Hey folks, Harry here... Got two IRREVERSIBLE reviews and two TEARS OF THE SUN reviews within minutes of each other, I figure it is a sign that I was meant to praise the glory that is Monica Bellucci. Her film IRREVERSIBLE is coming to limited markets this Friday and is so intense that after Moriarty saw it tonight he rushed to puke his guts out, having been so disturbed by the movie. He'll blame it on the head cold he was having, but I know the truth. Moriarty can't handle intense filmmaking at the level that IRREVERSIBLE is at. It doesn't play nice at all, and is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Is there a reason behind the display of such horrors, absolutely. But I'll let the two reviewers below go into that. As for TEARS OF THE SUN, its a film that has trailers that feel like paint by numbers. I'm not too hot to see it. Here ya go...
Hey Harry,
I thought I would drop you a line on a film I just saw at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It's called Irreversible, and it will be talked about I'm sure for a long time. The director Gaspar Noe held a short Q and A before the screening and warned the audience of the violence that lay ahead. First off, nothing he said prepared us for what was to follow.
I don't want to give away much about the plot because this film has to be seen and experienced with as little information as possible. Like Memento, it is told backward, and the story is driven by effects of a rape on three central characters played by Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, and Albert Dupontel.
The film is brutal, uncompromising and horrific to watch. From an aesthtic standpoint, Irriversible is brilliant in it's camera movement and dialogue, all of which is inmporvised in 12 scenes shot in one take each. Irreversible is opening in New York and LA on Friday and this is a must see for those interested in analyzing why violence has become such an infection inside popular culture. Gaspar Noe has created a visual nightmare which assaults all senses and cinematically addresses issues most won't touch. Thank God for Lion's Gate and Harry I hope you check this out ASAP and promote the hell out of it. (HARRY NOTE: I have, It was in my Top Ten Films Of 2002 List!)
I'm seeing Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things tomorrow afternoon and a print of All That Heaven Allows tomorrow night with Todd Haynes leading a discussion afterwards. I'll get back to you tomorrow with my thoughts. Thanks for your time.
SB Connection
Next up is a look at TEARS OF THE SUN...
Hey Harry:
I haven't noticed any recent reviews of "Tears of the Sun" on your site so allow me to fill the void. Let me start by saying I've always given Bruce Willis the benefit of the doubt--I think his David Addison was one of the great TV characters of all time, I liked him in Pulp Fiction, I'm one of the few people who appreciated "Unbreakable", I enjoyed the popcorniness of Die Hard, and I have both of his albums on vinyl. (Okay, maybe not the last one but I'm definitely pro-Willis.) As for Antoine Fuqua, I felt "Replacement Killers" was less than a sum of its parts but "Training Day" was a great film, very smart, and I really think Mr. Fuqua has potential for a very interesting career.
Alas, "Tears of the Sun" will make me rethink that.
The story is pretty simple but if you fear SPOILERS you'd better stop now. Simmering religious tension has exploded into a full scale civil war in Nigeria (actually named in the movie) and the evil Muslim rebels are performing genocidal acts on their Christian countrymen. Bruce Willis & his team of Navy Seals parachute into Nigeria to save one last American from the rapidly deteriorating situation. Interestingly this American is Italian (Monica Belucci) and a female Doctor with a Border but that doesn't stop Bruce because he is just following orders. She also has great cleavage for being in a war zone so perhaps this makes Bruce's decision easier. Apparently she is oblivious to the danger rapidly closing in on her refugee camp and insists on staying with her patients. Bruce, under strict orders to rescue the doctor and no one else, decides to trick the good doctor into coming with him by saying they'll rescue the patients as well.
