Scenes From Inauguration Day

Someday they’ll make a movie about this. Here’s what it should look like ...

Getting Dirty in The Game

As Ed Howard and I reviewed the films of David Fincher for our first installment of The Conversations, a theme surfaced: Fincher likes characters who get dirty. Why? Because if you’re staying clean, you’re not engaging in life. For examples, think of Se7en, where the ever-determined Mills (Brad Pitt) gets rained on, beaten and cut in his hunt for a serial killer, or think of Fight Club, where Jack (Edward Norton) trades in his IKEA-ideal apartment for a condemned ramshackle abode, and then trades punches with friends for a good time.

The best example, however, can be found in The Game. Michael Douglas’ Nicholas Van Orton begins the story with wealth, extravagance and cleanliness (he even has a shower in his office), but he isn’t living. He’s haunted by the memory of his father’s suicide, and he’s lonely. In terms of material possessions, he lacks nothing. In terms of emotional possessions, he’s flat broke. Over the course of the film, Nicholas learns to live again by breaking out of his hermetically sealed existence.

As an addendum to my discussion with Ed, I wanted to provide highlights of Nicholas’ long, slow crawl through the muck – his reengagement with the world. The images below highlight that transformation, but they also do something else: demonstrate Fincher’s knack for embedding deeper meaning and social commentary into the margins of otherwise streamlined, crowd-pleasing thrillers.

Before the game ...







The game begins ...













Is that a Mona Lisa smile there at the end?

The Conversations: David Fincher

Readers: I bring you exciting news. Today at the well respected, well run and well read blog The House Next Door, a new series has debuted. It’s called The Conversations, and it features talented movie blogger Ed Howard, of Only The Cinema, and me. It works just like it sounds: Ed and I pick a film topic and have a conversation about it. The result, we hope, will be entertaining and thought-provoking, because we’ll be coming out with a new installment each month.

Our first discussion focuses on the films of director David Fincher. It starts with Fincher’s most recent work, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and then it goes into his previous films: Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room and Zodiac. (Sorry, Alien3 fans. That one gets left out.) Given the breadth of this topic, this initial exchange is lengthy. Trust me, you won’t finish it during your morning coffee. But I hope you’ll head over to The House this weekend as many times as it takes to finish it.

Whenever a new edition of The Conversations drops at The House Next Door, you’ll see it spotlighted here. With that said, I point you away. Ed and I hope that our own conversation will lead to a much larger one with our readers. If you are so inspired, please leave your comments at The House Next Door.

The Conversations: David Fincher

No. Just No.

A few days ago, when I resolved to quit teasing people and go ahead and write something about or related to Steve McQueen in 2009, this isn’t what I had in mind. Today, IGN reports, via Variety, that a Steve McQueen biopic is in the works, based on an adaptation of Marshall Terrill’s biography Steve McQueen: Portrait Of An American Rebel. The film will be produced by Paramount (probably). It will be directed by Who Knows? And it will star someone way the fuck out of his league.

If it isn’t apparent, I’m bitter about this news. I’m so upset, I don’t know whether to barf or cry. Depending on who gets cast to play the King of Cool, I might try both simultaneously. Because, let’s be honest: McQueen wasn’t the most gifted actor, but there’s been no one quite like him before or since. There isn’t a mustache you can put on to look like him. There isn’t an accent you can use to sound like him. There aren’t any tics or gestures you can use to imitate him. So, to be Steve McQueen, you’ve got to be blond, blue-eyed and 100-percent fucking cool. In fact, come to think of it, blond and blue-eyed are optional.

