By Jennifer Baldwin. Which is the higher value: Peace or Freedom? Can there be true peace without freedom? Is freedom worth dying for? Is freedom worth killing for? What are we willing to do for our freedom – not just the soldiers, sailors, and marines—but all of us, what are we willing to do?
Few movies today wrestle with these questions, probably because they’ll bring up answers that the Hollywood establishment doesn’t want to face. The independent films we champion here at LFM are different, of course. They’re not afraid to face the issue of freedom. Freedom-loving films are out there; they’re just not the mainstream movies that garner all the press.
But that wasn’t always the case. As any movie fan with a passing knowledge of Hollywood in the 1940s knows, movies about freedom and fighting tyranny were turned out half a dozen a week back in those days, all in service to the war effort and the fight against the Nazis and Imperial Japan.
Edge of Darkness is one such movie. It has a message about freedom that is essential, even for us today, in understanding the sacrifices and requirements necessary for liberty. It also has lots of guns.
Edge of Darkness is a great film if you like the following things: Piles of dead Nazis; a religious minister mowing down Germans from a bell tower; and Ann Sheridan toting a big, honking machine gun. And boy, does she tote it!
This is a movie about the importance of firearms. I can’t recall the last movie I watched that showed just how much having freedom depends on having guns. Everybody is packing in this one – from the little old ladies, to gray-haired doctor Walter Houston, to the town preacher.
Needless to say, Errol Flynn handles a gun, but it’s Ann Sheridan striking a pose for firearms and freedom that really gets the film going.
These are the pleasures of Edge of Darkness. It’s a relatively unknown gem only recently released on DVD. It’s director is the underrated Lewis Milestone, director of one of my favorite films noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Milestone was no stranger to war movies, either, having directed All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930. Continue reading Classic Cinema Obsession: Edge of Darkness, New on DVD
By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Stallone & Co. try to bring macho, 80s action fare back into style. Sly leads a rag-tag band of mercenaries into action against a rogue ex-CIA officer-turned drug lord and a South American Generalissimo. Along the way, Stallone develops feelings for the Generalissimo’s daughter, while co-star Jason Statham works out issues with his girlfriend. Mickey Rourke supplies the tattoos.
THE SKINNY: Thoroughly mediocre, straight-to-video style action movie on steroids. Basically a platform for Stallone’s Godzilla-scale narcissism … along with some nasty, leftist messaging about the CIA and American exploitation of Third World peoples, etc.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK:
• Making the villain of the piece an ex-CIA guy turned drug lord … who likes waterboarding women. Sorry, but this took me completely out of the picture. Shame on Stallone for jamming this junk into his film. Trying to cash in with the overseas audiences, Sly? You’re peddling an ugly stereotype of our intelligence services at a time when we can least afford it. Our intelligence people doesn’t deserve to get thrown under the bus just to reboot your career.
• Trying to make Jet Li the comic relief in the film. Stallone apparently confused him with Jackie Chan.
• The genuinely appalling stereotypes this film peddles about Central/South America. Apparently everybody down there is either a druggie, a peon, a Generalissimo, or a sexy spitfire right out of a telenovela. I guess you can get away with that stuff in a film nowadays so long as you gratuitously bash the CIA.
• The visual effects looked cheap, like something out of a Roger Corman movie. The cheap effects give the film a straight-to-video vibe that it never quite shakes.
• Seeing Sly, Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger together after all these years … meant exactly nothing to me, because these guys basically stand for nothing anymore other than their own careers, and their personal narcissism. Schwarzenegger? He’s currently presiding over the ruination of my state. Willis? When Live Free or Die Hard went overseas, he let the title be changed to Die Hard 4 in order not to ‘offend’ international audiences. So watching all these ‘tough’ guys smirk and preen and chew cigars means zero to me now; besides, at this point Angelina Jolie could probably kick all their asses.
WHAT WORKS:
• I don’t know whether it’s plastic surgery or ‘roids or what – but both Stallone’s face and Mickey Rourke’s are starting to look like Paul Klee paintings. They bulge and twist in interesting, novel directions and hold your interest.
• Statham. The key to Statham is: he’s a handsome guy, without being pretty. Being pretty is what ruined Van Damme.
• Due to clever editing and sound effects, I almost thought the fight scenes were good. Jet Li was really wasted, though.
• Inheriting the Maria Conchita Alonso role from the 80s, Gisele Itié is certainly sultry. I like the way she says ‘You Americans’ in this film. The phrase has a kind of smoky, insolent lilt coming out of her mouth. Too bad she gets waterboarded.
• It was good to see Dolph Lundgren again, and a great idea to have him fight Jet Li. Poor Dolph still can’t act, though.
