone cannot be exonerrated either. If a similarly striking and well-made film were made about Holocaust denial - the heroic Otto Ernst Remer or Wolf Rudiger Hess fighting an all-encompassing Zionist conspiracy, perhaps - it would be condemned as vile propaganda, and rightfully so. Where is the line between entertainment and misinformation drawn?

The movie's worldview is, to my eyes at least, toxic. Jim Garrison was a crackpot with questionable scruples and probable Mob connections; his lunatic ramblings and persecution of Shaw dealt the conspiracy community a blow it took decades to recover from. Here he's an all-American, righteous, Capra-esque hero standing up against the evil Powers That Be. The film's hagiographic portrayal of John F. Kennedy as a ultra-liberal saint is dubious at best, ignoring his stance as a hardened Cold Warrior, his standoff-ish view of Civil Rights, and completely exonerrates him of responsibility for the Vietnam debacle. The CIA is yet again portrayed as an autonomous, self-governing body with its own policy (a notion further advanced in Nixon). More nauseating is the portrayal of Lee Harvey Oswald as a basically good guy caught in a conspiracy beyond his understanding. And the film's overall stance that the US government and establishment is inherently evil and destructive is most repugnant of all, fomenting distrust of the government based on lies and disinformation.

Can we leave all that aside though? Can we look at the film not as an historical document, but as a piece of entertainment? It's very difficult, but for the sake of fairness, we will try. For certainly, all its errors and dubious morality aside, the film is nothing if not engrossing and entertaining.

To focus on what the film does well, is in its conveyance of atmosphere - its feeling of dread and paranoia is palpable and borderline disturbing. The movie does better in the early sections where small discrepancies and odd moments are subtly dropped into frame, ultimately festering into doubt and uncertainty, rather than the later scenes where x-character bombards the viewer with information too fast to follow. The first ten minutes, as Garrison and his co-workers watch the assassination unfold on TV, is a striking, completely real scene that sets the film's desperate tone well. The movie certainly has its share of striking setpieces - particularly, Garrison's account of Oswald's final day, a striking and power bit of cinematic art, however inaccurate. If viewed as a thriller, a crime film, a work of entertainment, JFK is a masterpiece.

As mentioned above, the film unquestionably excells on a technical level. The editing is what sells the film above all else; Stone and editors Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia seamlessly integrate archival footage, including the infamous Zapruder Film and various newsreels and TV broadcasts, with new footage, some of shot in handheld and black-and-white for "authenticity". John Williams' dark, menacing score adds incalcuably to the proceedings, underscoring every scene with a tone of dread and foreboding. As a work of art, it's unquestionably brilliant, aside from a few overlong sequences (namely the final trial, which seems to go on about ten-fifteen minutes too long) slickly paced and thoroughly engrossing. There can be no question that Oliver Stone is (or was, based on his recent output) an extremely talented filmmaker.

For the most part, the all-star cast is excellent. Kevin Costner is perfectly cast as the film's portrayal of Garrison as a straight-arrowed truth seeker, not unlike Eliot Ness in The Untouchables; whatever the ridiculousness of his arguments, Costner is the man to make them convincing. Sissy Spacek is given a thankless indignant wife role, but she and Costner do have nice chemistry. Tommy Lee Jones plays Shaw as an obnoxious gay stereotype; Joe Pesci's colorful Ferrie and Kevin Bacon's gigolo Willie O'Keefe come off better. Donald Sutherland steals the show with a 15-minute sequence laying out the "background" of the conspiracy. Michael Rooker, Laurie Metcalfe, Jay O. Sanders and Wayne Knight provide bench support as Garrison's team. Gary Oldman has disappointingly little screen time as Oswald, but shines with what he has. Cameos by Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Candy, Ed Asner and Brian Doyle-Murray all make an impression.

Two viewings of JFK may not be enough to draw a proper bead on it. I recommend it as a film, certainly; it's entertaining, powerful, and technically brilliant, and certainly succeeds at what it sets out to do. To what extent can the film's paranoia and misinformation be excused, however? I leave this for the reader (and viewer) to decide.

