nelsoncarvajal.com/blog

"Yeah, you know what love is right?"

Al Pacino.  One of the greats.  Who gives a shit if he was in "Simone" (aka "S1m0ne").  "Dog Day Afternoon," Sydney Lumet's staggering masterpiece, is still one of my handful of all-time favorites.

The scene:  After a tumultuous afternoon, and a heavily faulted attempted bank robbery, Sonny Wortzik (Pacino) decides to call both of his wives.  The first is Leon Shermer (an Oscar nominated Chris Sarandon), a male trying to get a sex change operation.  Leon is across the street, in the barbershop overrun with cops and negotiators.  There's is a conversation about hopes, dreams and and a cloudy future.  Is there a Johnson's in Algeria?  Sonny's next call is to his wife Angie Wortzik (Susan Peretz), the robust mother of his children.  Here we see the nucleus of Sonny's turmoil as Sonny can barely nest his feelings into Angie without having to scream at her, in a desperate attempt to dilute her crying and teary-eyed demands.  Once all is said, the camera holds on Sonny as he collapses his head onto the desk he's sitting at, weeping in defeat.

Why we love it:  Pacino is a marvel to study.  Look at his eyeballs; it's almost like they're sweating in nervousness.  The phone calls themselves happen in two orchestral movements.  With Leon, the conversation is calm, almost at ease, at least in tone.  But the camera is alive.  In fact the shot of Leon getting on the phone happens in a way that makes the audience feel like a wild predator, as the camera slowly inches around a barbershop chair, through police and toward an immobile Leon.  Theirs is a conversation of star-crossed lovers (at least they used to be) but the camera is restless--almost violent.  With Angie, Lumet has the camera on a tripod, half looking down an apartment corridor and half-exposing a living room.  We wait for Angie to come into our depth of view, toward us, and it's our own eyes doing most of the work.  The camera stays put.  But the conversation between Sonny and Angie is like hot lava; it's violent.  Just watch how Sonny presses that white towel against his head at one point--it might as well be a pistol.  Lumet creates a dynamic stasis by executing these two phone conversations,  and the effect is emotionally overwhelming.

Note: It's said that while shooting, Lumet himself started to weep behind the camera once Pacino finally broke down after his phone calls. 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 01:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

*SPECIAL EARLY REVIEW* 

At a point late in Director Joshua Michael Stern's "Swing Vote" Bill Maher (via a TV screen in a bar) says, "Jesus! Wake up America! Bud Johnson is a dumbass!"

That was pretty much the sentiment I shared by that part of the film.  "Swing" rides on the sheer good faith of its audience: if you can believe that a national Presidential election could reach the point of having the fate of the next leader of the free world rest on one individual's vote, welcome.  I believed it more for the reason that I was looking for an opportunity to confront some real relevant issues on our nation's current state.  Instead, a promising beginning of a narrative deflates into a forgetful coming of age story.  Well, sort of.

That promising start of the film takes place during an early scene inside of a truck, when single dad Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) and his bright daughter Molly (a talented Madeline Carroll) get to talking about the importance of voting.  Bud claims his single vote will not make a difference [insert your chuckle of irony here] and his tone while delivering these lines conveys a frighteningly realistic attitude felt among the general American public.  It's still baffling, when the numbers come in, to realize how many citizens just don't bother to vote.

It was at this stage that I began to sit up in my seat, hoping that the film would rise to become a bruising comedy that would either grab key sociological issues (like abortion) and cross-section the banalities of their governmental policies--or at least camp it up enough to the point of becoming a searing satire.

Unfortunately, Stern lets his characters run around the screen a lot, quipping here and there, sharing smiles and the occasional cold beer aboard Air Force One. 

The problem here is really Bud Johnson.

He's just a tired catalogue character.  Costner had better notes with his drunk character in the marvelous "The Upside of Anger."  We never really feel compelled enough to believe that Bud is the end all answer of greatness for the active Molly.  So when threats of Molly possibly being taken away from Bud come into the screenplay, we're yawning. 

But the screenplay has other problems.  There are one too many scenes that just don't work.  To name a few: (a) Bud secretly drinks beer at his egg factory job and begins to accidentally knock over stacks of cartons of eggs! Ha ha--right? (b) Andrew Boone's (Kelsey Grammer) pro-gay TV spot is just painful to watch; an 'open-door' policy so that homosexuals won't have to worry about opening the closet door themselves...oh, so clever (c) and Donald Greenleaf's (Dennis Hopper) pro-life TV spot is kind of horrifying.  As Greenleaf walks across a vibrant playground, kids start to POOOFFTTT! and disappear (think of the Nightcrawler special effect from "X2: X-Men United").

There are a few moments that work: Bud's chat with his factory co-workers about "in-sourcing" is amusing and it is just plain old swell to see Judge Reinhold working onscreen.  But for each of the few promising moments, there are about a dozen Bud moments full of his kiddy laughter and one-liners: "Like missiles-n-shit!"  There's also a lot of underage driving going on.  Yes driving.

Nathan Lane does what he can with his scenes and new beauty Paula Patton has this writer eager to see her in fleshier roles.  There's an unnecessary section of the film involving Molly's birth mother that doesn't add up to anything.  As the third act propelled forward I amused myself with the idea of a silly montage sequence showing Bud read each of the letters of mail before the big Presidential debate.  And then that montage happened.