Why the U.S. military can't just land a few helicopters in the middle of camp and rescue everybody is not explained. Instead, the most prudent thing to do is to march through the jungle for 2 days with all of the wounded refugees to a place where the helicopters can pick them up. After a few close calls on the trail with the evil Muslim rebels and a few shots of Bruce carrying some kids in his arms, they reach the pick up zone. This is where Bruce grabs Monica, shoves her on the chopper, and he and the Navy Seals take off, minus the refugees who watch this all rather passively. However, the helicopter flies over the refugee camp on the way out (Again, why the 2 day march?) and Bruce sees the religious violence as the evil Muslim rebel hack to death all of the invalid refugees and a priest and a nun for good measure. Stricken by his conscience, Bruce orders the helicopters to circle back and they save the refugees' kids, leaving the grown-ups, the Navy Seals, and the Italian-American doctor to hike out of the country to Cameroon. Why the helicopters couldn't come back is left to our imagination.
So now the Seals are protecting the refugees, picking off the occasional evil Muslim rebel, when they stumble upon a village being religiously cleansed. Bruce and the Seals sneak around the village shooting the rebels one-by-one as they perform unspeakable acts on the village people. One woman even has her breasts cut off as this prevents mothers from nursing their Christian children. A rebel whacks Bruce with a machete before being riddled with bullets. When Monica asks to take a look at Bruce's arm he growls "I'm alright" and keeps the group going toward safety.
Eventually, the ragtag group makes it near the Cameroon border, although this isn't before two stupid subplots involving a member of the royal family hiding amongst the refugees (whom the evil Muslim rebels want to behead) and rebel sympathizer with the best cell phone in Nigeria also hiding amongst the refugees who helps the rebels close in on the group. However at the border, the evil Muslim rebels finally catch up with the group and the only real action scene in the movie unfolds. Unfortunately the battle takes place in very tall grass so you can't see much. The Navy Seals with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of ammo shoot hundreds of evil Muslim rebels who apparently were never taught to duck. Magically at this point, the Navy decides to send in the jets to save their Seals and the classic napalming of the jungle takes place. The helicopters land, the admiral shakes Bruce's hand (who survives despite being shot at least 4 times), Monica thanks Bruce (but no kiss), and the royal family member is hailed as a new leader of his people. Sure quite a few people are dead, but it is a happy ending as the Americans save the good people of Nigeria.
There's nothing to take away from this film. "Tears of the Sun" is trite, flag-waving, crap. The characters are forgettable, Bruce Willis is monosyllabic. Monica Belucci just eye candy and barely speaks. Every line of dialogue is dripping with melodrama and Hans Zimmer's score helps hammer home the gravity of it all. Genocide, war, peace-keeping, religious fervor are heavy issues but this film's treatment of them is something close to silly. How Antoine Fuqua could make such a dumb follow up to Training Day is very disappointing. Although, apparently this movie was recut several times so maybe it isn't his fault. If you're looking for a Bruce Willis action flick or if you are looking for a powerful drama, you won't find it here. "Tears of the Sun" fails on every level.
Kind Regards,
Farmer Ted
Hmmm, having Monica Bellucci as pure Eye Candy is a total waste of amazing talent. She has such an amazing range as an actress, let's hope Hollywood and other directors realize how to best utilize her in film, there is still so much left for her to do. Here's another look at IRREVERSIBLE...
Harry,
At tonight's screening of IRREVERSIBLE at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, I came to realize three things:
1. I don't have epilepsy, since surely the massive amounts of Blair Witch-style camera work, strobe effects and pulsating soundtrack would have otherwise triggered a seizure within the first 20 minutes of the movie.
2. I will probably never again be at the same screening as Gina Gershon, Marilyn Manson, and Mickey Rourke.
3. Writer/director Gaspar Noe looks and acts like a nerdier Dave Attell. (Or is that the other way around?)
Anyway, IRREVERSIBLE is definitely a fucked-up movie, but it's also one of the most compelling films I've seen in awhile. Told in reverse, the first 20 minutes are truly a test to sit through, especially given the superb sound at the Egyptian. Every arm-breaking and face-bashing-with-the-fire-extinguisher sound effect had an indelible effect on the audience. (I counted nine walkouts during this portion.)
