Innocent Voices blog

Origination with his first great star with 1970’s M*A*S*H, Robert Altman has become one of America’s most critically acclaimed directors. He has been nominated for the Best Top dog Oscar® four times but, like Martin Scorsese (a three-linger nominee), he has not in a million years won. Many feel that Nashville is the best cloud of 1975 and one of the remarkably best of that decade. I’m not sure if I concede with this first contention or not. That year proved to be a very harsh year in film with Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, Jaws, and the Best Display winning A woman Flew Across the Cuckoo’s Nest all hitting the screens. The second claim, however, is undoubtedly veracious.

Describing the storyline of Nashville is not an easy item to do. The film features no less than twenty-four major speaking roles. These characters go yon their lives and interact with one another for a 5-day years in Nashville in the originally 1970s. Some are the “haves”, the country/western stars, such as the aged and uncivil trouper Haven Hamilton (Gibson), the physically and emotionally fragile Barbara Jean (Blakley), and too ambitious and phony Connie Off-white (Black). Some are the “have-nots”, such as the major-eyed and talentless waitress Sueleen Gay (Welles), fated to be walked over by the life, the groupie from California, L.A. Joan (Duvall), and the mentally unstable Albuquerque (Harris), who ditches her husband in an ill-advised effort to try and become a star. She will get her shining moment on stage, but in the most unlikely of circumstances. Then there are those that lie somewhere in the middle. Barnett (Garfield) is Barbara Jean’s domineering cover up and manager. Tom Frank (Carradine) is a colleague of a reasonably successful citizenry troika who is instanter upsetting to break away and launch a unaccompanied career. He is also a womanizer of the worst stamp who sleeps with a somewhat fair chunk of the eject but has skirmish landing the one woman he really desires. Delbert Reese (Beatty) is a successful municipal legal practitioner who is unable to report with his own deaf children. His trouble, Linnea (Tomlin), is a gospel soloist who spends much of the layer fighting off unwanted advances from Tom. John Triplette is the partisan front man who, with Delbert’s help, is attempting to convince the melodic stars to appear at a partisan rally. Norman (Arkin), is the limousine driver that gets no respect from clients or friends. Additionally, the cast contains an assortment of spare, yet omnipresent, characters. Opal (Chaplin) is a hustling the missis who barges surrounding with a reel recorder claiming to be a documentary maker with the BBC. Then there is PFC Kelley (Glenn), who follows Barbara Jean around like a magnanimous stalker. The mysterious Kenny Frasier (Hayward) is an aimless teenaged irons who has come to town with an unopened violin case. Lastly there is “Tricycle Man” (Goldblum), who rides from scene to scene on his three-wheeled chopper and not says a news to anyone.

The unifying chain of events that ties this myriad of characters together is the campaign of Presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker, who is race on the “Replacement Party” ticket. As we see Tricycle Man’s face but never heed his voice, we hear Walker’s assert but never see his exterior. His booming rhetoric emanates from the speakers mounted atop his operations van, which slowly passes through a majority of the film’s open-air scenes. His posters are cranny and his young supporters swarm about almost constantly. The a variety of storylines culminate with an all-lead benefit rally with powerful results.

Nashville is, in some ways, a musical. The film contains over an hour of music, most of it written and performed by the actors themselves. Some, like those performed by singer/songwriter Ronee Blakley and Keith Carradine, are quite good. This original music garnered the mist its exclusive Oscar® win, with Carradine’s ballad “I’m Easy” winning Upper crust Song. Nashville received a total of five nominations, including nods for Conquer Picture, Best Leader, and Most beneficent Supporting Actress nominations throughout Lily Tomlin and Ronee Blakley. Ironically, that year’s Best Actress conquering hero, Louise Fletcher (for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) was originally slated to play the role eventually filled by Tomlin.

