Month: December 2024

WHIPLASH

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s impossible to find absolute perfection.  I don’t care if it’s in the field of medicine, law, mathematics, art or even music.  No one is THE ONE.  Yet, if you are determined to partake in that hunt, it’s likely you’ll scream with frustration.  You might think you’re on to something but still it’s not quite the one.  Maybe, however, you will force your search for the one if you throw a chair at your gifted student, scream some of the ugliest obscenities, impose threats, slap him, allow the tears to run, force a literal blood draw, or sweat them into numbing exhaustion.

Whiplash is the name of a piece of jazz music originally composed by Hank Levy.  It is also the title of Damien Chazelle’s brilliant first film, and the best to come out of 2014. Allegorically speaking, the term takes on a harsher connotation.   The word whiplash gives me an image of torn skin and hot, dripping blood.

Andrew (Miles Teller) attends the Shafer Conservatory in New York.  He’s a jazz drummer who gets hand picked by the esteemed conductor Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons, in a well deserved Oscar winning role) to join his elite class.  Mr. Fletcher is cordial at first and a little instinctive as he’ll stop his musicians short of getting past one note before asking them to start again.  A hand gesture with a headshake and a wince.  Now go again.  Another gesture.  Go again.  One more gesture.  Again. Now an outburst of violent rage.

Individually, Andrew and Terence are determined with unhealthy mindsets to obtain levels of achievement that appear impossible to grasp.  The boy wants to get to where his drummer idol Buddy Rich plateaued.  The teacher wants to find the next Charlie “Bird” Parker.  These men of different generations are terribly talented.  Terribly I say because their passion for music is their self-imposed and cruel undoing.

Chazelle has much respect for the field of contemporary jazz.  I like jazz but I know nothing about how a piece is assembled so rhythmically among an assortment of instruments from the drums to the harp to the cello to the 88 keys and the various horns.  Put them all together, and there’s an atmospheric magic to what’s churned out.  It’s beautiful and bewildering.  Complicated, yet mesmerizing.  In Whiplash though, the music may be the worst antagonist because the frustrations that arrive with trying to become a master are unforgiving.

A late scene in the film shows Terence Fletcher, an altogether tyrant of a teacher, playing melodic nightclub piano in a bar.  He’s applauded and appreciatied as he presses down on the final key.  He thanks his audience with a nod.  Nevertheless, J.K. Simmons shows a different level of frustration.  Up to this point, the actor’s character has been a series of screaming eruptions.  In this moment, the man looks like he wants to cry.  No matter what he plays or how well loved he is, Terence Fletcher knows it could have been better.  So, if he lives with his suffering, then he will teach his best students to suffer through music as well.

Andrew is on the cusp of living his own life.  With a mother no longer in the picture, he still shares movie times with his father (Paul Reiser) perhaps so his father can still be a father, or maybe it is to remain a child to someone.  He’s starting a what could be a promising relationship with a girl named Nicole (Melissa Benoist), but his need to be a better drummer interfere and the only way he’ll know he’s at least as good as Buddy Rich is if he satisfies his teacher.  That’s the only sure sign.  

Does Terence turn Andrew into a monster, or is it the music?

This will always be one of Miles Teller’s best roles.  He’s got that innocent, quiet way about him, but as he gets “mentored” by this new composer, he changes.  He becomes devoid of care for Nicole and rebellious towards the lack of respect he receives from family and fellow students.  Like a chess champion, the art of drumming turns the drummer into an unloving creature soaked in blood and sweat.  This ongoing trajectory might make him a better musician but it will also bring him to an end result that matches his teacher.  

Beyond the energy of the music, Damien Chazelle steers a thrilling duo.  Simmons is an outstanding villain as a guy you can only hate until you see the motivations he’s only trapped himself into.  Only then you might just sympathize. Teller is circling the waters of a dangerous relationship with music.  Chazelle allows his picture to swim towards defiance with bloody and painful persistence. The epilogue of the film demonstrates precisely what these two men are searching for.  It’s only when you arrive at the end of Whiplash do you realize and empathize with the internal and physical pains these people choose to weigh on themselves.

