Cynical Cinema

There is an absolutely phenomenal box set being released on August 26th. Woody Allen has been one of the greatest American directors for many years, and while he is mostly remembered for his all-time classics, Manhattan and Annie Hall, every one of his films is worth watching for one reason or another. With his latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona in theatres, Alliance Films decided to release Woody Allen: The Collection today, August 26th. Every movie in this box is good, some are great. And while six of the discs have been readily available before this on DVD, the seventh is the bonus.

Wild Man Blues, a 1997 documentary film about Woody Allen, has been a hard-to-find item for some time. Not a film about Allen the film maker, but a film about Woody Allen the jazz musician. Allen, when not making films, plays jazz clarinet at a New York club. This film, directed by Barbara Kopple, follows Allen around as he takes the jazz ensemble on the road. The documentary was made right around the time when the public image of Allen was at it’s lowest. He had just left Mia Farrow for their stepdaughter Soon Yi Previn, and people were beginning to look on him as some kind of sexual predator. This film was accused of apple-polishing by some critics upon it’s release. As though it were some kind of brown-nosing attempt by Kopple to repair Allen’s tarnished image, and the movie was quickly forgotten. But in watching it now, it is merely a window into the man’s private life, his relationship with Soon-Yi, which really does appear to be pretty normal, and his relationship with his parents, which is eye-opening.

The other films in the set are all second-rate Woody Allen films, which would be first-rate films by almost anyone else. Mighty Aphrodite, the film for which Mira Sorvino won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, is a pretty fluffy film that works best as a reminder that Mira Sorvino CAN actually act. Bullets Over Broadway is a brilliantly funny comedy about gangsterism and the roaring twenties, featuring terrific performances by Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. Everyone Says I Love You is a musical comedy that is absolutely jammed with star power, and as such is one of the only Julia Roberts movies, AND one of the only Drew Barrymore movies, that I actually enjoy. Deconstructing Harry is a very dark comedy that is equally star-studded, with Robin Williams, Demi Moore, Billy Crystal and dozens of others in perhaps Woody Allen’s most under-rated movie. Celebrity is also jammed with big names, but isn’t one of Allen’s best efforts. And Scoop is likely the low point of the box set, with Scarlett Johanssen turning in a surprisingly mediocre performance and Hugh Jackman being a little more irritating than necessary. Not a horrible movie, but weak by Woody Allen standards.

Woody Allen: The Collection is a must for fans of his work, with Wild Man Blues being the icing on the cake. Get this box set, then pick up Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes And Misdemeanors, and you have all the Woody Allen you’ll ever need.

Watching The Kingdom confirmed a few suspicions for me. I have always suspected that everyone the United States trains for any kind of gun-related activity has the capacity to be Rambo. (The CIA, the FBI, the military, mall security guards.) No, more than that, my suspicion has been that not only are they all trained to be Rambo should the need arise, but also that they are all waiting. Just waiting for a chance to break out the headband and the M-16 and take out all their enemies in a hail of gunfire. I have also suspected that the FBI was the only agency in the U.S. with balls, and that they are held back from doing the real work by namby-pamby pansies in the upper echelons of government. No, more than that, I have always thought that were they given the chance, rather than being blocked at every turn, the FBI could have just shown up in Afghanistan and caught Osama Bin Laden within a week.

And now, here comes The Kingdom, to not only confirm my suspicions, but to hammer me over the head with these incontrovertable facts. Which is not to say The Kingdom is a bad movie. It isn’t. But it’s not a good one either. The thing is, it’s two different movies. It starts out as smart as Syriana, and ends as dumb as well…Rambo. The beginning of the film makes you think you’re in for an intense, political, smart movie about terrorism and the relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. It opens with a bang, so to speak, as a suicide bomb attack blows up an American softball game in Saudi Arabia. This is truly shocking, with men, women and children all being slaughtered. It’s an upsetting scene and a reminder of what terrorism is the world over. Also shocking and captivating is the subsequent torture scene, where the Suadi guard who saved the day by killing the terrorists gets interrogated by his own army. He shot the terrorists, and therefore they could not be questioned. Maybe he is in league with them - making sure they are dead so they can’t talk. It is very effective, and promises an interesting subplot. Since American citizens (and one FBI guy) were killed over there, the FBI wants to send a small team of elite agents into Saudi Arabia to investigate the crime.

