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Smoldering with anger, confusion, regret and chaos, the FX original series Rescue Me has delved deep into the muddled human psyche over the course of two short seasons. (Review of season 1, Season three begins later this month.) The brainchild of star Denis Leary and co-creator Peter Tolan, Rescue Me is not the ER of firefighters. Taking the extra freedom of cable as license to work in courser language and material, the show’s scripts run rampant with shocking twists and deviant behavior. And while it sometimes feels overstuffed with ideas (sometimes to a ludicrous degree) there is a tremendous amount of disturbing and moving character and story development.
Focusing largely on the life of veteran FDNY smoke-eater Tommy Gavin (Leary) Rescue Me is a portrait of psychosis and addiction. Like his network neighbor The Shield’s Vic Mackey, Gavin is not at all a typical television hero. Capable of both heartbreaking insight and unthinkable cruelty, Gavin is a walking time-bomb, visibly coming apart at the seams throughout the show. But what makes Gavin special is his tremendous sense of magnetism. Leary calls on every ounce of his formidable comic talents to turn his complex character into one of television’s richest portraits. Gavin’s emotions twist and turn in the wind when the rest of the world leaves him hanging, but Leary doesn’t go for easy sympathy. Gavin’s tremendous self-loathing is clear on his face, but so is his monumental ego.
The jump-off point for the entire show is 9/11, an event that left the FDNY devastated and personally took Tommy’s best friend and cousin Jimmy Keefe. The show’s treatment of 9/11 is unusually blunt, as the writers waste no time pointing out how it’s old news to most Americans, leaving the once-sainted firefighters as little more than underpaid city employees. But they’re not interested in making easy political points either, especially in the second season, since the disconnect between the public’s hazy recollection of the attacks and the immediacy of the memory for firefighters like Gavin is mined for its emotional aspects. When Tommy, reeking of booze, visits a street vendor hawking Ground Zero tourist crap the show displays both the crass commercialism that has turned a mass grave into an attraction and Tommy’s inability to cope with reality and move on.
When the first season ended Tommy had fallen his wife and kids, was out of his long-hour firehouse, was having an affair with his cousin’s widow, and was on the double drinking himself to extermination. The opening happening of season two wastes no time getting inside Tommy’s head, hitting us with Tommy’s sweetest fantasy (being back at execute, extenuatory lives) as well as some very confusing bawdy dreams. When he finally wakes up, Tommy is passed not on on the boarding of the discoloured apartment he’s renting in Manhattan, having given up on his empty nest in Queens.
The grim opening episode finds Tommy dangerously close to just ending it all as he sits alone, Travis Bickle-like, in his bare apartment. His work, his usual reason for existing, is barely better as he makes the trek out to Staten Island just to be lectured on the evils of swearing while sitting around with no fires to put out. While the show’s view of Staten Island as a sleepy little burb is exaggerated (let’s face it, Staten Island is filled with Brooklynites) the contrast between Tommy’s action-packed Manhattan firehouse and a house that considers putting out a car fire legendary is clear. For a man who seems to get all of his self worth from running into burning buildings this new post is purgatory.
But Tommy’s biggest struggles are personal. While the specifics of the storylines change at a fevered pace during the second season (sometimes disappointingly quick) Tommy’s emotional journey is slow and painful. The Staten Island situation is solved too early, as is the problem with what to do with Tommy’s too-good-to-be-true replacement in the city (played with relish by Oz’s great Lee Tergesen) but Tommy’s struggles with booze, pills, depression, and the intricate and tangled web of interpersonal relationships that comprises his life is handled with amazing patience.
In the first season the show took a big risk by visualizing Tommy’s deteriorating mental state by having him constantly surrounded by the ghosts of the people he feels he failed, most notably his cousin Jimmy. Played by James McCaffrey, the alternately bitter and jovial ghost of Jimmy was a great partner for Tommy, egging him into all sorts of harmful situations. In season two, with his mental state a rollercoaster of improvements and downward spirals, Jimmy is less present. He mostly appears when Tommy is most vulnerable, sometimes to devastating affect. Tommy’s inner dialog has a sort of Fight Club-like quality as he tries to rationalize his problems and attitude a million different ways. Jimmy offered a familiar voice in the first season, but by halfway through this one he’s at odds with Tommy. The relationship between a man and his ghosts is explored in powerful and heartbreaking ways here.
