In Bruges

COLLIN FARRELL and Brendan Gleeson in "In Bruge."


'In Bruges' funny, if you get past blood

For Star Beacon WEEKENDER for Jan. 23, 2009

"In Bruges" is about as funny as a movie can be that has to do with a bloody contract killing and children being murdered.
Collin Farrell plays Ray, an Irish hit man who accidently kills an innocent boy.
So he and his partner, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), are sent away for awhile, apparently until the heat dies down.
The boss is Harry, played by Ralph Fiennes.
Well, Harry is as homicidal and blood-thirsty as the next guy, but shows his humanity, too. He decides the boys need to lay low somewhere nice, but cheap, too. So he decides on Bruges, which narrator Harry admits he didn't even know where it was.
Bruges is a fairy-tale type of city in Belgium, steeped in history, with its canal and cobblestone streets and gothic architecture and great beauty.
But it's all sort of lost on Ray. Sure he's a killer, but he's also unintentionally funny. It's Christmas and the pair end up in a quaint bed and breakfast type of boarding house with a spectacular view. But they have to share a room and may end up there a few weeks until Harry gives further instructions.
Ken absorbs the history and beauty, Ray wants to drink.
There's a funny scene early on in which Ray is sitting out on a park bench after taking the narrow, meandering stairs to a rooftop site. Three fat Americans stop in front of him while staring at a map. Ray, actually trying to me helpful, warns they are too fat and too wide to make the trip. When the American man tries to chase Ray, Ray simply side steps the man until he is worn out from the meager chase.
The dialogue, while thick in Irish accident, is pretty pointed and funny, too.
Ray acquires a girlfriend (Clemence Posy) who doesn't seem to mind when he takes all of her drugs. He also hangs with Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), an American dwarf who is making a movie. He also parties with Dutch prostitutes, who do better in Bruges.
When the Fiennes character barks orders, they aren't what the soft-hearted Ken wants to hear. Well, as soft-hearted as a paid killer can be.
The film creates lots of twists and turns. The turns get bizarre, but you won't be bored.
Director Martin McDonagh, who also wrote the script, will keep you guessing.
This film is rated R. It has plenty of violence to go with its history lesson.
If you aren't offended by language and kids being shot down in the street, you'll like "In Bruges."

IN BRUGES
Directed and written by Martin McDonagh
Runtime: 107 minutes
Rating: R for strong, bloody violence, pervasive language and some drug use.
4 stars out of 5
It is airing on Cinemax

White Heat

Warner Bros.
JAMES CAGNEY plays Cody Jarrett in "White Heat."

Cagney goes ballistic in ‘White Heat’

WEEKENDER for Jan. 9, 2009

Violent, psychotic killers are a staple of modern movies.
Remember the demonic Joe Pesci in “Good Fellas,” who had a quick temper and with a gun usually in the hand, made the outburst fatal for somebody.
That character and so many others can be traced to the film noir classic “White Heat.”
If you've never seen this film, or it's been awhile, it's time to revisit this giant 1949 gangster film.
It was a combination of the times the film was made, the changing Hollywood and the people who were dedicated to its excellence that made it such a prize.
James Cagney plays Cody Jarrett, a psychological time bomb who can only see short-term solutions. Nobody dares cross Cody Jarrett.
The film opens with Jarrett and his gang robbing a train. When one of his henchman refers to him as “Cody,” they both realize the two workers on the train must be killed. Lots of people die in this film.
When one henchman is badly burned from steam and the gang wants to leave their cabin retreat, Cody promises to send a doctor to care for him. But the specialist turns out to be another henchman with a gun.
God old Cody.
Among those in the gang is his equally devious mother, who cares for him when he goes into one of his violent fits that might somehow explain his deviant personality.
There's also his lovely wife, played by Virginia Mayo, who exchanges glances at other henchmen, and maybe more than that when Cody goes to prison.
Edmund O'Brien plays a federal agent who poses as a fellow inmate and Cody's cellmate who wants to find out what happened to the money from a big heist.
When Cody breaks out, the O'Brien character goes along for the ride.
You can bet Cody seeks revenge for his mother's death, for who has made time with the wife he neglected and any guy who talks to or dances or especially marries his 18-year-old sister.
At this point, hold on for a jarring, bloody, pulse-pounding good time. Early in the film Mom says, “Top of the world, Cody,” for which he replies, “Top of the world, Ma.” The phrase returns in the electrical — literally — and violent ending.
The DVD also includes the alternate ending the studio wanted, in which Cagney's character dutifully goes through the judicial process and meets his appropriate fate. The studio ending wouldn't have gotten the repeat showings in best-of clips show as the original does.
The DVD also includes a Warner Brothers night at the movies, with a short subject, Bugs Bunny cartoon, coming attractions and newsreel.
It is part of the whole Warner Bros. Pictures “Gangsters” DVD package, which includes other great films like “The Public Enemy,” “Angels with Dirty Faces,” “Little Caesar,” “The Petrified Forest” and “The Roaring 20s.”
This is Cagney at his best, and that is saying something.