Nashville takes us up the river the Hollywood-adore microcosm of acclaim and fortune in the music great of the world. Roger Ebert put it well when he called this film a “wicked ridicule of American smarminess”. Altman’s trademark squander of interlocking characters and stories has grow an inspiration for later filmmakers, including Paul Thomas Anderson and Lawrence Kasdan. He gives us the municipality of Nashville, wellnigh as a character in and of itself and we are privy to how this city of music crushes some dreams, fulfills others, and entertains all kinds of personalities in the process.

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Somehow the words “high concept” secure without doubt been dropped from the vocabulary of action hero (hey, it says it on the backtrack from of the packaging) Vin Diesel. After showing great choices and promise in initially films including Boiler Room and Saving Private Ryan, the actor has arrive at b devise a wall in terms of triumph and creativity in his selections. Here, he turns to the land of family pictures that have offered salvation to the likes of Arnold and others. The bad news for Diesel is that The Pacifier is horrific and completely devoid of a single meritorious side. The good news is that promptly it appears he can at least step lively for governor.

Diesel stars as Shane Wolfe, a Navy S.E.A.L. who has conducted missions in each corner of the Terra and is about as tough as they come. After conducting a mission to release kidnapped American professor Howard Plummer (Donovan) that ends in failure, Wolfe is placed in charge of protecting Pluumer’s house, as a “ghost”&#8212a program that scrambles launch codes an eye to long range missiles&#8212is likely somewhere inside

Once in suburbia, Wolfe finds himself in the position of protecting not lately the house but also the Plummer children as their mother Julie (Ford) takes off to Geneva to locate the late proffessor’s safe deposit strike. During the interval, deny hard pressed at home, Shane is forced to deal with the problems of Lulu (York), Zoe (Snow), Seth (Thieriot), Peter (Keegan and Logan Hoover), and the young toddler, Tyler (Bo and Luke Vink). As the kids be instruct, Wolfe turns the haunt into a military base with strict rules that of lecture the older children rebel against, pushing Shane further away. Along the speed we upon a degradation principle who is an overgrown torment and a principle (Graham) who is not exclusively gorgeous but also has a military background that makes her a accord for Shane.

It is qualified that The Pacifier is never the truth a middling come about because every plot point and the outcome are clearly defined within mere moments of the opening credits. Wolfe will soften and the kids will worship him, secondary characters liking become something more after saying just at one above line of talk, and of course all of the problems that the children sooner a be wearing will be straightened wide of the mark. There are a few smiles to be had along the parenthetically a via but for the most part the script by (gasp!) Reno 911 stars Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant spends too much regulate considerable us what is happening rather than showing us. The films gets bogged down in exposition that doesn’t really event, and its better moments come from the interaction between Shane and the children, not the useless military subplot. What does it hint about a film where Julie stands in the office of a Swiss bank and tries to speculation the password for two weeks. I can alone divulge that I hope for the purposes of those invested insuch institutions that this is not exactly allowed.

Equally as guilty as the screenwriters is director Adam Shankman, who puts too much importance on the punchline that the setup becomes inappropriate. On more than one occasion Shankman meanders through the prominent scenes simply to get to a moment where Shane requirement abash his conspiringly into a coarse diaper or another inadequate potty gag. Diesel acquits himself in a funny way; he takes the material seriously, which shockingly helps. It only goes to show how hilarious the slumber of the mist is when Diesel offers the emotional core.

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'Universe' travels where it shouldn’t
Movie Review:

Across the Universe


By John Wirt


jwirt@theadvocate.com

Advocate movie critic

Photo by ABBOTT GENSER

Clockwise from top: Martin Luther McCoy, Dana Fuchs, R.V. Carpio, Ekaterina Sknavina, Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Kiva Dawson, Joe Anderson and Halley Wegryn Crude in "Across the Universe."

The music of the Beatles is often so brilliant that anyone who alters it or adapts it is asking for trouble. That goes for contemporary recording artists doing remakes as well as the filmmakers behind the Beatles-inspired movie musical, Across The Universe.

The Beatles themselves made only one movie that guarantees a splendid time for all, 1964’s slightly fictionalized day in the life of the world’s most famous pop group, A Hard Day’s Night.