To my ears, music is a beautiful, universal language.  

For the scribes, it’s an agony they choose to bear.

THE CHINA SYNDROME

By Marc S. Sanders

The China Syndrome explores the inherent risk that comes with a reliance on nuclear energy.  It also touches upon the moral choices within the field of journalism.  Most importantly though, it’s a hell of a thriller.

Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) is an on the scene reporter doing light fare topics for the evening news, like the novelty of singing telegrams for example.  With her subcontractor cameraman, Richard Adams (Michael Douglas, also one of the film’s producers), they cover a story on how a nuclear power plant operates.  During their tour, a very frightening accident stops short at only being a threat.  While the top brass at the company downplays the incident, Richard manages to record the panic-stricken activity happening among the operators in their soundproof control room.  As Kimberly and Richard gather information about what really happened, they are told they only were so close to what can be described as a China Syndrome – the underground nuclear rods could have overheated, imploded and the blast would have ruptured through the core of the earth where even China could feel it on the other side of the world.  

The corporate elites (led by Richard Herd) are the villains of this picture.  The could be hero is Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon), a could be whistleblower.  Jack oversees the whole operation and following that frightening scene begins to do his own kind of investigation.  What happened only makes sense because due diligence was not upheld, and inconsistencies are being neglected. Problems are only expected to get worse because they are not contained. There would be an enormous monetary expense that will put the company at a loss.  Initially, Jack wants to remain quiet, but the idea of what he’s certain will eventually happen is conflicting him.  As well, Kimberly and Richard’s pursuit of what truths he holds is gnawing at him.  

Jack Lemmon is a frazzled, yet sensible, marvel in this film.  I love the unspoken subtleties of this guy.  Best I could see is that Jack Godell is unmarried and has no children, nor friends beyond the faint connections he shares with his work colleagues, particularly one played by Wilford Brimley.  This only enhances Godell’s isolation in a them-against-him matchup.  Lemmon is great at emoting a sorrow and regret to his character.  He tells the journalists that he loves that plant.  It’s all he has in life and now it spells a certain, eventful doom if the faults in operation are not exposed.  Like Michael Mann’s The Insider, which was released over two decades later, the unlimited resources of this company will do everything in their power to silence this liable peon who works for them.  

The other side of The China Syndrome focuses on Fonda’s character.  When this film was released in 1979, it was the norm to not take a woman reporter seriously.  They were best used as attractive figureheads with beautiful hairstyles and well applied makeup to shift the seriousness of the news over to stories about dogs who can do tricks or hot air balloon happenings.  This film could have made more of a campaign to embrace the female journalists with heavier topics.  Instead, Jane Fonda’s character is not a fighter so much for deserved recognition in a male dominated world.  She’s actually just trying to circumvent around the unspoken chauvinism of her industry and get to the heart of this story that she witnesses firsthand.  The news station would rather her efforts be focused elsewhere.

Richard, the cameraman, is not embraced by Kimberly’s news station and therein lies the debate of airing what appears to be a story of urgency for the benefit of the public.  Yet, the station does not want to face a lawsuit.  What do the principles of journalism mandate even when there’s a monetary and reputational risk to their institution?  

Plenty of films with these kinds of dilemmas have come out following The China Syndrome.  What’s remarkable is the authentic feel of this fictionalized account.  Ahead of the release, the real-life companies that were developing a need for nuclear power were lambasting this film, insisting there was no validity to this story.  They were adamant that the production and maintenance of nuclear power was completely safe and well monitored. Twelve days after this film hit theaters in March 1979, the Three Mile Island accident occurred in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania when a partial nuclear meltdown of a reactor occurred. Traces of harmful gases and iodine were released into the atmosphere, and the incident was rated a Level 5, an “Accident with Wider Consequences.”  I do not believe Michael Douglas and his co-producers/filmmakers necessarily set out to make a statement. Though there are protesting movements peppered throughout the film. It’s a frightening irony, however, when life imitated fiction. 

 Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon put the suspense of The China Syndrome into play. There’s an awareness to what could happen with technological advances in nuclear energy especially if they are not carefully observed and addressed.  

Over forty years later, do we really know what’s going on and even if we did, what could any of us do about it?

CONCLAVE

By Marc S. Sanders

conflict

noun

  • 1.
    a serious disagreement or argument,

conclave

noun

con· clave ˈkän-ˌklāv 

Synonyms of conclave

1

: a private meeting or secret assembly

especially  : a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope 

2

: a gathering of a group or association

As I watched Edward Berger’s new film, Conclave, the word “conflict” came to mind based simply off of the same prefix the two terms share.  This picture does not just depict a sequestered assembly to elect a new Pope for the Roman Catholic Church.  It goes further because nothing goes as expected for the Dean of the Conclave, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes, doing Oscar caliber work).  

Now that the Pope has passed away, the various cardinals assemble, and all seem to have their own impressions of who should take the reins.  Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci, man I love this guy) is the liberal candidate, tolerant and supportive of the gay population and accepting of women in authoritative positions.  Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) is on the conservative side believing the position should rightly return to an Italian with restrictions and containments of liberal ideals that have diminished what the church used to stand for.  There is also Bishop Tremblay (John Lithgow) who has an abundance of support to no one’s surprise. A few others earned some votes during the initial balloting, but it’s seemingly of no big consequence. Still, over the course of the film, multiple votes will have to be counted until the minimum majority necessary for a new Pope is collected.

The men of God convene in a formality of faith, swearing their handwritten votes before the Almighty.  Yet, Lawrence, as a dean of ethics and morality, is becoming apprised of some questionable irregularities among his peers.  While some of these men are earning more and more support with each passing tally, new developments present themselves forcing Lawrence to question if there should be some investigations to determine if some of these men are qualified to acquire the Papacy beyond an election.  Hence, the conclave is getting gravely interrupted by an overwhelming number of conflicts for Lawrence to consider.

I must stop there with my summary of Berger’s film, based on the novel by Robert Harris.  This is a top notch drama helmed by an outstanding cast.  At the very least the adapted screenplay by Peter Straughan will win the Oscar.  The dialogue is aggressive and forthright when it needs to be.  An institution like the Roman Catholic Church operates on secrecy.  However, it’s so interesting to see these devout men of God challenge one another. Just because they are the highest priests does not constitute them beyond sin or even corruption.  As Stanley Tucci’s character demonstrates, they might not be polite either.  Simply honest when their personal stance is challenged.  

The script is also quietly ponderous.  Ralph Fiennes shows an internal conflict between his duties to the church and how he truly characterizes some of his peers.  He even begins to wonder if he should continue as a priest. Has his faith remained uncompromised? Frankly, how can a priest of the highest order live satisfyingly knowing that no person is of an upmost perfection even if they swear by their faith? Still, the strict expectations of a widespread religion will demand contexts of that notion.

Constructively, Conclave has a gripping energy.  The performances from especially Fiennes, Tucci and Lithgow are magnetic as soon as they enter the piece.  Isabella Rossellini delivers an under-radar performance as a nun who works with a necessary audaciousness to her character.  She knows things that should never have occurred.  Yet, how will she confront these intimidating, stark, red-robed figureheads?  Does she even have a right or authority to speak?

The music from Volker Bertelmann could belong in Hitchcock thriller if Bernard Hermann wasn’t available.  It keeps you alert and never anchors your feelings as new developments come to light.  The composition only enhances the weight of the drama.  

