Barry Levinson Makes A Statement, But Not A Point, With PoliWood

The Good: Great participation from both sides of the political spectrum, Raises a few good questions.
The Bad: Fails to land on a number of key points, Levinson talks over several of his subjects.
The Basics: Barry Levinson explores some important questions about how Hollywood celebrities influence politics without coming to any real answers in PoliWood.


When it comes to movies, my wife has a pretty simple formula for figuring out how to pick out a film I’d want to watch when we have a night to spend together: she looks up Anne Hathaway’s IMDB page and finds projects Hathaway has been involved in that I have not yet seen and she picks them up for us. That list is getting increasingly short, but my wife managed to find one such movie tonight: PoliWood. Given that my wife and I are politically active, PoliWood seemed like a documentary that we would have quite a bit of interest in and because I have largely enjoyed the works of Barry Levinson, it seemed like a good fit. PoliWood is a documentary or video essay by Levinson and it stars a number of Hollywood celebrities who are active in politics . . .

. . . admitting they are active in politics. While Levinson has some narrative to his video essay, PoliWood rambles with surprisingly little in the way of purpose. In fact, it was not until I sat down to write a review of PoliWood that I realized how little point there was to the movie.

The concept of PoliWood is simple: several actors and actresses who have gained a level of celebrity have publicly made political statements and supported candidates. The assumption has been that most of the most wealthy and outspoken celebrities are liberal and have exerted an undo influence over the American political process. Director and essayist Barry Levinson follows around several members of The Creative Coalition (a group that has largely come together to advocate for government funding of the arts) during the 2008 Presidential election. The documentary follows Anne Hathaway, Richard Schiff, Ellen Burstyn, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tim Daly, Giancarlo Esposito, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Modine and Josh Lucas as they attend political, sporting, and entertainment events.

Levinson follows the group to both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention and he comments (and documents comment from others) on the process of advocacy the celebrities utilize as they reach out to voters about issues important to each of them.

The problem is that the film does little more than that. PoliWood starts with the premise that Hollywood actors are blurring the lines between politics and entertainment. The film ends in the exact same place with no real growth in between. The subjects of Levinson’s documentary do not sufficiently address the concepts Levinson seems to want to explore with PoliWood. In his opening narration for PoliWood, Barry Levinson laments the role of the television in the American family; he talks about how daily life was changed by the invasive nature of the television and then how politicians were remade into television stars in order to get elected.

After that, Levinson follows his subjects around. PoliWood meanders around with the director asking the question of “Do Hollywood celebrities have too much influence over American politics?” and then shows them advocating for their cause and “common” Americans complaining about how out-of-touch those celebrities are with “middle” America. Perhaps the best moment of PoliWood is when Tim Daly discusses all of the non-actor related jobs he had and how he devotes quite a bit of time to “normal” things like car pools and coaching little league. In a smart, reasonable way, Daly quietly dispels one woman’s utter ignorance about how celebrities are somehow not as human or real as other people are.

But the documentary falls apart outside that. While there are decent moments, like Anne Hathaway admitting she hates talking about political issues she is not adequately informed about and some of the members of the Creative Coalition rejecting the refusal of a couple members to even hear out a successful strategist for Fox News, but largely Levinson asks questions that go unanswered or he asserts his own statements without actually backing them up in any demonstrable way in the film. For example, a number of misconceptions about celebrities are brought up during the film and one of the big ones is that right-of-center actors have a harder time getting work in Hollywood than leftists. It is not pointed out how Jon Voight and Clint Eastwood (for example) have almost constant work, even as they advocate for Republicans. Actor Robert Davi talks about a personal experience where a fan was turned off by his conservative activism, but he did not detail any issues he had with getting acting work as a result of the same activism.

Levinson also neglects to discuss at all how the influence of “Hollywood liberals” is, in part, a response to conservative businessmen advocating against social spending or progressive issues. It’s hard to say that Hollywood actors have more influence than the businesspeople who spend more money against their causes.

