An Industrial Art Movie Reviews, Commentaries, News, and More.

Occasionally, my roommate will allow me to talk about movies with him. It’s with the same wariness that I allow him to talk about baseball stats with me. He loves movies; I love baseball. But not nearly to the obsessive, almost sick degree of the other.

Usually, it begins with a teaser commercial for an upcoming movie. Let’s use the recent example of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past starring Matthew McConaughey. We both laughed at the trailer. It’s another obvious McConaughey movie meant to attract an audience of women from twenty-four to thirty-six years old shallow enough to believe that the trite plots and characters’ epiphanies about love somehow convey a depth of emotional reality. Based on the teaser, we know exactly how the movie will end. (That’s true of a lot of movies.)

I decided to look up the reviews and ratings for this gem at Metacritic. Not so good. But then my roommate laughed at me for even bothering to look. Of course it got bad reviews, he said, it’s not that type of movie; you’re not supposed to critique it, only watch it and enjoy it.

That’s operating on two very shaky assumptions. The first is that most movie reviewers are critics. The second is that any movie meant for mindless entertainment cannot be judged by any merits.

But I’ve noticed this problem a lot, and it is my theory that there are two different types of motion pictures: films and movies. Yes, I use the terms interchangeably here to talk about a motion picture. But when referring to the quality of a motion picture, I mean ‘film’ and ‘movie’ in very specific, distinct ways.

Let’s compare to books: a film is a literary novel, like Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, and a movie is like a genre novel, like Patriot Games by Tom Clancy. (Though, I don’t mean all ‘movies’ are ‘genre movies’; I’m only comparing the literary or artistic gravity typically associated with genre novels.) Films, in the qualitative sense, are award winners when the industry decides to pat itself on the back. They get nominated for things, and they tend to be released in the fall and early winter. Lately, they tend to be indepedently made and then distributed by a major studio. Films are typically thought of as made by ‘artists’ rather than plain directors, and these artists seek to convey some profound meaning (or meaninglessness) about the human condition.

Movies get nominated and win awards from time to time, but mostly they are meant to entertain. Like Mr. McConaughey’s film above, you’re supposed to watch it and enjoy it. (Whether or not you can do either often depends on the strength of your stomach.) They are typically helmed by directors looking to tell a good story or one of two very cynical other explanations: boosting the ol’ resume or fattening the checking account.

It might be best to approach movies and films from the perspective of the industry. Nothing like a little Marxism to sweeten the pot. All motion pictures are products. Even the artistic directors want to sell you their films, though their motivations aren’t always green with Presidents’ faces on them. Films and movies are defined by their intended markets. Many people will see either type of picture, but I know of plenty who would rather see only one or the other. Still some more might get physically ill to see either a film like The Godfather Part II or a movie like Old School. But films and movies are geared to attract certain types of audiences; films are elitist, and movies are populist.

But the categories themselves can’t be compared. A film is not better than a movie or vice versa. And, for the most part, good films are good movies with an artistic intent. In that sense, films are more than movies but not better.

Let’s use some examples to flesh this out. Two from above. Great film: The Godfather Part II. Great movie: Old School. And sometimes, great films don’t make the best movies. One of my favorite films of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it’s not the first movie I think of watching on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Give me Spider-man, Dodgeball, or Blood Diamond for that (just glancing over at my ‘library’). But 2001’s example might be due to an increase in the overall ADD-level of our culture. Sad but true.

Then there are bad movies. Land of the Lost, Terminator Salvation, and most things involving Eddie Murphy. These are mostly movies that promise to deliver something and fail miserably, whether it’s laughs, screams, thrills, or tears. But the worst of the worst is when a movie is so obviously trying to be a film when it should just relax and be a movie. Windtalkers. Pearl Harbor. 300 (worst heavy-handed, message-laden dialogue imaginable). These movies are just embarrassing.