Edward Berger is an observant director.  Ahead of the conclave he reminds you that even telephones are not permitted inside and tossed in a heap outdoors.  The priests are smokers. Personally, I find that surprising as cigarettes almost seem like a mild narcotic and a contradiction of how I envision a Catholic priest should behave.  Nevertheless, Berger also gives you a close up of a pile of cigarette butts tossed on the ground just ahead of being sequestered. These men turn off the world outside to focus on this important election. It’s as if they live in a submarine below the surface.

Conclave wil be a very divisive film.  Politically, it’s apparent that it favors one side (liberal vs conservative) over another.  In addition, it is not shy about showing its characters with their assortments of fault.  I am not educated in Catholicism.  Though I am well aware of the value it holds across its worshippers.   For many, their faith is held above all else and those people will find a discomfort with this picture.  I might even be understating that assessment.  Some folks of the Catholic order, and maybe other denominations of Christianity, will even take grave offense to this fictionalized depiction.

Conclave is truly conflicting.

Because I do not hold any value in Catholicism, much less any religion anymore (just a shred for the Judaic customs I was raised on), I did not hold any bias or objections to Edward Berger’s film. Rather I was engaged in how difficult it is to balance yourself as a Catholic priest.  For Cardinal Lawrence, Ralph Fiennes is neither likable nor unlikable but I certainly felt his character’s frustrations and the challenges he is obliged to navigate.  

Who is judging these Cardinals? 

God?  

Or is it each one of them?  

Conclave is built on one believable, yet shocking, surprise after another.  Still, when the big twist at the end arrives, it is completely blind siding and Straughan’s script leaves his audiences with a new question that’s practically impossible to contend or compromise.  

Again, Conclave is very, very conflicting.

Nevertheless, this is one of the best films I have seen in a very long time.  So much so, that I cannot wait to see it again.

Conclave is one of the best films of the year.

CARMEN JONES (1954)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger
CAST: Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 75% Fresh

PLOT: The Bizet opera Carmen is translated into a modern-day story (with an all-black cast) of a sultry parachute factory worker and a GI who is about to go to flying school during World War II.


Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones will be (or OUGHT to be) remembered for many things, but the thing I will remember it for the most is the dynamic presence of the sexy, sultry Dorothy Dandridge in the titular role.  She may not have done her own singing – nearly all the major characters’ singing voices were dubbed by opera singers – but, by God, she knew how to own a role.  In the first five minutes, she steals the movie lock, stock, and barrel when she performs that first aria in the mess hall.  It’s like watching a Marilyn Monroe film: everything around her pales in comparison to her sheer magnetism, although with Dandridge (at least with the character of Carmen), you can see an intelligence behind the sexiness.  Dandridge thoroughly deserved her Oscar nomination.  A quick Google check shows she had some stiff competition that year: Grace Kelly, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, and Jane Wyman…although how Kelly pulled out a win over Dandridge AND Garland will forever remain a mystery to me.

ANYWAY.

In this modern retelling, Carmen Jones is a factory worker during World War II, making parachutes for the war effort.  During the opening aria, she sets her sights on Joe (Harry Belafonte), a naïve GI in love with a country girl, Cindy Lou, from his hometown.  If I’m being completely honest, nothing in the film matches the simmering sexual energy of this opening number.  Carmen slinks from table to table in the mess hall, modestly dressed, but with complete knowledge of exactly how to work with what’s available.  She flirts shamelessly with Joe, right in front of Cindy Lou.

Later, Carmen gets in a knock-down, drag-out catfight with Frankie (Pearl Bailey, the only principal actor whose singing voice WASN’T overdubbed) and is arrested by the MPs.  Joe, who was just about to elope with Cindy Lou, is ordered to drive Carmen to a town some 50 miles away, since the Army can’t put civilians in jail.  This sets up another opportunity for Carmen to flirt with Joe, as she does everything but unbutton his pants during their drive.  The more he resists, the more she wants him.