But the show is also not afraid of taking new risks, so this time Tommy’s regular companion is none other than Jesus Christ himself. Played by Bernardo De Paula (fearlessly tackling a truly bizarre role) this version of Jesus wants to lead Tommy down the right path, even to convince him that there is good in the world. While it reads terribly, this development (coming in a show steeped in the sort of religious ambivalence that can only come from generations of blue collar Irish Catholicism) adds an unhinged but honest perspective to the show: Jesus here is a straight-talking guy, the kind of person who Tommy can bounce ideas off of. His words are simple but he knows how to drop them when they count.
In addition to the show’s groundbreaking drama, it’s notable for the way it mixes in some very funny comedy. While the entire series is filled with comic moments (the gallows humor necessary to the job is often funny and sick at the same time) but a couple of show-stopping scenes are of particular note, including a scene where the guys expound on words offensive to women (and in the process coin the hybrid terms “cwat” and “twunt”) and an incredible scene in a sensitivity training seminar.
Tommy’s storyline is outstanding (and far from resolved by the finale) but the paths facing many of the show’s other great characters can be uneven. Season two offers barely anything rewarding for firefighter Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale, whose character has been dumbed down to a ridiculous degree) and probie Mike Silletti (Mike Lombardi), who goes from one dumb girlfriend storyline to another without any emotional payoff. In a season low-point Garrity briefly dates an FDNY groupie who intentionally sets fires to get the attention of studly firemen. This potentially interesting storyline is dropped almost immediately in an uncharacteristically stupid way. And Lieutenant Kenny Shea’s relationship with a high priced call girl turns cringe-inducingly moronic before ending with an easy, but slightly less stupid, twist. John Scurti is so good as Shea that he almost overcomes some impossibly lame dialog involving a pimp named “F-Bomb” (is Omarosa a writer on the show now?) but not quite.
It’s especially jarring when storylines like those are juxtaposed with emotionally gripping stories involving Chief Reilly’s relationship with his gay son (an open wound continued from the first season) as well as his agony over his wife’s continued deterioration from Alzheimer’s. Jack McGee may land roles like Reilly due to his real-life firefighter’s persona, but with these two storylines here he really mines some rich emotional material. His anger and exasperation at his wife’s inability to remember his name is potent.
The other season long firehouse storyline involves Franco (Daniel Sunjata) and Laura (Diane Farr) and, while they have their out-of-character moments it’s an interesting development, as much for how everyone reacts as for Franco and Laura themselves.
Tommy’s family is full of characters too, including his brother Johnny and cousin Mick (Dean Winters and Robert John Burke, respectively, both rock solid) as well as his dad (played by the great Charles Durning), who returns from overseas married to Mrs. Ng (whose last name is hilariously mispronounced by everyone who meets her) and insane uncle Teddy (Lenny Clarke). Teddy is the only consistently cartoonish character on the show who always works. Something about Clarke’s mugging is totally magnetic and hilarious.
Tommy’s estranged wife Janet is still marred by the sometimes unconvincing and ethnically diluted performance of Andrea Roth, but her boomerang storyline is engaging nonetheless. Jimmy’s widow Sheila, on the other hand, is brilliantly portrayed by the fearless Callie Thorne. Of all the show’s characters Sheila’s mental state may be closest to Tommy’s. Their semi-incestuous relationship is unhealthy for both but the actors make it feel desperately necessary.
As much as the other characters are fascinating, Rescue Me is Tommy’s story. From the scene in the first episode when he sits alone watching a home movie featuring an entire cast of people whose lives are ruined, as hard to watch as anything I’ve seen on TV, to the unrelentingly grim (and horribly real) brutality of the final two episodes of the season, Tommy Gavin’s life is a shambles and Rescue Me chronicles the descent.