As a result, much of the movie swirls around Levinson making his own assertions and spreading his philosophy. He ends the movie where he begins it: articulating his own personal philosophy that television might be a destructive force in substantive political debates. PoliWood fails to back up or present a sophisticated view of its own premises (Levinson, for example, comments on how Al Gore drew attention to the global warming crisis through An Inconvenient Truth - reviewed here! – by essentially becoming a Hollywood celebrity while completely ignoring that the documentary only became a phenomenon because of Gore’s political celebrity and that if he had not been Vice President, he never would have managed to get the documentary produced) and the result is a lackluster documentary that only serves to reiterate the idea that the political process in the United States is damaged.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Craigslist Joe
Jedi Junkies
Trek Nation

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Living Up To The Hype: Cloud Atlas Is Smart And Complex!

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great make-up and effects, Creative concept, Decent plots
The Bad: Misses some important events/deliberately obscure at points.
The Basics: Told in six distinct time periods, Cloud Atlas follows the reincarnated variations of several characters who interact to change and save the world or humanity through their actions, beliefs, or art.


When I miss a movie in theaters these days, there are remarkably few I pine for and make an immediate effort to see when they are released on DVD; it’s the nature of being a reviewer, there is always something new to see, review, and promote. So, when I missed Cloud Atlas theatrically, it says something about my level of interest that I managed to get it in to watch so soon after its DVD release. The truth is, it was a film I wanted very much to see and given how many preview trailers I saw of it, I was pleasantly surprised how much of the film there still was to be seen (it’s a long movie). In fact, my only gripe with the promotions for the film was that the key voiceovers that explain much of the thematic points and narrative structure were included in the trailers.

Cloud Atlas is based upon a novel that I have not read and thus this is a very pure review of the film alone. With Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis have now redeemed themselves for Speed Racer (reviewed here!) and they once again prove they have the magic touch for making films that are visually incredible and tell stories about humans overcoming amazing odds and all forms of oppression. The film, however, is long and gory with a climax that sees the demise of so many of the characters that when I, in a moment of wonder at the movie, exclaimed, “How the hell did this movie ever lose money?!” my wife glared at me pretty heavily.

Cloud Atlas is a rare film that is not easy to discuss without giving away major spoilers. However, in defying my usual format, I won’t spoil virtually anything in the film by foregoing the usual plot summary. Cloud Atlas has an interwoven narrative structure that leaps very abruptly between six different time periods. As a result, there is little point trying to discuss any single narrative at length because one of the fundamental points of Cloud Atlas is that many of the main characters are related and interact as different incarnations of themselves in each of the different generations.

Told from the perspective of a man in the distant future, Cloud Atlas flashes back to and meanders through the intertwined stories of a lawyer who is part of a slaving mission and is being poisoned by the ship’s doctor on his way back home, a young composer studying at the feet of an aged composer who is not nearly as talented as he is, an investigative reporter digging into a story on a nuclear reactor in 1973 and all the corporate forces working to stop her from exposing the dangers of the facility, a publisher who is on the run from murderous hooligans when his previously unsuccessful author gains overnight success after killing a book critic, a cloned worked in the future who is given the chance to becomes something much more than she is when her “programming” fails, and a primitive man living on an island after what is essentially the apocalypse who must help a civilized woman reach the nearby ruins of the long-lost civilization, while avoiding cannibals and his own inner demons. Laced between the threads is a musical work that many of the characters create/remember/dream of or otherwise share and the themes of humans in oppressive situations fighting to overcome the political and social conditions that keep themselves and others enslaved.

Cloud Atlas is a film that demands to be watched as it is packed with details (like the idea that the clone in the future story is the deity worshipped in the most distant future timeline!) and the directors bounce between time periods assuming the viewers are keeping up. I liked how each time period had its own dialect and while that frustrated my wife, I found it engaging to sit and mentally translate the concepts both past and future. Cloud Atlas does not slow down to explain itself, but almost all of the keys one needs to understand the film are present on screen. In fact, the only glaring omission for me was that the disaster in the future that led to the technological reversion in the most distant time period was not shown.

What makes Cloud Atlas worth watching is simple; while it plays to the same old themes the Wachowskis (who co-wrote – or adapted – and directed Cloud Atlas with Tom Tykwer) are known for, they make the struggle for freedom and dignity feel fresh again. Visually, the film is a marvel with seamless CG animals, amazing sound effects and make-up that should have won many, many more awards than it did (never have so many great actors worked so hard to be utterly unrecognizable and not trade at all on their celebrity!). Cloud Atlas lives up to the heights one expects from the Wachowskis when it comes to the quality of making big, bold, films.

