Cynical Cinema

Alliance Films is on a roll with their epic films. A few months ago, they released a magnificent three-disc Limited Collector’s edition of El Cid to DVD, one of the great but forgotten Charlton Heston epics. It came with cards and comic books and dozens of special features and booklets and all kinds of trinkets. Today, May 27th, Alliance is releasing the next in this epic series, a Limited Collector’s Edition of The Fall Of The Roman Empire. The three-disc set is almost identical to El Cid in terms of the goodies that come inside. And the two films are very similar as well, in that they are massive military epics with casts of thousands, enormous sets, and Sophia Loren. Starring with Loren in The Fall of the Roman Empire is Alec Guinness, one of the most under-rated actors in history, as the reasonable and wise Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. He may well be one of the three greatest to ever live, up there with Brando and Olivier and Nicholson and DeNiro and Bogart.

The movie begins with Marcus Aurelius calling together the representatives of all the nations within the Roman Empire in order to secure peace and prosperity for the known world. Of course, this does not take place over the course of the film, and when it ends three hours later, it is with the Fall of the Roman Empire. This disaster comes about when Aurelius’ son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer), gets wind of his father’s decision to turn over the throne to his adopted son Livius instead of him. So Commodus decides to kill his own father in order to take the throne. And that leaves Rome in the hands of a childish, foolish man, who refuses to negotiate with his enemies or listen to other opinions, and thereby dooms the entire empire quite quickly. Well, in three hours.

This movie is famous now more as the movie that caused the fall of Samuel Bronfman’s cinematic empire, moreso than as a film. But as a film, it stands the test of time. The “Battle of the Four Armies” is as impressive a set piece as anything staged in The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. 8,000 soldiers and 1,200 horses were used for the production, which was shot on a massive plain in Madrid. And the detailed reconstruction of the Roman Forum remains, to this day, the largest ever outdoor film set. With set pieces and sets like these, it’s easy to see how the movie cost a massive amount to produce. And when it became a gargantuan financial failure, it took Bronfman’s empire with it. He had previously been responsible for some of the massive films of the era - El Cid, King of Kings - but after this one he never made another. It was more his business plan than the failure of this film, however, that did him in. He had spent so much creating the sets for these epic movies that he overextended himself, and owed millions of dollars when he became financially destitute and shut down operations.

The Fall of the Roman Empire plays a little fast and loose with actual, factual, history. But the tone, the costumes, the sets and the structure of the armies and the senate are all perfect. The Battle of the Four Armies, while an impressive scene, never actually took place. But the scene toward the end where the senators attempt to bribe the military into making one of them emperor is taken from historical fact. But in the end, you don’t watch a movie like this to learn specific facts about world history. You watch it to be entertained. And The Fall of the Roman Empire IS entertaining. Livius is played by Stephen Boyd, who does a terrific job in a role that was first offered to (of course) his Ben-Hur co-star, Charlton Heston. Sophia Loren is great as always, and of course smoking hot. The role of Commodus was only the third movie role for Christopher Plummer, and it’s the role that propelled him to stardom. And Alec Guinness is simply magnificent as Marcus Aurelius, a role that sadly ends halfway through the movie with his death.

There are many similarities to Gladiator in this film, and indeed a few people have suggested that on many levels Gladiator was actually a remake of The Fall Of The Roman Empire. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that is the case, but the stories certainly approximate one another. They occur at the same epoch in history, they deal with the same characters and the same downward spiral that consumed Rome in all her glory, and certainly the final scene is almost identical in both films. But Gladiator is a little more fanciful, and The Fall of the Roman Empire is way bigger in scale.

Now - while I certainly do recommend picking up this film, and this three-disc edition is wonderfully done, you might want to wait. For true rabid fans of this film, there is another edition coming out later, possibly as much as a year later. This edition features the standard two hour and 52 minute theatrical version that has been around for years. However, there was some lost footage that was discovered, too late to be included in this particular edition, that will be added to a later set. This will, though, likely be the only set with the poster-cards and the booklets that are included here. So perhaps, if you are a hardcore fan of The Fall of the Roman Empire, you could well do both. Like my nerd-buddy Dave, who owns all thirty-four different editions of the Star Wars trilogy. On VHS and DVD and LaserDisc and reel-to-reel and so forth. If only he had a laser disc player.