But it goes to show that even movies that aren’t films have merits to be judged by. As a viewer, you are after all purchasing the experience. It is up to reviewers, however, to acknowledge this difference between films and movies, to realize the intentions of a motion picture and give its creators and producers a little credit.

I think that this generally happens. No one should be afraid to go someplace like Metacritic to take the pulse of a film or movie. We just need to keep in mind that each review represents a single opinion, and those opinions may not always take everything into account. There are great films, and there are great movies. Hopefully, we can respect and celebrate the differences between them.

Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!

Our culture has always been preoccupied with religion. When I say ‘our culture,’ I mean both American culture and human culture. But I will not attempt to address religion from the standpoint of humanity; our need as a species for spirituality is beyond the scope or point of this review. There Will Be Blood is about the American sort of preoccupation, namely, a capitalistic preoccupation.

Religion in the United States thrives on competition. While we respect our right to worship freely and without government sponsorship, we want people to believe in our personal religions, to accept our beliefs as true. We want them to buy in. So we preach of the glory, redemption, peace, and so on that our religion promises and prophesy the consequences of rejection. By endorsing one religion, we implicitly deny all others. Most often this is not done out of malace. But occasionally there will be disagreement, there will be strife, and there will be blood.

This film presents two competing religions: a sort of fundamentalist evangelical movement, dubbed The Church of the Third Revelation, and an altogether capitalist yet not completely materialist endeavor, otherwise known as oil (or Oil! as Upton Sinclair would have us know it, the title of the novel on which the film is based). Each has a god, the New Testament God of the former and Oil of the latter, and each has its preacher-prophet, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). Like most religions in the United States, they find a way to coexist. There is some tension at first, but gradually a symbiotic relationship takes shape as Plainview’s campaign to convert the Californian town of New Boston to oil-ism, or oil-anity, provides more manpower for spreading the Word According to Eli.

Eli and Plainview are master salesmen but with decidedly different demeanors. As Eli, Dano is charismatic but curiously pubescent. He manages to command great respect among his flock while casting out demons in voice-cracked shrieks. It works against the believability of the film because I cannot see a townsfolk following this young man. Dano has received critical acclaim for his performance, and it is quite good and consistent, but I wonder if it was the right performance for the film. Contrasted against Day-Lewis’s character Plainview, Dano’s Eli is laughable. In one scene where Eli is casting out a woman’s arthritis, I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing at the scratching in Dano’s voice and the straining of his boyish face or if I should be laughing at the total enrapture of his audience.

As I have given it further thought, I favor the latter interpretation. Eli’s character is a salesman, an actor. He’s just not quite as good as Plainview. By the time we meet Eli in the film (even though we’ve already met Dano in the form of Eli’s brother, Paul Sunday), we’ve grown accustomed to Plainview’s own charisma (and Day-Lewis’s stoic presence as well). We see Eli through the eyes of Plainview, a young upstart standing in the path of the True Word, oil-ism. When Plainview and Eli present themselves to their potential believers/customers, it is as if they are acting on a stage. We see that Plainview’s speech is rehearsed and even includes a prop, his ’son,’ just as much as Eli’s sermons are staged in order to push certain tenets and beliefs.

But as in any competition, there are losers, and the film takes it time to show the consequences of unbridled religious fervor. In a world where religious zealots are rapidly tearing society apart, whether that religion revolves around Christ, Mohammed, oil, or bargain clothing, the promise of this film’s title should come as no surprise. We are witnessing the rape of the world, through humanity and nature, by humanity.

The camera work of the film reinforces this sense of loss. Shots tend to linger on the landscape in the fashion of traditional Westerns, but here it does not evoke a sense of wonder and awe. Instead, given the somber mood put forth by the score, slow takes, and sparse cutting, shots of the landscapes call to mind a lamentation, a silent wailing for a loss that is to come. The scenery is dry and barren, not devoid of detail but devoid of life. We are left not to meditate on the opportunity available in such a wide-open land, the freedom of choice and law and future as in other Westerns, but rather we are instructed to brood upon a dying thing as humanity pushes inexorably forward in its zealotry. The exploits of Plainview and Eli are continually set against the backdrop of the land, the silent witness and silent victim of their human competition.