Larenz Tates (second from right) stars in
Empty Presidents
as a throw whose vitality is reduced to pigpen after he returns from the conflict in Vietnam.
Dead Presidents
Directed by Allen and Albert Hughes.
Starring Larenz Tate, Keith David, and Chris Tucker.
Sony Nickelodeon
By Daniel Ramirez
It's 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. While most students were working on
problem sets, I was in a private room of the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel.
Without warning, in walked two young men, dressed similarly except for
their baseball hats. At first glance, you would have seen nothing more than
two identical twins. One might even have confused the young men for college
students, which they were not. Enter Allen and Albert Hughes, the fraternal
twin brothers who made their feature film directing debut at age 20.
In a recent interview with the Hughes Brothers, as they are commonly
referred to, I was given the opportunity to gain some extra insight into
the brothers and to see why they have become one of Hollywood's hottest
commodities.
The Hughes Brothers began their Hollywood career with the critical
success
Menace II Society
. Made for roughly $3 million, the film
went on to gross $30 million; but more importantly, not only did it catch
the eye of America, it caught the eye of Caravan Pictures. The movie showed
that the Hughes Brothers were filmmakers with a distinct point of view and
that they had a bright future ahead of them. With the success of
Menace
II Society
, not only did the brothers make a name for themselves, they
also earned a deal to direct movies under the Caravan label. Their first
project under the label, and only their second major feature, is the highly
anticipated
Dead Presidents
.
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The story opens in 1968: Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate) is a 18-year-old
young man, who decides to skip college straight out of high school. He
leaves his mentor Kirby (Keith David), his family, and his girlfriend
Juanita Benson (Rose Jackson) to enlist in the Marine Corps with his friend
Jos (Freddy Rodriguez) in hopes of serving his country proudly and earning
some respect. While at war, we learn that Anthony's girlfriend bore his
daughter shortly after his departure. With the arrival of his friend Skip
(Chris Tucker), who enlisted after flunking out of college, we begin to
sense a change in Anthony's world.
Upon Anthony's return home in 1972, it becomes more apparent that the
life he once dreamed of is not going to become a reality. Instead of being
treated as a hero, he is merely treated as a man without an education.
Working part-time at a butcher's shop, Anthony, with his girlfriend, is
barely making ends meet in an infested South Bronx apartment. Afforded
little respect, and eventually unemployed and desperate, Anthony decides to
participate in a heist to acquire some "dead presidents," a slang term for
cash. Teamed with his fellow vets, Skip, Jos, and Cleon (Bokeem Woodbine)
and Kirby and Juanita's sister Delilah (N'Bushe Wright), Anthony hopes that
this one well-executed score will secure a chance at a better life for
himself, for his daughter and for the people of his community.
Over the past few years, the Hughes Brothers have been labeled by much
of the press as merely "black movie makers directing black subject matter."
However, they don't see it like that. "We're guys who are making movies, if
you want to consider us black, then we're black. I don't have no problem
with that,"Allen said. When asked a question about the responsibilities of
African Americans making films pertaining to black subject matter, Albert
replied, "I feel, as a black filmmaker making black subject matter, the
only responsibility is to the subject matter itself. Not considering any
race when making the film, but considering the people that you're
portraying; and I don't personally think that anyone white or black should
be limited from making movies about other cultures." In their opinion,
filmmaking isn't about the race of the director; it's about the views they
have to offer.
So what view do the Hughes Brothers offer America? According to Allen,
they're "making movies that reflect the unpredictability of life. We throw
down a guy's life and we throw the cards of life at him. Wherever the chips
may fall, that's how they fall. That's life." Films shouldn't follow a
three act structure. Instead, the film should stick to the director's
vision.