Holocaust is a now-legendary miniseries that ran on NBC’s Big Event series in the late 70s. Starring Meryl Streep, James Woods, and a ton of other stars, this is a seven-and-a-half hour marathon of remarkable brilliance. Streep and Woods are terrific as a German woman and her Jewish husband. They get married at the beginning of the film, just before the Nazis start rounding up Jews for the ghettos and for executions. The series follows their story, as well as many others. Woods’ family plays a big part too. His father, a doctor, is played by Fritz Weaver, and his mother is Rosemary Harris. We follow them all the way to the Polish ghetto, and then to Auschwitz. Woods’ brother, Joseph Bottoms, witnesses and then escapes from the 1941 Baba Yar massacre, and with his girlfriend joins up with the Russian partisans in their battle against the Nazis.

Also a big story in Holocaust, Michael Moriarty is absolutely great as Erik Dorf, a German lawyer pressured by his ambitious wife to join the Nazi party. Although he is initially conflicted about the inhuman treatment of the Jews, he quickly loses his humanity and rises through the ranks of the SS to become a key architect of Auschwitz and the gas chambers. His story, while initially sympathetic, becomes more and more unpalatable as the film moves on, and eventually Dorf becomes the face of the evil that was the Nazis. He manages to justify his ideas and his involvement in the slaughter of so many innocents by thinking of it as just a job. He’s just following orders. His position is just a job. And his job is to find more efficient ways to slaughter Jews and better methods to explain it to the rest of the world. The Dorf we meet at the beginning of Holocaust would have recoiled in horror at the things done by the Dorf we see at the end.

Throughout, Holocaust is (of course) devastating and horrific. While we can celebrate the love between Bottoms and his girlfriend as they get married, and we can feel a certain amount of satisfaction and inspiration from the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, the story is so well-known and so bleak that it’s tough to lose oneself in the nice moments. But that is as it should be. You don’t watch a series like Holocaust expecting comedy and love stories. But it needs some (relatively) light-hearted moments to alleviate that crushing sense of dread and depression one will feel while watching. Of course, the people who really went through this have no respite, but that’s no reason not to give us one as we watch. After all, you want people to actually watch this, if for no other reason than it’s an event we, as people, should never forget.

Holocaust won several Emmy awards, being ineligible for Oscars. One of the most decorated TV miniseries of all time, it won for Outstanding Limited Series, whatever that meant in 1978. Streep, Woods and Moriarty all won acting Emmys, as did Blanche Baker. Five other actors were nominated, without winning. The direction, by Marvin J. Chomsky, won, as did the script by Gerald Green. Morton Gould’s musical score was nominated for an Emmy AND a Grammy, and Moriarty and Rosemary Harris both won acting Golden Globe awards. In short, Holocaust won every award that was available to it at the time, everything short of the Oscars. Which makes it TV’s equivalent of Schindler’s List, an apt comparison in that it stands right up there with that film as the two greatest documents of the most horrific events in modern history. It comes out on DVD for the first time tomorrow, May 27th, from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Describing I’m Not There is a tall task. This movie is weird. It’s beyond weird. It’s bizarre and artistic and insane and bonkers and very, very, good. It is, in some way, the story of Bob Dylan. But it’s Bob Dylan as imagined by Todd Haynes, the director of some of the strangest, yet most powerful and subversive movies in cinema today. And this is another in his long string of great and successful yet incredibly strange and complex films Mr. Haynes has unleashed upon North America. Haynes has managed, with I’m Not There, to craft a movie the way Dylan himself writes a song. Enigmatic, purposefully cryptic, brilliant and defying explanation. I can’t begin to describe the bizarre scenes and the strange moments in this film. Just be warned, this is very much an art film, and you, the viewer, are not meant to understand it all. What I’m going to do here in this review is provide, as best I can, as a Dylan fanatic myself, a sort of guide to the film so that you might enjoy it simply by virtue of understanding it a little more. I hope it helps, because this movie really is terrific.

“Bob Dylan” is played by six extremely different actors, each of whom have a different name for the Dylan character. Christian Bale (American Psycho) plays Dylan as Jack Rollins, a singer-songwriter from the 30s whose most famous work was the song “Frosty The Snowman”. He also wrote Peter Cottontail and Smokey The Bear. A strange choice for one of Dylan’s personas, “Jack Rollins” is Dylan at the moment when his status as the leader of the folk movement begins to chafe on him and get under his skin. Richard Gere (Pretty Woman) plays Dylan as Billy The Kid in a movie. In the film Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, Dylan famously wrote the soundtrack, which featured the song “All Along The Watchtower”. This is Dylan’s period after his motorcycle accident where he disappeared completely for a few years. Ben Whishaw plays Dylan as Arthur Rimbaud, a French poet of what was called the “decadent movement” in the late 1800s. He was a brilliant young man, considered on a par with Shakespeare, when he gave up writing poetry altogether at the age of 21. He never wrote again until he died at age 37. Whishaw is barely used in the movie, playing Dylan at his most standoffish and cryptic.

