Only now does it occur to me... ALEXANDER (2004)

Only now does it occur to me: let us briefly talk about how, in Oliver Stone's sprawling sword-and-sandal biopic ALEXANDER, at a pivotal moment during the Battle of Gaugamela, Stone has one of his commanders scream, "Back and to the left!  Back and to the left!,"

arguably the most famous and oft-repeated line from Stone's JFK. Somehow, it simultaneously trivializes both JFK and ALEXANDER, though the latter does not require much assistance in this department.

ALEXANDER is faintly better than its reputation, though its essential elements are incest, snakes, CGI birds, and chubby Val Kilmer.

 

Remember when this was considered chubby Val Kilmer?

I suppose we don't need to question why the Macedonians all have Irish brogues, nor why Molossian barbarian queen Angelina Jolie has a modern Eastern European accent. We definitely shouldn't question why Angelina Jolie––who is less than one year older than Colin Farrell––is playing his mother.

I suppose we can take some solace in the fact that she is a serpent-worshipping cultist who is draped in more snakes than Alice Cooper.

She also has ample opportunity to flex her acting muscles, á la James Earl Jones in REVENGE OF THE SITH:

Finally, I must mention––simply to walk it back into the darkness––that the less said about Jared Leto here, the better. 

That's all!

Only now does it occur to me... MAGIC (1978)

Only now does it occur to me... that the following quote, in toto and free of context, should probably be on an inspirational poster:



"I have lived through Talullah Bankhead and the death of Vaudeville. I don't scare easy." 

Of course it helps that it's being recited by the inimitable Burgess Meredith to a young Anthony Hopkins, who at this moment is clutching a terrifying ventriloquist's dummy. Amen.

Only now does it occur to me... LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER BASED ON THE ARTICLE "A BUTLER WELL SERVED BY THIS ELECTION" BY WIL HAYGOOD

Only now does it occur to me...  that while John Cusack may not have actually delivered the worst Richard Nixon performance in history, he was probably the most miscast.  Let's take a look at some other cinematic Nixons:

Anthony Hopkins in NIXON.  Probably the best-known cinematic Nixon, and certainly a very well-acted one, but on the whole he's a little miscast and the movie's a touch bloated, I'd say.


Philip Baker Hall in SECRET HONOR.  Probably the most intense Nixon of the bunch, and in a one-man show, to boot.  There's a real intimate, terrifying artistry to his work.

Dan Hedaya in DICK.  My personal favorite.  I would go so far as to say that DICK is a severely underrated movie and one of the smartest comedies of the 90s.  People had been saying for years that Hedaya would make a great Nixon, and of course he did.  I mean, his eyebrows alone are better than Cusack.

 

And who could forget Frank Langella in FROST/NIXON? Oops!  That's the wrong picture.  That's Langella as "Skeletor" in MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.  Here's the right one:

 

Another great performance that plays up the more condescending elements of Nixon's persona, the parts of him who always believed he was the smartest man in the room– invulnerable, even when the cold, hard truths were speaking otherwise.

Which leads us back to Cusack.  Who's not even trying.  They put a l'il Nixon nose on him– let's give them that– but that's all they did.  What we're looking at here is still John Cusack, doing a classic awkward Cusack mini-grin... while wearing a l'il Nixon nose.
You know what?  I'm prepared to revise my initial statement:  yes, this is the worst Nixon performance in film history, even worse than Buck McDancer in HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX.

The best thing we can take away from this is the new understanding that Cusack must have thought THE PAPERBOY BASED ON THE NOVEL "THE PAPERBOY" BY PETE DEXTER was actually a brilliant movie, hence his decision to work with Lee Daniels a second time.  (Or maybe it was just the money.)

There's plenty of other strange casting, too–
Why they cast Robin Williams as Eisenhower in a world where J.K. Simmons exists is sort of a head-scratcher:

Alan Rickman always brings some wonderful dickery to his roles, but he's still not quite right for Ronald Reagan:

And Mariah Carey gets her airbrushed face smudged with a little dirt for her role as a poor, 1920s sharecropper (though Lee Daniels employs a similar technique as Susan Seidelman did with Madonna in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN– he keeps the part brief, and mostly non-speaking):

Whew.  Okay.  Three more observations:

#1.  Love the matching figure skater/SOUL TRAIN costumes on Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey in this authentic 1970s tableau:

and I think the movie would have been better served if these outfits had rated more screen time.