Across The Universe — directed by Julie Taymor, who’s best known for the Broadway adaptation of Disney’s animated musical, The Lion King — hooks Beatles songs to a heavy-handed fictional tale of ’60s youth. There’s love, sex, riots, drugs and a silly plot that, while based on real events and social movements of the time, rings mannered and false.

The concept of using songs recorded by a hugely popular singing group to create a musical has been done before. But Mamma Mia!, a stage musical shaped around the music of ’70s Swedish quartet, ABBA, doesn’t attempt the botched profundity of Across The Universe. It’s simply a fun time at the theater loaded with catchy tunes.

Unlike the stage-bound Mamma Mia!, Across The Universe concentrates on cinematic spectacle, fantastic imagery and social and political commentary. Some individual scenes are imaginative and engaging, even beautiful. In total, however, this stultifying, preachy film is a drag.

The story’s characters are named after characters in Beatles songs. Jude is a young man in working-class Liverpool. He dances with his girlfriend in a club that looks very much like The Cavern while a group that looks very much like the Beatles performs “Hold Me Tight.” It’s a cool, lively, leather-jacket sort of scene.

Across the Atlantic, formally attired American boys and girls are dancing in perfectly choreographed formation at a prom. The severe contrast pounds the point that English kids are hip, American kids are rigid and square. 

The American kids include a girl named Lucy. She’ll eventually meet Jude through her rebellious Ivy League student brother, Max. With a little help from their friends, Jude, Lucy, Max and a former cheerleader from Ohio named Prudence experience the tumultuous ’60s, psychedelic bus trips and bloody anti-war protests included.

The cast — including Jim Sturgess as Jude and Evan Rachel Wood as Lucy, U2 singer Bono in a scene-stealing cameo as the Timothy Leary-like Dr. Robert and Joe Cocker in no less than three roles — is universally good, as are the performances of Beatles songs. But Across The Universe goes irretrievably wrong thanks to thin, artificial storytelling and Taymor’s hammer-handed approach to an already floundering script.

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  MEET THE PARENTS (2000)

Time: 108 mins.

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Idealized Comedy

Academy Confer nomination for Best Song.

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High Plains Wanderer is a nervously-humorous, self-conscious nigh travesty on the prototype Clint Eastwood formula of the avenging mysterious stranger. Screenplay has some raw intensity for the kinks and some mum humor for audience relief. Eastwood’s alternate directorial effort is mechanically stylish.

Untidy patchwork script involves one of those towns with a collective guilt streak, having engineered the death-by-whipping of its honest marshal by some hoods who themselves were framed after getting out of hand. Into this setting rides Eastwood, emerging from heat waves (among other obvious evocations of films past) as a sort of archangel of retribution.

After establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with Eastwood is engaged by the town fathers to help defend them against the former local police who are being released from jail after their frame-up.

True crime/horror. Starring Marcelo Games, Marc Pitman, Leslie Orr and
Maureen Allisse. Directed by Jim Van Bebber. (Not rated. 93 minutes. At Bay
Area theaters.)

The chief because of of ?The Manson Ancestry? is that it undoubtedly represents
the victory time the whole Manson rarity has ever been explained in a way
that unquestionably makes sense. Made on a shoestring, it has a couple of valuable
advantages over every other venture to rebuke the gest, whether in books or on
film: It was written and directed by a filmmaker (Jim Van Bebber) who
understands juveniles sense of values. And it wasn?t made to appeal to mainstream tastes.

This is a hard, ugly, nasty film, an unrated feature that, if rated,
would be NC-17 many times over. The acting is at times amateurish, and the
movie contains an unfortunate modern-day subplot that turns downright
ludicrous. Yet, all in all, Van Bebber has delivered a stylistically vigorous
and often insightful piece of work.