The real story of why to watch Cloud Atlas is in the way the directors get amazing performances out of the entire cast. While greatness is expected of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving, younger cast members like Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, James D’Arcy and Ben Whishaw hold their own with an apparently effortless ability. The cast is incredible and well-utilized (though poor Hugo Weaving needs to appear in a Wachowski film as something other than a villain!) and they are so engrossing in their performances that even for the recognizable actors, it is very easy to get drawn into their characters and forget anything outside the world of Cloud Atlas.

Ultimately, Cloud Atlas is engaging, clever and utilizes the film medium exceptionally well, making it well worth watching . . . more than once!

For other films with Jim Broadbent, be sure to check out my takes on:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Inkheart
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
Nicholas Nickleby
Gangs Of New York
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Smilla’s Sense Of Snow
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
Brazil

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So Many Great Actors Fail To Impress In The Big Wedding!

The Good: Moments of performance
The Bad: Predictable plot, Droll character arcs, Much of the direction and acting, Jokes and dramatic moments alike fall flat.
The Basics: Despite having an Oscarbait cast, The Big Wedding gives women and adults nothing substantial to watch this Summer Blockbuster Season.


I cannot think of a film in recent memory where I was so uninvested in how the film’s characters and plotlines would reach a resolution as with The Big Wedding. The last few years, as Summer Blockbuster Season has loomed, many of the smaller or more substantive production companies try to release counterprogramming to the big special effects-driven movies. They go after a mature audience and women with films like last year’s Hope Springs (reviewed here!). This year, Lionsgate tried to get into that niche right out of the gate with The Big Wedding.

They failed.

The Big Wedding is intended to be a family comedy with the usual tearjerker moments, but the film directed by its co-writer (or co-adapter, as it appears to have been based upon a French film) Justin Zackham is so thoroughly obvious and banal that most of the surprises are anything but and both the humor and dramatic moments fall painfully flat. The Big Wedding reminded me of a limited season television series The Big Day, which was also about a family gathering for a wedding and all of the mayhem that ensues. The difference is that that summer television show had a less well-known cast, but used all the players exceptionally well. The Big Wedding hopes the viewer will be blown away by the presence of Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Amanda Seyfried, and (I suppose) Katherine Heigl and Topher Grace that they won’t notice how poorly those performers are being used. Out of the bunch, only Susan Sarandon is given the chance to truly blow the audience away and she does in a single scene where her character, Bebe, does not say a word, but witnesses Don (her longterm boyfriend) and Ellie (her best friend, from whom she stole Don away years before, breaking up their marriage) having a moment where their chemistry is evident and Sarandon emotes so much with her face that one has to feel sorry for Bebe.

But, alas, one moment and one decent line (which, I swear, I have already forgotten, but it comes near the end of the movie) are not enough to make a flick worth watching and The Big Wedding falls into exactly that trap.

Alejandro, the adopted son of Don and Ellie, is getting married to his virtual nonentity of a girlfriend, Missy. So, the families are converging on Don and Bebe’s, despite there being a lot of tension in the family. Lyla’s marriage is falling apart and she is estrange from her father, Don. Lyla is feeling sick from something entirely obvious that her sexually unfulfilled doctor brother, Jared, investigates for her on their way to their parent’s house. Ellie, arriving early, lets herself in and comes across her good friend and her ex-husband and feels out of place. When Alejandro arrives, he breaks some bad news to his parents; his biological mother, Madonna, who has been invited to the wedding, thinks divorce is the greatest sin imaginable.

Rather than telling her to stuff it, in America we have divorce and the family is not as Super Catholic as she is, everyone decides to bend over backwards for the woman who gave Alejandro up for adoption. This means that Bebe, who has been like a mother to Alejandro, bows out (though she soon resurfaces as part of the catering staff for the wedding) and Don and Ellie pretend for Madonna that they are still married. At the same time, Jared hits very heavily on Alejandro’s biological sister and Lyla whines about the past as Ellie comes to the realizations that she truly is over Don.

The Big Wedding is just, unfortunately, stupid. We’ve seen all the clichés in movies in recent years. The whole “exes hook up” thing was done much better in It’s Complicated (reviewed here!) and the elements of addition featuring prominently at a wedding was Rachel Getting Married (reviewed here!) in a nutshell. But, any film that belabors a woman with marital issues getting queasy constantly and then acts like it is a huge revelation that the character is pregnant is just insulting. I swear, Katherine Heigl’s Lyla is the last one to figure out she’s pregnant.