Although only their second effort, the Hughes Brothers' new film
displays their ingenuity and maturity with a well directed and well acted
production. From start to finish, the audience is witness to a young man's
struggle to define his place amid the chaos of the late 1960s and early
70s. Keith David gives a superb performance as Kirby, an older man who
becomes a father figure to Anthony. And following his unforgettably
hilarious performance as Smokey in
Friday
, Chris Tucker adds humor
to the film with his character, Skip. Another highlight of the film is the
musical score. Composed by Danny Elfman, one of the foremost film composers
in the industry, the music incorporates instruments from all over the world
to further enhance the Hughes Brothers' story. Color and style are a major
part of all movies, and
Dead Presidents
offers the audience a
variety of it.
From the sultry sounds of the 60s and 70s, to the graphic detail of the
Vietnam War,
Dead Presidents
is a film worth watching. It stirs
emotions and causes us to think about how unpredictable life really is.
Scene for scene, the movie is powerful and well directed. If you want to
see a movie that doesn't follow the usual, predictable structure of most
films, then watch
Dead Presidents
.
Idle Texan, Michael (Nicolas Cage), drifts into a bar in Red Stupefy, Wyoming. Mistaken by reason of a hired killer by bar owner Wayne (J.T. Walsh), Michael accepts $5000 to eradicate Wayne’s adulterous helpmate Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Attempting to take the money and Music roulade, Michael decides to give fair warning Suzanne of Wayne’s plot but is prevented from making a flight when the real bang into man Lyle (Dennis Hopper) arrives in burgh.
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The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
Slope: 83
"The Great Waldo Pepper" stars Robert Redford as the title
character. The film takes place during the late 1920s.
Redford is a former World War I pilot, and is still
flying, selling rides to people in the Midwestern farm
country. Any extra money goes to Ezra Stiles, a plane
designer working on a monoplane that can perform a
flying stunt called the "outside loop."
Soon he has competition from Axel Olsson, another
WWI veteran pilot moving in on his territory. Pepper
politely tells Olsson to leave Nebraska, and when
he refuses, Pepper sabotages his landing gear.
Olsson has to land his biplane in the lake, to the
cheers of the hick onlookers who think that the landing
was a stunt.
Pepper hits on a young woman (Mary Beth, played by Susan
Sarandon) in a movie theater. Soon he is telling her
his favorite story, of his encounter with Ernst Kessler
in WWI. (Kessler, who appears later in the film, is
clearly modeled after Germany's Red Baron).
Bad luck has it that Sarandon is Olsson's girlfriend.
Olsson, apparently a good sport about Redford wrecking
his plane, shows up and deflates Pepper's story.
Pepper has never even met Kessler.
With the novelty of airplane in decline, Pepper and Olsson
can no longer make a living on their own. They become
partners, and try to join Dillhoefer's flying circus,
but first must learns some stunts to perform.
This leads to Redford, hanging from a ladder extended from
a plane, crashing into a barn. He survives, but must
mend at the house of his sometime girlfriend Margo Kidder.
Pepper recovers and rejoins the circus, which is
struggling financially. Mary Beth becomes a wing-walker
to get publicity for the circus. She "freezes", unable
to leave the wing. In a daring stunt, Redford leaps from
one moving plane to another to attempt a rescue, however,
Sarandon falls to her death. Redford is "grounded" by
the Civil Aviation Authority, headed by old friend Newt,
pending the outcome of an investigation.
Stiles completes the monoplane. Since Redford can't fly it,
Stiles attempts to complete an outside loop at the
Muncie fair. This results in Stiles death. Redford becomes
angry at a crowd ogling the accident, and buzzes the crowd
with a plane, which then crashes. Redford is thereafter
banned for life from flying.
Redford goes to Hollywood, to work with Olsson who is there
as a stunt double. A film is being made there based on
Kessler's famous WWI battle. Redford works as a pilot
on the film, under an assumed name, and finally gets
to battle Kessler, if only on a Hollywood set.
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"The Great Waldo Pepper" effectively combines comedy and
drama. The movie is thickly plotted and intelligently
scripted. It is critically underrated. The only important
weakness comes during the last twenty minutes, as the pace
slows and too much time is spent developing the relationship
between Pepper and Kessler.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews
newsgroup (
de.rec.film.kritiken
for German reviews).