More involved in the movie is Marcus Carl Franklin, a young African-American boy who plays Dylan as “Woody Guthrie”. Guthrie, for those who don’t know, was Dylan’s hero and greatest inspiration, and Franklin is terrific as the young Dylan who passed himself off as the second coming of Guthrie. This is Dylan the “fake”, and (I think) the fact that he is so young is a reference to Dylan’s young years, and the “fakery” of passing himself off as the next Guthrie. And I think the fact that he is black is a reference to the backlash against Dylan for involving himself with race relations and the civil rights movement when he was a white guy, the “fakery” of writing songs from a black perspective when he was not himself black. Heath Ledger, also with a big part in the movie, plays Dylan the Rock Star, as “Robbie Clark”, and I have no idea who Robbie Clark actually was. It may in fact not be a real name. Which is odd, since everyone else playing “Dylan” had the name of a real person, except for Ledger and Cate Blanchett.

And then…Cate Blanchett. This is a woman who has won an Oscar for playing Katherine Hepburn. A woman who has been nominated for at least one (and sometimes two) Oscars each year since playing Queen Elizabeth in 1998. And this, Bob Dylan, may well be remembered as the performance of her life. This is Blanchett at her very best, and possibly at the very best any actress can ever achieve. Becoming completely believable as a very famous man. Watching her doing the famous press conference after Dylan went electric in 1965, you actually forget that you are not watching Bob Dylan at that press conference. This is a magnificent performance, and must be seen to be believed. She plays Dylan as “Judy Quinn”, another name that seems to be pulled out of thin air. Perhaps this refers simply to the Dylan song Quinn The Eskimo, his most nonsensical, whimsical and completely devoid of message song ever. Because she plays him at his most whimsical and nonsensical. The scene where she appears, she is taking the stage at Newport, and plugging in the electric guitar in what would prove to be one of the most significant events in the history of music. From then on, she is the Dylan of the Don’t Look Back era, the one who had some sort of thing with Edie Sedgwick and who turned the Beatles on to the joys of marijuana.

Other characters pop up in the movie, some playing actual people, others playing actual people with different names. Here’s a short guide. David Cross appears as Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg was a real person, a poet in the 60s and one of the major figures of the “beat generation”. Charlotte Gainsbourg is terrific as “Claire”, who is basically Dylan’s long-time wife Sara. Although for some reason she has a French accent. Don’t worry about that. Julianne Moore plays “Alice Fabian”, who is Joan Baez under a different name. Michelle Williams has never looked better than she does here as “Coco Rivington”, which is the name Haynes has given to Edie Sedgwick. Ritchie Havens shows up for a moment, but he doesn’t play anyone famous. I just thought it was cool he was in there. Also cool - Kris Kristofferson as the narrator. There is an enormous amount of cool in this film. But boy, is it tough to follow.

And then, there is Bruce Greenwood. Greenwood is likely best known as the bad guy in Double Jeopardy, or as Mitch Yost on that John From Cincinnatti TV show. In I’m Not There, he plays two characters. One is a fairly self-important yet intelligent BBC journalist who attempts to interview Dylan, when he is being played by Cate Blanchett. The other is Pat Garrett in the scene with Richard Gere as Billy The Kid as Dylan. Following so far? OK. This is now my opinion, and this may well not be what Todd Haynes intended in the movie, but I’m going to throw it out there. In the Pat Garrett scene, the idea is that Garrett is the only man who was able to understand, and therefore capture, Billy The Kid. And the fact that he is being played by the same actor as the British reporter indicates to me that the idea there is that this British reporter is the only one who really understands what Dylan is about underneath all the enigma and bluster. Or, at least, he is the one who comes closest, who hits closest to home, and thereby is the only one who traps Dylan, the way Pat Garrett trapped Billy The Kid. This is just my opinion, and in watching this film you may well come up with some other explanation. But I certainly do hope you watch this film.