WHITE HEAT • Directed by Raoul Walsh • Story by Virginia Kellog and screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts • Runtime: 113 minutes • Not rated, but not for young children • 4 stars out of 4

Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers

1950s sci fi films reflective of times

DANA WYNTER and Kevin McCarthy run from aliens in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

MICHAEL RENNIE is an anlien in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Adult-style science fiction films came of age in the 1950s.

They were picked up for television in the 1960s, laughed at in the high-tech days of "Star Wars" in the 1970s and 80s and remade with reverence in the new century.

The trouble is, the remakes aren't as good as the originals, even with all of today’s high-tech gadgetry. (Check my review of the original “War of the Worlds” vs. the recent Tom Cruise debacle.)

I haven't seen the updated “Day the Earth Stood Still” yet, but the critics haven't been kind. The original 1951 version has been considered a classic, the first adult-style sci fi story that comments on the Cold War of its day.

Then there’s 1956’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a short but exceptionally effective story about aliens who replace humans with emotionless creatures by creating duplicates first in seed pods. When the actual human falls asleep, the alien creature takes over, but with all of the memories of the original person.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is a suspenseful tale centering on a small California town. Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is the town's handsome young physician who is away at a medical conference. His nurse summons him home because a myriad of townspeople aren't feeling right. They are suspicious that family members and friends aren't who they seem to be.

McCarthy hooks up with an old flame, Dana Wynter, who plays Becky Driscoll. They meet with some of the suspicious townspeople who suddenly decide all is right with the world.

Well, that of course is because they aren't who they seem to be. They have been taken over by aliens!

Remember, this was filmed during the Cold War, when we were all supposed to watch our neighbors, fearing we were being infiltrated by the Communists.

The suspense builds in this masterpiece, directed by Don Siegel.

The film was so popular it was effectively remade in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and included a part for, yes, Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy, by the way, is still making movies even as his age, 94!

The summer 2007 version, title shortened to “The Invasion,” came and went at the theater and stars Nicole Kidman in the title role. She plays a psychiatrist who fears people are being taken over by aliens. The new version works pretty well too, although with a lot more car crashes.

The original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” holds up pretty well. This 1951 tale has a spacecraft land in Washington, D.C. Americans, paranoid over the Communist threat at the time, take the first opportunity to shoot one of the aliens, who is played by the underused Michael Rennie.

The Rennie character is taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital where he soon slips out to live amongst real Earthlings. He wants to save Earth, not destroy it. But if Earth doesn't heed his message to stop wars and nuclear testing, it will endanger other, more advanced planets. The result: Earth will need to be destroyed.

The Rennie character takes a room at a boarding house where a young Billy Gray lives (later Bud on "Father Knows Best,") along with Frances Bavier, who a decade later would play Aunt Bea on "The Andy Griffith Show," and Patricia Neal, the film's love interest.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" has an exceptional ensemble cast and is carried as much by young Billy Gray as it is by the adult cast.