Body fetish: it's all about how you look.
The Expendables is basically Stallone’s victory lap, his valedictory statement on the action film. But even though I’ve always been pro-Stallone in the past (how many of you can say you once snuck into a midnight screening of Cobra? I can), I can’t go with him here. I really think the only thing Stallone stands for any more is himself and his career – and his wife’s excellent skin care products, of course.
Personal narcissism was always an important subtext of Stallone’s films – you see it in the long, loving close-ups of Sly’s pecs in films like Rambo II or Rocky IV – but in The Expendables Sly turns narcissism into a creed, a kind of warped code of honor. We learn in this film, for example, that Sly and his mercenary band will basically go anywhere and do anything for money. Except in this case, Sly doesn’t take a job offered to him by Bruce Willis because he would then be – indirectly – working on behalf of the CIA. [By the way, you know Bruce Willis is a villain in this film because he’s a clean-shaven white guy wearing a suit. In current movie iconography, that reads as bad.] Being a patsy for the CIA is apparently not cool in Sly’s world. What is cool, instead, is doing the exact same dirty work – and risking the lives of his team – in order to rescue the Generalissimo’s hot daughter, who wouldn’t even leave with him when she had the chance. In essence, Stallone has the opportunity to do something for his country – albeit indirectly, and perhaps on behalf of a nasty character (Willis) – but he passes up the opportunity to indulge a personal whim.
It’s too bad that’s where Stallone’s head is, nowadays. That kind of me-first mentality keeps this film from being the men-on-a-mission classic it could be, like The Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare or Ice Station Zebra. This movie has no sense of mission whatsoever, no sense of higher purpose other than the resuscitation of a star’s career. I don’t know what ‘The Expendables’ are fighting for, or why I should care. All we really learn from watching this thoroughly mediocre film is that South American women are as hot as ever.
The trailer basically associates the film’s frightening alien invasion of Los Angeles with the ‘invasion’ of the New World by Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries. And these associations are spelled out in the trailer by … Dan Rather, and MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell! [By way of quoting Stephen Hawking’s recent comments on the dark possibilities associated with alien contact.] Talk about ‘on-the-nose’ filmmaking.
So it looks like Skyline will thematically be taking us directly into Avatar territory: i.e., sub-rosa critiques of White European Invaders as the metaphorical ‘aliens’ we really need to fear. [Sigh.] That’s too bad, because the trailer otherwise looks promising … except for the fact that I’ve already seen this film before, when it was titled War of the Worlds.
One might potentially interpret Skyline as a reverse-riff on the theme of Christian ‘rapture,’ by the way. Just a thought.
Alien invaders gobbling up innocent citizens of Los Angeles. Expect indigestion.
By the way, according to Hollywood Reporter’s HeatVision blog, here’s Fury Road’s storyline: “Keough will play one of the ‘Five Wives,’ a group of women that [Mad Max] must protect from the bad guys. Zoe Kravitz, Teresa Palmer and Adelaide Clemens are three of other wives.” This film is looking better by the day – much more enticing than what I was expecting. Book me in. Incidentally, since Mad Max is actually protecting women in this film, it’s now obvious to me why Mel Gibson won’t be playing Max anymore.
• In a recent post entitled, “Christopher Nolan’s Dead Women,” Culture Snob’s Jeff Ignatius notes something that I’ve detected, as well:
In at least four of Christopher Nolan’s seven feature films, the plots and/or fixations are initiated or propelled by the death of a man’s spouse or girlfriend. Considering that Nolan’s primary thematic interest is obsession, isn’t this a little strange?
Yes, it is. Ignatius later dances around the obvious question: namely, whether some, dark misogynistic impulse is at the imaginative core of Nolan’s work. I wish more people would take note of this, because it’s a deeply disturbing aspect not only of Nolan’s work, but of the fandom that worships him.
CH: You know, the good part about that is maybe I’ve contributed to helping women appreciate themselves the way they are, that we don’t all have to be a Size 2 to be beautiful. Anything I’ve done to help change people’s minds about that is something to be proud of, I think.
We share her pride.
Kelly Brook of "Piranha 3D."
•The new trailer for the Christina Aguilera/Cher/Stanley Tucci Burlesque runs through about every biopic cliché in the book, but the funniest part to me is the ending when you learn that Burlesque is going to be out in time for Thanksgiving! Yes, perfect Thanksgiving fare! I know I’ll be there, right after passing the gravy boat.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Piranha 3D’s Kelly Brook has a new interview out today in which she reveals that Piranha 3D’s French director Alexandre Aja discovered her in an LA restaurant … while she was eating fish and chips.