Conan the Barbarian

I finally got around to watching Conan the Barbarian (1982), another John Milius epic, but one of distinctly lesser quality than the previous Milius efforts reviewed for this blog. The movie has a certain amount of undeniable camp appeal, especially for fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it's not really a good movie, however many incredulous guffaws it garners.

Loosely based on the Robert E. Howard comic strip, the film tells the story of Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger at his buffest), who witnesses his parents being killed by Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), the fierce leader of a murderous snake cult somewhere in Asia. After growing up as a slave, Conan continues to entertain thoughts of revenge, and strikes out on a quest for righteous vengeance. Together with a Mongol warrior (Gerry Lopez), a cowardly wizard (Mako) and a beautiful Amazon warrior (Sandahl Bergman), Conan seeks to defeat Doom, avenge his father, and establish himself as ruler.

John Milius's work as a director has tended to awkwardly balance the sublime and the ridiculous, the goofy and the thoughtful, with mixed results. The Wind and the Lion, despite its flaws, is undoubtedly Milius's best work, and a truly great adventure film; Dillinger, Red Dawn and Rough Riders are all good enough films that flirt with greatness but don't quite achieve it. Here, Milius and screenwriter Oliver Stone opt for all out goofiness (with a brief but childish grasp at Nietzschean ideas), and the result is a sight to behold. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly good sight, all things considered.

The film's flaws are myriad. The movie's story, for a start, is all over the place, with all sorts of bizarre digressions that make the plot impossible to follow. The characters are broadly drawn and ridiculous, which isn't a huge flaw given the source material and subject matter. The tone is largely uneven, yet its serious moments are undermined by the overwhelming, pervasive cheesiness throughout (how seriously can you take a film about men transforming into giant snakes and Arnold punching camels in the face?). The dialogue is off-the-wall bad, making the Billy Jack movies look like screenwriting idols. The film's goofy nature is almost certainly intentional, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. If it's intentionally campy, it's still not overly entertaining. Some may find the camp goofiness more palatable, but for me it wasn't the type of camp I could really enjoy.

Milius's direction is pretty rote: he again shows a flare for action scenes and does a decent job with his cast, but the film lacks the visual interest of his better films and seems pretty paint-by-numbers in a technical manner. The movie does have some interesting movie buff moments; the story seems a curious blend of The Searchers and Milius's own Apocalypse Now script, and the film uses many familiar Almerian locations from various Spaghetti Westerns and The Wind and the Lion, but really these are of but passing interest.

Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved instant mega-stardom in his role, and while it's not his worst performance, he manages to be absolutely ridiculous. His hulking muscles don't hide a dearth of acting talent, and Arnold's facial expressions and thick-as-pancake-batter accent provide some moments of ridiculous camp humor. To Milius's credit, though, Ahnuld is supported by a coterie of very talented supporting actors: James Earl Jones gives a strong performance as Thulsa Doom, much better than the silly material deserves, and veteran character actors Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist), Mako (The Sand Pebbles) and William Smith (Red Dawn) turn in fine performances as well.

Conan the Barbarian is an utterly silly romp, and not in the good sense. It's entertaining in its own way, I suppose, and more generous reviewers may be inclined to rate it higher; it's not exactly trying to be Citizen Kane, after all. But for me, it's not worth much as a film or as entertainment, and I can't give it really high marks, merely a quizzical headshake and a befuddled utterance of "Dude..."

Scarface

It's been awhile since I've actually sat down and reviewed a movie, so today we'll take a look at Brian De Palma's Scarface (1982), a film I've long put off seeing but finally got around to today.