Sam Jaffe stars as a scientist and one of the great brains of Earth at the time. Jaffe later became popular as Dr. Zorba on “Ben Casey.”

Earth is bent on destroying what it doesn't understand.

Commercials for the “Day the Earth Stood Still” remake say it is “only in theaters.”

Well, that's not entirely true. The original, much heralded version, is available in a few forms on home video, including a new, pristine Blu-Ray version.

Will the remake hold up as well in 57 years as well as this one does?

INVASION OF THE

BODY SNATCHERS (1956)

• Directed by Don Siegel

• Written by Jack Finney and Daniel Mainwaring

• Runtime: 80 minutes

• Not rated but intense for younger children

• 4 stars out of 4

DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

• Directed by Robert Wise

• Screenplay by Edmund H. North, based on a story by Harry Bates

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Not rated but intense for younger children

• 4 stars out of 5

The Mighty

ELDEN HENSON, Kieran Culkin and Sharon Stone in "The Mighty."

‘Mighty’ a mighty fine family film

VIDEO VIPER for December 19, 2008

It was a little movie made a decade ago.

You probably missed it.

But “The Mighty” is a mighty good family-oriented film that deals with crime, existing in junior high school, friendship and overcoming tremendous odds.

Kieran Culkin plays Kevin, a smart but sickly youngster who has a curved spine, a back brace and requires crutches to walk.

Elden Henson plays his neighbor, Max who is disabled too, but in an emotional way.

Max is a big, lumbering boy who is picked on because he has spent three years in the seventh grade and looks like he should be in high school (maybe that’s because he should be in high school.)

Kevin is picked on because he is weak and scrawny. Max is picked on because he is big and cumbersome. Neither feels he can fight back.

But something magical happens when they get together Kevin is tutoring Max in reading and emphasizes King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable.

Max puts Kevin on his shoulders and suddenly they become one powerful knight.

Now Kevin can participate in sports on Max’s shoulders. Max becomes more self-assured.

Max is an emotional cripple because as a youngster, he sees his father (a scary, pre-Tony Soprano James Gandolfini) strangle his mother.

Max lives with his grandparents, played by Harry Dean Stanton and Gena Rowlands. They are at a loss as to how to raise such a disturbed boy. To illustrate their relationship, Max refers to his grandfather as “Grim.”

Kevin’s mother is played by Sharon Stone, who looks better than any mother has a right to and is one of the more famous people to come from our area.

The film probably doesn’t break any ground but it is a wonderful, adventurous story that is family worthy.

And when Daddy is released from prison on parole, the suspense really builds.

The film has a realistic feel to it, even with such Hollywood types as Rowlands and Stone appearing in the film. Maybe that’s because it takes place in Cincinnati.

We learn Kevin has something called Morquio’s syndrome. This means his bones stop growing, even though his organs still grow.

As a doctor tells his mother, his heart eventually would get too big for his body.

With King Arthur as their role model, the pair learn they can overcome adversities. When Max is kidnapped by his deranged father, Kevin learns he can do more with his frail body than he even thought possible.

Some of the plot, especially toward the end, is a little too improbable.

Watching this film should be a family event. It can also spark some discussion, since the problems these two outcasts endure are pretty common in junior and senior high school.

Give “The Mighty” a try. It will tug at your heart strings.

THE MIGHTY

• Directed by Peter Chelsom

• Written by Charles Leavitt, based on a novel by Rodman Philbrick

• Running time: 100 minutes

• Rated PG-13 for snippets of violence and peril

• 3 1/2 stars out of 4

The Other Boleyn Girl

Chopped up ‘Boleyn Girl’ worth renting
VIDEO VIPER for Dec. 12, 2008

Columbia Pictures
NATALIE PORTMAN and Scarlett Johansson in "The Other Boleyn Girl."

Every once in awhile, you just need to see a costume drama.

“The Other Boleyn Girl” does rather nicely, mixing sex, high drama and inevitable executions.

If you ever wondered, Britain’s King Henry VIII (Eric Bana) was one chauvinist. No, he’s not like a construction worker wolf-whistling at a girl walking by on the street.