Six terrific performances, especially that of Blanchett, and brilliant song after brilliant song would make any movie good. What makes this movie great is that it so wonderfully mirrors the work of the man it canonizes. No one, including Todd Haynes, truly understands Bob Dylan. Many would go so far as to say that list of people who don’t understand Bob Dylan includes Mr. Zimmerman himself. So attempting to explain him is an exercise in futility. The only alternative, if one wants to pay tribute to this man, is to craft a movie the way Dylan crafts a song. Haphazardly, with a big picture only you can see, and if people get it, great, if they don’t, that’s great too. The idea here isn’t to get I’m Not There. The idea is to watch it, let it happen to you, and let it pique your interest, and then watch it again. And again, and again, and again. This movie is absolutely terrific.

There are many, many movies just like The Great Debaters, which comes out May 13th from Alliance Films. Movies that deal with race relations in the Jim Crow south. Movies that show kids in college achieving a greater understanding of the world through a special teacher and through competition. Many of which have starred Denzel Washington. All of which means The Great Debaters is nothing new. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t excellent. What sets this film apart is the crafting of the movie, courtesy of Washington, who directs, and the performances that hold it together, also courtesy of Washington. He is terrific as the college professor who molds a team of Africa-American debaters into the most potent orators in the college world.

Also terrific is Forrest Whitaker, who now has to merit some consideration as one of the finest actors of our time. He plays a preacher at the same college as Washington, a fine orator himself and a renowned scholar. He doesn’t quite understand, the way Washington does, how best to harness his intellectual powers to effect true change, but he grows over the course of the film. But the character who does the most growing is his son, who is played by the aptly-named Denzel Whitaker. As the youngest member of the Wiley College debate team, Whitaker is both the emotional centre of the movie and the one character whose growth most mirrors the story arc. His performance as 14-year-old James Farmer Jr. May well be the best in the film.

Rounding out the terrific cast are Jurnee Smollett and Nate Parker, as the eventual other two members of the debate team. Parker plays a rebellious student, who is brilliant but tortured. Smollett is a driven, intelligent woman, who aspires to become only the third black female lawyer in the United States. Their story, (and romance) is incidental to the film, but it works. Denzel Washington’s story seems incidental as well, at first. When he isn’t working at the college, he is dressing up as a farmer and holding clandestine meetings in barns, attempting to organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. This leads to him being branded a communist, and there is a backlash against him that comes from both the white establishment and his African-American colleagues. In the end, this is not simply an incidental story line, it is essential to the full fleshing out of the story.

The fact that this film is based on a true story might be the most remarkable thing about it. These people did exist, they did do this remarkable thing, and who knows - had we been there at that time, in 1936, it may well have been as powerful and inspirational as the movie itself. Now, I do have a quibble or two. If this were 1936, using a reference to Hitler to win a debate wouldn’t exactly have the gravity that it does now. In fact, it might have been a rather weak argument in 1936. Like making a Gearge-Bush-is-awful argument in August of 2001. Maybe you can see something terrible coming, but it sure isn’t there yet. And also, the top-ranked Harvard debate team seems to have had their lines dumbed down a little. They don’t make enough sense and they aren’t good enough points for such a highly-touted debating team. That being said, however, I would have really liked to see a little more of the debates themselves. They are all so compelling and so interesting that I could have handled another hour of movie if it was all debating.

As Wiley College mows down their opponents in Texas, and takes on the best Negro colleges in the States, a final showdown is set when Harvard agrees to meet the team and debate against them. Harvard is, of course, the perennial powerhouse team, the best in the country, and they are willing to meet this remarkable Negro team in an historic debate. Of course, this is the big, climactic, and inspirational finale of the film, and it’s fairly routine in the way it ties everything together, but it is set up and delivered so well that it doesn’t feel like a cliche or like the obvious ending, it just feels great. And so does the rest of The Great Debaters.

Of course, you knew when the new Indiana Jones movie was about to hit theatres, there would be all kind of reissues coming out. Paramount released the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Volume 3 a few weeks ago, and now comes the original trilogy, in special-edition form, on May 13th from Paramount. The first movie in the series, Raiders of the Lost Ark, remains by far the best of the three. The opening scene in the film is still, to this day, incredible, with the giant boulder and the bag of sand and the darts shooting out of the walls and the whip and the chasm and the closing door and the double crosses and the float plane escape…all very exciting. One of the best opening scenes in a movie of all time. And best of all - no gunshots or explosions! Amazing!