He avoids the usual traps. He doesn?t tell the story as though it were
inevitable. And he doesn?t tell the story as if Manson, from day one, were
sitting around with a master plan to turn people evil. Instead, Van Bebber
presents the Manson family as a mutant strain of the ?60s youth movement, the
perverse but logical product of endemic solipsism, insularity, grandiosity,
muddled mysticism and drugs, drugs, drugs.

And for a while, their world looks kind of fun. That is to say, at least
with the Manson family, you?d never have to worry about getting a date. We see
them: young, outdoors and having sex constantly. They have no need to punch a
clock, no need even to wear clothes. It?s all fun and games, lots of talk,
lots of big plans, but with no one feeling any immediate need to get up and do
something. It?s like what people want from Club Med, only without the
nightclubs.

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Idylls are often destroyed by a need for the outside world. That need is
manifested in the group?s lack of money and in Manson?s dream of becoming a
rock star. That dream dies hard, leaving an even more pressing need for money.
Since it would be unthinkable for any of these people to put on a shirt and go
to work, the need for money leads to crime.

Compounding these usual factors are more dangerous influences. They?re on
hallucinogens and have a slippery sense of reality. And they?re also on
crystal meth, so they?re aggressive. They?re led by a man who?s evil and whom
they believe to be Jesus Christ, a perennially lethal combination. And they?re
living in an era when it?s just understood that youth means wisdom and anger
is evidence of righteousness.

Van Bebber juggles several storytelling modes, interspersing modern-day
mock interviews, grainy fake-documentary footage supposedly from the early
1970s, flashbacks and straight narrative. He often shoots from the perspective
of characters in heightened circumstances. Sometimes this approach is showy
and annoying, and sometimes it gets under the skin. He uses the victim?s
perspective in a gang-rape sequence to chilling effect.

The Tate-LaBianca murders are portrayed in terms of a cheap exploitation
movie, with lots of bad acting and buckets of blood, but something in the
mundane nature of the presentation makes it all seem real. But beware: This is
not for the squeamish.

?Advisory: Many simulated sex acts, frequent frontal nudity, strong
language, constant drug use and gruesome, shocking violence.

? Mick LaSalle

?Voices of Iraq?

Documentary. Produced by Eric Manes, Archie Drury and Martin Kunert. (Not
rated. 80 minutes. At the Opera Plaza.)

Do the producers of this film have an agenda to show a more positive side
of Iraq? Do they want to give evidence that the U.S.-led war in Iraq, despite
the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the deaths of Iraqi civilians, is at least
preferable to the reign of Saddam Hussein? These questions are open to debate,
but one thing is clear: ?Voices of Iraq? shows Iraqi society in all its
complexity ? one of the first times that a theatrically released documentary
has ever done that. For this reason alone, ?Voices of Iraq? is a must-see for
anyone still coming to terms with the chaos in Iraq.

Nearly all the footage was taken by Iraqis who were handed video equipment,
and nearly all the footage was taken within the past six months. The project
happened when three U.S. producers (including one who created MTV?s ?Fear?
reality series) gave 150 digital video cameras to everyday people who live in
Baghdad, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities. More than 1,500 Iraqis took videos of
their lives. We see a children?s birthday party where adults and youngsters
are happily celebrating. We see students at Baghdad University rushing off to
classes, flirting, talking about their future. We see a young man in a rock
band playing drums and rapping. But we also see the aftermath of car bombings,
we hear Iraqis say their country is less safe than it was under Hussein, and
we meet a young girl named Farah who was shot in the arm and stomach by U.S.
soldiers.

?Voices of Iraq? has conflicting viewpoints ? which is one of its
strengths. Tucked into the film are videos, apparently made by Iraqi
insurgents, who urge Arabs to attack U.S. soldiers. These are juxtaposed with
video, apparently made by Hussein?s son Uday, that show extreme torture of
Iraqi prisoners. Some Iraqis claim that the Abu Ghraib prison abuse was tame
compared with what they endured under Hussein.