During the late '70s, Fidel Castro empties the Cuban jails of political undesirables and criminals, leading a short-lived exodus of immigrants to the United States. One such man is Tony Montana (Al Pacino), a former soldier and petty crook who arrives in America with little hope for the future. Along with his partner Manny (Steven Bauer), Tony finds work as a minor thug for Miami drug lord Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) and quickly ascends the ranks after killing a number of Lopez's rivals. However, Tony's ruthless ambition and eye for Frank's girlfriend Elvira (Michelle Pfeifer) land him in trouble with his boss - but Tony kills Lopez and ascends to the top, becoming one of America's biggest drug lords. However, investigations by the Feds, marital problems with Elvira, his possessive relationship with sister Gina (Mary Stuart Mastrantonio), an escalating cocaine addiction and his general paranoia make him a vulnerable target for his rivals - especially after he refuses to carry out a job for rival mobster Sosa (Paul Shenar).

Scarface revels in its excess. For a film directed by Brian De Palma, starring Al Pacino and written by Oliver Stone, one should not expect a subtle film. It's entertaining enough on its own glossy terms, but it lacks the richness, nuance and depth of truly great Mob films like The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in America and Casino, sacrificing depth for surface flair. That's not to say it's not without merits; indeed, it's a very good film provided of course one isn't expecting a Shakespearean masterpiece.

Nominally a remake of the fine 1932 Howard Hawks film with Paul Muni, Scarface maintains only a shred of the narrative and character development and forges its own story, for better and worse. Its narrative is episodic and rather sloppy; aside from its larger than life lead, the cast is made up largely of ciphers with little depth. Not that it matters much, as the film is designed as a complete triumph of style over substance, and mostly succeeds in that way. Few people going into the film are going to be looking for a strong story anyway, least of all the rappers and gang-bangers who seem to have adopted the film as their own.

Tony Montana is an operatic character writ impossibly large. Like all movie gangsters, his rise to power is a perversion of the American Dream, an immigrant finding success through power. This hoary old stereotype has been presented in every film from Little Caesar onward, so there's little new in this. Watching his downfall, however, is perversely fascinating, as in the best Mob films. Ensconced in a mansion, hiding behind piles of money and coke, he alienates his wife, his friends and family, even his business partners. The film wisely doesn't try to romanticize Tony or humanize him to an unreasonable degree; his relationship with his sister and mother (Miriam Colon) serves only to highlight what a slimy ass he is; his rotten marriage is completely empty, making Michael Corleone look like an ideal husband; he ends up killing several of his friends, henchmen and business partners. Tony is a dangerous combination of impulsive, violent, ambitious, and egomaniacal. He thinks he has the world coming to him, and no one or nothing is going to stand in his way.

De Palma provides the film with suitably larger-than-life direction. He lets the bullets and blood fly, with the body count reaching monumental proportions. He shows off his film-buffery a few times, with a tracking shot during a murder reminiscent of Frenzy and a character claiming to have worked on Pontecorvo's Burn! , but mostly its all De Palma, sloppy, high-octane but viscerally intriguing - like Tarantino without the grace and control (and not as well-focused, it would seem, as screenwriter Stone's own excess). This movie's famous final shootout with a rival gang's hit squad is a bit too over-the-top, even for me, making The Wild Bunch's fabled finale look like a friendly picnic. Still, within the context of the film - and considering the character who is its center - it's the only appropriate ending. His direction on The Untouchables a few years later would be much more restrained and classy if no less stylish.

Al Pacino makes the film with a bravura performance of record-setting scenery-chewing. He plays Tony broadly over-the-top, as a consummate actor, concerned only with self-gratification and - as if trying to convince the other characters of his righteousness. It's hard to criticize Pacino's turn as over-the-top because that's exactly what the character demands. The rest of the cast is mostly non-descript: talented actors like Robert Loggia, Michelle Pfeifer, Mary Stuart Mastrantonio, Harris Yulin and F. Murray Abraham are all given fairly minor parts, completely overshadowed by Pacino. This isn't inherently a bad thing but it robs the film of well-rounded depth; it's essentially a one-man show, but fortunately focused on a man powerful enough to carry the film on his shoulders.

Scarface is a sprawling, ambitious film, a comic-book version of The Godfather that almost elevates blood-soaked pulp into cinematic art. It succeeds as a piece of entertainment, but it doesn't quite reach the top tier of gangster flicks. That said, it's still one hell of a ride - a mess, but a fascinating mess.

