Hey folks, Harry here with the latest screening ruminations from Capone, who had nothing to do with the songs from HUSTLE & FLOW. Though he does whoop that trick every chance he can! Our darling Al has been seeing all the screenings as of late (as always) and I totally agree with his 3 Burials review, it is an absolutely fantastic work from Tommy Lee Jones. Well - get into it, there's good thoughts on all these films below...
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here with a grab-bag of goodies, and not-so
goodies. Only one of them is essential viewing, in my opinion. See if you
can guess which one. I'll give you a hint: it's the one in which a dead
body is a key character. Enjoy...
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
One of the most unforgettably bizarre and disturbing experiences I had in a
movie theatre late last year involved a small yet powerful work directed by
and starring Tommy Lee Jones. After years of playing tired variations of his
character from The Fugitive, Jones completely shocks us with this film about
ranch foreman Pete Perkins, who seeks justice on behalf of his recently and
unjustifiably killed Mexican worker, Melquiades Estrada.
It comes as no surprise that the shooting of an illegal migrant worker by a
border patrolman doesn’t stir a lot of legal dust in west Texas. But the
circumstances surrounding Estrada’s death seem particularly unjust. Perkins
doesn’t seem all that stable even before Estrada is found dead in the
desert, after being shot and buried by border guard Mike Norton (the
rat-like Barry Pepper), who has recently moved down to Texas with his pretty
wife (January Jones) from “up north” in search of work. (Mike and his wife
don’t seem particularly happy with their situation or each other, so it’s no
surprise that Mike brings his hair-trigger temper to the job.)
When Estrada’s body is finally brought back to town by the local sheriff
(played with wonderful ambivalence by Dwight Yoakam) and unceremoniously
reburied, Jones decides to deal with the situation on his own. He digs up
the body, wraps it up, straps it to a mule, kidnaps Norton, and travels many
miles to Mexico to return Estrada’s body to his village. The Three Burials
of Melquiades Estrada is about this desperate journey that seems destined to
end badly for one of the two living men. What Three Burials is not is a
meeting of the minds. Perkins and Norton do not become friends, nor are they
vicious enemies. Norton knows he’s done something very wrong, but Perkins
isn’t doing this to teach a lesson; he’s doing it to fulfill a promise to
Melquiades.
Please don’t think that Three Burials is a combination of a Sam Peckinpah
film and Weekend at Bernie’s. Although Peckinpah is clearly an influence for
Jones, this movie is its own demon. First off, every character in this movie
is pissed off about something, and this bitterness practically beads on the
skin of every actor. I particularly liked the supporting players, including
Melissa Leo, a local waitress and Jones’ mistress, and Levon Helm as a blind
old man who Perkins and Norton meet on their journey.
Jones has never played a role like that of Peter Perkins, and it’s arguably
his best work as an actor. Pepper (who’s done quite well for himself as a
reliable character actor in films like Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile,
and 25th Hour) is the real discovery here. He manages to appear thin and
sunken, while giving off a vibe of strong and dangerous. His attempts to
escape Perkins are met with violent results. Three Burials is a work of
great courage for Jones, who clearly was not banking on this movie being a
financial success. But as a work of art and vision, passion and dignity, it
has no equal. The movie landed at Number 33 on my Best of 2005 list, but for
those not living in New York or Los Angeles, it’s the best film of the year
so far. After a long wait for an limited opening date, the film opens Friday
in Chicago at the Landmark Century Center Cinema.
The World’s Fastest Indian
All you really need to know about Anthony Hopkins’ latest work is that it’s
about an old man from Invercargill, New Zealand, who spent his entire life
trying to go faster. It just so happens that the man in question was the
legendary speedster Burt Munro, who customized a 1920 Indian motorcycle into
a vehicle that broke the world land-speed record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt
Flats in 1967.
As portrayed by Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, Munro was the type of
man who didn’t know enough about modern safety standards to realize how
close to death he was most of the time. He went through life focused on
perfecting his bike and saving up enough money to make it to Utah. Along the
road to the Salt Flats, he encounters some interesting characters who all
see Munro initially as some backwoods, foreign rube…and end up being charmed
by his enthusiasm, charm, and wit. Munro was so headstrong that it never
even occurred to him that he had to actually pre-register to ride the Salt
Flats. He’d always just assumed that you just show up and ride. Thankfully
some of the other high-profile drivers come to his aide and convince the
organizers of the event to let Burt ride.
Hopkins seems more excited playing this role than I’ve seen him in years,
and his energy is infectious. Credit Australian director Roger Donaldson (No
Way Out, Species, Thirteen Days, The Recruit) for keeping things moving,
although far too much of the film’s mid-section is filled with a
never-ending parade of “colorful” American characters, including a
transvestite (Tina Washington), a used car dealer (Paul Rodriguez), and an
aging hippie (Diane Ladd) who Munro manages to bed without too much trouble.
Hopkins infuses Munro with enough personality for 10 characters; we didn’t
necessarily need the extra bodies to add more excitement. Still, The World’s
Fastest Indian is a genuinely inspirational tale with the heart of an
elephant and a stellar performance from Hopkins that reminds you how good he
is even when he’s not eating human flesh.
Something New
While the subject of interracial relationships is nothing new to the big
screen, Something New, from first-time feature director Sanaa Hamri,
addresses the topic with a deft mix of humor and pathos. While not a
particularly probing or hard-hitting take on such love connections, the film
does manage to address a variety of attitudes on the subject with a certain
level of sophistication. But don’t take my word for it; take the word of the
mostly black female audience in attendance at the screening I went to. Not
only did they clearly love the film, they didn’t seem to find it all that
difficult to find some appealing qualities in the film’s white male love
interest, Simon Baker (Land of the Dead).