Although the thing that set Raiders apart from other movies upon it’s release and made it an instant classic was that no one had ever seen a movie like this before, what makes it a classic now is that it is still better than any other movie like it. Imagine a movie made now that has something of historic, biblical importance as the central object. Now imagine it involves car chases, gun fights, lost treasure, exotic locales, face-melting guitar solos, and Nazis. And, archaeology! Were this movie to be made now, it would likely star Matthew McConnaughey and Kate Hudson, and it would be directed by Michael Bay and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and written by some Hollywood focus group-watching team of nincompoops. And it would probably be called “National Treasure 4: The One With Nazis”. And it would suck worse than “National Treasure 3: Search For the Necronomicon”.

It is a testament to the brilliance of both Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford that they did not allow this movie to become…that. Raiders of the Lost Ark is, in many ways, childish. And it is simplistic and cheerfully bonkers. And yes, it is standing on the shoulders of many movies that came before. But most of those movies were made in the 30s and 40s. And Raiders is set in the 30s. And it is both homage to the old John-Wayne-type serials of the early era of cinema, and also a completely new film going experience. It’s one of the only movies, ever, that is basically wall-to-wall action and yet could be considered classic. Harrison Ford did more than a good job as Indy, and he did more than create an iconic character in a movie. Much more.

This is what he did: He created an iconic persona in film in general. Not many actors have been able to do that. In the years following films like The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, you could tell in other films when people were playing John Wayne. The Duke created an all-new screen persona. Same goes for Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. And now, when you watch certain movies, you can see other actors playing Indiana Jones. And that is a remarkable achievement in acting. Harrison Ford makes Raiders magical with humour, toughness, intelligence, good looks and stoicism. And Spielberg makes it magic with the set pieces, the camera work, and the ability to create wonderful moments in dialogue, scenery, and especially action.

Also terrific in Raiders was Karen Allen. Now, for a long time, I always thought that Margot Kidder starred opposite Ford in this film, simply because they look alike and the Superman series ran almost parallel to the Indiana Jones series. But Margot Kidder was NOT in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or…was she? I did some checking.

And in so doing, I have uncovered a conspiracy! Yes, I saved it for the end of my review, because it is such a huge revelation I wanted to save it for last. And here it is: Margot Kidder was born October 17th, 1948 in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The daughter of an explosives expert, she rose to big-screen fame playing a bit part in the film Gaily, Gaily, and then scoring the starring role in the Brian DePalma film Sisters. Soon, she became a household name thanks to her portrayal of Lois Lane in the major blockbuster, Superman, in 1978. Superman II, II, IV, V, and eventually Superman XLII followed. After “Sisters”, she briefly dated DePalma, and was linked to Pierre Trudeau for a time. She was married and divorced four times, none of those marriages lasting more than a year, and now lives as a little bit of a recluse, saying she prefers the company of her dogs to that of men. In the early 90s, she came under fire from the press and the establishment in the U.S. for criticizing the press and the government over the Gulf War, saying that they did not realize the long-ranging ramifications of their actions. She had a well-publicized breakdown in 1996, when she was found wandering the streets naked and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Karen Allen was born October 5th, 1951 in Carrollton, Illinois. The daughter of an FBI agent, she rose to big-screen fame playing bit parts in Animal House (1978) and Manhattan (1979). In 1981, she teamed up with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg in the massively successful blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark. She didn’t marry until 1988, when she tied the knot with Kale Brown, some guy who was in “Challenger”. She had a son in 1990, and the couple divorced in 1998. Since then, she has become more reclusive, and has professed her love for knitting as an activity. In fact, she loves knitting so much that she started her own textile company in 2003. She teaches acting in Massachusetts, and has been coaxed back to the big screen this year to reprise her Raiders role in the new Indiana Jones flick.

Now for the big revelation - Margot Kidder and Karen Allen are the same person! First of all, here is some photographic evidence:

Here’s what I think happened. Margot Kidder, finding that her Canadian background closed certain doors to her in Hollywood, while opening others, decided to make the best of both worlds by creating an American alter-ego for herself. As Karen Allen, she decided to make herself three years younger, since certain roles always go to the younger actress. She made sure that the family background was similar. Their birth dates, for example, were only two weeks apart. While Kidder’s father was an explosives expert, she decided that Karen Allen’s father should be something a little more vague, and thereby easy to explain - and FBI agent. Possibly one with knowledge of explosives. When Kidder hit the big time with Superman in 1978, she was unprepared for the sudden fame, and the alter-ego, Karen Allen, took over. Working with people she admired (like John Belushi and Woody Allen), as Karen Allen, and working with people who wanted her simply for her name, as Margot Kidder.