What The Big Wedding has outside belabored exposition and a painfully ridiculous plot that would be a farce if only it were funny, so it is just mind-numbingly pathetic as it is here as (at best) a dramedy, is an impressive cast. Unfortunately, the cast is not used very well at all. Amanda Seyfried plays Missy (the bride) and she makes so little impression in this role that one wonders why she chose to do it at all. That’s okay because, despite being Latino, Alejandro (played by Ben Barnes) is such a white bread character that the two fit one another perfectly. Robin Williams’ role as the Catholic Priest Father Moinighan would have been audacious . . . if only Justin Zackham had produced the film fifteen years ago. As it stands, though, the ironic casting and usage of Williams as a Priest is a flat retreading of what Kevin Smith did with George Carlin (to much better effect) in Dogma (reviewed here!).

Topher Grace is fine as Jared, Katherine Heigl might as well be going for her Razzie as Lyla (you can always count on Heigl for doing that dumbstruck expression once per film, much like how Ben Affleck used to cry once per movie, and she doesn’t disappoint for the miniscule niche audience that still finds that charming or original), and the powerhouse casting of Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton results in three performers constantly straining to do interesting things with their listless characters. Sarandon gets her moment and De Niro reminds us that he can perform when Don gets drunk, but Keaton’s part is unfortunately interchangeable with so many others she has had over the years . . . except here her character comes to an obvious conclusion she seemed to come into the film with.

The Big Wedding is not worth watching; not on the big screen, not on DVD when it comes out and not even when it is on network television edited for content and bloated with commercials. It is one of the surest racehorses for next year’s Razzies . . . if only the pundits even remember it exists at that time.

For other works with Topher Grace, please check out my reviews of:
Predators
Valentine's Day
Spider-Man 3
In Good Company

2/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Cameron Crowe Can't Cut A Break From My Critiques With Elizabethtown

The Good: One or two random lines, Overall concept
The Bad: PACING, Execution of concept, acting, Characters
The Basics: Despite some moments of interesting concept, Elizabethtown is a wreck that oscillates between painfully obvious and dreadfully drawn out.


You know how when you hear a new word, you start to hear it everywhere? There's no word in English for that outside "coincidence" and that does not adequately describe the phenomenon. It's one of those quirks of random existence. Recently, I reviewed one of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' more obscure albums (Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)) and I found the superlative track to be a song I had not heard before called "It'll All Work Out." Wouldn't you know that when I sat down to watch the movie Elizabethtown the running theme throughout it was that song! It was the sole pleasant surprise of the movie.

Drew Baylor, having failed spectacularly with costing a gigantic shoe company almost a billion dollars with a product that was recalled, is about to kill himself when he receives a call from his sister. His father has died in Kentucky and Drew is charged with going to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to deal with the family there and get the body put in a blue suit and cremated. What follows is a chance meeting with a lonely airline attendant and Drew being dragged through his extended family which is pretty much a nightmarish stereotype of family reunions.

Much of the movie follows the quasi-relationship between Drew and Claire, the airline attendant. Claire is outgoing enough to get Drew's attention and while he is in Elizabethtown, the two begin a relationship over their cell phones. And the movie continues to dance around whether they are in a relationship or not and what the nature of that relationship is.

Elizabethtown is a painful movie to watch in that it is essentially decent at doing one thing; creating a realistic circumstance. The idea behind Elizabethtown, returning to a father's home town to bury him and thus learn about him and yourself, is not a bad one. The idea of a romance in such a circumstance is not a bad idea, either. The problem here is that Elizabethtown is too real on the former, too formulaic on the latter. When Elizabethtown drops Drew into the South two things happen. The first is there are long stretches where nothing happens. This is neither funny nor entertaining. This is the reason there aren't movies wherein a character balances their checkbook in real-time, a concept no one has broken to writer/director Cameron Crowe. So there are long stretches of Elizabethtown that plod along like watching mold grow on cheese.

The second problem is exacerbated by the first. Crowe wisely tries to pack a lot of information into the formation of the relationship between Drew and Claire. Their telephone conversation that is encapsulated over the course of a minute or two representing one very long night has a variety of topics and the exchanges "read" as very real. Unfortunately, it requires an insane amount of suspension of disbelief for the viewer to then believe - especially as Drew is drinking a lot over that night - that the tragic circumstance of his losing the shoe manufacturer a billion dollars does not come up before the almost end of the movie. Equally important is that the emphasis placed on trying to define their relationship pretty much telegraphs the direction the movie will go in.