#2. It's sort of amusing that Oprah has become so accustomed to award shows, state dinners, and the VIP treatment that she can no longer muster the excitement of attending one for the first time, even when her role demands it:

Unremitting ennui: the price of success

#3.  And finally, the venerable Clarence Williams III– in a bit part that amounts to basically "the Obi-Wan Kenobi of butlers"– might be the only person who walks away from this thing completely unscathed.

Though I still like him best when he's terrifying and teamed with John Glover.

In closing, LEE DANIELS' THE BUTLER BASED ON THE ARTICLE "A BUTLER WELL SERVED BY THIS ELECTION" BY WIL HAYGOOD is no THE PAPERBOY BASED ON THE NOVEL "THE PAPERBOY" BY PETE DEXTER; it's not a hotbed of unintentional comedy or a purveyor of Southern Fried Sleaze-o-Rama, it doesn't induce any spit-takes, grand guffaws, or jellyfish-related urination.  No, it's just a mediocre Oscar grubber that's not too great, but not too bad, either.  It's about as deep as NBC's THE SIXTIES or FORREST GUMP or ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and for some, hell, that's deep enough.

–Sean Gill

Film Review: HANNIBAL (2001, Ridley Scott)

Stars: 1.7 of 5.
Running Time: 131 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Anthony Hopkins (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, TITUS), Julianne Moore (JURASSIC PARK 2, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE), Ray Liotta (COP LAND, GOODFELLAS), Gary Oldman (SID & NANCY, JFK), Frankie Faison (MANHUNTER, EXTERMINATOR 2), Giancarlo Giannini (SEVEN BEAUTIES, SWEPT AWAY...), Francesca Neri (LIVE FLESH, COLLATERAL DAMAGE), Zeljko Ivanek (MANDERLAY, BIG LOVE). Music by Hans Zimmer (TRUE ROMANCE, GLADIATOR). Cinematography by John Mathieson (GLADIATOR, ROBIN HOOD). Directed by Ridley Scott (BLADE RUNNER, GLADIATOR). Co-written (kind of) by David Mamet (GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, HOUSE OF GAMES, STATE AND MAIN).
Tag-line: "His genius... UNDENIABLE - His evil... UNSPEAKABLE - His name... UNFORGETTABLE"
Best one-liner: "Bowels in or bowels out?"

Rising above its occasionally silly, lurid subject matter, Jonathan Demme crafted THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS into an uncommonly emotive and well-made thriller. While not an all-time favorite, I enjoy it quite a bit, particularly the magnificent character actor performances contained within, from Scott Glenn to Anthony Heald to Ted Levine to, of course, the two leads. (It even gets bonus points for having a ginormous-eyeglasses-free George A. Romero cameo.) Conversely, HANNIBAL is... garbage. And it's not the sort of trash that excites me on a level like MUNCHIE STRIKES BACK or HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN or THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS: THE MOVIE; it's the sort of trash that can only be bought for $87 million.

Where to begin? Stylistically, it's as if Tony Scott (Ridley's brother) and latter-day Danny Boyle held an arm-wrestling match atop a camera, their pivot points being the shutter-speed control and the exposure button.

Slowed-frame-rate slow-motion (aka bad slow motion, which should never be used by anybody except David Lynch) is employed on a near-constant basis, whereupon my spit-takes gave way to groans of desperation.

THE HOGS WILL EAT YOU IN BAD SLO MO


Julianne Moore descends the stairs as the shutter speed shifts and we dissolve from one image to another while overlapping a third.

The Florence locations are beautiful, but I can't help but think of the United Nations allowing THE INTERPRETER within their hallowed walls, when they had rejected decades-earlier bids by NORTH BY NORTHWEST and THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

At least they don't use historical Tuscan city for product placement and self-aggrandiz–

Oh. Well, nice to see you Mr. Crowe. But none of this would be a problem if the movie wasn't so sure of its own brilliance. "Oh boy..." this movie says with flared nostrils and shit-eating grin, "we are delivering you all the thrills of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS... and more!– Aren't you grateful?"

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself– let's tackle the plot. Supposedly co-adapted from the Thomas Harris novel by David Mamet, I was initially excited, but eventually found myself imagining three scenarios: A. Mamet was involved, but they didn't use his stuff, B. Mamet was involved, and he completely phoned it in, or C. Mamet lent his name only so that the film would gain prestige and he would gain bags of money. Cursory research shows it to be mostly A., with a likely smattering of C.

Regardless, it's sort of like a buddy cop movie. (A buddy cop cannibal movie? Don't ask me, because I don't know.) So we catch up with Clarice Starling a decade after the events of the first film, and now she's played by a sullen Julianne Moore. Julianne honestly tries her best, but I couldn't help but wish I was watching her instead in TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE. Hell, I was even looking fondly back on JURASSIC PARK 2. Anyway, she's a baby-washin' action-luvin' FBI agent who gets involved in a shootout with a baby-carrying woman and subsequently has to wash blood off of an animatronic baby, in a scene fraught with baby-washing emotion.