Rating: 7/10 - Recommended

Nixon

Sick of being let down by Stanley Kubrick, I return to Oliver Stone - the good, old, coked-to-the-gills, conspiracy-paranoid Oliver Stone, not the lowsy, lazy Pod Oliver Stone that has taken his place in the last decade or so. Today's viewing was of the Director's Cut his 1995 epic Nixon, an epic which surpasses even his JFK as a brilliant piece of cinematic polemic and intelligent entertainment. The point is not historical accuracy, but of being entertaining, understanding the feel of a time period and important event, and making a point; and on all of these counts, Nixon is a masterpiece.

The film tells the story of Richard Nixon (Anthony Hopkins), the disgraced 37th President of the United States. The film briefly deals with his background as the son of Quaker parents (Mary Steenburgen and Tom Bower), his family tragedies, and his meteoric rise through Congress and to national prominence with the Alger Hiss case, his service as Vice President to Dwight Eisenhower, and his unsuccessful 1960 Presidential bid against John F. Kennedy. The film primarily focuses on the Watergate scandal and the inherent fall out: with Nixon seemingly on top of the world, having effectively ended the Vietnam War, negotiated peace with China and Russia, and been re-elected in a landslide, he is ultimately brought down by a "third-rate burglary", along with his own hubris, paranoia and conceit.

Nixon is clearly modelled heavily on Citizen Kane, with several overt references to the film (eg. Nixon and wife Pat (Joan Allen)'s frosty dinner across the table). While it may be sacrilege to say so, however, Stone arguably surpasses Orson Welles' film in its depiction of a doomed, extremely successful man whose insatiable lust for power, personal gratification, and "love on my own terms" ultimatley destroys him. At 212 minutes, the film is a bit long in the tooth, but it's never less than interesting and almost always engaging.

The film's portrayal of Nixon is wonderfully layered and fascinating, structured like a five act tragedy. The key scene where he is confronted by a group of anti-war protestors at the Lincoln Memorial showcases Nixon's shortcomings. He is not a born politician like JFK (or his idols Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt); the "old Nixon charm" only seems visible on a personal level, and he has no ability as a man of the people, despite desperately craving their approval. The scene where he asks Henry Kissinger (Paul Sorvino) to pray with him before resigning is heartbreaking; he simply cannot see why he has been brought down, or his own culpability in that fact. Given Stone's obvious repulsion for Nixon's politics and actions, he succeeds wonderfully in a layered and sympathetic portrayal of man widely considered one of American history's greatest monsters. Stone easily could have portrayed Nixon as an evil man, but he simply refuses to do so. Nixon's fatal flaw is hubris, a need to be loved, and a growing paranoia that consumes him, driving away all of his family, friends and supporters at the time when he needs them most. As many of his colleagues note, he could have been a truly great man; ultimately, Nixon is the only thing standing in his way.

In hindsight, it's really obvious that Stone attempted to replicate this formula with his recent W, but for a variety of reasons that film was complete garbage, whether it be the ridiculously cartoonish caricatures, the lack of historical hindsight, the schizophrenic portrayal of its protagonist, or simply an exhausted directoral talent running on fumes and reputation. To use a cinematic analogy, comparing W to Nixon is like comparing Torn Curtain to Shadow of a Doubt (or Gerald Ford to Theodore Roosevelt).

As expected, Stone's film is technically flawless. His brilliant use of editing, of mixing various video types and cinematic techniques (be it regular film, video, or black-and-white), and heavy use of montage arguably betters any of his previous work; it's smooth, polished and is perfectly integrated into the material. Robert Richardson's cinematogaphy is absolutely brilliant throughout, using light, shadow and expressionistic angles to highlight the inner darkness of Nixon's character and his downfall. John Williams provides a moody, subtle score that underscores the tragedy and tension throughout the film. As in JFK, Stone uses every cinematic tool at his disposal to create a truly memorable experience. It may not get the details or the facts right, but it certainly seems and feels authentic.