Then, in 1981, disaster struck. Karen Allen was offered a part opposite a little-known actor named Harrison Ford, in a movie helmed by a fairly interesting, two-hit wonder director named Steven Spielberg. It seemed like a perfect role for the Karen Allen persona - that was the side of Kidder that made the indie movies, and took risks, after all. But when that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, became a massive blockbuster, all of a sudden both personas were out in the open and in the consciousness of America. Kidder tried to deflect attention away from her movie work by marrying and divorcing several times, but when she met Kale Brown, she thought it would be forever. And so, having painted Margot as the oft-marrying type, she had to get Karen to actually marry this guy and settle down. Once she was married, as “Karen”, she stopped working as Karen.

This gave her the opportunity to truly live two lives. One was the quiet, suburban home life with her husband and son, out of the limelight. That was Karen. Margot, on the other hand, since she no longer really existed, was totally free. Free to express her opinions and sound off about anything she wanted. After all, she had an escape where she could return home and be Karen for the rest of the evening, and let the Margot stuff slide off her back. But after eight years of this, the double life finally took it’s toll, and she snapped. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to snap as “Margot”, since “Margot” had already portrayed herself as the left-wing nut, the outspoken eccentric, and it would stand to reason that it was she, and not “Karen”, who momentarily lost her mind. In fact, Margot now wanted to live AS “Karen”, and was planning to do away with Margot completely, a la Fight Club. But rather than succeeding in killing off one of the two personalities, she merely succeeded in making one of them crazy. After nursing her back to health, and explaining the two personalities away conveniently as “bipolar disorder”, her husband could take no more and divorced “Karen” two years later.

Shocking, eh? Not only that, I can go one better - I know where Kidder got her idea for the final transformation! In 1988, as “Margot Kidder”, she starred in a made-for-TV movie called “Vanishing Act” with Elliott Gould, where she plays a woman who insists she is the husband of a man whose wife has just disappeared on their honeymoon, even though the man has never seen her before. Vanishing Act was a re-working of a Robert Thomas stage play called “Trap For a Lonely Man”, and had previously been filmed as “One of My Wives is Missing”, and “Honeymoon With A Stranger”, starring Janet Leigh. That same year, she, as “Karen”, married her final husband. Now, “Margot Kidder” hangs out in a rural area with her dogs, and “Karen Allen” hangs out in a rural area with her knitting. You read it here first, folks!

Only time will tell if the new Indiana Jones movie stacks up to the rest of the existing trilogy. And in all likelihood, it will. But the same concerns were voiced nineteen years ago when the third installment hit theatres. And, over the years, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has held up extremely well. In fact, it is only slightly behind Raiders of the Lost Ark in terms of quality and awesomeness. It really is Temple of Doom that is the weak(er) link in the series. The Last Crusade fits right into the theme - Harrison Ford as the hard-edged James Bond of the world of archaeology. Classic lines (no ticket!). And classic set pieces - the airplane and the seagulls, the airplane off the dirigible.

The new twist added to this third film is the addition of Indy’s dad, played by Sean Connery. This is a common theme now, of third movies in trilogies. Austin Powers has run out of ideas…let’s give him a father in the third one! But at the time, it injected new, refreshing life into the series, and the interplay between Connery and Ford is fantastic. Also, this film marks the return of the Nazis. And, as I have said many times about Temple of Doom, it’s great that you can pull a guy’s heart out of his chest, you’re still not as bad-ass and scary as Nazis. The unfortunately named Alison Doody is light-years ahead of Kate Capshaw in terms of a worthy foil. Again, Indy is archaeology’s James Bond, as he is now given a female lead, in whom he has both an enemy and a lover. How very Bond.