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CENTERING ON a beautiful widow (Nicole Kidman) who comes to believe that a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright) is the reincarnation of her dead husband, “Birth” lies somewhere between the weird eroticism of the art house and the cheesy horror of movies like the recent “Godsend” — an infelicitous comparison made all the more unavoidable, seeing as Kidman’s juvenile co-star had the extreme misfortune of also being cast in that transmigration-of-souls stinkfest.
Unfortunately, in an attempt to extricate itself from this uncomfortable spot, it ends up painting itself even further into a corner. Too highbrow for the multiplex and too literal for the hipsters, it’s unsatisfying both as gothic camp and serious cinema.
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“Birth” opens, nicely enough, with the death of upper-crusty New Yorker Anna’s (Kidman) beloved Sean, played by Michael Desautels, whom we see for all of about a minute, from the back, before he has a heart attack while jogging. Fast-forward 10 years to Anna’s engagement party, where an inexplicably upset guest (Anne Heche) bolts into Central Park to bury a gift-wrapped box. (Hold that thought. It will come in handy when writer-director Jonathan Glazer, aided and abetted by co-writers Milo Addica and Jean-Claude Carriere, run out of ideas.)
A short time later, a little boy (Bright) shows up on the doorstep — actually, in the lobby of Anna’s high-rise — claiming to be her late hubby, trapped in the body of a chubby pre-adolescent. Now, a natural reaction would be for Anna and her blue-blood cronies to laugh so hard at this patently absurd claim that their champagne came out of their noses. That doesn’t happen. For one thing, nobody laughs in this film, which Glazer directs like a parody of “Cries and Whispers.” For another thing, Little Sean has some pretty good parlor tricks up the sleeve of his sweat shirt, such as knowing where Big Sean died and on what couch he and Anna once “did it.”
I know, I know. It’s already silly at this point, but I’ve got to tell you that Kidman somehow manages to string you along for the rest of the ride. The movie doesn’t really fall apart until much, much later. In what may be the film’s one brilliant stroke, Glazer opts to show us Kidman’s face — in one excruciating, uninterrupted close-up that seems to go on for five minutes — as Anna tries to convince herself, alternately, that this could, and could not, be Sean. It’s a tribute to the actress’s ability that what’s going on inside her head is right up there on the screen, and at that moment, it’s hard not to believe that the kid is telling the truth (or at least that Anna believes he is).
Anna’s fiance, Joseph (Danny Huston), is, understandably, concerned about all the time his bride-to-be is spending with her new boyfriend (emphasis on the boy), as are Anna’s mother (Lauren Bacall) and sister (Alison Elliot), who wisely points out that sleeping with the child, as Anna clearly intends to do, would be illegal.
Ew.
Icky, however, I can take. What I’m not so fond of is the cop-out ultimately taken by the filmmakers, who can’t seem to follow through on their promisingly metaphysical premise (let alone the theme of obsessive love), electing instead to eliminate all ambiguity — now would be the time to dig up that gift-wrapped box I told you about earlier — which reduces the film, in the end, to little more than a cheap, if rather expensive-looking, joke.
BIRTH (R, 100 minutes) — Contains a sex scene and plenty of creepy erotic tension involving a grown woman and a 10-year-old boy. Area theaters.
Moving from the home anterior - and tentative or banking treatments of Vietnam - towards confrontation with the action, American cinema was scale extricating itself from a settle of unpronounced complicity and stuttering out the admissible of moralistic mush that permeates Go Blab the Spartans, undivided of the before ‘platoon movies’ of Vietnam. Post’s layer is fundamentally that old post-World War II standby, the anti-war-silver screen, a twinkling generation young of the conscience-stricken cavalry movie. It’s brought up to date to the extent that our human/wise/ insurrectionary hero (Lancaster - bank on his speeches) can die with a finishing exclamation of ‘Oh, shit!’ - an apt summation of a film that parades characters and quotes positively included to be dismissed with a self-satisfied cynical shrug. Message-mongering allowing for regarding morons.