Of course, Stone can't always keep his excesses in check. The scenes with Bob Hoskins as a mincing J. Edgar Hoover (wearing a bathrobe, eating fruit and flirting with a handsome servant) recall the equally homophobic orgy sequence in JFK (not to mention the much-later Alexander), and the scene where he denounces Martin Luther King to the consternation of a race horse is just laughable. Equally hamfisted and obnoxious are scenes where Leonid Brezhnev (Boris Sichkin) ponders Nixon's fate behind his back, Nixon's dream sequence where he's confronted by his disapproving Mother (a scene recycled almost verbatim in W), his praise for Nazi Germany's effectiveness in dealing with dissent, and cutting into a bloody steak while discussing the Kent State shootings. However, Stone has never been known for subtlety, and given the overall quality of the work, these heavy-handed touches are but minor flaws.

Anthony Hopkins is truly a marvel as Nixon. At first glance, he seems absolutely wrong for the part; he bears only a passing resemblance to his character, and his attempt at replicating the Nixon drawl mixes oddly with Hopkins' native Welsh to form a warped quasi-Irish brogue. However, Hopkins overcomes these shortcomings very quickly; he simply immerses himself I may still prefer Frank Langella's more recent turn in Frost/Nixon for what it was, but Hopkins hits the role completely out of the park, rivetting the audience to the screen for the whole of the film's 212-minute length, recreating all the facets of a haunted man who, deep down, just wanted to be something he never was - a loved, popular and happy person.

Stone again musters a wonderful ensemble cast. Stand-outs include Joan Allen as the devoted but increasingly frustrated Pat Nixon (probably the strongest female character in any Stone film), James Woods and J.T. Walsh as Nixon's most loyal aides, David Hyde Pierce as the naive White Counsel John Dean, Sam Waterston as the obnoxious CIA Director Helms, and Paul Sorvino as a frighteningly authentic Henry Kissinger. There's also nice work in smaller roles, with Tom Bower and Mary Steenburgen as Nixon's parents, Larry Hagman as one of Nixon's shady political benefactors, and a young Annabeth Gish has a heartbreaking big scene as Nixon's devoted daughter Julie. Some actors inevitably get left in the dust: Ed Harris has maybe three or four quick scenes as Howard Hunt, Powers Boothe is given a colorless role as Alexander Haig, and Bob Hoskins never rises above caricature. But as a whole, Stone handles this fine cast wonderfully.

Nixon is perhaps Oliver Stone's finest achievement, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, it's really sad to ponder how far he's fallen in recent years. Certainly after watching the God-awful sub-SNL caricature piece that is W and the aggressively mediocre Alexander and World Trade Center, it's easy to forget Stone's earlier achievements. But at least he had a time, when making JFK and Platoon (among others), that Stone was a truly great and important director, and Nixon shows an A-list talent at the top of his game.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation

Platoon

Wow.

On Saturday, I reviewed W, which I'm sure most of the three of you are already aware of, and that movie sucked the high hard one. On Tuesday, I returned to the world of early Oliver Stone - you know, back when he had talent and promise and wasn't just coasting on his reputation as an enfant terrible - with Platoon, which turned out to be an absolute materpiece. Watching those two movies within three days of one another provides an amazing example of the gulf of quality between early Stone and the hack zombie trudging around Hollywood today. The contrast is almost as complete as that between Jaws and Jaws: the Revenge, and it's simply inexplicable that they were made by the same person.

Based closely on Stone's own experiences, Platoon chronicles the experiences of Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), a college wash-out who felt obligated to serve his country in time of war - even if that war is the hellish jungle of Vietnam. Taylor struggles to adjust to his new country, and finds himself on a front-line platoon, which is polarized between two leaders: the sensitive, virtuous, almost mystical Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) and the battle-scarred, vulgar and violent Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger). Taylor struggles to navigate between the two groups, but after their destruction of a village of suspected Vietcong sympathizers, the split within the platoon leads to irrevocable conflict - just as the VC launch an all-out offensive against them.

Platoon is clearly a labor of love for Stone, his tribute to the soldiers who fought and died in a war many of them did not believe in. Technically it's a skillful film, and on levels of narrative and characters it is particularly strong. Stone has affection for most of these characters, and sympathy for even the less heroic ones.