Outside the poor execution of a generally decent idea, the movie is a terrible use of the lead actors. Orlando Bloom plays Drew and from the first moments he appeared on screen through the end of the movie, my thought was not that Orlando Bloom was Drew or even Orlando Bloom was playing Drew, but rather Orlando Bloom was playing Neil Patrick Harris as Drew. Bloom's mannerisms are easily identifiable as Neil Patrick Harris's and it's disturbing to watch, much the way Jim Carrey's portrayal of The Riddler in Batman Forever (reviewed here!) harkened to the style of Matthew Frewer. Bloom brings nothing to the role and instead, his performance falls flat.

Bloom might have chemistry with the Claire lead, Kirsten Dunst, but I didn't see it. Dunst is playing a character that is just too annoying to watch. And she plays Claire with a sickly sweet smile on her face throughout, which just makes the part even more difficult to stomach. I continued watching Elizabethtown and wondering, "What is her alleged talent?" I haven't seen it yet, to my memory.

To be fair, Claire is not the strongest character. Quirky for the sake of quirky doesn't work for me any more than funny mustaches for the purpose of funny mustaches. But even more problematic than Claire is Drew. The audience is meant to believe Drew is so distraught over his professional situation that he is willing to kill himself. If one buys that, which is hard given how lightly he seems to be taking it, it is almost impossible to believe that the sudden death of his father on that same day would not throw him over the edge, as opposed to pull him back from it. Because the movie so early mortgages the real jeopardy of the protagonist, the audience feels immediately cheated.

My final comment on Elizabethtown centers on the use of Susan Sarandon, who plays Drew's mother in a role I would classify more as a cameo than a supporting role. Sarandon is used to deliver some of the most obvious, ridiculous and insultingly stupid lines of the movie and my heart goes out to her for this. I'm assuming she took the role because Cameron Crowe had some sort of dirt on her. Or had one of her children locked in a basement. Otherwise, I can't fathom why she would subject herself or her career to this movie.

And I can think of no truly decent reason for you to subject yourself to it, either.

For other works with Judy Greer, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Descendants
Love And Other Drugs
Peep World
Marmaduke
The Big Bang Theory - Season 3
Love Happens
American Dreamz
Arrested Development
Adaptation.
The Wedding Planner
What Women Want
Three Kings
Jawbreaker

3/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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When The Wachowski Brothers Fall Down, They Race To The Bottom: Speed Racer Disappoints!

The Good: Cinematography
The Bad: Light on character development, Uninspired acting, Very basic plot, Predictable
The Basics: In their latest outing, the Wachowski Brothers make a lackluster live-action version of Speed Racer, which ultimately stands as a standard race movie.


With all of the websites devoted to actors, recording artists, and celebrities from the world of fashion, it occurs to me that there are no real services that keep score on directors. I'm thinking something like Consumer Reports for directors, a scorecard kept like a politician's voting record for interested parties. I mean, most of us know when our favorite actors and actresses appear in a dud (fans of Ben Affleck and/or Jennifer Lopez pretty universally admit that Gigli was a bust for both) but fans tend to look at the overall career of those they are most interested in favorably. Perhaps we are similarly blinded by the record of our favorite directors. Objectively, though, the Wachowski Brothers are perhaps the most successful "hit or miss" directors. Their scorecard of films I've seen of theirs puts them at a complete draw: 3 to 3.

Their genius can almost go undisputed when considering Bound, The Matrix, and V For Vendetta. But then there are the two sequels to The Matrix, which were mediocre and just plain horrible. With Speed Racer, the latest endeavor by the brothers Wachowski, the scorecard equals out. This film, preoccupied with looking good, is of very little substance and less interest.

Speed, one of the two surviving sons of Mom and Pops Racer, excels at exactly one thing: racing. From a very young age, he displayed an ability to drive fast and maneuver at high speeds. This has led him to a life of car racing that is competitive, dangerous and just enough to get a girl to have an interest in him. The races Speed participates in, and the dream race he longs to compete in - the Crucible -, are controlled by corporate moguls and when arguably the most prominent and powerful one, Royalton, wants Speed to throw a race, Speed Racer is caught in something of a moral dilemma.