By Jason Apuzzo. Does the poster on your left grab your attention? It certainly caught mine, although perhaps that had to do with the fact that there was an approximately 100 foot high version of it draped over a building I drove by recently here in LA. I have a great interest in firearms, you understand, and seeing an automatic rifle that large immediately caught my attention.
I’m being facetious, of course – at least with respect to the relative appeal of firearms. Nikita, for those of you who may not have heard,is the CW’s reboot of a TV show – La Femme Nikita – that was actually once run by an acquaintance of mine, 24 producer Joel Surnow. And Joel’s show, in turn, was based on the 1990 Luc Besson film of the same name, about a young criminal babe recruited to work for French intelligence – and to otherwise fire guns while wearing 4-inch heels.
There was a so-so American remake of Besson’s film that followed in 1993, called Point of No Return, starring Bridget Fonda. Then came Joel’s gritty, noirish and very successful show in the late 90s – until that show ran its course, roughly around the time he was developing 24.
And whereas the specific plotlines of these various Nikitas have changed, one element has remained constant: a sexy young misfit woman, who must be able to fire semi-automatic weaponry while wearing cocktail dresses, is recruited by mysterious intelligence forces to fight … somebody.
Perhaps you already see where I’m going with this.
In Joel’s version of La Femme Nikita, sexy young Nikita (played by Peta Wilson) is recruited by a shadowy government organization to fight terrorism. [Bear in mind that this anti-terrorist plotline was developed prior to 9/11 – as was 24‘s original plotline, incidentally.] Some of La Femme Nikita’s basic plotline and vibe eventually got rolled into 24 – with fantastic results, of course.
Wrong! In the new Nikita series, we’re the villains. Or at least, the C.I.A. and American intelligence services are the villains (see here and here or the video below). Angry, pinch-faced W.A.S.P. bureaucrats in cheap suits are the villains. [And I’ll bet they have bad aftershave, too!]
This irritates me. I would like to be able to watch this show, for reasons I presumably don’t need to explain (at least to the male readers of this website). Doing a series like this should be so easy – a breeze, actually.
Peta Wilson, from the original series.
You find some good looking gal, and have her hunt down, say, a snarling member of the A.Q. Khan smuggling network who’s trying to get nuclear materials into Miami … while he enjoys a few martinis at the Skybar. Maybe he’s a Russian mobster with a weakness for Incan quinoa and Fantasy Football.
Our delectable heroine pulls up to the club in a Lamborghini Murcielago (CUT TO: camera capturing her shapely leg as the doorman helps her out of the car); after some perfunctory banter, and few snappy and/or inane quips (“Next time, make sure my salmon is served cold!”) she pulls a Glock out of her garter and has a shootout with the Russian and his gang, and escapes from a fireball or two – just in time to make it back home to her charmingly oblivious boyfriend in the suburbs, who just got back from a sale at Ikea.
I mean, the story writes itself.
Instead, the CW has decided to make us the villains. What a drag. These kinds of shows are being made all the time (e.g., Alias, Dark Angel, Painkiller Jane), and there are many different ways to go with the material. CW is making the most idiotic decision imaginable by making our own intelligence services into the bad guys.
Why idiotic? Because your garden variety Hollywood liberal – one thinks here of, say, Jeffrey Wells – isn’t going to watch this series anyway just because there’s a snarky, leftie-conspiratorial plotline. They’ll consider this show too déclassé to begin with … while potential viewers like me get alienated. And again, why? What’s the purpose? Because the producers want to make some asinine point about U.S. foreign policy?
Is that really why they think we watch this stuff?
By Jennifer Baldwin. It’s August and that means Stars. Movie Stars. August is the month when TCM airs its annual “Summer Under the Stars” festival — 31 days of movie stars — with each day devoted to the films of a different star. This year’s schedule includes days devoted to Basil Rathbone, Norma Shearer, Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Olivia De Havilland, Clint Eastwood, John Gilbert, Warren Beatty, Thelma Todd, and many more. Thanks to “Summer Under the Stars,” August has become a month that classic movie fans can’t help but love.
But why do we love it? First of all, we love the posters. Seriously, TCM does a phenomenal job with their advertising when it comes to the “Summer Under the Stars.” Last year’s promotional art posters were so good, in fact, that I wish TCM had sold them as full-sized glossy posters that I could put on my wall. This year, graphic artist Michael Schwab has designed eye-popping silhouettes for each of the thirty-one stars.