And the Indiana Jones series could easily have turned into another James Bond series. Every movie with the same lines, the new gadgets, the scene where Indy has to face, once again, his fear of snakes. And it’s a testament to the brilliance of Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford that it did not. The inclusion of Sean Connery is fantastic casting, the search for the Holy Grail is, while a logical next step in Indy’s adventures, not overdone. And the spirit of the original is maintained. The Last Crusade is a more-than-worthy inclusion in the trilogy, and is almost as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well worth renting, if you haven’t seen it, but buying the whole set is really the way to go.  They are all out in Special Edition form tomorrow from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Laurence Olivier is renowned as maybe the greatest actor who ever lived, and a large part of that reputation is due to his work in Shakespearean productions. But he is also perhaps the greatest director of Shakespeare on the big screen. And Henry the fifth is one of his greatest achievements as both a director and an actor.The movie is a stage production filmed and put up on the screen. It does not attempt to disguise this as the first three acts are clearly on the stage. As the movie progresses, however, the stage becomes bigger and the scenes take place in bigger and bigger areas, culminating with the battle scenes with hundreds of horses and people on the open plains.

Henry the fifth is, first and foremost, a military play. It was not done in the tradition of Shakespearean tragedy or comedy, but it retains elements of both. This is the play with many of the famous Shakespeare military quotes – Once more unto the breach, dear friends and so forth. And it’s Olivier’s performance that brings these lines to life with his excellent portrayal of the king. The battle scenes are reasonably well done for the time, but when compared to some of today’s similar scenes, like those of Braveheart, it pales in comparison. But Shakespeare was great not for the stories or for the scenery, but for the language his actors spoke. And no one understands this better than Laurence Olivier. Is this his best work? No. But it certainly ranks with his best.

If Shakespeare was like the Beethoven of the written word, Olivier is like a great conductor bringing his works to life. He is Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Not his best, but his most rousing and exciting.

There’s a documentary from Alliance Atlantis coming out on Tuesday that is well worth your while to check out. It’s called Deep Water, and it’s the story of a race around the world that took place in 1967. Nine people set off from England in nine individual sailboats in a race to see who could circumnavigate the globe the fastest. Eight of the competitors were lifelong sailors, who had years worth of experience and wanted to pit themselves against the ultimate test of survival. The ninth was a younger man, named Donald Crowhurst, a 35-year-old amateur sailor who risked everything to compete in the race. By everything, I mean his business, his family, his friends, his finances and of course his life.

There was a movie with a similar tone recently, called Grizzly Man. Werner Herzog crafted a staggeringly intense portrait of a man who wanted to live with grizzly bears, and was eventually killed by one. It was a wonderful film, capturing the essence of a man who was one-tenth visionary and nine-tenths lunatic. Donald Crowhurst was a similar character, only he was half visionary and half lunatic when he started out, and nine tenths lunatic by the time the race was over. Ten months alone at sea will do that to someone.

It is tough not to love someone like Donald Crowhurst, a guy who really went for it, despite the overwhelming odds against him. And there was a lot against him. Experience, the ocean, the weather, and common sense. I find it difficult to write a review of the movie without spoiling it, because what happens during the race is one of the most compelling stories I have ever seen in a documentary. But I really don’t want to tell that story, because you have to see it for yourself. Deep Water is a terrific story about some incredible people. Man vs. the elements, vs. his own demons, vs. his mind after ten months at sea, it all makes for an incredibly watchable story.

The 1967 race around the world was an event I’ve never heard about before, and I’m surprised. After all, I have spent an awful lot of time with sailors, and this sounds like the kind of thing that would be pervasive in the yarns of the old-timers who sit at the stools of the Grand Banker in Lunenberg and entertain the passers-by with tales of the nautical deep and their days on the Bluenose. And yet, Deep Water was the first I had heard about it, and it was absolutely fascinating. Again, I am tempted to tell the whole story, but it would ruin it for those of you who would be interested in watching the film. And I hope a lot of you want to watch this film. Deep Water is the best non-political documentary (Sicko, No End in Sight) since Grizzly Man.

Until now, I have never seen Sienna Miller in anything except the tabloids. You remember, she was somehow involved with Jude Law in some way, some stuff happened…I can’t remember the rest of it. It turns out she is a fairly good actress, I think. Her talent, if she does indeed have some, is totally wasted in the movie Factory Girl, which is currently playing on Rogers On Demand. It’s free to rent, but not worth it. This movie is boring, stupid and a real chore to sit through. Sienna Miller plays Edie Sedgewick, the original “it girl” in the movies made by Andy Warhol in the 60s, who was rumoured to have had a relationship with Bob Dylan, and who ended up a wasted wreck of a human being. An interesting story, to be sure, if it wasn’t shot like some kind of after-school special.