Despite his parents' business failing, Speed takes a moral stand and refuses to throw a race. As a result, Royalton and his forces engage in a determined effort to insure that Speed Racer never completes another race. Pops upgrades the Mach 5, Speed appeals to the sportsman's nature in his rival, Racer X, and his girlfriend Trixie encourages him to fight the powers that be and race in the Crucible.

Speed Racer is based upon an animated series by the same name, but as one not fluent in the series - I watched it when I was a child, but have no specific memories of it - the film is evaluated as it is. And, sadly, there's not much to Speed Racer. Despite the production elements, Speed Racer is essentially a race movie, a sports story. This is all about a fast-driving, lives on the edge guy who is obsessed with winning. Speed Racer has a sense of honor; he and Racer X share a love of the pure race and the sense of outrage over the idea of throwing a race. They, despite being rivals on the track, respect one another's abilities and the thrill of the sport. This is a sport's story.

What separates it from virtual every other sports story on screen is the Wachowski Brothers' sensibility toward authority and the look. Like V For Vendetta and The Matrix, the Wachowski Brothers include in Speed Racer a strong sense that authority figures are corrupt and are out to alter the reality by which freedom-loving people live their lives. As a result, Speed and his family are characterized with a purity that Royalton and his peers entirely lack. I dig the idea of resisting authority and rejecting the established paradigms, but in this context, the Wachowski Brothers simply reinforce that paradigm. Sports movies often include a corrupt adversary and the simple obstacle they create.

What Speed Racer has is a lush animated look to the races. The colors are neon and fantastic, lending an unreal quality to the races that is very much a Wachowski conceit. They create a reality unlike the one we live in and they enhance the mood by pushing the boundaries of physics in that reality. Cars fly and leap, take awkward, three dimensional curves as unreal speeds. There are flashes of color and light that lend the film a rather psychedelic quality. I'm not recommending watching the film stoned or high or anything, but the look certainly lends itself to the same type art as what one finds in a headshop. Just at an incredible speed!

But largely, Speed Racer is a very typical sports/race movie. As such, there are repetitive, insufferable fast-paced race scenes that one gets tired of in the first viewing, much less subsequent ones. The races have an animated quality to them as the Wachowski brothers present an altered reality where the physics of the world only loosely apply. There are the typical Bound-inspired, made-famous-by-The Matrix slow motion rotational shots that are the Wachowski Brothers' standards. But at the end of the film, it's just a race film.

As a result, character is by no means the pinnacle of the movie. Speed is very much the generic hero, just like Trixie is the archetypal girlfriend character and Pops is the mentor. Trixie has no real motivation in Speed Racer save to love Speed and support him in his endeavor. Pops and Mom support Speed and they provide a generic humanizing base for Speed to have a framework. Even Racer X is a generic adversary who turns into a reluctant ally when the plot turns on it. Royalton is largely an over-the-top archetype, with the most predictable place as tempter and villain in the film.

The point here is that in the attempt to make a film based on Speed Racer led the Wachowski Brothers to employ virtually every conceit of the sports story film and the result is an almost complete gutting of genuine character. Speed Racer is a character who lacks any fear of death while driving at superhuman speeds, but he is also emotionally distant, but no more interesting. There is nothing compelling about his character because at this point we expect the sports hero to be great on the field, but something less or different in the real world.

Speed Racer is played by Emilie Hirsch, who plays him with a tight-jawed, determined stare that has a very Anime quality to it and that is the essence of virtually every parody of Speed Racer ever created. Hirsch has the look, the bearing of an actor attempting to play a sports star and instead of intense, he comes across too frequently as distant and detached. More than in any other film in recent memory, Hirsch seems like an actor who is in front of a blue screen and acts that way. He often seems detached from his surroundings in a way that makes it very difficult to watch him. When the protagonist seems detached, it does not bode well for the film.

The usually-wonderful Christina Ricci appears to have been cast only to bug her eyes out even more, an effect that is utterly freakish in this context. Also failing to capitalize on their talent is Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, who play Mom and Pops. Neither one leaps onto the screen with any sense of presence. Instead, if one were to think of what one would expect of the most generic possible supportive mother and father, this is how Sarandon and Goodman were acting. Neither one gives anything we have not seen from them before, though Goodman is particularly . . . generic in an outgoing way. Having seen him perform brilliantly in The Big Lebowski and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and, come to think of it, The West Wing, his cookie-cutter father role here is just a let down.