…but I don’t want to simply summarize the plot, which was a mystery to me since I have never seen a production of Carmen.  (The ending is mildly pre-ordained, because, hello, it’s an opera.)  I want to express my admiration of this film, particularly for its ambition.  I’m no film scholar, but I’m prepared to bet that in 1954, there weren’t an awful lot of big studio films being directed by A-list directors featuring an all-black cast.  The fact this film exists at all is, I think, a minor miracle.  I won’t attempt to put words in the mouth of anyone in the black community, but at that time in cinematic and American history, I have to believe this was seen as a giant leap forward, AND a giant risk.  (There is probably MUCH more to this story, but I do not want to turn this article into a research paper.)

Otto Preminger’s directing style in Carmen Jones also deserves recognition.  A factoid on IMDb trivia states: “This film contains just 169 shots in 103 minutes of action. This equates to an average shot length of about 36 seconds, which is very high, given the 8-10 seconds standard of most Hollywood films made during the 1950s.”  This is important because those longer shots create, in many places, an illusion of watching a stage performance.  For instance, if I remember correctly, that opening aria that I keep going on about – Dandridge is SMOKING – runs for about 4-5 minutes and has only three total shots.  Towards the middle of the film, there’s an astonishingly long take that travels from a bar across the room to a table, following a group of five people, all singing simultaneously at multiple points.  The shot lasts just under five minutes, but it feels much longer.  It’s a brilliant piece of work.

The tragic arc of Carmen Jones may seem inevitable, as I said before, but it remains an entertaining watch.  You can see the dominos falling, and you bemoan the choices Joe makes as he falls under Carmen’s spell, but I mean, LOOK at her.  There’s a scene that I’m sure would bear the Tarantino stamp of approval as Carmen paints her toenails and coyly asks Joe to blow on them for her so they can dry faster.  Dayum.  Show me a straight man who wouldn’t fall for that kind of treatment from a woman who looks like Dorothy Dandridge and I’ll show you a dead man.

If I wanted, I could get nitpicky about Carmen Jones.  Has it aged well?  Not exactly.  Does it feature great acting aside from Dandridge?  Not exactly.  Does it look natural to hear an operatic tenor burst forth from Harry Belafonte’s mouth?  Not exactly.  But Carmen Jones is a landmark of black cinema in an era when schools and government buildings still had segregated water fountains and restrooms.  Based on that fact alone, I consider Carmen Jones to be a vital step in Hollywood’s painfully slow racial evolution. (It is also a painful reminder of a career that might have been; Dandridge died 11 years later at only 42.)

MONTE WALSH (1970)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William A. Fraker
CAST: Lee Marvin, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Palance, Mitchell Ryan
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 89% Fresh

PLOT: An aging cowboy realizes that the West he knew and loved will soon be no more – and that there will be no room for him, either.


Based on this film, Monte Walsh, and the other two films he directed, A Reflection of Fear [1972] and The Legend of the Lone Ranger [1981], I think it would be charitable to say that William A. Fraker’s best films are the ones where he served instead as director of photography, such as Bullitt [1968], WarGames [1983], and Tombstone [1993], among many other notable movies.  Am I saying Monte Walsh is a bad film?  No, but it’s certainly not as bad as Gene Siskel’s 1-star rating, nor is it as stellar as Roger Ebert’s 4-star rating.  I give it a 7-out-of-10 on my scale because of the way the second half of the film builds and builds so that the outbursts of violence feel earned and motivated instead of cliched.

Monte Walsh (Lee Marvin, grizzled as ever, even with a handlebar moustache) and his friend and partner, Chet (Jack Palance in a rare non-villainous role), come down off a mountainside after a rough winter keeping watch on Mr. Brennan’s herd of cattle, only to get news that Brennan’s ranch has been purchased by a corporate entity, Consolidated Cattle.  Brennan offers them a steady job, which they reluctantly take, but deep inside they know this means their prairie-roaming way of life is coming to an end.  Chet is prepared to accept this, but Monte chafes at the idea.  “I ain’t doing nothing I can’t do from a horse,” he warns Brennan.