And there are other actors involved, some of whom are decent and some who are very good. Hayden Christensen is decent, and Guy Pearce is very good, but they are terribly boring in Factory Girl. Christensen plays Bob Dylan as some kind of wax figure who speaks. Guy Pearce plays Andy Warhol as a predatory, evil manipulator. Both portrayals may be accurate in real life at the time, but I have read an awful lot about Warhol, and I suspect there was more to Warhol than just aloofness and callousness. He was likely at the very least two-dimensional. And Dylan was certainly more two-dimensional than Pearce’s portrayal in the film. There isn’t a single character in the movie I liked. I think we’re supposed to like Sedgewick herself, but it becomes impossible because she is such a boring character. From the beginning of the movie to the end, she is such a victim, of Warhol’s exploitation, of Dylan’s coldness, of drug addiction and of a horrible father. At no point does she ever take responsibility for any of her own actions.

So, the movie would have us believe that this young girl showed up in Warhol’s studios, charming and pretty and ambitious. Then she was twisted, tortured, and manipulated into taking drugs, having sex with multiple partners, appearing in demeaning movies and wasting her life. No one cared enough about her to hold her hand and get her out. At no point does she ever try to get out of the lifestyle by herself, she is just forced out when people are tired of her, and then she blames them for turning into this wasted shell of a person. If she was able to take some responsibility for her own actions, she would be a much more sympathetic character. If she ever even questioned what was happening to her, she would be much more sympathetic. But she accepts everything as it comes along, initiates most of it, and then explodes. When she turns her anger toward those who “used” her, it comes off as very strange, since she is now an absolute junkie, completely out of it and lost in the world. Yet somehow now, completely drug-addled, she is able to finally see how these people turned her into that junkie? It doesn’t add up.

The Edie Sedgewick story is an interesting one, as are the Andy Warhol story and the Bob Dylan story. But there are better, and far more accurate ways to learn about that scene. There are a couple of books I own on Warhol - Who Is Andy Warhol? is a collection of articles and stories written about him and his art, and is really better for art students and the like. Holy Terror is a better look at the Factory scene, a book by Bob Colacello, who was the editor of Interview Magazine and who followed Warhol closely for a long time. While the picture he paints of Warhol is not always a rosy one, it certainly characterizes him and Sedgewick as far more complex and real than they are in this movie. For good Bob Dylan stuff, check out No Direction Home, the Scorcese documentary, or Chronicles, written by Dylan himself. For Edie Sedgewick, I don’t really know where to look. But it certainly isn’t Factory Girl. For fans of Sienna Miller’s breasts, however, this movie is well worth your while. Please don’t watch it just for Sienna Miller’s breasts.

Death of a President is an interesting movie. It came out in 2006, and tells the (obviously ficticious) story of the assassination of George W. Bush through newsreel footage, manipulated computer images and faux-documentary style actors. Unfortunately, that’s all it is, is interesting. There was a time where this was the most controversial movie in the world, but that controversy (as so often happens) existed only before anyone actually saw the film. The movie is very well done and very convincingly shot. Dick Cheney’s press conferences have been expertly manipulated to show him delivering eulogies and talking about the death of Bush. The actors are all good. The story follows up on the assassination as Cheney adds more teeth to the Patriot Act (’cause that’s what it needs), and a young man appears to be falsely convicted of the murder, and he is quickly executed.

The thing the movie fails to do, which I was hoping for, is have an opinion either way on Bush and Cheney and anti-Bush protesters and any other party that might be involved in a scenario such as this one. The reason it caused such controversy was that it imagined the assassination of a real man, the sitting president at the time of the movie’s release. Much like the documentaries of Michael Moore, the right wing jumped all over this as blasphemous before they had even seen it, and in most cases they stated unequivocally that they would never watch it. They assumed it would be filled with anti-Bush, anti-neocon rhetoric, and come out wholly on the side of those who would muder the president. But it doesn’t. And it doesn’t attack them either. The movie doesn’t seem to be squarely on any side, nor does it create any truly provacative ideas. And that is the problem. It ends up just being a bunch of stuff that happens.

While Death Of A President is very watchable, and certainly interesting, and resonably insighful, there is nothing new here, and when it’s over the film had been unable to make me feel one way or another about this imagined assassination. If Gabriel Range had really wanted to make a controversial movie that would be remembered for years to come, he would have made sure that he took a stance on one side of Bush or the other. As it stands, the controversy came and went, as will this movie.