Private Taylor is largely a fly on the wall, a bland Dickensian Everyman used to illuminate more interesting side-characters. The conflict between the intelligent, compassionate Ellias and the boorish redneck Barnes provides most of the film's dramatic tension, showing the two kinds of men who developed out of such a conflict - men driven to the breaking point. Supporting characters like the petrified O'Neil (John C. McGinley), blindly obedient to the braver and more determined Barnes, the voice of reason King (Keith David), the indecisive Lieutenant Wolfe (Mark Moses), who is too weak and cowardly to intervene, the by-the-book Captain (Dale Dye) who is too distracted by the war to see what's happening to his men, and grunts like Warren (Tony Todd), Gator (Johnny Depp), and Bunny (Kevin Dillon), who are either drug-addicted, angry and battle-crazed, or just plain scared, provide vivid shades to complement the extremes. These men are believable as characters, not just archetypes and symbols.

The movie is anti-war without being particularly obnoxious about it - only a few moments, like the Nazi flag adorning an APC during the final battle, go a bit overboard, and there isn't much actual criticism of the war itself by Stone, save presenting the everyday Hell of fighting a guerilla war. The raid on the village is the centerpiece of the movie, and it is refreshingly presented in a straight-forward manner. It's not an atrocity ordered by higher-ups, and so we aren't treated to the "we were just following orders" claptrap of so many anti-war flicks; rather, it's a simply a group of men pushed to their breaking point, retaliating for the deaths of several of their own men. Nor is the entire platoon revelling in the massacre; only Barnes and his more devoted followers are engaged in what carnage we do see, and the more moral platoon members like Taylor and Elias try to intervene. This scene works so much better than most of its equivalents in other films: no heavy-handed message is shoved down our throats, merely the simple but effective idea that war is hell, and that it drives men mad.

The chaotic close-range ground fighting is presented straight-forward, lacking for the most part cheap blood, squib and slow-motion effects, preventing any real visceral thrill. This is war; men are killing each other, and we're given an objective perspective rather than the visceral thrills offered by Peckinpah and his legion of imitators. Stone doesn't want to glorify death, merely to depict it, and it works wonderfully. The only moment of stylization is the death of Sgt. Elias, left to die amidst a swarming batallion of VC troops by the callous Barnes - and on an emotional and visceral level, it's appropriate and dramatically affective rather than garish or sentiment.

The cast is exceptional. Charlie Sheen shows a dramatic range he's never really equalled, completely convincing as the normal guy in an impossible situation. Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger are both exceptional as the two Sergeants who battle for Taylor's affection and respect, nearly tearing the platoon apart in the process. Keith David gives an underrated performance as Taylor's father-figure, King. The supporting cast includes a veritable who's-who of up-and-coming actors, including Johnny Depp, Forrest Whittaker, and Tony Todd.

Overall, despite a few scant moments of formula and heavy-handedness, Platoon is a success on all levels. Its flaws are minor, and its virtues quite evident. I might rank Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket ahead of this film on my list of Vietnam films, but that's merely praise of how brilliant that film was. Between this and the equally brilliant if historically suspect JFK, one wonders what happened to Oliver Stone. Maybe he just worked better on coke.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation

W

Christopher Hitchens once said that making jokes about George W. Bush - or more specifically, obvious jokes about his allegedly low IQ and obvious verbal inarticularity - is the kind of humor that dumb people laugh at. It's very easy to see the truth behind this statement. When Bush trips over his words during an interview or press conference, it's easy to point and laugh. And everyone does it, to the point that it's tiresome and ridiculous. Not even criticism of Bush's policies, but of Bush himself - and not even Bush himself, but his inarticularity. How clever. Gee, do you pick on the fat kid with a lisp too? Not that Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Ann Coulter aren't guilty on this front, but it's no better the other way - our level of political discourse has been largely reduced to playground bullying.