There are certainly indications that ?Voices of Iraq? is an attempt to
counteract ?Fahrenheit 9/11? and other anti-war documentaries. The movie?s Web
site names the production company as ?Voices of Freedom, LLC.? The
conservative Washington Times newspaper has written that the film is a ?potent
negation? of anti-war views held by Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. The Wall
Street Journal, whose editorial pages lean right, has opined that ?Voices of
Iraq? ?overwhelmingly (shows) signs of life and optimism? in Iraq. In an
interview with The Chronicle, Archie Drury, one of the film?s three producers,
acknowledges that the film ?makes Bush look good? and that the producers
selectively edited the Iraqis? footage ? but says the film?s main point is to
?humanize? the Iraqi people.

Drury is a Democrat. As a Marine, he served in the first Persian Gulf war,
where he got to know Iraqi children who walked up to his observation post.
Anyone who has met Iraqis ? whether it?s in Baghdad or Berkeley ? knows
they?re more than the images that air on the nightly news. ?Voices of Iraq?
gives us this more nuanced picture. It?s more upbeat than not, more hopeful
than not. In a world where people often see things as either half full or half
empty, this is a film that?s half full. It?s an approach that even the war?s
harshest critics should find interesting.

Advisory: This film has occasional rough language, scenes of people with
bullet scars and extremely disturbing footage of prisoner torture.

? Jonathan Curiel

?Yesterday Once More?

Romantic comedy. Starring Andy Lau, Sammi Cheng. Directed by Johnnie To.
(Not rated. 100 minutes. At the 4 Star.)

?Yesterday Once More? is on track to become one of the biggest hits of
2004 at the Hong Kong and Chinese box office, having been the No.?1 movie
since opening there Oct. 14. That is a testament to the sparkling star power
of Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng and the slick capabilities of director Johnnie To
rather than to the quality of the film, which harks back to 1960s romantic
caper films like ?The Thomas Crown Affair? and ?How to Steal a Million.?

Make no mistake, this is a watchable and often enjoyable piece of fluff,
with engaging characters, entertaining double crosses and a cornucopia of
expensive trappings: Lamborghinis, yachts, fine clothes and fine wine. But
considering the pedigree of the principals, it?s a bit of a letdown ? like
some of the stolen jewelry in the film, it?s more of an imitation than the
genuine article.

Lau, Cheng and To have collaborated twice before, each leading to box
office gold. ?Needing You? (2000) was a sharply scripted office comedy that
made Cheng a superstar and To much more than just an action director. ?Love on
a Diet? (2001) put Lau and Cheng in 300-pound fat suits, a situation that
could have been an embarrassment; instead, it?s one of the sweetest comic love
stories in recent memory. In ?Yesterday Once More,? Lau and Cheng, as divorced
jewel thieves competing to steal a valuable necklace that is the family
heirloom of Cheng?s suitor (Carl Ng), still have the chemistry, but seem to
take it for granted. To, who is Hong Kong?s best genre director, again
displays a great instinct for showmanship (dig the cool opening credits
sequence and catchy jazz score), smooth editing and that one last unexpected
plot twist, but it all seems a bit off this time, thanks to a script that gets
lost in its own make-it-up-as-you-go plot.

Why, for example, do our heroes turn up in Italy for a brief few minutes?
Apparently, just to relax at an outdoor cafe and have espressos.

Lau and Cheng have better days ahead at the American box office in the
next couple of months ? both are in ?Infernal Affairs,? an excellent police
drama that is being remade by Martin Scorsese, and Lau is in the magical
?House of Flying Daggers? for ?Hero? director Zhang Yimou. ?Yesterday Once
More,? which has nothing to do with the Carpenters? song of the same title, is
merely a quick fix for their fans.

? G. Allen Johnson

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Spry ‘Speed’ survivor Annie Porter (Bullock) can’t seem to escape maniacal terrorists, as she discovers soon after boarding a posh richness liner with her engagement-minded boyfriend, Alex. The bad news is that the disgruntled–and recently fired–conceive behind the ship’s electronic call the tune systems wants revenge against the ship’s administration, so he sets the deliver on a collision surely with such noxious targets as an offshore oil tanker. The good news is that Alex has been training on the sly with an elite LAPD SWAT team, so the plucky pair resolves to save their fellow passengers.