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Will Ferrell, with Leslie Bibb, is on the upside of the roller-coaster in Sony comedy 'Talladega Nights.'
Sacha Baron Cohen plays a French Formula One driver who bedevils Will Ferrell's Bobby.
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A Sony Pictures Spectacle unfetter of a Columbia Pictures presentation in association with Relativity Media of an Apatow Co./Mosaic Media Group production. Produced by Jimmy Miller, Judd Apatow. Executive producers, Bequeath Ferrell. Adam McCay, David Householder, Ryan Kavanaugh, Richard Glover, Sarah Nettinga. Directed by Adam McKay. Screenplay, Will Ferrell, McKay.
Ricky Bobby - Will Ferrell
Cal Naughton, Jr - John C. Reilly
Jean Girard - Sacha Baron Cohen
Reese Bobby - Gary Cole
Lucius Washington - Michael Clarke Duncan
Carley Bobby - Leslie Bibb
Lucy Bobby - Jane Lynch
Susan - Amy Adams
Gregory - Andy Richter
Mrs. Dennit - Molly Shannon
Simultaneously teasing and loving a subject doesn't affect inasmuch as easy comedy, but writer-star Settle upon Ferrell and director/co-pencil-pusher Adam McKay pull it off with real-ol'-lackey good simplicity in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." NASCAR and its colorful melding of larger-than-life characters and action be clear an ideal fit notwithstanding Ferrell's onscreen self, translating into terrific summer B.O. as fans of the left-turn-solely circuit bring into the world a movie they can call their own.
Spoofing network affiliate news programs and officious, coiffed anchorpeople proved facile and obvious a targetin Ferrell and McKay's previous "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," but it appears the pair may be on to something in "Talladega."
NASCAR champ Ricky Bobby, like Burgundy, is at the top of his game and so egomaniacally aware of it, he's just asking to be brought down; he needs to have everything fall apart to realize what's worth living for. Ricky's collapse from glory may not quite add up when scrutinized too closely, but his scramble back to the track is flecked with enough humanity that it feels like a light ode to the idea that lives really can have second acts.
Urged on as a kid by his ne'er-do-well dad Reese (Gary Cole, magnificently crusty) with the motto, "If you're not first, you're last," Ricky finds himself in the pit crew of the Dennit racing team with buddy Cal (John C. Reilly), led by pit chief Lucius (Michael Clarke Duncan). When the blase Dennit driver refuses to let racing get in the way of a bathroom break, Ricky volunteers as replacement and wins the race in an upset.
In a swift montage, Rickey's legend takes off; he racks up wins and collects a fortune, along with obviously gold-digging trophy wife Carley (Leslie Bibb). It's too much too soon for Ricky, who's becoming as much of a monster as the two sons — Walker (Houston Tumlin) and Texas Ranger (Grayson Russell) — he and Carley are raising.
Trouble starts with the be-bop sound of Charlie Parker's "Segment" blaring out of the jukebox in Ricky's favorite dive — the record of choice for champ Formula One driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), who enters like a Gallic hipster gunslinger and brazenly tells Ricky he will soon rule NASCAR like he's ruled "Formula Un." Girard throws a left hook into the movie just when it needs it, and Cohen's insanely funny dialect is inspired.
Ricky loses his mind, imagining, he's burned up in a crash and paralyzed from the waist down. With fear and defeat getting the best of him, Carley goes over to the enemy, leaving Ricky with the bratty boys and — inexplicably — no money. Taken in by his mom Lucy (Jane Lynch, about the only funny thesp in the cast with little to do), Ricky is made to confront the long-absent Reese, who tells his son to make fear his friend.
Girard is a comic character even Francophiles can enjoy (he peruses a Gallimard paperback edition of Camus' "L'etranger" while racing) and he's the worst nightmare for Ricky, a win-at-all-costs hick. But Ricky admirably overcomes his worst traits and learns to drive fast once more, even if Reese's methods to restore his son's nerve call for Ricky to drive with a live cougar in the passenger seat, illegal drugs under the engine and pursuing cops on his tail.