It’s a different sort of Western, but it is a Western, in its atmosphere and its tall-tale story. Perhaps it doesn’t conform to all the conventions of a Western. These aren’t traditional cowboys, and there are no damsels in distress. But Westerns use the landscape to play off of the characters and conflicts. They work directly with the notion of manifest destiny and the myth of our Chosen Nation: the new land (the West or wherever it happens to be) is a clean slate, meant to be colonized and filled with our culture and our beliefs and our dreams. People fight and die for cultures, beliefs, and dreams. But is it worth it?

The film concludes with the line, “I’m finished.” And indeed, the speaker is finished, quite finished. We can only imagine the legal and psychological repercussions he faces. But as Plainview’s son moves out of the tyrannical grip of his father, breaks from the ceaseless, careless march, we receive one of the central questions of this film: must this be the finish? Are we on some inescapable path?

Must there be blood?

Judges, lawyers, cops, politicians. They stop bringing dope into this country, about a hundred thousand people are gonna be out of a job.

American Gangster is about war profiteering. This is not its only theme, but it certainly is one. It addresses this theme directly on two levels and indirectly on a third level. The film demonstrates how people make a living from war and conflict, often paradoxically. Frank Lucas profits directly from the Vietnam War while Ritchie Roberts from directly from Frank Lucas. We are all enmeshed in the cycle, each and every one of us is somehow touched by and addicted to the presence of War in our world, whether it is the war on drugs or even the war on terror.

But before I get into the cultural impact of American Gangster, I’ll step back and take a look at the film as if it were purely a product of industry and not artwork. In short, I’ll entertain the fantasy that movies somehow exist outside of the influence or reach of current events and culture.

This is a duel between two of the most amazing actors of this current generation, Denzel Washington (Frank Lucas) and Russel Crowe (Ritchie Roberts). Throw in Leonardo DiCaprio, Viggo Mortensen, and Daniel Day-Lewis, and you’ve got yourself a nicely rounded acting Dream Team. There is hardly a scene that doesn’t involve either Washington or Crowe, and this benefits the movie immensely. The Crowe scenes tend to drag a little more than the Washington scenes, which in my opinion provides further support to who the better actor is.

Crowe’s Roberts is a careful mixture of confident and pathetic. He is overweight and initially timid, yet we see in his eyes a latent ferocity and tenacity waiting to be unleashed or patiently directed. His scruples collide with the ambiguous morals of other narcotics agents, which provides most of the motivation and conflict in his half of the plot. He seems to be the only cop in New York who isn’t on the take, and as a result, he is forced to set up his own independent operation to get the job done. Even so, he doesn’t even know what direction to head in with his job, as drug crime seems so rampant and confusing that it’s initially impossible to discern who the primary culprit could be.

Sound familiar? Fans of Al Pacino should recognize the protagonist from Serpico quite clearly. Ritchie Roberts is the 21st Century’s Frank Serpico, the cop who becomes an outlaw in the eyes of the establishment simply because he actually wants to catch the real outlaws. The difference between Serpico and American Gangster, however, its saving grace in that regard, is the fact that Roberts only represents half of the plot. Other than that, this would be nothing more than a rehash of the stereotypical lone ranger-style of investigator movies.

Frank Lucas is the other half, and I’m reminded of another Pacino film, Carlito’s Way. At the same time, Washington’s portrayal of Lucas reminds me of his character Alonzo in Training Day who, ironically, was a corrupt cop. Washington thrives in the intensity that Lucas demands of him. The film starts with a cold-blooded murder by Lucas after lighting the man on fire. Lucas assaults an insulting partygoer at his own home. He shoots a rival in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight before calmly returning to his table in a corner cafe. He kills with his eyes, with his glower, with the gravelly ice of his voice. Lucas commands our attention in the same way that Alonzo did, and the pure pleasure of Washington’s performance is the only distraction necessary to keep us from feeling like we’ve seen it all before.

