Hey folks, Harry here... Here's wnat a BNAT VIRGIN thought of his first time - It's interesting to see a take by someone that had only ever read of what BNAT is like... Let's see how this event worked on him...
If you do anything with this, call me Gelfin. This was my very first BNAT. I really wish I'd had the opportunity to see the old Drafthouse while it was there, but I'll have to content myself with having spent 24 hours in the best theater I've ever been in. I'll be able to say to people, "I was in the Ritz during the very last hours you could be in that theater without getting bits of pyrotechnically-launched paper stuck somewhere to your person." People are going to be finding those for years to come. I sincerely hope all the people who whinge about the lineup sucking and it all being about pushing Toshiba products follow through by not applying next year. Less competition for me. My response to the complainers is, "wait... it gets better?" Sign me up. I've written up reviews for a few movies, and brief comments about a few others, but omission is not rejection here. I loved SWEENEY TODD, but I really don't know what else to say about it except that no showing is truly complete without a serving of meat pies. Try the priest. CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR This is a movie that's likely to stir some people up. I predict it will be bashed a bit from both extremes of the political spectrum. It is insufficiently jingoistic for the right and insufficiently self-flagellating for the left. This dovetails neatly with one of the major themes I got out of the movie: The world is complicated; people's interests aren't. I want to say this was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, but that sounds like an insult, and it's anything but. As denizens of the early 21st Century, we have seen the crash site. We live among the still-flaming wreckage of this series of events. What we do not fully understand is how each compromise in the blueprints, each cost-saving construction shortcut, each half-attentive hand on the throttle led to the world we live in today. What's more, apart from one abysmally reprehensible decision (to overextend the analogy, the decision to just leave the flaming hulk of a train lying on the track and call it somebody else's problem), you walk away from the movie unsure if any of them could have done anything differently without causing an even bigger catastrophe. Even as you watch it's difficult to discern which specific decisions are productive and which are disastrous... and indeed, which are both at the same time. Phillip Seymour Hoffman stole the film. His CIA agent is an utter jackass. He is also ultimately perhaps the only person in the film who has his head screwed on straight, thus serving as a foil for every other character, whose motivations are fogged over with personal and political interests that are irrelevant to any productive goal. You tell him what you want and he finds a way to make it happen. Ironically the spy is the only character with no pretense. Contrast with Tom Hanks' Charlie Wilson. The film opens and closes with Wilson being honored for his contributions to ending the Cold War, but the meat of the film depicts a bit of a bumbler who stumbled into this honor as a side-effect of his addled priorities. And he knows it. He clearly demonstrates an innate interest in world politics, but he also allows it to compete on even terms with his innate interest in women and liquor. Due to his divided attentions, Wilson is interested, but uninformed and largely ineffectual. By the time we return to Wilson's honor, we see a man who is not proud of what he accomplished, but instead deeply regrets all he did not, and all he could have if only he and others had been more focused, not just when it mattered but before it mattered. The Zen Master story related by Hoffman near the end of the film (and, notably, attempted near the beginning, but Wilson was too busy spinning away a potential indictment to pay attention) is really the moral of the story, and Sorkin does not simply preach this moral. He produced a script that walks the talk. The movie does not pass much judgment, and in many ways defies the audience to do so, not defensively, but owing to the innate complexity of the situation. To bring a one-size-fits-all political philosophy to the table and claim it fits circumstances this overwhelming is to become one of the characters in the film, whose relatively shallow and unsophisticated interests left behind much of the world political wreckage we live with today. For the most part deciding whether the characters did the right thing is impossible. They did what they did, and we are left with only the Zen Master's eternally tentative conclusion: "we'll see." MONGOL Historical dramas like this always sneak up on me. One simply expects something produced by the Russian Federal Cultural something-or-other to be boring. Not so MONGOL. This ended up my favorite movie from BNAT 9. At the start I was not entirely certain whether I was seeing the next feature or another clip or trailer, but I very quickly found myself hoping it was the feature, and I was not disappointed. I was thoroughly engrossed throughout. I don't mind spoiling this, because anyone who knows even the tiniest thing about history will figure this out about a third of the way into the movie: MONGOL is an extended, dramatic Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story" about Genghis Khan. Of course, to become Genghis Khan, it is necessary to walk a path different from other Mongols, but the nature of that path is entirely unexpected. His ways often seem timid, weak and sentimental to his more brutal peers, but it is these same traits that catapult him to greatness. His perpetual outcast status teaches him to walk alone in the way a great leader must. His milquetoast fairness earns him loyalty, and his unwavering devotion to the woman he loves gets him the support he needs when he most needs it. It doesn't hurt that young Temudgin chose his wife well at the beginning. Borte kicks a not-inconsiderable amount of ass in her own right. Every comparison I see between Mongol and some other movie has seemed unsatisfying to me. This is not 300 -- it lacks the over-the-top hyperreality wet dream shtick. It is not