(Warning: Spoilers abound)

Politics make strange bedfellows and movies can make strange politics…

They might not necessarily further the political ideology of the filmmakers because, when good filmmakers do their jobs and serve their story, agendas you wouldn’t anticipate crop up. How else to explain The Dark Knight’s alleged defense of Bush II era terror fighting tactics or what appeared to be a subtle stay-the-course-in-Iraq-so-we-don’t-duplicate-our-past-mistake-in-Afghanistan epilogue in Charlie Wilson’s War?

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But no example (even the ol’ “The Yellow Brick Road” in The Wizard of Oz is a metaphor for the gold standard!) is more bizarre and unexpected than the politics of Rango, opening this weekend.

Yes, I’m talking about the computer animated flick from Paramount and Nickelodeon about a domesticated chameleon who gets lost in the wild wild west of the Mojave Desert, directed by Gore Verbinski (the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy) and featuring the voice of Johnny Depp.

Much of the plot is unabashedly borrowed from Chinatown, from the pipe mysteriously dumping water in the middle of nowhere, to the character found dead from drowning out in the desert, to the seemingly innocuous old man in a wheelchair (in this case, a turtle voiced by Ned Beatty, channeling John Huston) who is clearly up to no good. If you want to know what he’s up to, well, just see Chinatown. (more…)

Clichés have to come from somewhere.  Believe it or not, there was a time when the by-the-book cop’s partner was not on the edge, where hordes of interchangeable henchmen packing high tech automatic weapons did not roam our cities, when the hero was neither on the verge of retirement or too old for this . . .  stuff.  Then, long ago, everything changed.

For the movie anthropologist, Lethal Weapon (1987) is the missing link.  It is the Big Bang of movies with big bangs.  It is the well-spring of a hundred lame imitations, a few good ones, and a lot of parodies.  It is where the most hackneyed of buddy-cop movie clichés were born.  At the time, they were awesome.

It is a movie about many things beyond the slam-bam action and witty banter, including about getting older and looking back, which is particularly apt here.  Looking back at the 1980’s, which I spent in high school, at UC San Diego (go whatever the hell your mascot is – I was too busy partying to care) and the Army, what is striking is how many definitive movies came along and how they led to Hollywood’s present – for better or for worse.  Lethal Weapon remains an archetypal specimen of the kind of movie only Hollywood can make well (despite how often it does it badly) – slick popcorn adventure/comedies with memorable action set-pieces paired with laugh-out-loud hilarity and featuring big stars and top shelf production values. (more…)

In the late 1960s, early 70s, Hollywood was in a lot worse shape than it is now. The studio system was on its last legs. Major corporations were buying up the studios and the execs didn’t know how to run them. But the town was about to undergo a huge revival. But that was still a few years ahead. In the early 70s, things were bleak.

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Over at Paramount, which was owned by the oil company Gulf and Western, former actor turned producer Robert Evans was given the job of running the place. Evans cut costs dramatically and ran a tight ship with very few managers. He’d inherited some bloated films that lost the studio money. The Gulf and Western Board was meeting to decide if they were going to let Paramount keep the lights on. Evans knew he had to do something to convince them that his movies were going to save the studio. So he got with a friend and made a film for the board (see above), hoping it would turn his fortunes around.

Here’s how Evans Evans puts it: (more…)

Enough.

Anyone who would sign a petition demanding release of a fugitive child rapist is actively hurting a business I love and DOES NOT speak for all of the entertainment industry. America needs to know that by viewing/buying our product, the public is not supporting these views.

Our industry is made up mostly of hard working, decent people who believe in this country and the justice system. I strongly feel that one of the bigger reasons for the decline in film and television is that the public, our customer base, has simply had enough of Hollywood.  And I don’t blame them.

I have a question for those supporting Roman Polanski: Is there no line?  Is there no line at which you won’t blindly support someone? He’s an artist? So what? Charles Manson was a decent guitar player.  Hitler could paint. Roman Polanski is a good director. So-the-hell what? This man drugged and anally raped a thirteen-year-old girl. The transcript of her testimony can be found online. Read it.  It should horrify you.

It wasn’t “rape-rape”? What the hell does that even mean, Ms. Goldberg? Are you suggesting that the little girl was at fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? For not more forcefully resisting an adult her mother placed her with?  A famous man? (more…)

Over the weekend, I was pondering why the low budget, standard genre pic The Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate) has become a nifty little box office hit. The film added almost $9.5M over the weekend for a new 10-day cume of $37M, and the only conclusion I have been able to reach is that it’s all about the poster.

Creepy, right? I have not seen Haunting and will probably wait for DVD or pay cable, but that is a weird, startling, attention-grabbing image. As a movie junkie, I love good movie art. The best movie posters are evocative. They capture what a movie is all about without giving away the mystery. There are certain movie posters that instantly put me back in that theatre experiencing the film for the very first time. The best movie posters are not just promotional tools. They stand as a work of art on their own. These are my favorites, buit it is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to add your favorites (and subtract any of mine).

(more…)

The Academy Awards for 2008 have been handed out, and the “popular kids” have Oscars on their mantles, but the dirty little secret about winning awards is that you’ve gotta campaign for them. Thousands of dollars were spent by the distributors and filmmakers behind Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Milk (Focus Features), The Reader (Weinstein) and other assorted winners and nominees, but not all performances received that sort of big money backing.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue. (more…)