Good luck, Hollywood. Good luck finding that guy. I know who you’re going to ask to play the part. Daniel Craig. Because if you watch Craig’s fast driving in the past few Bourne, I mean, Bond movies, and if you squint a bit, and if you imagine Craig in a turtleneck, well, you’ve got Frank Bullitt, and thus you’ve got an approximation of McQueen. But can’t we just remake Bullitt? Please? I’m begging you here. Hey, you remade The Thomas Crown Affair. I didn’t complain. Heck, make another Cincinnati Kid. Poker is huge these days. Again, I’m begging you! And you’ll make lots of money. And you don’t have to give me credit for the idea. Instead, just keep your hands off The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven and the great and magnificent Steve McQueen.

Oh, Hollywood. Cold, cruel Hollywood. In the coming months, I’ll have to endure the headlines about how Craig has passed on the project because he’s too busy filming Bond. And now Mark Wahlberg is on tap. Or Keifer Sutherland. Or maybe Vince Vaughn – let’s make it a comedy. This whole thing is a joke.

Yeah, I want to see McQueen on the big screen. At the revival house. Period.

A Winning Loss: Letters From Iwo Jima

[In light of the still-unfolding discussion of Gran Torino, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

With his companion pictures about the Battle of Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood has earned yet another bullet in the book of cinema history. What he hasn’t done is make a pair of great films. Flags Of Our Fathers, released earlier this year, is an erratic, sentimental mess. Letters From Iwo Jima, filmed successively and released just before the end of 2006, is considerably better but also unfortunately flawed. And yet if suffering through the first film is the price of getting to the second, it’s worth it. Because though Letters is far from perfect, its mere existence is a triumph.

Telling the story of Iwo Jima through the eyes of Japanese soldiers, Letters is a notably atypical war movie in at least three respects: it follows battle through the eyes of the (1) invaded and (2) eventually defeated, with (3) America standing in as the enemy. Thus the picture is an intriguing blend of The Alamo and (parts of) Tora! Tora! Tora! But in a picture sure to be hyper-analyzed in this country for any hint of anti-patriotism, the universal ugliness of warfare remains forever in the crosshairs.

All war film projects needn’t be as balanced as Eastwood’s Iwo Jima duo, but they should at least be this conscientious. The sad truth though is that without Flags there probably wouldn’t have been a Letters – not from an American studio at least. But while the making of a (literally) flag-waving American chapter is frustrating and offensive as a prerequisite for a Japanese edition, Eastwood’s separate-but-equal treatment is a wise way to go. By giving each side of the conflict its own unique film, Eastwood ensures that we don’t let the end sum of the battle (American victory in the face of more than 18,000 Japanese casualties) obscure our selection of heroes.

Earning top-billing in the film is Ken Watanabe (familiar to you from The Last Samurai) as General Kuribayashi, whose ingenious defense tactics allowed an out-manned and out-gunned Japanese force to turn what was expected to be a five-day American sweep into a 40-day epic. Watanabe fits the part well, his broad shoulders and tall frame exuding confidence while his soothing voice and winning smile express compassion. Kuribayashi, who toured America before the war, is a fascinating figure, whose actual letters home help to shape his character here. Alas, his genius, along with the resolve of his soldiers, is never properly portrayed.

The irony is that Eastwood undercuts the spirit of those he is trying to exalt by refusing to spend more time on the Xs and Os of battle. Though Eastwood does well in the set-up – showing Kuribayashi surveying the island to predict the Americans’ angle of attack, ordering the construction of crossfire zones and establishing an 11-mile tunnel structure connecting the Japanese gun ports – once the Americans hit the beach, time and place get lost. Over the last hour of this 140-minute picture we get a tedious parade of Japanese soldiers lurking through tunnels, falling back to who knows where, committing suicide when death seems immanent and arguing over whether retreat or suicide is the proper course of action. Meanwhile, Kuribayashi paces in his bunker and wonders why his messengers disappear.

The Japanese story of Iwo Jima is one of grit and sacrifice in the face of impossible odds. Most of the 22,000 soldiers suspected that they wouldn’t return from the tiny volcanic island. They battled dysentery, lived in reinforced caves that withstood the American aerial bombardment and generally waited to die. Their only mission was to kill at least 10 American soldiers each before they themselves fell. But unlike Americans at the Alamo there wasn’t a San Jacinto to avenge such suffering. All Iwo Jima did was help convince the U.S. military that the Japanese would fight to the very end, and that big bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be an easier means of victory.