And then the rape scene, for which Monica Bellucci deserves an Oscar nomination for enduring. That's when at least ten or so people bolted for the exits. Noe said that he hired a former kickboxing champion to play the rapist. During his audition with another actress, he was able to convincingly punish and humiliate her for about five minutes. Before they filmed the scene, Noe asked him if he could drag it out even further. He also said that he let Bellucci essentially direct the scene. Later, when filming the following (preceding?) scenes, he showed the rape footage to the two actors seeking revenge to add to their motivation.
Noe also said that there was a three-page script and that the movie was pretty much improvised. He was able to get funding once he got Bellucci and real-life husband Vincent Cassell to appear in it. He said that in Europe those two are more popular than Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
So there you have it. IRREVERSIBLE opens this Friday in Los Angeles and I think New York. I'd recommend it to anyone with a strong heart and a strong stomach. Surprisingly, I saw two women each wolfing down a large popcorn before the movie, and they seemed to have no problem keeping it down. Maybe LA just hardens people after awhile.
'Til next time,
DITCH BRODIE
Well perhaps the women can keep it down in Los Angeles, but Moriarty was unloading mass quantities as soon as it was all over, can't wait to hear all about his puking in his review, when he gets to it. Now here's another look at TEARS OF THE SUN which seems like pretty light fare in comparison, and in dealing with what happened in Nigeria, that would be a crime!
Hey gang, longtime reader, first time contributor, etc. etc. I just got back from a test screening of the Bruce Willis/Monica Belluci war drama Tears of the Sun, and hadn't seen many reviews about it on your site, so I figured I'd share my thoughts with you. Feel free to use any or none of this. I'll try to keep it spoiler-free.
Tears of the Sun is your run-of-the-mill revisionist war movie. A bloody coup breaks out in Nigeria, and Bruce and a team of Navy-SEAL kinda guys have to go in and extract a doctor (Monica Belluci) and some missionaries doing humanitarian work before the guerilla fighters come by and wipe them out in the course of their ethnic cleansing. The only problem is the doctor refuses to leave "her people" behind to be summarily executed. Bruce hasn't turned a mission into a failure yet, and he's determined to carry this one out as well, so he lies to her and tells her to round up anyone who can walk, and they all head out into the jungle to the extraction point. When the helicopters land, Monica realizes that he intends to leave the refugees behind, and puts up a struggle, but the SEALs get her into the helicopter, and they take off, leaving the others to fend for themselves. They pass over the remains of the Mission, Bruce sees the charred and bloody corpses, has a crisis of conscience, and orders the choppers to turn around and pick up the refugees. They load the extremely sick, the young, and the old into the choppers, and everyone else stays behind to wait for the helicopters to drop off the refugees and return to get everyone else. But when they radio for additional helicopters, their commander (Tom Skerritt, vastly underused here) tells them there's too much anti-aircraft fire and that they're pretty much on their own. So Bruce rounds everyone up, tells them the situation, and starts trekking through the jungle towards a safe haven, pursued all the while by the guerilla fighters.
There really wasn't anything special about this film. There's too many people to try to follow, and not enough time given to any of them (besides the principles, of course) to make you care enough about them. The other SEALs and practically all of the refugees are pretty much faceless and nameless, except for maybe 3 or 4, so when people start dying (and there are a lot of deaths), you don't really care one way or the other. The movie kinda drags between the action sequences, and when there is a bit of action the fast edits make it a little hard to follow what's going on in the battles. The first 45 minutes or so happen during the evening, but even still it seemed excessively under-lit. The acting isn't bad, but it's not spectacular, either. Bruce Willis was under-acting even more than usual (his only real expression in this movie is one of grim determination), and Monica Belluci pretty much just yells at him the whole time about how she isn't going to leave anyone behind, etc.
All in all, it was sufficiently mediocre. Not terrible, not fantastic. Fans of the stars and people who like war movies will enjoy it, but I really don't see it appealing to anyone else. They couldn't even fill the theater for the free screening, so I doubt if they're gonna get a lot of paying customers. If you use this, call me Mr. Numi.
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Yer Pal,
Ryan "The Screaming Idiot"