We get entertaining glimpses of the ranch hand life, complete with the saloon fights and the stinky cook.  Monte dallies with a French madame, Martine (played by the exotic Jeanne Moreau).  At one point, Monte and Chet ride out and meet a weathered old ranch hand who is “riding fence,” or inspecting every foot of fence around the ranch for repairs…the only work he’s cut out for anymore.  “Looks like his life is over with,” they say, and you can tell they’re looking into their own future.

The thrust of the film is one I’ve seen in many other westerns before this one: “The old West is changing, and there’s no place in it for people like us anymore, so we’d better evolve or die.”  This theme is present in Once Upon a Time in the West [1968], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969], and especially The Wild Bunch [also 1969]…seemed to be a trend for westerns at the turn of the decade, for some reason.  Monte Walsh handles it in an episodic format, kind of like another Lee Marvin film, The Big Red One [1980].  It doesn’t quite tell a straightforward plot with a pre-determined story arc.  It skips around a little bit, painting a picture without telling a conventional story.

There can be a sense of freedom in this kind of storytelling.  Unshackled by traditional story beats – at least for the first half – the movie is laid back, asking the viewer for a little patience as it slowly lays down building blocks for the finale.  However, I must report that I found this section of the movie a little slow.  I grew impatient.  I felt I was being set up for something, but pretty soon I just wanted the movie to get on with it.  Butch Cassidy sort of works that way, but you had two of the most photogenic stars who ever lived as the two leads.  I struggled to care the same way for Jack Palance as I did for Paul Newman.

But then an unexpected scene of violence occurs, setting into motion a series of events that culminate in a tragic series of deaths that, I must admit, had me glued to the screen as they unfolded.  Because of the gangbusters nature of this section, I am inclined to forgive the film’s shortcomings in its first half.  Here, we see, yes, Monte must evolve or die, and even if it’s never in any real doubt what he will choose, it’s entertaining to watch him make that choice.

If not for the second half of the picture, I might not even be writing about Monte Walsh.  I didn’t care for the opening song (even if it WAS sung by Mama Cass), some of the movie felt ripped off from several other westerns, and I was borderline bored for the first half.  But if you stick with Monte Walsh until the end, I think you’ll agree it’s worth a look.

SCARFACE (1983)

By Marc S. Sanders

On Thanksgiving Day when we glutton ourselves with an abundance of food, it seemed highly appropriate to watch one of the most self-indulgent pieces ever put on film.  Brian DePalma’s Scarface with a script written by Oliver Stone and featuring Al Pacino.  This is a movie that brags about its boastfulness.  I mean look at everything that is mashed into this thing.  Blood, bullets, lots of cocaine and too much Al Pacino.

Pacino is Cuban refugee Tony Montana.  He is one of a handful of small time criminals who is shipped over to the United States when Castro wanted less people to oversee.  Refugee camps are fenced up under the highways of Southern Florida where no law is enforced among the tented populations.

Soon after Tony arrives he’s hot on the scene of pushing the newest underground product through Miami – cocaine.  With his buddy Manny (Steven Bauer) the two men get in good graces with a well dressed sleaze named Omar (F Murray Abraham), who is second in command to an established drug kingpin named Frank (Robert Loggia).  For Tony and Manny it’ll only be a matter of time before they take over as the numbers one and two bad guys.  That’ll include Tony marrying Frank’s blond trophy girlfriend Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer in her breakout role) and winning a trusting partnership with a South American drug czar named Alejandro (Paul Shenar).  If you ever expect to get killed, you don’t want to be by the orders of Alejandro.  A helicopter serves much more of a purpose once it takes flight.

Scarface is a step-by-step movie or a climb up a three-hour ladder and then a gradual drop down off a balcony into a bloody fountain below.  There’s no depth and it works like a shopping list that you check off as it moves along. Props and houses and suits and jewelry and cars and cocaine and cash have more significance than what anyone has to say. Other than Tony, none of the people in this film matter. What Tony acquires and what he says about himself is all that is important.