If Something New is guilty of anything, it falls victim to the Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner? Syndrome. Both of the leads--Sanaa Lathan of Love &
Basketball and Out of Time, and Baker--are ridiculously good looking and
have successful careers that make them piles of cash. Why would anyone
(friends, family, co-workers) not put a stamp of approval on this coupling,
since clearly this pair will never have to worry about anything for the rest
of their lives? But what if one of them wasn’t making much money? How soon
would the cries of “gold digger” be heard?
Something New focuses on the life of Lathan’s character Kenya McQueen, a
financial advisor who is up for partnership at her firm. Her gaggle of
friends insists that she doesn’t have a man because her standards (given in
the form of a pages-long list) are far too high. When she is set up on a
blind date with Baker’s Brian Kelly, a landscape architect with a stable of
high-end clients, she immediately ends the date when she sees he’s white.
The two run into each other at a party soon after, and Brian convinces her
to let him landscape the backyard of her recently purchased home. You see
where this is going, right?
Everyone has an opinion on the relationship (even before it becomes a
relationship). Kenya’s womanizing brother (Donald Faison) and her parents
(including mother Alfre Woodard) are against it. Her girlfriends admit Brian
is fine, but only as a plaything until a solid black marriage candidate
presents himself, which he does eventually in the form of Blair Underwood.
Despite its seemingly controversial subject matter, Something New’s biggest
crime is being predictable. I found myself surprisingly drawn to Brian’s
character, which I guess isn’t a huge surprise since he is written as the
perfect, emotionally available man with his hands in the dirt and his heart
on his sleeve. Compare him to Kenya, who starts as a sketchy, one-dimension
person, but made to act more human and believable as the film goes on.
Despite the heated debates about race and an eventual breakup, there’s never
really any doubt where this couple and this film are going. Something New is
as easy a film to enjoy as it is one to poke holes in its logic and plot.
But with romantic comedies (which, despite the racial themes, this film is),
plot doesn’t matter as much. The writing is above average for such
lightweight material, and the acting is solid. I was particularly pleased to
see Mike Epps (as the significant other of one of Kenya’s girlfriends) dial
it back a notch and play a role that doesn’t require him to act like a
dumb-ass for 100 minutes. If for no other reason, Something New stands out
for being a film populated by African-American characters who are all
successful professionals, without a handgun in sight. There really aren’t
that many films out there like that, unfortunately. That doesn’t make up for
some of the movie’s shortcomings, but it sure helps.
A Good Woman
Undeservedly on the shelf for nearly two years, this adaptation of the Oscar
Wilde play “Lady Windermere’s Fan” is probably making it to theatres now
thanks to the presence of Scarlett Johansson in the cast as Meg Windermere,
an American living among the British in an Italian villa. What I’ve always
liked about films adapted from Wilde’s work are the seemingly carefree, but
ultimately stinging, comedic elements. But while there is plenty of witty
dialogue in A Good Woman, for some reason, most of it falls flat, despite
the presence of some very capable actors.
Helen Hunt stars as Mrs. Erlynne, an American woman who makes a living
seducing rich married men in one town and then moving on to the next. She’s
getting nearly too old to play the game anymore, until she spots a photo in
the newspaper of the insanely wealthy Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), and
his lovely wife Meg (Johansson). Mrs. Erlynne inserts herself into this
tight-knit society of mostly British gossips, but they know who she is and
what she’s up to, and she is largely shunned. Not long after her arrival in
town, she is spotted in the company of Robert, and tongues begin to wag.
Meanwhile, the notorious British playboy Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell
Moore) has his eye on Meg, and when he catches wind of the possible affair
involving her husband, he uses this as an excuse to get closer to Meg. The
other major player in this story is the older- and richer-than-God Tuppy
(Tom Wilkinson), who falls madly in love with Mrs. Erlynne, despite knowing
everything about her past.
Director Mike Barker (who has made several feature films and British
television movies) certainly has an eye for the period (the film is set
during the American Depression) and the look of the film is stunning. Where
he lost me was in the casting. I like Helen Hunt, but she’s absolutely wrong
for this role. Every word out of her mouth is over-enunciated and she
delivers every line with eyebrows raised as if she’s constantly amusing
herself. The British players fare somewhat better, but the group of elderly
men with whom Tuppy associates seem to do nothing but crack jokes about the
opposite sex and marriage without having actual conversations in which to
frame their jests. Johansson looks pretty darn tasty in the period clothes,
but her acting seems ripped from a bad soap opera. There’s actually a scene
where she turns her head away from Hunt when a hurtful word is thrown her
way. It’s laughable.
Best among the cast is Wilkinson (no surprise there), whose character most
resembles a living human being. He’s so rich he doesn’t have to act rich,
and his performance is nearly worth enduring the film’s many flaws. In other
hands with other actors, A Good Woman could be a hell of a fine work, but
this version falls short of such recent adaptations as An Ideal Husband and
The Importance of Being Ernest. I’m glad the film was finally released, but
unless you are compelled to see everything Johansson or Wilkinson is in (as
I am), don’t bother.
Capone
Why Doesn't Somebody Make A Movie With Pee Wee Herman as a fed up former Children's Television Star turned Axe Murderer?
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