Cedric the Entertainer (Cedric Kyles), one of the nonconformist “Kings of Comedy,” is a companionable, genial wit who came to tor on the monstrous screen in “Barbershop” in 2002. Since then, however, Hollywood has yet to find a fresh starring means for him, saddling him with clunkers like “Johnson Family Vacation,” “Man of the House,” and “The Honeymooners.” I’m afraid 2007’s “Code Pre-eminence: The Cleaner” is no better, a rather goose and humorless affair that pretty much wastes Cedric’s droll talents.

Cedric plays Jake Rodgers, a janitor. Or a wonderful double agent. Or a janitor. Or a super spy. He, and we, are not in any way perfectly reliable. Jake wakes up one morning in a outlandish hotel room, with an fifty-fifty foreigner dead geezer in his bed. What’s more, the guy’s got a bullet in him, and there’s an attaché specimen full of money on the floor, which Jake ascertains at a glance contains a section of a million dollars. Don’t ask. Jake can’t call to mind a utensils regarding the night before, or his whole resilience in the presence of, a collision on his head having premised him amnesia. He can’t even remember his own name until a sexy blonde (Nicolloette Sheridan) introduces herself to him as his wife, drives him to their mansion in the boonies, and shows him their steady of exotic cars. Sounds like a engage in to me, but to save reasons unknown, Jake seems concerned all round all this. Admittedly, the dead guy is difficult, but….

Anyway, from this promising outset, the movie gets trifling in a disquiet, yet with less no laughs. I mean, the studio bills it as a comedy, and Cedric the Entertainer is largely a jocular actor, so, yeah, we sway count on a few guffaws, cackles, chuckles, chortles, grins, or smiles along the progress. But, no. Not a segregate twinkling of an eye of facetiousness works. Flatter than a week-old soda and staler than the sandwich you forgot beneath the hinie of your car along with it.

It’s pretty amazing, unquestionably, to think that the story could be this uninspiring. I intermediate, didn’t anybody read the script once moving ahead with the lob? The film is rated PG-13, and there is nothing particularly original or exorbitant prevalent it, so perhaps that’s what the filmmakers were going for in the from the word go place: something as mild and innocuous as possible. I don’t remember. Or possibly it was all the fault of director Les Mayfield, whose previous films were “Flubber,” “Encino Crew,” “American Outlaws,” “Blue Streak,” and the equally insipid “The Valet.” Certainly with that mislay relate, we might not expect the world’s funniest big from Mayfield. Or it may be the director and screenwriters little that Cedric could spare unchanging the dreariest parable by improvising some traffic and lines. Again, I have no idea what goes completely the heads of filmmakers who must be aware they’re starting with nothing. Not even the location shooting in Vancouver, B.C., helps, since much of the idea takes place indoors. The film’s only action scene, a car chase, occurs in a parking lot. Mini budget, I guess.

OK, Jake may be a insignificant dull, but it doesn’t take him all that prolonged to figure gone from that maybe, just dialect mayhap, somebody is up to no good, so unpropitious he goes on his own to find unlit who he absolutely is, with the police and a gang of baddies heat up on his trail. Along the acknowledge proceeding he meets an old girlfriend, Diane (Lucy Liu), whom he also doesn’t commemorate, working as a waitress. She, too, goes along on the adventure. Then there’s the head bad ridicule, Erik Hauck (Mark Dacascoes), a menacing person who gets far too little playing time; an disintegrated advocate, Riley (Will Patton), who gets even less playing perpetually than Dacascoes and as predictable wastes Patton’s talents; and a fast-talking janitor, Ronnie (DeRay Davis), who practically steals the show. Davis’s character is the exclusive sole who displays any signs of life, so, naturally, the filmmakers don’t occasion him more than a few minutes playing time.