More than anything else, the biggest mistake of "Swing Vote" is that it sells the viewer short of any closure.  We never see the Presidential candidates fully tackle any of the issues.  Hell, we never even see who Bud votes for. 

In the end, it's the theater audience that's going to be demanding a 'recount'--of their ticket dollars.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Shannon, a Kentucky native and a seasoned Chicago stage actor, has always been that character actor that just draws you in, making you secretly yearn for the plot to suddenly follow his supporting character instead of the normal Hollywood titular lead.  Sort of like an early Harvey Keitel.

Shannon's latest role--a lead this time--in a marvelous film named "Shotgun Stories" will do more than just turn the heads of casual moviegoers (well, okay, more than your "casual" patron if they're wise enough to seek and find this film).  The film, which is a synthesis of the southern gothic and the american fable, showcases the year's best lead performance (so far) in Shannon and announces the birth of a gifted filmmaker: Jeff Nichols.

There are three brothers: Son, Kid and Boy.  They live together more or less.  One sleeps in a nearby van with his dog and the youngest sleeps in the backyard tent.  Son (Shannon) gets the house because, well, he has a son and a woman.  One day the woman and the son leave and the three brothers find themselves together more.  At places.  Restaurants.  The living room.

Hell, even their father's funeral.

It is here where it is my duty to stop.  The funeral brings some unexpected developments.  There are extended members of family introduced.  Some diabolical family background history is brought up.  But more importantly, in a carefully blocked scene near the casket of the father, notice the hierarchy of familial power visualized with Son and brothers standing over their hateful bloodline.

Of course, once the mechanisms of plot start going into the action, the revenge tale variables go up in the air.  Some die.  Yes.  Some get hurt.  Yes.  

All are saved?

Nichols and producer David Gordon Green ("Snow Angels") seem to want to think so, if one considers the preciousness given to each scene of these characters' rural lives that is not directly connected to the plot.  But I don't know if that answer is clear by the film's end.  It's for the viewer to decide.

What is clear is this: "Shotgun" has been doing the festival circuit for quite a bit now and only found its way in Chicago for a mere seven day run.  If you are fortunate enough to live in a city that is playing it, even if only briefly, you owe it to yourself to see it.

There.  It's that simple. 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's official: Adam Sandler comedies will suck from here on out.  The days of "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore" are long gone.  That promise is empty--deserted, like Sandler's name from today's SNL roster.  In the mid-90s after such displays of manic brilliance in both "Gilmore" and "Madison," the promise of the new goofy comedic lord seemed hopeful.  Even with such froth like "The Wedding Singer" and "Big Daddy," a studio's announcement of the next Sandler comedy vehicle always left moviegoers with a tingle in their bellies that made them giddy with guilty excitement.  The next Sandler flick could possibly rock!

Right?

Well, now it's clear: that glass is always going to be half empty.  Were those two Sandler movies ("Madison," "Gilmore") just flukes? 

His newest film "You Don't Mess With The Zohan" pretty much cemented this deal of damnation.  It easily knocks "Jumper" off of the throne for the year's worst film--so far.  To say that "Zohan" is beyond criticism wouldn't do it justice.  It just doesn't make any sense thematically--or even comically.

But hasn't this day been coming?  Even with the help of such Oscar-talent like Jack Nicholson and John C. Reilly in "Anger Management," Sandler always looked uncomfortable or just lost.  The romantic comedies didn't help make things any easier.  Anyone you know who says "50 First Dates" is acceptable comedic entertainment is simply insane, and in serious Sandler-denial.  Let's not forget "Mr. Deeds" or "Little Nicky"; both are pieces of production value that make any aspiring filmmaker quiver with sickness at the idea of insane amounts of money going to the catering budgets of such atrocities.

So is Sandler himself doomed?  Not at all.

So what if he gives a lukewarm turn in "Reign Over Me."  At least he's trying.  

Remember: when he's on--he's on.  His sole Golden Globe nomination to date came from his devastating dramatic turn in 2002's masterful "Punch Drunk Love" (read about the opening scene to that film here). 

As ticket prices continue to rise, those of us who own worn out copies of "Billy Madison" can only continue to hope that one day down the road, Sandler can return to prime form.

Or at least give Paul Thomas Anderson a call. 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Oscar winning Director Steven Soderbergh ("Bubble," "Traffic") was at the center of attention of this year's Cannes Film Festival.  His audacious epic "Che"--rummored to be split into movies, "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla," come this fall--caused an uproar with many critics during its premiere.  Aside from being well over four hours in running time, the digitally shot epic avoids some key issues in the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.  A.O. Scott of the New York Times wrote from Cannes, "There is a lot, however, that the audience will not learn from this big movie[...]Guevara was an important player in the Castro government, but his brutal role in turning a revolutionary movement into a dictatorship goes virtually unmentioned."

Still, even with an exhaustive running time and the fact that it is all mostly in Spanish (subtitled in English), Del Toro's much-buzzed about performance didn't fail to impress the jury; he walked off with the Best Actor prize on the closing night.

Del Toro won his first Oscar under the direction of Soderbergh for 2000's "Traffic."  If any distributor or buyer has the guts to cave into Soderbergh's $8-$10 million dollar asking price for "Che" they might have to start making Oscar night plans now.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)