Unfortunately, Lucas and Roberts meet only once; Washington and Crowe act together significantly in only one scene. But by this point in the film, this scene is a sweet dessert. Washington’s fiery intensity is contrasted against Crowe’s passive stoicism. Our eyes and ears feast.

Director Ridley Scott does his usual best, which is above average compared to other directors. Like a good above average director, Scott leaves the camera out of the movie. I didn’t feel like I was watching the action through the lens of a camera; rather, I was there. There’s nothing special or daring with his framing, blocking, or editing, but it tells the story seamlessly. Sometimes, though, I found myself watching two movies: one about Lucas, and one about Roberts. Perhaps the feeling is impossible to avoid, given the fact that both characters are (seem) necessary for the plot and yet do not meet until the end. I’m just saying that the feeling is there, and it hurts the story in a little, if unavoidable way.

But to address the story itself, we need to step out of the ‘entertainment fantasy’ that we’ve been walking through. Any film made within the last five years or within the next ten years that deals with the Vietnam War must call attention or connection to the the “War on Terror,” currently playing in a theater near you, assuming you live in Afghanistan or Iraq. This context affects our interpretation of just what Frank Lucas is doing to earn his living.

I said that American Gangster deals directly with two forms of war profiteering. The first is how Frank Lucas smuggles his drugs into the country. I am going to give away a major plot here, so skip the rest of this paragraph if you have yet to see the film and still want to be surprised. …Last chance to move on. All right, here we go. Frank Lucas smuggles his drugs into the country by hiding them in the coffins of dead U.S. soldiers returning from Vietnam. Ironically, we have to go to the movies to see the coffins of U.S. soldiers, since the government won’t let the media show such photos to the public today.

This immediately causes outrage. We are intended to see Lucas as a monster, taking advantage of ‘our boys’ to make his drug money. Allegations of war profiteering were bad enough during World War II when it was merely about making unfair profits due to the lack of supply and high demand of necessary goods. But this is worse because it is about drugs.

But Ritchie Roberts alerts us to the paradox of the situation. If men like Lucas didn’t exist, men like Roberts wouldn’t have jobs. If our country didn’t go to war, how many men and women would lose their livelihoods? How many citizens of the United States work in factories that manufacture goods for use in the armed services? Without war, these people would have no jobs, and so lobbyists pressure politicians in various ways for various things. No one really wants to admit it, but we are all war profiteers in one way or another, and this is the second way that the film deals with this theme.

When we are so quick to condemn Lucas, should we be taking a harder look at ourselves? This is not to say that Lucas is an innocent man; he’s a drug dealer. But if the public in the film and the public in the audience condemns him for profiting off the war, is that such a fair thing to do?

The third method of dealing with this theme, as I mentioned, is indirect. Running in front of the film when I went to see it were three specific advertisements for war: one, a recruitment music video for the National Guard using the popular band Three Doors Down; two, a spot for the ultra-popular game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; and three, a trailer for a steroid-injected Rambo. Interpret the implications as you will.

Released in 1998 and nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Warren Beatty, Jeremy Pikser), Bulworth is a film about a politician in the 1996 elections running for the Senate in California. Dismayed by horrible stock market moves, a cold wife, and a (comically) repetitive campaign and political life, Senator Jay Bulworth decides to kill himself — by hiring a contract killer so that his daughter can get a huge life insurance payment (actual suicide, as you Willy Lowman fans remember, negates your policy). His imminent death, along with a lack of food and sleep, makes him delirious and…talkative.