It takes a while to get there, but eventually we get to that ubiquitous buddy-cop scene where she has to turn in her badge and gun while some stiff-upper lip higher-up jerk-off is saying

"you destroyed half the city you action-luvin' loose cannon cop, you're a liability!"

and then our spunky hero says something like "you're making a big mistake, I'm the only one who can crack this case, and with all due respect, 'fuck you, sir!'" And Ray Liotta's in there, too

occasionally getting the chance to giggle like a little girl on coke, which is all we really wanted to see in this movie anyway.

Then there's Gary Oldman as a disfigured former victim of Hannibal Lector (Hannibal coerced him into cutting off his own face and feeding it to dogs after feeding him one popper, which I don't think is scientifically accurate unless they meant this kind of popper). His makeup is really quite impressive, but once I came to the internal decision that it resembled a cross between The Cryptkeeper and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, there was really no turning back.

He's got a convoluted plan to bring Hannibal to justice via some flesh-eating hogs he's been raising for the occasion, but because the filmmakers want Hannibal to be our cannibal anti-hero, they stack the deck ridiculously so against Oldman, making him a child molesting, bible-thumping, ultra-rich asshole. Who is also disfigured. And before you think about that too hard, I mean, look at his face, don't you see the face of... A MONSTER???

Which leads us to the film's secondary hypothesis, which is that Hannibal is some kind of Christ-figure, meting out harsh justice to deserving rude people. All I can say is that Hannibal is far more interesting behind bars as a source of brooding, intellectual menace, because as soon as he's out, he turns into a combo of Freddy Kruger and John McClane which might even be okay in a different series, but this film follows MANHUNTER and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fer God's sake! (Also see: my hatred for RED DRAGON.)

We're treated to a bad-slomo/shutter speed flashback of Hannibal attacking a nurse, a flashback scene referenced in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. In that film, we heard the incident described in ominous detail, and it built a terrifying picture (in our minds) of what this Hannibal fellow was going to be like.

Going back unnecessarily and showing it at this point is like if they'd made a SE7EN: PART 2 and shown, via flashback, exactly how that notorious box from the finale came to be filled.

And because Anthony Hopkins wore an amazing big dumb hat in his final scene of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, we are now entreated to 131 minutes of Hopkins wearing big dumb hats because now we can truly infer that he is a big dumb hat aficionado.


Anthony Hopkins: I HEART PAYCHECKS & BIG DUMB HATS

Along the journey that is this film, we're bestown with a zany Hannibal carousel ride, a supporting role from the talented Zeljko Ivanek (who seems destined to play only toadies, slimeballs, or a combination of the two),

a quasi-meaty but inadequate role for Italian film legend Giancarlo Giannini,

and the infamous "food for thought" scene with Ray Liotta, where he manages to actually be excellent despite being trapped in an awkward, overproduced horror scenario, the sort that can never match the dinner scene in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, no matter how many millions are poured into it.

Liotta's pathos cannot be easily caged.

And in a weird, topical twist, while watching this last night, I was shocked to see a pre-9/11 Osama bin Laden cameo (sharing the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list with Hannibal Lector).

Which sort of leads to this next point, which is my (possibly crazed) claim that thrillers have gone into the toilet since the internet era began.

For some reason it annoys me to no end to see filmic cops, neighborhood kids, concerned homeowners, etc. doing research on serial killers, Freddy Krueger, poltergeists, etc. on their computers! Stick to the microfiche and musty tomes, I say!

Well, I guess that's about it. I can't say anything more about this mov–

WAIT OH MY GOD HE'S GOING TO EAT HER


OH THANK GOD IT'S JUST A KISS... ...Er, what?