This is a big ass movie with bloody graphics and killings, mountains of drugs and money, a lot of fucks, a gaudy estate home, a way over the top Al Pacino and lots and lots and lots of bullets and guns to go with them.  The film only settles for one chainsaw killing, though.  At the time, I recall that scene was up for big debate on the film’s MPAA rating.  Brian DePalma wanted to up the ante on brutality to grab moviegoers’ attention.  The scene remains quite stomach churning.

DePalma’s best work is at the beginning of the Scarface.  Following the establishing real life footage of the Cuban refugees arriving by boats in search of an American dream, Tony is taken into custody and questioned by a batch of immigration agents.  DePalma only keeps one steady camera focused on a very tan Pacino with a faint signature scar on his left cheek, sitting in the middle of the room and putting on a Cuban accent that only he could uniquely own.  Pacino’s concentration in this moment is admirable as he responds to questions from all different directions.  It’s all done in one take with the director’s camera circling around Pacino.  After this introduction is over, the tone of the movie changes for the next two hours and ten minutes into a gritty interpretation of Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous.

Oliver Stone’s dialogue with Brian DePalma’s set ups don’t require much of the other actors.  It’s like everything caters to an always inebriated, hyperactive Al Pacino doing his Tony Montana with the gold chains and wide collared shirts over the linen suits.  He’s a motor mouth of endless f-bombs, with a slinky Michelle Pfeiffer in a blond bob-cut, dressed glittery evening gowns, at his side.  She has nothing of significance to say.  This is all you learn about Elvira; what you see of her materialism and all the coke she snorts.  She never smiles or exudes any connection to the Pacino character.  It’s all eye candy.  In fact, there’s never a clear answer of what becomes of this character.  That’s a problem because the movie is so much about Tony Montana, nothing else matters.

Other characters not given enough attention are Tony’s sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and their mother (Miriam Colon).  Momma despises Tony for the criminal thug he is while Gina becomes enamored with the wealth and drug night life.  Unfortunately, Momma only has one meaty scene and Gina’s purpose to the script is to lend reason for another character’s eventual demise.  Both of these actresses are very good with what little they have.  Yet so much is devoted to Tony’s indulgence and the mania that Pacino brings that they are sidelined as well.

Brian DePalma seems to be more proud with how excessive he can make this guy than actually turning him into a guy.  Wait until you see the mansion that Tony gets. His office alone is of black, gaudy exuberance. His master bedroom contains a small swimming pool size tub right in the middle of the carpeted floor.  That setting occupies a fifteen-minute-long scene of Tony in a bubble bath, watching his five TV screens while not talking about anything meaningful except himself as he chastises Manny.  Elvira is only there to uphold her dread for her husband as she snorts coke off of her vanity.  When they both leave, an Oliver Stone monologue ends with a now recognizable sound byte of “Well say ‘allo to da bad guy!” Ah! Big deal! Tony never seemed so bad ass as he does feel obnoxious.

Again, Scarface is about not much else except the conceit of sleazy criminal.

When someone has to die it becomes a long drawn-out process as Tony, aka Pacino, puts on a performance or delivers a sermon.  Tony will meet with kingpins from Columbia along with other South Americans and dirty government officials.  There will be 5-7 guys in the room but for the most part it is only Tony talking.

“Say ‘allo to my little fren!” is one of the most memorable lines to come out of the 1980s decade of excess and it arrives during the ongoing and endless bloody shootout that closes the film.  There’s buckets of blood and truckloads of ammunition fired off.  These machine guns seem designed to kill things twice the size of elephants.  Little Al Pacino, with a ginormous cannon gripped in one hand, gets hit in all places and extremities except the head so that he can keep ranting – I mean this guy never shuts up – and going as he fends off the armies of goons coming at him from all directions.  Truly, it’s laughable and nowhere is it ever absorbing.  It’s like I’m watching someone else play a first-person shooter video game during a sleepover.  My friend is entertained while I’m just watching him be entertained.