DANCES WITH WOLVES -- it lacks that trundling Costner pretention. It reminds me somewhat of recent Chinese period dramas like HERO, but that also does not fully capture the sense of MONGOL. This is its own film, not a crib of an established success. If I have a single complaint, it's that MONGOL uses very few contrived superheroic combat gimmicks when it actually needs none at all. We get that this is the stuff of legend even without underlining it by making our young Khan literally do the impossible. Also impressive is that the filmmakers forego the temptation to narrow the scope of the movie. It would have been tempting to make this a simple revenge movie, as if killing a single childhood bogeyman is the magical act that transforms mild-mannered Temudgin into the mighty Genghis Khan. Instead, by the time that fateful confrontation arises, Temudgin has moved so far beyond it that the resolution is insignificant. This was a fairly bold subversion of convention that punctuates the greatness of this warrior in a way no "boss fight" could have done. MONGOL is the first in a trilogy, but it stands completely on its own. There's no cliffhanger, no foreshadowing to try to sucker you back in for the next film. In fact, this is just par for the course in a movie that relies on almost no gimmicks or tricks to keep its audience. I have this vague image in mind of John Houseman saying of MONGOL, "We hook an audience the old-fashioned way. We earn them." THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES I confess this is a movie I've never seen in its entirety. It's the sort of thing I've occasionally tuned into partway through and eventually tuned out after not making sense of what's going on. I am so glad to have finally seen this all the way through. The print was just gorgeous, and I have new favorite way of murdering people: via brass unicorn head launched by catapult from across the street. LONELY ARE THE BRAVE Kirk Douglas stars as Jack Burns in a "last of the cowboys" movie that made me wonder why anybody ever bothered to make another "last of the cowboys" movie. I never would have picked up the idea that this character inspired the creation of Rambo except for Harry mentioning it, and then I could totally see it. I could see Sly playing Douglas' role in this movie, and knowing this actually gives me a new perspective on the Rambo character. Jack Burns is a cowboy still inhabiting a world that no longer exists. He isn't remotely a badass, at least in attitude, or any kind of hardened man. His affability is even a little exaggerated, and as if that's not enough, there's his devotion to Whiskey, the uncooperative three-year-old part-Appaloosa mare he can't bring himself to part with even to save his own skin. You can't not like Jack Burns. Burns simply does what cowboys do: a buddy's in the pokey, so you get yourself arrested and stage a jailbreak. Never mind that in the modern day this is something that's only attempted by very bad people. That's not where Jack Burns lives. Even his buddy has moved on. The bars are broken, the way is clear, but Paul is committed to doing his time. Walter Matthau's sheriff is great. He gets Jack, even admires him, but he's got a job to do and he's going to do it. Matthau understands that a cowboy busting out of jail isn't the same as a modern criminal doing the same thing, but the law can't make that distinction. Contrast with George Kennedy's deputy, who doesn't get the difference even personally, and as a result really meets Burns halfway by making himself something of the villain every honorable cowboy needs. The movie is otherwise full of familiar faces, from William Schallert as the police radio operator (Operator? Right.) to a young Carroll O'Connor as the unintentional hand of fate to a VERY young Bill Bixby as a helicopter pilot. Any notion of changing Jack is right off the table. In the conflict between Jack Burns and the world, the world is more likely to change, but it's just too big. The world won't budge, no matter how much you wish you could give Jack his world back, or at least a sunset to ride off into. There's no sunset here, though. Just headlights in the rain. THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES I believe it is bad form to review a movie one has not seen in its entirety; therefore, the only fair thing is not to regard what follows as a review. Call it whatever you like. If THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES has a single saving grace, it lies in the film's power to bring people together, specifically in the theater lobby with bewildered expressions on their faces. To begin with, Drew sold this to us as a documentary, which it clearly was not. Aside from the liberal use of recognizeable character actors, my sense is that the actors need to spend more time watching actual documentary. Every "interview" segment came across as a reading. The "taped" segments seemed rehearsed. I found myself wondering if I was supposed to be taking this seriously or if it was farce. At times it came very close to a "Reno 911" vibe, but seemed unwilling to take that final step into being actually funny. The time I spent with TPT, I spent trying to figure out how the filmmakers were expecting me to react. They were possibly trying, with increasing desperation, to make me feel disturbed, but it just wasn't working. Honestly, one early "disturbing" scene (the "balloon" scene) ruined that right off. It was just too absurd. I found myself grasping for some detail that might give a clue about where the movie was going. Instead I got segments that went nowhere slowly while I didn't know if I was supposed to be waiting for a shock or a punchline (and eventually got neither). This over a video feed that looks like someone was a little too proud of his "grainy bad videotape" filter (seriously, dial this back). I came to realize I didn't care -- couldn't make myself care -- what they were trying to accomplish. As a rule I do not walk out of a movie. Perhaps the most telling thing I can say about THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES is simply this: That same night I sat through a documentary short wherein a man's hemorrhoid-scarred rectum was surgically peeled open like the flap on a pair of old-timey pajamas. That, at least, was visibly going somewhere. I