Indeed, the only actor to do anything remotely interesting is Matthew Fox, who plays Racer X. Fox portrays Racer X as a dramatically different character than Jack on Lost or his older-brother character from Party Of Five. The fact that he has more range than just the tortured, moody thirtysomething is refreshing but he is quite underused in the role as well.

On DVD, Speed Racer is presented with remarkably little fanfare. There are only two featurettes for the standard DVD release: a tour of the set and one on the World Racing League. The Wachowski Brothers did not, apparently, try to explain the movie with a commentary track and if there were deleted scenes, they are not on this!

In short, Speed Racer does not pop, even with some of the Wachowski Brothers' efforts. They are the efforts we have seen before and here they are not nearly as interesting as part of an otherwise generic sports/racing movie. Truth be told, if one saw Iron Man (reviewed here!) and they had the extended preview for Speed Racer, they have essentially seen the film. And I ought to have figured I would not be thrilled by the movie from that. You need not make the same mistake.

For other works with Susan Sarandon, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Cradle Will Rock

1.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Long Thinking-Persons Movie! Cradle Will Rock

The Good: Acting, Casting, Tapestry of plots, Ambiguity of message
The Bad: Moments of pacing (density)
The Basics: Another film that ought to have been contending for greater things in 1999, Cradle Will Rock is a character-driven tapestry of 1930s U.S.


Cradle Will Rock is potentially one of the greatest robberies in film history. No, it does not steal from other people's works or such, but in the races to win awards and receive recognition and an audience, it most certainly was robbed. It's ironic, considering the film is often about people standing up and acknowledging truths and greatness, that so few people stand up to praise the movie.

The film has a large scope and as such it often loses people, especially those who wish to see a movie without having to concentrate on it. The plots and characters weave around and play off each other. Nelson Rockefeller has chosen to have Diego Rivera paint the mural in the lobby of Rockefeller Center, which becomes problematic as the leftist artist incorporates images such as Lenin and syphilis into the work. WPA worker Hazel Huffman has rallied several anti-Communist artists to aid her in testifying against the WPA. One such artist is vaudeville ventriloquist Tommy Crickshaw, whose character arc is quite gripping. Largely the film plays around with Aldo Silvano and Olive Stanton, who are playing in a WPA play called "Cradle Will Rock," which is on the importance of Unions in America. Set against the play is a whole plot of steel tycoon Gray Mathers who is supplying Mussolini with steel.

The film is truly a tapestry and without knowing - or being able to appreciate - that, the viewer is lost. It's a complex film, especially as it says one thing and does another. For example, the play Cradle Will Rock is attempting to show the benefits of a union while the events surrounding the play lead to the Actor's Guild refusing to let the play be performed. If anything, the film is making the most potent argument about Unions ever: that they have their time and place, but their application is not universally beneficial to those who are a part of it. It's a story set in the 1930s, illustrating a concept that took much longer to be realized.

The acting is wonderful. All of the players get into their parts and portray the people they represent. Hank Azaria is wonderful as the delusional Marc Blitzstein, who writes Cradle Will Rock in the film. Harris Yulin gives a great performance and the briefly-seen Congressman Dies. All of the usual suspects: John Cusak, Joan Cusak, Philip Baker Hall, Vanessa Redgrave, Ruben Blades, John Turturro, and Emily Watson give their high caliber performance meeting or exceeding our expectations for their work. The true acting genius comes in the unlikely package of Bill Murray. In the surprise of the film, Bill Murray plays Tommy Crickshaw with a wonderful mix of self-loathing, abandonment and neediness. His character has surprising depth and I never thought I'd be saying he's the man to watch in a film with such talented actors as this.

While the film is not perfect, Cradle Will Rock comes quite close. Outside some historical references that are obscure, the film has moments where its purpose is unclear and it slows the pace. There are much worse uses of your time than this film and if you have children, I highly recommend this as an intelligent, engaging film. There are too few these days.

I must say, I'm impressed by the caliber of work Tim Robbins puts forth writing and directing Cradle Will Rock. This film was vastly underrated in a year of great films, most of which were overlooked.

For other powerful dramas, please visit my reviews of:
Magnolia
The Social Network
The Mission

8.5/10

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© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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