Rather, he puts to death women who don’t produce a healthy son for him. The one woman who does give him a male isn’t married to him, so it doesn’t count.

When the film opens, Henry’s wife at the time produces a dead male child. This gets the courtyard folks’ tongues wagging.

Anne Boleyn’s father has a great idea. Why not get his luscious daughter (Natalie Portman) to start an affair with the king?

You see, being the mistress of the king of England happens to be a nice status symbol, we learn. Nobody looks down on the girl who prostitutes herself for Henry, decked out in fancy garb and a hat that looks like he is playing golf in the 1930s.

Anne and the king are matched during a hunting party. Unfortunately, Henry rides his horse down a ravine and falls.

When he wakes up, it is Anne’s sister, Mary, (Scarlett Johansson) who is caring for him. King falls in lust and is soon having his way with Mary instead.

Anne isn’t too happy about all of this. Anne gets her chance when Mary bores Henry a son. The son isn’t an heir because Mom and Dad aren’t married.

Henry still has um, needs, and with Mary out of commission, Anne figures she can make her move.

Now Anne isn’t dumb. She isn’t just going to jump in the sack like Sis, who ended up without the king and with a baby.

Anne says no bedding until she is queen of England. Now Henry is still married and the pope won’t go along with an annulment. But Henry really, really wants Anne. So he severs ties with the Catholic Church, creates his own church, and chop, chop, off goes wifey’s head and he marries Anne.

If you don’t use this movie as your main reference point for a history paper, you will enjoy it.. It’s rich in purple costumes and bosomy goodness. They may have rented the sets from HBO’s “Rome.”

Anne commits the sin of boring Henry a daughter, who she names Elizabeth. Now who ever heard of a ruler of a country named Elizabeth?

Kingly Henry didn’t realize at the time that the sex of a child is decided by the male partner so he’s not happy with Anne. Anne shutters at his look and with good reason. She, too, isn’t long for this world.

Johannson plays her part a bit too subdued and Bana needed to play his part a bit more menacing.

This has potential as the next “Rocky Horror,” with people wearing 16th-century garb and carrying rubber axes into the theater.

Bed-hopping and busty may be the best way to describe “The Other Boleyn.” It’s worth the rental.

Autumn Spring

Film says something about growing old

VIDEO VIPER with Bob Lebzelter for Dec. 5, 2008

STANISLAV ZINDULKA (left) and Vlastimil Brodsky in "Autumn Spring."

Frantisek and his wife couldn’t be more different in the 2001 film “Autumn Spring.”

Frantisek, played by Vlastimil Brodsky, and his friend Eda, played by Stanislav Zindulka, are in their 70s but stay young by continually pulling pranks.

One of their favorites is to play a rich, retired artist interested in buying a palatial home, preferably with an orchard and maybe a hunting lodge. They even get the would-be seller to kick in for a limo. One plays the rich guy, the other his aide.

They also become ticket police in the subway, checking for tickets from young ladies. When the girls don’t have them, the pair settles for kisses.

The old friends enjoy life and despite their ages, stay young with their pranks. Sure, they might miss a birthday party with their grandchildren, but it’s one of the consequences they learn to live with.

Frantisek’s wife, Emilie, (Stella Zázvorková) is just the opposite. She keeps jars of money around to save for their funerals. She takes her husband for a walk to a cemetery where she shows him a plot they can obtain cheaply because the family that owns it has already died out!

She is practical and thrifty and has spent her life trying to tame her husband.

When their son covets their apartment and tries to get them to move into a retirement center and leave the apartment to him, she thinks it’s a great idea. He gets angry.

He is anything but thrifty. When the people learn Frantisek and his friend were pulling a prank at the mansion, they hand him a bill for costs incurred and threaten legal action.

The pair’s attempts at raising the money result in them losing what they had.

When wife does her regular counting of funeral money, he tells her the money is gone. When he goes to his friend’s house to allow her to cool off, he creates another misstep, he has the friend call and say Frantisek has died.