WITH A SINGLE TEAR– IT'S TENDER AND BEAUTIFUL, JUST LIKE I IMAGINED IT WOULD BE FOR ALL THESE YEARS

I take it all back– here's five stars for you, HANNIBAL. Here I was harshly judging you as a thriller, when in fact you were a love story all along. I apologize. Please don't think I'm one of those rude people.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: FREEJACK (1992, Geoff Murphy)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 110 minutes.
Tag-line: "Alex Furlong died today. Eighteen years from now, he'll be running for his life."
Notable Cast or Crew: From the director (Geoff Murphy) of UNDER SIEGE 2, YOUNG GUNS 2, FORTRESS 2, and DAGG DAY AFTERNOON. (Wait- WHAT?!) Starring Emilio Estevez, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Mick Jagger, Amanda Plummer, Grand L. Bush (WEDLOCK, DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON 2), Frankie Faison (MANHUNTER, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, EXTERMINATOR 2), Jonathan Banks (PIN, GREMLINS, BREAKING BAD). Music by Trevor Jones (RUNAWAY TRAIN, LABYRINTH, MISSISSIPPI BURNING).
Best one-liner: "Well, first you gotta cut off the head and the tail, and then you gut it. Then it's all a matter of the sauce. You don't just plop down a rodent on a plate and say here's your river rat would you like red wine or white with 'em. Not that there's any wine around here anyway."
Side note: I really like how Anthony Hopkins has been airbrushed into oblivion on the one-sheet.

FREEJACK. What the hell is a FREEJACK? Why would you call a movie FREEJACK? And yet somehow it still tells you everything you need to know, thus, in an odd twist, making it the perfect title. FREEJACK speaks to me. It says "I am a mediocre Sci-Fi movie with a big budget, but not nearly as big as I wanted." What we've got here is a part futuristic cautionary tale, part paranoid action thriller, and part TOTAL RECALL rip-off. It's Philip K. Dick, lite. More like "Philip K. Dildo," if you will.

The plot is as follows: in 1991, while competing in some sort of NASCAR-ish race, Emilio Estevez dies in a spectacular track explosion. Seconds before his fiery death, he is teleported eighteen years into the future to serve as a replacement body for ailing business magnate Anthony Hopkins. The world of 2009 is so foul, drug-addled, and polluted that there are no suitable human bodies for switching in the ('09) present, hence the need to pluck people from the past (right before their impending demises). There's little moral debate in 2009 regarding the Freejackers cause, hey, they were about to die anyway, and now they get to live on as the husk for Anthony Hopkins' consciousness, so stop complaining, Estevez, and let's get on with it.

Everything is going smoothly until Estevez escapes and leads futuristic law enforcement on a wet n' wild goose chase which involves plenty of car crashes and one-liners to go around.

Cars of the future look a lot like the cars of 1991.

Oh, and did I mention that if this was TOTAL RECALL, the Ironside character has been replaced with...

Mick Jagger?! Jagger wanders about in Sci-Fi leather riot gear and acts like a badass, by which I mean he looks extremely silly and attempts to maintain his dignity while Estevez victimizes him with one-liners.

Dignity: partially maintained.

His character's name is Vacendak, and I can't help but feel that he was given this name only so that Estevez could at one point jeeringly holler "Vacen-DICK!" at him as if this were a BILL AND TED film.

Correction- if this were a BILL AND TED film, there would be a forthcoming barb regarding "sitting on it and spinning."

Jagger does get a few solid moments––he gets to smash a Fabergé egg , and, at one point, given the great mutual respect fostered by the Estevez/Jagger interactions, gives Estevez a five-minute head start. Jagger literally covers his eyes, and begins to count––"One, Mississippi...two, mississippi..." Bravo.

The plot holes are sort of part of the charm: for instance, teleportations in this movie are described as only able to manipulate time, not space. Therefore, Estevez is yanked from the 1991 NASCAR track and arrives in 2009 New York City. So... there was an enormous racing arena in '91 NYC? Where was that, exactly? The Upper East Side? Tribeca? Perhaps Greenwich Village?

The overall aesthetic is sort of a skid row Cyberpunk, influenced heavily by ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. There's even a scene where Estevez gets picked up by a whacky old-timey cab. Ernest Borgnine is not at the wheel, but you get the picture.

Amanda Plummer shows up for a minute as a shotgun-toting nun, Frankie Faison's a homeless river rat connoisseur, and Jonathan Banks gets in a nice turn as a corporate brute. Anyway, all of this leads up to a showdown with Anthony Hopkins' consciousness that culminates in a sequence I am forced to describe as 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by-way-of THE LAWNMOWER MAN. Anthony Hopkins at one point bellows, "Welcome to MY MINNNNND!"

and we're entreated to a breathtaking visual representation of consciousness transference. In my opinion, FREEJACK goes much further in realistically depicting the state of neuro-cognizant subconscious persona transplantation than, say, the "Money for Nothing" music video:



VS.
.

Ultimately, the payoffs are surprisingly satisfying, and there's some awesome closing credits music called "Hit Between the Eyes" by The Scorpions, which features lyrics like, "I'm readddddy....for a HIT BETWEEN THE EYEEEEES!!!" Three stars.

-Sean Gill