Matt Damon’s The Green Zone opens today in theaters, and I’ve got to say : This movie looks nothing like Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City, the book upon which it’s supposedly based.
As the camera jerked and joggled its way through an impossible-to-follow action sequence late in The Green Zone (Universal), I found myself thinking: “Damn, I’m sick of faux-documentary-style hand-held cinematography. This feels like ersatz Paul Greengrass at its worst.” Then I remembered: The Green Zoneis directed by Paul Greengrass.
Wait. This is an action film? With spies and everything? But that’s nothing at all like Chandrasekaran’s book!
There’s very little action in Imperial Life in the Emerald City, to be honest: It takes place almost entirely in the “Green Zone” — the relatively safe area of Baghdad where American and Iraqi officials hid from the insurgents during the bloodiest days of the war therre — with brief forays out into nearby neighborhoods to gauge how “real Iraqis” are affected by the U.S. invasion. It’s first-rate reporting and writing, but it’s not a Matt Damon action thriller.
Bully for Chandrasekaran for selling the movie rights to his book. A more faithful translation of Imperial Life to the screen would’ve had to been done by somebody like M*A*S*H*-era Robert Altman — somebody who could take a cast of thousands and dramatize the not-exactly-front-lines absurdities of life in the Green Zone, where occupation officials were often chosen for their fealty to the GOP’s stance on abortion, say, rather than their knowledge of how to put a broken country back together. It could even play as a dark comedy! But Hollywood knows what sells, I suppose: Robert Altman movies stopped being widely successful 30 years ago (and Altman, of course, is dead) but gritty action flicks will live forever.
I actually came up with this list a few months ago after IMDB released its pretentious-sounding “movies of the millennium” list. Now that we’re a few weeks away from the end, I thought I’d post it here.
Rewatchability and emotional impact were major factors for me — as was the fact that the decade was a golden age of sorts for A) zombie movies, B) kung fu flicks, C) documentaries and D) superhero movies.
In no particular order:
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• The Lives of Others
• Serenity
• Amelie
• The Bourne Trilogy. (Unfair to do an entire trilogy as one entry? Sue me. The Bourne series proved action could again be brainy and fun. )
• 28 Days Later
• Shaun of the Dead
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Children of Men
• Downfall (And not because the one scene became an Internet meme, with Hitler bitching about the Dallas Cowboys.)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• Donnie Darko
• Persepolis
• Up
• Spider Man 2
Also under consideration: Spirited Away, The Dark Knight, Casino Royale, Memento, Waking Life, Grizzly Man, Spellbound, Fog of War, Session 9, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men
And for once, I’ve got nothing snarky to say. The first Iron Man was a first-rate entertainment; this trailer, at least, makes me hope the second one won’t be too cheesy. And if it keeps Robert Downey Jr. from doing this again, I’m satisfied:
I don’t know about you, but I found Tim Burton a lot more interesting when he mostly had to use real people inhabiting real, physical spaces in his movies — and when he did use special effects, they weren’t so different from anything Ray Harryhausen might’ve used a few decades before.
These days, of course, directors have no real technical obstacle to making exactly the images they see in their heads. They’re not forced to make choices, and they’re not forced to figure out how those choices serve the story, and so we’re treated to an endless parade of pixelated green-screen epics that grow more tedious by the month. Burton is, no doubt, still a very talented man. The problem is that he doesn’t have any impediments that force him to use his talent — he’s just able to vomit up whatever he thinks. The whole process is getting kind of boring.
Ok, last movie post of the day. But you know what this looks like? A YouTube parody of somebody envisioning what a Ridley Scott production of Robin Hood might look like:
Oh. You say it’s actually Ridley Scott’s production of Robin Hood? Um, er….
Just a prediction: There’s gonna be a scene in this movie where lots of people step forward and yell: “I am Robin Hood!” It just kind of smells like that kind of flick, no?
Hey, I’m a fan of the whole “edgy reboot” genre. James Bond. Batman. All were served well by going to dark places. But Robin Hood? C’mon, Ridley! Robin Hood is Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner’s bad accent. It’s Alan Rickman playing the villain. It’s a Bryan Adams soundtrack! It’s supposed to be fun, not humorless and angry.
The Tarantino flick is out on DVD today, which seems a good time to repeat my thoughts from its theater run:
• Hollywood’s marketing machine doesn’t always know what to do with movies that don’t fit precisely into its templates. This ain’t news, I realize, but it’s proved afresh by the trailers for Inglourious Basterds. You might get the impression that the movie is a rollicking roller coaster thrill ride, wall-to-wall violence. There is some very graphic violence in this movie — it is a Tarantino movie, after all — but it’s a very, very small part of the movie. Brad Pitt, in fact, is on screen for a relatively miniscule portion of the film. There’s a lot of talking in this movie — it is a Tarantino movie, after all — and at least two scenes where the conversations create unbearable tensions. Hollywood isn’t very good at selling dialogue, apparently.
• You may have heard that Christoph Waltz deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Col. Hans Landa, and he does. But I also enjoyed Daniel Bruhl’s turn as a seemingly sweet-but-entitled Nazi sniper. And Melanie Laurent’s role as a French theater owner had me smitten, frankly.
• Once again, we learn a lesson we’ve known since Twelve Monkeys. Brad Pitt is way more fun when he’s playing eccentric, weird or over-the-top. Stop putting him in pretty boy parts like Benjamin Button, because those movies never end up being interesting, and he’s not interesting in them. Give him a Tennessee accent to mangle the Italian language with — and let us see the wrinkles around his eyes, like Tarantino does here — and you’ve got entertainment.