Wife isn’t so distraught, believing her husband is dead, that she can’t stop at the funeral home, purchase a casket and have it delivered to where he supposedly has died.

The couple learn more about each other in the final minutes of the film than in the rest of lives together.

“Autumn Spring,” or “Babi leto” in its native Czech Republic, is part charming, part whimsical, part tragedy and it reminds us you can still be a rebel in advanced age, even as a grandfather.

AUTUMN SPRING

• Directed by Vladimír Michálek

• Story and screenplay by Jirí Hubac

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rated PG -13 for language

• In Czechoslavakian with English subtitles

• 312 stars out of 4

Grace is Gone, Home of the Brave

Two films about Iraq war fall short

Video Viper for Nov. 28, 2008

MGM
Jessica Biel stars in the story of three soldiers who return home to the United States after an unexpectedly gruesome tour of duty in Iraq in "Home of the Brave."

Weinstein Co.
Shelan O'Keefe, John Cusack and Grace Bednarczyk in "Grace is Gone."

It’s just a coincidence that two films I looked at the other day both had to do with the war in Iraq.

“Home of the Brave” and “Grace is Gone” look at different aspects of the toll this war has taken on America.

“Grace is Gone” stars John Cusack as Stanley Phillips, a strong proponent of the military who got ousted from the service because of bad eye sight. He memorized the eye chart to get in.

During his time in the service he met the woman he would later marry and have two daughters with.

Wife ended up with the career in the military. He ended up as a manager in a Home Depot type of store.

When Stanley gets an early-morning visit by military personnel, he knows his wife was killed in Iraq.

Distraught, he puts on a brave face. When his daughters, played by Shelan O’Keefe and Gracie Bednarczyk, awake, the usually overly strict father decides to take them to an amusement park in Florida, rather than tell them the bad news.

You feel sorry for the Cusack character to a point, but you are also disgusted with him. He does everything wrong.

Along the way he stops at his parents’ home, although we never see the parents. We are introduced to the dysfunctional brother instead who does little to advance the plot.

When eldest daughter (O’Keefe) meets an older boy at a motel the family is staying at, the boy offers her a cigarette. She smokes it. When dad finds out, he buys a pack so they can smoke together.

Like I said, Cusack’s character makes all the wrong decisions. When he and daughters should be coping with the death, he’s driving his car through corn fields.

The scene where he tells the girls the truth is beautifully shot. Unfortunately, the basic premise of the AWOL father is so flawed, it’s difficult to relate to the characters in the movie.

The second film, “Home of the Brave,” was directed by Irwin Winkler and starts in Iraq and continues in and around Seattle, as the characters cope with returning to the United States.

Samuel L. Jackson is a doctor, Jessica Biel is a physical education teacher and Brian Presley is an employee of a gun store.

All three are scarred either physically or emotionally or both from an ambush and roadside bombing.

None can relate to anyone except fellow veterans. They learn what their friends and family find important is trivial to them.

Jackson returns to his family but copes by drinking. He can’t communicate with his wife and angry son.

Biel loses a hand in Iraq and tries to carry on, isolating herself from others.

Presley’s employer doesn’t save his job for him and he ends up as a ticket taker at a big movie complex, although not for long. His dad wants him to buck up and be a man.

This can almost be considered a remake of “Best Years of Our Lives,” the epic film released right after World War II, dealing with soldiers adjusting to life back home.

The movie is handled sensitively, but seems to wrap up too nicely. Each of the main characters seems to find himself or herself.

Rapper 50-Cent plays another angry veteran who doesn’t fend so well. Like so many movies, there must be a tragedy so the others find redemption.

GRACE IS GONE

• Directed and written by James C. Strouse

• Rated PG-13 for thematic material, brief strong language and teen smoking

• Runtime: 85 minutes

• 2 stars out of 4

HOME OF THE BRAVE

Video Viper for Nov. 28, 2008

• Directed by Irwin Winkler

• Written by Mark Friedman

• Rated R for violence and language

• Runtime: 106 minutes

• 2 stars out of 4