Why else do we love the “Summer Under the Stars”? Well, there’s the chance to see films rarely shown on TCM. When you’ve got twenty-four hours devoted to say, the films of John Gilbert, there’s bound to be a lot of movies that don’t normally make the TCM rotation. This year’s rarities include films starring Gilbert, Thelma Todd, and Woody Strode. Also, days devoted to Gene Tierney, Julie Christie, Ann Sheridan, Bob Hope, Kathryn Grayson, Lee Remick, and Robert Ryan offer the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the filmographies of stars who don’t get as much play as some of the perennial heavy hitters like Flynn, Bergman, and Hepburn.
But beyond the promotional art, and the rare films, the biggest reason we love the “Summer Under the Stars” is because we love the stars themselves. Sure, TCM shows a Katharine Hepburn movie at least once a week (and that’s on a slow week), but there’s something about watching an entire day’s worth of her films (or Errol Flynn’s, or Paul Newman’s, or Ingrid Bergman’s) that’s just… special. A big part of loving old movies means loving old movie stars.
That’s why I’m distressed to see a few articles on the web recently claim we don’t need movie stars anymore (and even more radically, that we never really needed them in the first place). Sure, the annual “Are Movie Stars Dead?” article is as predictable as the old “Did Jaws and Star Wars Kill the Movies” article. But this new trend – to not just lament the death of movie stars but to say “good riddance” as well – is a bit disturbing. Who are these people who think that movies don’t need movie stars?
It’s an idea that’s utterly foreign to me. I got into old movies because of the movie stars. I wouldn’t have become the crazy, obsessive classic movie fanatic that I am today if it hadn’t been for the movie stars I came to love. I was first introduced to old movies by my mom: folding laundry with her on the couch, a rainy Saturday afternoon, an old Hitchcock film or 1940s romance on the TV. I enjoyed these old movies well enough, but they didn’t mean all that much to me. I hadn’t fallen in love with them yet. Continue reading Who Needs Movie Stars? I Do!
By Jason Apuzzo. • Patricia Neal has passed away, at age 84. What a great star she was. I actually just saw her recently on the big screen at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, where they were showing The Day the Earth Stood Still. Patricia Neal appeared in so many of my favorite films, including In Harm’s Way, The Fountainhead, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Face in the Crowd, Operation Pacific and on and on … and of course, everybody remembers her (rightly) for Hud. Neal had the same kind of urbane, sexy, flinty-yet-romantic persona that Betty Bacall had in her prime, and she will be deeply missed.
We don’t have women nowadays on film, so much as overgrown girls. Neal and Bacall are arguably the last of their kind.
The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don’t know how to do them. They literally are Star Wars, only we’re going to have to try to do them at a tenth the cost. And it’s a huge challenge, a lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.
On the one hand this is disappointing, because this is a series that a lot of us have been looking forward to. On the other hand, I’m glad that they’re being ambitious with the storyline. Knowing the way the folks at Lucasfilm are, they will probably be developing an innovative new palette of technologies in order to make this series affordable. We’ll be watching this story as it develops in months to come.
I can hardly believe that in my recent writings about the new wave of alien invasion films/TV shows, I actually forgot to mention V! One of the reasons this is such a glaring omission is that V (both in the original and the new miniseries) manages to harness the alien invasion theme to political commentary about America’s potential drift toward authoritarianism. I’ve actually read Kenneth Johnson’s 2008 V novel, which could not be more obvious in its criticism of current trends in liberal governance. (The novel even features a hilarious, narcissistic San Francisco mayor based quite blatantly on Gavin Newsom … who has an affair with a Beyoncé look-alike.) I haven’t seen much of the new TV series – which was thought by many to offer a sub rosa critique of the Obama Administration – but the series seems to depart rather dramatically from the novel in its plotline, and appears to be more along the lines of a straight-forward reboot of the original TV show.
In any case, these trends in sci-fi continue, and we’ll be keeping an eye on them here at LFM … especially when the new season of V revs up later this year. Btw, if more aliens looked like Laura Vandervoort, would we really mind being devoured by them?
• DAILY PSYCHO REPORT: The new Maggie Thatcher biopic with Meryl Streep is apparently going to be a full-on, unvarnished hit job on The Iron Lady, exploiting even her recent dementia … and I’m totally disgusted with Streep and her participation in what appears to be an ugly, nakedly propagandistic project. I can only assume Streep has no conscience whatsoever, and like so many recent celebrities is simply surrendering her career – now that it’s on the down side – to tendentious partisan hackery.
By Jennifer Baldwin. Which is the higher value: Peace or Freedom? Can there be true peace without freedom? Is freedom worth dying for? Is freedom worth killing for? What are we willing to do for our freedom – not just the soldiers, sailors, and marines—but all of us, what are we willing to do?