The new pic particularly laps "Anchorman" in characterization, with Ferrell and his supporting cast enjoying several scenes in which they can limn people beneath the funny banter. Ferrell takes a risk in pushing Ricky's most noxious aspects, with the reward that he also earns audience affection by playing a man who's humbled.
Reilly reveals Cal Jr. to be a quieter version of the ambitious Ricky, which is why a last-minute twist doesn't work for his character. After a deceptively discreet entrance, Amy Adams' shy assistant unleashes a stunning monologue that revs Ricky's inner engines. Duncan, Bibb and Greg Germann as the overcompensating heir to the Dennit racing biz brings NASCAR types to life. (In fact, several NASCAR stars have cameos in the film, including Dale Earnhardt Jr.)
Not only does McKay display a strong grip on his actors and camera, he gets the grit, heat and feel of NASCAR racetracks with a near-documentary sensibility. This is perhaps the pic's most surprising dimension, aided by Oliver Wood's ace widescreen lensing, and CG racetrack and car crash effects. It's enough to make Jerry Bruckheimer envious.
Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Oliver Wood; editor, Brent White; music, Alex Wurman; music supervisor, Hal Willner; production designer, Clayton R. Hartley; art director, Virginia Randolph-Weaver; set designer, Barbara Mesney; set decorator, Casey Hallenbeck; costume designer, Susan Matheson; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Mark Ulano; supervising sound editor, George Anderson; visual effects supervisor, Joseph B. Conmy IV; special effects supervisor, Garry Elmendorf; visual effects, Digital Dimension; stunt coordinators, Andy Gill, Steve Kelso, Spiro Razatos; associate producers, Josh Church, Andrew Jay Cohen; assistant director, Matt Rebenkoff; second unit director, Razatos; second unit camera, Igor Meglic; casting, Allison Jones. Reviewed at Sony Studios, Culver City, July 24, 2006. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 104 MIN.
With:
Greg Germann, Houston Tumlin, Grayson Russell, David Koechner, John D. King, Pat Hingle, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dick Berggren, Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds, Darrell Waltrip, Jamie McMurray, Bob Jenkins, Elvis Costello, Mos Def, Bill Weber, Benny Parsons, Wally Dellenbach.
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Date in print: Mon., Jul. 31, 2006,
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A photojournalist who came to Calcutta in the dilatory ’90s to certify Sonagachi, its red-lighter district, Zana Briski eventually befriended many of the limited prostitutes’ children. She gave them cameras and taught them how to shoot and emend the world they knew: the crowded, filthy boarding house where their mothers live and toil. In Briski and Ross Kauffman’s thug, definitely engrossing membrane (winner of this year’s documentary Oscar), we meet the ebullient Puja, who ventures fearlessly into Calcutta’s streets to sudden candids; Avijit, who coordinates offhanded (and one-handed) impudent-satirize camera moves with an impeccable eye for the perfect be in command; and Suchitra, a shy, tall beauty who’s reached the threatening majority of 14, when many girls ‘join the line’. For this self-selecting bring of bright, energetic, curious kids, the on the other hand path out of the brothels leads to a decent boarding mould, and Briski sees their photography as a means to lucre their cultivation. (Amnesty in use accustomed to the Sonagachi children’s pictures for a 2002 schedule.) The spectre of long odds and constricted choices shades every frame, yet the stress is often buoyant and legitimately inspirational, as when the arrange runs riot during a seaside acreage trip, or when Briski hacks her way from stem to stern a bureaucratic no-man’s-land of red tape and somehow emerges with a passport in place of Avijit (who’s selected to attend a On cloud nine Press Photo Fundamental principle event in Amsterdam). ‘Born Into Brothels’ testifies to the kids’ untaught resilience and hope, and to their mentor’s open energy. Inevitably a documentary of this stripe risks aestheticising impecuniousness but here it’s the kids themselves who get control of the most surprising images.
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Starring: Chris Rock, Regina King, Mark Addy, Eugene Levy, Frankie Faison, Greg Germann, Jennifer Coolidge, Chazz Palminteri, Wanda Sykes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, sexual humor and some drug references.