This takes place in movie world, where the people who are going to be sent in like elite FBI commandos are the same people who make their case during top-level government discussions. Either they are extremely high-ranking FBI officials who still somehow see active firefight duty, or they are elite commando FBI operatives who somehow have access to the brass at the Pentagon and the White House. Either way, it doesn’t matter, it’s a movie. So Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman and the bizarrely cast Jennifer Garner show up in Saudi Arabia. There is a power struggle going on with the colonel in charge of the barracks that were attacked, the general of the Saudi Army who has assumed control over the investigation, and the newly arrived Americans. This could be interesting also. But it does not last long. Quickly, Jamie Foxx is able to convince the Saudi royal family that the colonel is the man for the job, and that they should be given access to the whole city.

From then on, all subplots are abandoned. That guy who was unjustly tortured? He comes along for the ride. He drives. The power struggle between the general and the colonel? The general just disappears. Now it’s just American commando rah-rah guns blazing through Riyadh. All four Americans are Rambo, especially Jennifer Garner, who rescues Jason Bateman from a particularly unpleasant fate in a very commando sort of way. Picture Jennifer Garner, the chick from Alias, cauterizing her wound by lighting gunpowder and then mowing down half of Afghanistan, a la Rambo 3. Are you smiling? Yeah, you should be. It’s asinine. So these Americans have been in Riyadh for five days. And they have solved the crime, located the terrorist cell responsible, and killed everyone involved. And America can’t find Osama? Geez. I hope they do, because capturing him would obviously involve car chases, rocket launchers, snipers, machine guns, machetes and would make for terrific TV.

The main problem with The Kingdom is that the cartoonish last half completely devalues the otherwise excellent buildup in the first half. The movie promises so much more than it delivers. A better movie of this nature is Collateral Damage, with Arnold Schwarzennegger. Now, I know what you’re saying. Really? You’re saying. But Collateral Damage was by no means a classic. In fact, I found it awful, you say. That is fine. But at least it delivered exactly what it promised. Terrorists blew up a family. The father of that family went after the terrorists. There was lots of action. The terrorists died. In the Kingdom, we think we are going to get something so much smarter and so much more interesting than Collateral Damage, that when all we get IS Collateral Damage, it’s that much more of a disappointment. It’s worth renting just for that first half, but prepare for disappointment in the second.

I have known many girls, in high school and beyond, who were almost exactly like Ellen Page in Juno.  And I have been head-over-heels for them all.  Diablo Cody is the screenwriter, and this is her first screenplay, and it is incredibly bang-on.  At one point Juno acknowledges and actually calls attention to the fact that the jocks want to sleep with her and girls like her.  Girls who are attractive but seemingly put no effort into being so, who are blessed with incredibly dry sardonic wit, and who use their above-average intelligence to do what they feel like doing rather than striving for high marks.  This character is not new in movies, and it is not new in life.  This type of movie is in no way groundbreaking.  But it is classic.  Classics are created when a movie becomes something you’ve never seen before, or like this one, becomes the absolute best example of a particular genre.  Casablanca was not terrifically ground-breaking, remember.  It was just the absolute best, head and shoulders above the other movies like it.

 And so too is Juno, a cut far above many other similar movies - Thumbsucker, Me and You And Everyone We Know, Eagle vs. Shark, Our Very Own, Ghost World.  (The last time I was into a character this much was Scarlett Johanssen in Ghost World.)  The best thing about Juno is that it is hilarious.  There are genuine belly laughs to be found in the script and the actors are perfectly cast.  Ellen Page is bang-on perfect as a young high schooler who does her own thing, lives her own life by her own rules, and has an incredibly hilarious dry wit.  But her obvious intelligence can’t answer everything for her when she unexpectedly gets pregnant.  Michael Cera (Superbad) is hilariously nervous and shy as Bleeker, the father of Juno’s baby.  He is incredibly nervous around her, which makes sense.  She is so dry, and so (apparently) apathetic, that he lives in fear of revealing anything close to his true feelings to her, for fear of being mocked, or worse, ignored.  Also terrific are Alison Janney and J.K. Simmons as Juno’s father and step-mother, Olivia Thirlby as her best friend, and especially Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as a young couple looking to adopt Juno’s unborn child.

This movie has a tremendous heart, every single minute of screen time rings absolutely true, and it is hilarious.  Consistently, beginning-to-end, belly-laugh hilarious.  I think the last time I laughed this hard this often in a movie was at Superbad, and although that one was certainly great, it had nowhere near the heart and the pacing and the performances that are on display in Juno.  This is an absolutely magnificent film, and it was deservedly the breakout for Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman.  This is one of the best movies on DVD shelves right now.