Not that Bush is above ridicule. In spite of my once-rabid Republicanism, like so many Americans I have grown disillusioned with Bush, and think his second term has been nothing less than disastrous. I disagree with those who think he's on the level of James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, and I still think he's absolutely right on the single most important issue of our generation - the War on Terror. But at this point, that's about the extent to which I'm willing to stick up for him.

Which brings us to Oliver Stone's W. For months, Stone has been trying to depict this film as not the expected hatchet-job against an unpopular President, but a reconsideration of a misunderstood man. The director who gave us notoriously-slanted polemics like JFK and Nixon wants us to believe that his portrayal of George W. Bush, one of the most polarizing, controversial Presidents of all time (and one occupying the exact opposite ideological position of Stone) is a balanced, perhaps even sympathetic portrayal. Sorry, Oliver, I ain't buying that for a second. For W embraces the most mean-spirited, broad, simple-minded anti-Bush satire - about the maturity level of a 9th Grader with a Bush is Hitler sticker on their planner - and awkwardly tries to mix it with a character study. The movie has a schizophrenic, uncertain tone throughout; it simply can't decide what it's trying to be. Is it a political drama, a biopic, or a satire? Does it like Bush, at least as a person, or hold him in contempt? The movie can't even answer this question, and right off the bat it's in trouble for being unable to descide.

Let's get straight to business. Perhaps the movie's absolute nadir - a scene which inspired a lengthy and quite awkward bout of laughter in myself, much to the consternation of my fellow movie-goers - is its set-piece debate over the Iraq War. The scene climaxes with Dick Cheney giving a ludicrous speech explaining why the invasion of Iraq is essential to American interests. Guess why? Well, so America can build an Empire in the Middle East, to get at all of the world's Oil, of course - and there's NO EXIT from Iraq either. Not only the idea of that, mind you, but all of those words explicitly stated. How ridiculous and childish can you get? This is nothing more than Stone putting evil words in the mouth of a man he doesn't like. All that's missing is a facial scar, a cat, and perhaps a maniacal laugh, and we've got Blofeld or The Penguin (or Dr. Evil) rambling about his latest plot for world domination. It would be like Rush Limbaugh writing a film about Barack Obama, and giving him a speech where he declares that he despises America and wishes for the deaths of all American soldiers stationed there. It's cheap, it's mean-spirited, and worst of all, it doesn't even work dramatically.

The last bit is the sticking point, not only for that scene but the entire film. If all of this worked on a dramatic level, whether as a serious drama or a satire, I would be much more willing to accomodate its political posturing. Make no mistake: I love movies, TV, and works of fiction that disagree with me if they're done well. The West Wing is one of my favorite TV shows, for just one example. You can also rest assured that Spartacus and Battle of Algiers aren't on my Top 25 list because I'm a fan of Marxism. Even with Stone, I loved JFK as a film, even if it was utter bullshit as history, and Platoon is nothing short of a masterpiece. This, however, is not just a political screed I disagree with vehemently - simply put, it is just poor film making all around. The direction and cinematography are cheap and shoddy, seemingly unable to even stabilize and focus the camera, the art direction on the level of a made-for-TV film (and not a good one, either; the Situation Room of W seems like the set of a high school play compared to the aforementioned TV series' equivalent), Stanley Weister's script awful in its character and plot development and giving us rather bad dialogue in the bargain (the few moments of intentional humor that work are mostly appropriated verbatim from real-life Bush gaffes, which only leads back to my initial point). The musical score blares out a never-ending stream of banal rock and country music, like a second-rate Scorsese film. And dream sequences? Really? It's barely even competent on a technical level, so why am I not surprised at its other aspects being subpar?