Review by Matt Heffernan <
matt@filmhead.com
>
February 22, 2001
Now for Part Two of the Greg Germann Remake Weekend, which began with my previous
review for
Sweet November
, a remake of a
rather obscure 1968 film. However,
Down to Earth
is the third adaptation of
the Harry Segall play
Heaven Can Wait
. The first was one of my all-time
favorite films: 1941's
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
with Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains. The second, and most familiar to today's
audiences, is 1978's
Heaven Can Wait
starring Warren Beatty. In fact,
Down
to Earth
is directly based on the 1978 screenplay by Beatty and Elaine May, and does
not credit the original play at all. Anyway, this is an attempt to strike gold for a third
time while simultaneously typecasting Greg Germann from "Ally McBeal". To say the
least, this was not a great idea.
Chris Rock stars as Lance Barton, a struggling comedian who regularly gets booed
off the Apollo Theater stage on Amatuer's Night. He has acquired the nickname
"Booey", which is even used by his kind-hearted manager, Whitney (Frankie Faison).
The Apollo is going to close down, and plans on showcasing five amateur acts in their
closing show. After trying to get one of these spots with Whitney, Lance goes back
to his job as a bicycle courier, full of great expectations. However, while his head is
turned by a beautiful woman, he gets hit by a truck.
Once in Heaven (which looks like it was designed by Hugh Hefner), Lance finds out
that the angel Mr. Keyes (Eugene Levy) took his spirit an instant before the truck actually
hit. The head angel, Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri), takes him to the newly-dead body
of billionaire Charles Wellington. Lance agrees to use this body temporarily after
seeing that he'd have a chance to meet the last woman he saw in life, Sontee (Regina
King). He also wants to get back into the Apollo show, but being a middle-aged white
guy is not going to make either of these goals feasible.
So where does Greg Germann fit into all of this? I figured you might ask. He plays
Wellington's personal assistant, who conspired to kill him with Mrs. Wellington
(Jennifer Coolidge). This requires him to play the exact same character as his roles
in both "Ally McBeal" and
Sweet November
. But dwelling on his typecasting, isn't
the real purpose of this review. There are far more pressing issues at hand.
Basically, this version of the story doesn't work. The only new source of comedy is
the race-bending aspect, which does not prove fruitful. The brilliance of
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
was Robert Montgomery's dim-witted boxer, who now had
to act like a sophisticated tycoon. Lance Barton is not a funny character. Comedians
in general are not funny as characters. Take Jerry Seinfeld, who essentially played
himself in "Seinfeld". He was the straight man while the more interesting characters
of George, Elaine, and Kramer provided the comedy, even though "Jerry" was a comedian.
Lance Barton was no mental giant, but the jokes were not at his expense. The film
occasionally cuts to what he looks like to the rest of the world in order to show
how funny it is to have Wellington rapping along with the radio.
The rest of the film consists of all the plot points you remember from the earlier films.
The only difference is that this version handles them with less skill. This film
does have its moments, and the story itself is strong enough to keep it going, but
it is certainly not worthwhile. It's too bad because I really like Chris Rock,
and I had hoped that his version would live up to the past. It has done surprisingly
well against
Hannibal
at the box office, and judging
by the extremely young audience in my theatre, most of these ticket-buyers haven't seen
either of the two superior versions. The best anybody can hope for is that this
helps Rock establish himself as a box office draw and inspires kids to rent
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
or
Heaven Can Wait
. At least that's what I want,
but it seems that Hollywood doesn't care about what I want anymore. They're more concerned
about making movies with David Arquette and a dog. I'd better stop now before I let
this rant get out of control.
Here's some merchandise for sale at
Looking break weighing down on with the iconic poet-musician
STEVE APPLEFORD
Was it importance all the waiting?
JONATHAN GOLD
Martin Scorsese's throwback control mistake is the respectable kind of insane
NICK PINKERTON
Per week, from lower-proceeds Angelenos' paychecks
MAX TAVES
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