This is a good, solid film. Look hard enough, and you’ll find plenty of holes. When all’s said and done, though, it is entertaining and a slight work of art from the standpoint of cultural commentary. This is by no means an art film, however, or a “prestige” film as one writer for The New York Times called them (and the term I’m now going to use). It is primarily for entertainment because its satire relies too heavily on comedy rather than criticism. Obviously, a good satire needs both, and Bulworth has plenty of each. This is a hilarious film; maybe too funny for the underlying message.

Which is, the political system is broken. Sometimes I wonder if it’s actually broken or if this is just the way it’s turned out, and we only call it broken because when we stop and take a look at it (most of the time, we don’t), we realize we don’t like it. “Ugly” is probably a better term than “broken.”

Speaking of ugly, how about Warren Beatty’s rapping? Funny at some moments, such as during a benefit breakfast, bad at others, such as during every other scene. I’d like to hear what black people think of this movie (or “colored” people, as the film refers to them on at least one occasion). The film seems to have good intentions, breaking down color, ethnic, and economic barriers, but at the end of the day the hero is bravely striding back into the upper echelons of white Euro-centric power, clad in a crisp suit and tie, mirroring his return to sanity. Sure, he gets the ghetto girl, a union of the hero’s world and the underworld, but he’s dragging her into his; it’s not equal.

But did I mention the film is funny? So laugh it off and don’t think too hard. It distracts by shouting (rapping) truths and misconceptions about politics and the U.S. in general, declamations that any left-leaning citizen/revolutionary will love. But it’s too sugar-coated, too many smiles, too many tongues stuck in cheeks. Where’s the anger? Where’s the outrage? Beatty had a great chance to show some real fire; instead, he’s a sparkler, a pleasantly fizzling diversion in a dark, dark night.

Camera work is shoddy and almost amateur (some bad pans, terrible blocking in several shots, and awkward zooms make some scenes look like a Pink Panther movie). But just leave the camera on Halle Berry every once in a while, and we’ll forget all of it.

Released in 2006 and receiving no Academy Award or Golden Globe nominations (surprisingly missing out on a special effects nom), 300 is about a band of Spartan soldiers who decide to stand against the million-man march of the Persian army as it attempts to conquer Greece, mainly by cutting off limbs in slow motion. King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, lapsing inexplicably into and out of his thick Scottish accent) leads the defense despite lacking the favor of the gods and the revered inbreds. Meanwhile, Leonidas’ wife Queen Gorgo (what a name, played by Lena Headey with some Ann Coulter-style coldness and ferocity) faces her own battle at home, with a double-crossing politician (Dominic West, delightfully sinister) forcing her into betrayal.

Unless you dislike violence (in movies; most people dislike violence in life, though strange that we love it so much on the big screen), you’ll probably like this movie on the first go-through. The visuals are stunning. The acting is campy without inducing cringes. David Wenham’s narration is extra campy but actually makes the film enjoyable with its over-the-top, boasting grandeur. There’s the typical hero talk, the usual love of the motherland, and required defense to the glorified death. Operatic crescendos mix with grinding rock to underscore the film, which can go from full-throttle action one minute to incredibly dull intrigue the next. The intrigue isn’t really all that bad, but when it’s put alongside the action, it doesn’t keep up.

The film just looks beautiful, even during its grisly moments. Sure, everything is engineered by computers, but so what? It takes just as much skill to make a beautiful digital shot as it does to make a beautiful standard shot, just different kinds of skill. Saying digital isn’t real falsely suggests that old-fashioned filming is real. It’s all staged, and in this case, digital does it better. The color tints, the slow motion, the almost grainy, evenly aged texture — it’s all captivating.

And it’s all a distraction. Watch the film again, and you’re not awed so much as appalled. Well, that’s speaking for myself. But contemporary politics and rhetoric are spouted so vociferously by each and every character that it’s hard not to get annoyed if you’re really listening, regardless of how you feel. What’s all this talk about rights, the rights of free people, and boy-loving? “Boy-loving” wasn’t an issue back then; the concept of homosexuality didn’t exist. It was for them like video games are for us; some people like it, some people hate it, some people don’t care. But it wasn’t a big deal, probably less of an issue than video games are for us.