cannot say the same of THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES. The best thing I can say about it is that it gave me further opportunity to get to know some of my fellow BNATters. TEEN LUST I've already gotten to work blocking this out of my brain. For something with the word "Lust" in the title, this movie did a great job of putting me in a total state of negative arousal. Like, I would have to watch hours and hours of porn just to pay off the deficit and get back to not-aroused. It was like THE TOY BOX without the sex appeal and tightly coherent plot. But on the upside, if anyone ever tries to claim I've never seen a cop pull his gun on a group of eight year olds to prevent them from gang raping a woman in broad daylight in a public park, I can rightly call him a damned liar. STAR TREK: CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER Darn it, you got me. I had resolved not to buy classic Star Trek again, and given nobody is broadcasting them in HD I had not really fully appreciated the remastering, but now not only have I seen "City on the Edge of Forever" on the big screen, but somebody's gone and dropped an HD-DVD player in my lap. It was just beautiful, and now I'm going to have to drop cash on it. FAREWELL UNCLE TOM We were warned upfront that this is perhaps the most racist movie ever made. I believe it. It was hard to watch and it just kept going, and it was made all the harder by the knowledge that Jacopetti and Prosperi could only have made this movie by exploiting its black "cast" in pretty much the same way the film itself putatively decries. Speaking of which, don't let the pretention of documentary objectivity fool you. This is the sleaziest most pornographically exploitative film I have ever seen, wrapped in a thin documentary veneer. It doesn't matter how historically accurate it is; the intent comes through loud and clear. Its purpose is to shock and titillate, with all the underlying ethics of a snuff film. In a way I'm glad I saw this, for a few reasons. First, previously if anybody had asked me whether a film this horrible had ever been made, I probably would have intellectually said "yes," but it's a far different thing to actually experience it firsthand. Second, in a similar vein, it's just so hard to project how bad this is. I was trying to describe it to one coworker and obviously failed miserably because she replied, "isn't that what ROOTS is about?" Um, yes and no... and NO. Third, speaking as someone who grew up in Alabama, you'd be surprised at how many modern racists defensively make statements very similar to some made by white characters in the movie. Or maybe you wouldn't. Regardless, it lowered my opinion of people for whom I had not previously thought I could have a lower opinion. The final reel of Farewell Uncle Tom is where the film hits its most deceptively exploitative. Taking on pretentions of supporting a sort of "black power" agenda, it depicts a studious young black man reading THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER and fantasizing about brutally murdering every white person he sees. Now, he may be forgiven for wanting to murder these particular white people -- not because they were white, but because they were idiots. I was mentally sharpening up the brass unicorn head myself just watching them. Regardless, this is just the continuation and fulfillment of the mission of FAREWELL UNCLE TOM, to spew a phony support for black Americans while reinforcing and glorifying a pornographic indulgence of the worst stereotypes, wherein even the very studious young black man is a powder keg of violent rage who cannot even hand a errant beach ball back to a white child without trembling with the urge to kill. With friends like Jacopetti and Prosperi, who needs slave traders? TRICK 'R TREAT This selection came completely out of the blue and I loved it. TRICK 'R TREAT was a collection of four excellent campfire ghost stories, beautifully intertwined, in a single movie. The affectation is of vignettes derived from a notional light horror comic book I suspect will actually exist before all is said and done, down to transitions denoted with yellow boxes announcing things like, "LATER..." This effect comes off quite well. The depth to which the stories are braided together, including one fairly long sequence we eventually get to see from two different viewpoints, is what separates this from a Creep Show or Twilight Zone: The Movie. Approaching the stories this way changes the whole sense of what is happening. It turns a collection of isolated incidents into a ubiquitous phenomenon. Following the "ghost story" theme, this serves the same purpose as, "and the killer is still loose in these very woods." This could happen to you too. The most significant common thread of all the stories is Sam, a sort of charmingly creepy childlike spirit of the season who oversees (and sometimes delivers) the consequences of not honoring the Rules of Halloween. In the universe of TRICK 'R TREAT, the ancient pagan roots of Halloween, ably exposited by a likeable autistic girl who actually pronounces "samhain" correctly, imbue it with a power that demands respect. Bad, bad things happen if you don't play along. Of course, bad, bad things might happen to you anyway. Halloween is just like that, and as we eventually see, settling up with Sam doesn't necessarily buy you out of other debts you may have incurred. The gore and genuine horror are pretty minimal. I don't see this getting anything stronger than a PG-13, and not even a "hard" PG-13 at that. I almost hate writing that because of the chance it will scare adults away from a really fun seasonal movie that deserves their attention. On the other hand, the strong potential I see in this movie is that this is something geeks of 20 years hence might look back on and say, "this was my first horror movie" in perhaps the same way many geeks my age remember Poltergeist. There are scares, monsters and blood, but I would actually suggest parents consider pushing the boundaries of "age-appropriate" for their children just a little for this one. After a few of hours of cinematic pain, this was a wonderful way to cap off BNAT 9, particularly with a bag of candy that was both thematically appropriate and a much-needed sugar rush. Happy Birthday Harry!