“Avatar” is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It’s a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na’vi, as “Lord of the Rings” did, although mercifully I doubt this one can be spoken by humans, even teenage humans. It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation.
Let’s see: I’m a nerd. I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly and Doctor Who. This would seem to put me square in Avatar’s audience, wouldn’t it? But I’ve got no burning interest in seeing the movie. As much as I love nerdy sci fi/fantasy stuff, I think I’m even more allergic to hype in general and, more specifically, James Cameron hype. I still haven’t seen Titanic, and I don’t need to. Which is probably unfair, I guess. If it’s a good movie, it’s a good movie. I just can’t quite muster the juices for it.
Michael Lewis’ “The Blind Side” is one of the better nonfiction books of the last few years. It tells the story of Michael Oher, an all-but-orphaned young man from the wrong side of the tracks in Memphis who was accepted into a private Christian school, adopted by a wealthy white family and set on the path to success. And oh yeah, his redemption roughly coincided with his emergence as a likely future NFL prospect. (He’s now a rookie with the Baltimore Ravens.)
It’s a fascinating tale that implicitly raises questions about race, class, privilege and whether Oher — barely literate — would’ve been able to graduate from high school, let alone attend college, if he hadn’t had an army of people who became invested (in multiple meanings of that term) in his success. You spend the book rooting for Oher, even as a growing sense of unease sets in that maybe he’s being used, that he’d still be languishing somewhere in West Memphis if not for the accident of his genetic gifts. It’s a complex and sometimes subtle story, inspirational but not cheaply so, thanks to the issues it raises. (The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy excerpt in 2006, if you want a taste.)
And this is the movie we’re getting out of it:
There’s no subtlety here. Just a hammer to the face.
Let’s be clear: “The Blind Side” book isn’t just about Oher. It’s also about the Tuohys, the white family that took him in. But it is not about Sandra Bullock. That is, however, what “The Blind Side” movie is apparently about. And I cannot take the idea of this marvelous book being reduced to a Michelle Pfeiffer “Dangerous Minds” white-woman-saves-the-black-kid story, because it’s real life. And the real story is more complicated than that.
What I object to is that the movie is about nothing more than the coronation and sanctification of Mrs. Leigh Anne Touhy. Oher barely registers as a character in this film—he’s a prop. He has no inner life or story of his own, just an exotic pet adopted by a bored housewife.
Turns out I can argue with a true story. Because there are issues of representation at stake here, and The Blind Side isn’t just awful and boring. It’s actively evil. F
In truth, one voice you don’t hear very much in the book is Oher’s. He’s presented through the eyes of just everybody else who crosses his path. I don’t know the reason Lewis wrote the book that way, though I have my guesses. Even so, the Michael Oher of the book is a real human being. I’m not interested in seeing him — or his story, or his family — reduced to two or fewer dimensions.
Hey, I liked Rosemary’s Baby as much as anybody else. But he raped a 13-year-old girl and has spent three decades evading punishment for it. I’m somewhat bewildered that the man has defenders.
Like the L.A. Times‘ Patrick Goldstein, for instance:
I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn’t enough.
What price has he had to pay? That he had to spend 30 years living in France? He was arrested in Switzerland — apparently feeling safe to go there because he had a chalet that he regularly visited. What price is that, exactly?
I am certain there are many who will harrumph that, following this arrest, justice was done at last. But Polanski is 76. To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system. If he weren’t famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.
Ah, yes, the wages of fame: Being held accountable for child rape. Regular working-class child rapists don’t know how good they’ve got it!
I understand Polanski’s victim wants the charges dropped and the case to go away. I won’t pretend to know her mindset on why she’s made that decision. But the final decision doesn’t really belong to her. A sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl is an assault on society and its good order; evading punishment for that crime is a further assault. Polanski was able to evade justice for three decades because he was rich and famous and could flee to France; I have no problem making an example of him.
Finally got around to seeing it, a Sunday afternoon matinee. Three thoughts:
• Hollywood’s marketing machine doesn’t always know what to do with movies that don’t fit precisely into its templates. This ain’t news, I realize, but it’s proved afresh by the trailers for Inglourious Basterds. You might get the impression that the movie is a rollicking roller coaster thrill ride, wall-to-wall violence. There is some very graphic violence in this movie — it is a Tarantino movie, after all — but it’s a very, very small part of the movie. Brad Pitt, in fact, is on screen for a relatively miniscule portion of the film. There’s a lot of talking in this movie — it is a Tarantino movie, after all — and at least two scenes where the conversations create unbearable tensions. Hollywood isn’t very good at selling dialogue, apparently.
• You may have heard that Christoph Walz deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Col. Hans Landa, and he does. But I also enjoyed Daniel Bruhl’s turn as a seemingly sweet-but-entitled Nazi sniper. And Melanie Laurent’s role as a French theater owner had me smitten, frankly.
• Once again, we learn a lesson we’ve known since Twelve Monkeys. Brad Pitt is way more fun when he’s playing eccentric, weird or over-the-top. Stop putting him in pretty boy parts like Benjamin Button, because those movies never end up being interesting, and he’s not interesting in them. Give him a Tennessee accent to mangle the Italian language with — and let us see the wrinkles around his eyes, like Tarantino does here — and you’ve got entertainment.