And rights? “What would a free man do?” Please. The dialog about these rights and the state of man is so heavy-handed that it’s insulting. Leonidas wants to follow the Law, but the Law’s preventing him from doing what he just knows is right for his people. Too bad he didn’t have his own Patriot Act.

300 is a devious, subversive film from a “liberal” point of view. Because on the one hand, it’s great entertainment. One the other hand, it strongly promotes a philosophy of intolerance and peace by whatever means, as long as that means includes violence, and as long as that peace is only secured for the Greeks (or: us).

Released in 2007, Shoot ‘Em Up is about…well, it’s the story of…

It’s basically the most explicit demonstration that all you need to sell a film is violence and sex, and I just can’t tell if it’s a brilliant commentary and tongue-in-cheek homage to action films or if it’s just a stupid, stupid movie. Honestly, I’m split 50-50, and I’ll tell you why.

Let’s start with the second option because I’d like to end the review on a positive note. So, ahem, thesis number one: Shoot ‘Em Up is a stupid, stupid movie. Clearly, the movie relies on stylized violence and constant sexual innuendos, more often than not combining the two, including a “love” scene between Mr. Smith (Clive Owen, smooth and cool as usual) and DQ (Monica Belluci, sultry and seductive as usual) that starts as pure sex before, ahem, exploding in an orgasm of violence. Smith never breaks his…stride, finishing off several henchmen before…finishing off DQ. What a man.

The plot is almost capable of inducing a brain aneurysm if you think about it for too long. The villain (Paul Giamatti, whose character name I can’t even remember — another detractor) is so outlandish and over-the-top that he borders on annoyingly prescient with his ability to always, always track down Mr. Smith and show up where he is. And I’d say absolutely every scene contains some line of dialog that’s an innuendo of some sort, and I was completely expecting a round of “that’s what she said” lines to occupy the…climax of the film. Sorry, but after seeing this film, I just can’t help myself. Let’s not forget to mention Mr. Smith’s love of huge carrots, ceaselessly…whipping them out to either eat or kill with, plus the constant references to guns as penises.

But wait…the film doesn’t forget to mention that either. The villain and his gun-manufacturing boss (Stephen McHattie, another great villain — watch A History of Violence to see him team up with another Shoot ‘Em Up cast member, Greg Byrk, to form one creepy crime duo) have a quick but entertaining discussion about the link between guns and the male anatomy. McHattie’s character dismisses the idea as silly psycho-babble, but with the film’s obvious obsession with it, we’re left to ponder the implications of this idea. The film is very conscious of its obsession with the phallus, that’s for sure.

It also includes nearly every action movie cliche or staple you can think of. I’ve never seen a gun and its bullets used for so many random tasks before. What can’t you do with a gun? I bet Mr. Smith’s going to be flipping pancakes with his 9 for his sweetie DQ. I found myself laughing at every stunt, less and less because I thought it was stupid, more and more because it was successfully poking fun at other movies that might claim an air of sophistication (Casino Royale and the forthcoming Quantum of Solace come to mind). Shoot ‘Em Up is an action movie about action movies. The stunts are not only fun, they’re pretty damn cool. The effects leave something to be desired, particularly the baby (in many scenes it is computer generated, and it’s obviousness is cringe-worthy). Plus, the whole idea that the baby survives everything it goes through is yet another fun poke at action movies.

But ultimately, you can’t call this film brilliant. It’s really good at pointing out the absurdities of the action film and the relation of guns, violence, and heterosexual screwing to masculinity, but it offers no actual commentary. It just lays them out, says, “Isn’t this silly?”, and then says, “So we’ll just do it over and over again.” We get it. So what?

So what. It’s fun. There’re other movies to do that “thinking” stuff. Now where’s my Gloch? I want some flapjacks.