More than anything else, though, is the film's portrayal of its subject. It absolutely cannot get a grip on what it wants to say about George W. Bush. Stone seemingly wants to have it both ways, portraying him as both a figure of ridicule and a sympathetic man, well-intentioned but none-too-bright, advanced beyond his station, and manipulated by those around him. The movie shifts between the two extremes almost from scene to scene. If we're ridiculing Bush, then what the hell are with the lengthy and theoretically dramatic scenes with his father, and his tender moments with his wife, trying to contemplate the mess he's dug himself into? If he's a sympathetic character, what the hell is with shaping a three-minute set piece around the infamous pretzel-choking incident? The movie doesn't help matters by skimming over virtually all of Bush's redemption and rise - all we see of his gubernatorial campaign is a now-infamous interview gaffe, and we barely even hear about the whole 2000 election mess - although we do get a nice and lengthy of scene of Bush's boozy frat initiation in college. Nor does the film's Oedipal father-son conflict make much sense - it's poorly constructed and seems absolutely false from beginning to end. So, who is Bush, a clown, a rube, a puppet, a nice guy in over his head, a living illustration of the Peter Principle? Make up your mind and stick to it, Stone. Clearly, you aren't capable of having it both ways.

This is no fault of Josh Brolin. Long a criminally underrated actor, he has finally hit the big time - his quadruple act of No Country For Old Men, American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah and Grindhouse last year is nothing short of astonishing, and he certainly has the chops to be a star if he continues to land the right roles. His impression of Bush is quite good - he's got the demeanor and accent and mannerisms down absolutely pat - but even such a talented actor as Brolin can't keep up with the changing, shifting hologram Bush of the script. I praise Brolin for a job well-done, but unfortunately he was up against an impossible obstacle - an absolutely awful, schizophrenic script that has no idea what it's trying to say.

The supporting cast consists of very good actors trapped in ridiculous parts. All of the characters we've come to know and either love or hate from the nightly news are here, portrayed in the most broad, cartoonish, borderline offensive manner possible. The only two who manage to escape the morass of stereotyping and lazy writing are Jeffrey Wright, who gives us a dignified Colin Powell (perhaps not surprisingly, given that he serves as the mouthpiece for Stone's own views on Iraq), and James Cromwell, giving a strikingly layered and sympathetic performance as H.W. Bush, alternately ashamed and proud of his son, managing to cut straight through the bullshit script and deliver a great performance. Richard Dreyfuss's turn as Cheney has already been noted; he's playing basically the same character as his heinous, evil, maniacally-laughing Republican Senator in The American President, and it's no better here than there (but at least The American President was an excellent movie otherwise). Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Ioan Gruffud (Tony Blair), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), and Toby Jones (Karl Rove) are no better; they're all cartoonish caricatures worthy of a bad Saturday Night Live sketch (a redundancy if there ever was one). Elizabeth Banks is pretty as Laura Bush but she's little more than a background character, while Ellen Burstyn has no room at all to breathe as Barbara Bush (she compensates with some frenetic scenery chewing though). Stacey Keach's cameo is so tiny as to be virtually worthless. Not to blame the actors, though - South Park couldn't make a more cartoonish and ridiculous portrayal of Bush and Co. if they tried.

Finally, I must ask the following question: Who exactly is demanding this film be made? Bush is a joke at this point, a lame duck waiting out the results of the upcoming election. People are simply sick and tired of Bush after eight years, so why did Stone and Co. think that giving them more Bush was a good idea? Perhaps a few months or years down the road, this might have been a good idea, but now, I should think Joe Average would want to see less of Bush, not more. (The movie's mediocre box-office take seems to confirm this) I can see a good movie about Bush being made, for instance, from Bob Woodward's Bush at War trilogy. But this is just bumper-sticker drek that would make Michael Moore and MoveOn.org blush; and Stone, for all his Shakespearean pretensions and protestations of fairness, is doing nothing more than piling on an oft-ridiculed, now-unpopular President who in three months will be out of office, with arguments and insults that were tiresome in 2000 and are simply fetid and rotten now.

W is not a bad film because I disagree with its politics. It's a bad film because it sucks. For this reason, I find it extremely hard to believe that this is the same man who brought us Platoon and JFK. As might be said of both the director and his subject: How the mighty have fallen. The potential was there for something special, but Stone couldn't resist the temptation to grasp at relevance with a subject most people could care less about, and doing it in the most insipid, banal and insulting manner possible. Farewell and adieu, Mr. Stone; you've had your day as America's leading cinematic polemicist. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Rating: 2/10 - Utter Shit