It’s a pity then, given all that Japan’s troops endured, that the full of extent of the soldiers’ resilience gets lost in the timeless darkness of the caves. Eastwood’s film might feel like it takes 40 days unfold, but since we’re never given a feel for the geography of Iwo Jima, it’s nearly impossible to follow the battle. One moment the Americans arrive, the next they take Mount Suribachi and the next the battle is over. Just like that. Or so it feels. Equally frustrating, the action seems to peak-and-valley according to the dramatic needs of the screenplay (written by Iris Yamashita with collaboration from Paul Haggis). In one sequence, Americans take out a gun at one of the tunnel mouths, and yet the Japanese have time to dramatically (and brutally) sacrifice themselves with grenades before the enemy shows any sign of penetrating the breach.

Partly responsible for such missteps are Eastwood’s best intentions to keep this a solely Japanese story. Letters borrows some footage from Flags – mostly in the initial beach raid – but the films overlap only in time, location and visual theme. Once again, as in Flags, Eastwood has chosen to tint his film with a greenish monochrome haze – all the rage since Saving Private Ryan – even though it has the unfortunate effect of flattening the landscapes while making saturated fire-red explosions pop off the screen like Pleasantville anomalies. By the end of the movie I was dying to get outdoors to ensure that the sky was still blue.

But if Eastwood has a fault as a filmmaker, beyond his penchant for sentimentality, fussiness isn’t it. It’s being too casual. Though Letters has the possible excuse of being rushed through editing (it was initially slated for a February 2007 release), the movie is overlong and under-polished. Transitions are rough, close-ups are the rule even when inappropriate and flashbacks are halting and unnecessary. Somewhere in the midst of this shadowy maze there’s a touching story about a baker who never wanted to become a soldier (a powerful Kazunar Ninomiya) and a riveting though underdeveloped subplot about a former military policeman whose death on Iwo Jima punctuates a cruel fall from grace (Ryo Kase). But you’ll need a headlamp to keep track of them. Eastwood’s second Iwo Jima film has arresting sparks, but it never quite finds the light of greatness.

A Losing Win: Flags Of Our Fathers

[In light of the still-unfolding discussion of Gran Torino, The Cooler offers the following review, written upon the film’s release in the author’s pre-blog era.]

History is written by the victors, they say, but that isn’t keeping Clint Eastwood from directing two movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima. Flags Of Our Fathers, based on a book by James Bradley, recounts the battle best known for a misleadingly triumphant flag-raising from the American perspective. Letters From Iwo Jima, due in theaters in February 2007, will adopt the viewpoint of the Japanese. The exercise itself, making two films from opposing angles, hints at Eastwood’s message that heroism is subjective. But in case we might miss it, the painfully redundant Flags pounds the point home with a sledgehammer.

Working off one of the year’s most atrocious screenplays, a muddled and mindless mess by Oscar-winning scribe Paul Haggis, Flags follows three characters: Ryan Phillippe’s “Doc” Bradley, Jesse Bradford’s Rene Gagnon and Adam Beach’s Drunken Injun. Actually, the man Beach portrays is Ira Hayes, a Native American soldier who never got comfortable with the American Hero label thrust upon him after his return to the States. But in the entire film I counted only two scenes featuring Beach in which Hayes isn’t drinking, drunk or having his American Indian heritage referenced, usually with some sort of colorful slur. So I’m just going to call things as they are.

Of course, one could fairly argue that Haggis has the same aim, and that his multiple “chief” and “red” references are an effort to keep it real. Flags takes place in the less-enlightened mid-1940s, after all, with Brown v Board of Education a decade away. Still, it’s one thing to illustrate how someone like Hayes was marginalized by his minority status, and it’s something else entirely to actually reduce a man to that marginalized identity in the process. And that’s what happens here, over and over again. The film’s obsession with Hayes’ heritage is so unrelenting that as the movie rolled past the two-hour mark I felt certain we’d get a shot of Hayes selling fireworks or opening a casino. But those scenes must have been left on the cutting room floor.

Thank goodness something was. With a running time of 132 minutes, Flags takes forever to get almost nowhere. Haggis’ screenplay jumps back and forth from the events of Iwo Jima to its immediate aftermath and to the present day, as Doc’s son interviews veterans to get their memories of battle. In the meantime the screenplay also swaps points of view. And yet instead of detail and depth, all this method provides is more and more of the same. By the halfway point, we’ve been everywhere Flags is going to take us. And in most cases we’ve been there twice.

In fairness, some of Flags’ leftover flavor stems from its unfortunate position in the cinematic assembly line. Just like John Ford’s The Searchers made it impossible for a director to ever again frame someone in a doorway without seeming derivative, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan ruined the World War II-era beach-storming. While in SPR it was the coast of Normandy, and here it’s Iwo Jima, with Mount Suribachi looming in the background, the sequences feel so familiar that you could mix shots from the two films without detecting a difference.

That’s a compliment in some respects, but Eastwood could have done us all a favor by not shooting in the unsaturated greens and grays that are starting to feel like standard issue – the WWII Collection by Dutch Boy. In black and white, Flags might have possessed a whiff of novelty – and it’s surprising that Eastwood didn’t leap at the chance to go colorless, because his favored scene composition is to have his actors huddled in the one available corner of light in otherwise shadow-filled rooms.

Flags doesn’t bend to every war movie cliché – for example, I don’t think there’s a single case of a soldier being catapulted into the air by an explosion – but too much feels too familiar. And too something else as well: small. In depicting portions of a 40-day engagement that claimed nearly 26,000 lives on an island about a third the size of Manhattan, Eastwood’s Iwo Jima often comes off like a mild skirmish fought out between 50 per side.

There’s something kind of fitting about that, however, because Flags is all about the deceptiveness of historical snapshots, or in this case one historic snapshot. If the most iconic image of American warfare isn’t George Washington crossing the Delaware, memorialized with great inaccuracy by painter Emanuel Leutze, then it’s got to be Joe Rosenthal’s equally deceptive photograph of six troops struggling to raise the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi. The flag in the photo was actually the second to be raised that day, on what was just the fifth day of fighting, with conquest far from assured. Nevertheless, the image instantly became a symbol of victory at a time when the nation desperately needed good news and, not coincidentally, the military desperately needed cash.

Feeding on the public’s love of the photo, the U.S. government asked the surviving participants of the flag-raising (three of the men died soon after) to return to the States to have their heroism celebrated in an effort to sell war bonds. Flags suggests that Gagnon enjoyed the spotlight, that Hayes was repulsed by it and that Doc Bradley had almost no emotion whatsoever (Phillippe’s performance is as pasty and lifeless as wallpaper). But here’s what’s strange: By foisting villainy on the government for its exploitation, Flags doesn’t demystify the contributions of the Greatest Generation, it sweetens the romance.

These days, in the aftermath of both the “Mission Accomplished” photo-op and the Abu Ghraib snapshots, two memorable but contradictory visual messages about the so-called War on Terror, one wonders how we might remember WWII today if our soldiers had hit the beaches with digital cameras in their pockets. A character in Flags says that one photo can win or lose a war. And that’s probably true. But one photo cannot capture a war, and maybe not even a battle. In Flags, Eastwood has a number of opportunities to define the heroes of Iwo Jima, but his characters leave the film as faceless and obscure as they are in Rosenthal’s photo. Letters will give Eastwood a second chance. And he needs it.

[Tomorrow: Letters From Iwo Jima]