Scarface comes to an abrupt halt when the final shootout stops.  There’s no footnote to ponder or real news story to follow up on.  The credits roll and the orchestral strings of the soundtrack cut in. You get the idea that DePalma, Stone, and Pacino became exhausted over this monster of a movie and simply declared “Okay! That’s enough!”

Considering the later insightful pieces that Oliver Stone delivered like Platoon and JFK, I wish he explored more of the politics and Cuban dealings affecting the United States.  As this film arrived in 1983, soon after there would be more of an intellectual standpoint to make us aware of a very real drug epidemic in this country.  It may appear to be sending some kind of message, but Scarface doesn’t challenge the brains that flourished this contraband industry.  Forty five minute episodes of Miami Vice tell more than this three-hour opus.

Plenty of gangster films like Chinatown, The Godfather, and Goodfellas offer up the greed and ego of the criminal mind, but the men of those pictures are never as self-indulgent or off putting as Tony Montana.

Besides, what does it say about a movie called Scarface when no one calls the main guy Scarface, and you hardly ever see the scar graced across his profile?  The real Scarface, Al Capone, would be very disappointed in Al Pacino.

AMERICAN GANGSTER

By Marc S. Sanders

My favorite kind of crime dramas are the ones that tackle the grit.  The screenwriters and directors go for where the itty-bitty stuff scrounges up into something bigger for either the career criminal or the low-level cop.  These guys start out as butterflies flapping their wings and before you know it their legacies and pursuits are as big as hurricanes.  Movies like The French Connection or Heat operate on these trajectories.  How did we get from there to HERE?

Ridley Scott went in an unconventional direction away from his science fiction eye and ancient history recollections when he directed American Gangster with a screenplay by Steve Zallian based on the true stories of Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) and narcotics detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe).

These two sensational actors don’t share one scene together until the epilogue of this always interesting three-hour opus.  Yet, in their second film together their pairing is as classic as DeNiro and Pacino or Newman and Redford.  I hope before they retire, these men pair up for at least one more film.  

Ridley Scott and his nominated art directors, Arthur Max and Beth A Rubino, capture a gritty urban, crime ridden Harlem of the 1960s/70s.  The streets are filthily here, as well as in the five New York boroughs and all the way across the bridge into New Jersey.  Frank’s markets carry a very wide berth. The buildings are distressed and cracked.  The clothes are of the hippie era with polyester suits.  This is where Frank Lucas moves his imported contraband, white powder heroin, labeled exclusively as “Blue Magic.”  The film provides a convincing source locale deep within the jungles of Vietnam where thousands of kilos are shipped to Frank for sale on the street.  The purity of the drug is beyond compare.  Scott and his art designers place you directly in this time period of dingy grime and among the sweaty Viet Cong and rivers to finally arrive at the crop Frank purchases his products from.

Once he finds his footing by eliminating the competition and recruiting his brothers and cousins to run his business, Frank invests in creature comforts with a furnished penthouse apartment for himself and a beautiful mansion for his mother (Ruby Dee in an Oscar nominated performance that comes off so naturally; you’d think she’s sitting at the Thanksgiving table with you).  He marries a beautiful Puerto Rican wife that he treats like a princess. Frank is smart.  He stays under the radar by wearing conservative suits and not making many waves like going out at nights and showing himself around the social scene.  He knows famous athletes like boxer Joe Lewis or the staff on the New York Yankees that could give his nephew a shot at being a pitcher. Still, his profile manages to stay low. Like his mentor, he just operates a business with a viable commodity.  He tells his younger brother (Chiwetel Ejiofor) that the loudest one in the room is the dumbest and the most likely to get caught.  So, mind how you carry yourself, how you dress yourself and how you flaunt yourself.

A separate story has no business intersecting with Frank’s plight until something gives.  Richie Roberts is a good, honest cop. Though he’s also a lousy husband and father. He has been assigned to head up a task force that will bust the top of the assorted drug empires.  He needs those rare breed cops who are not on the take and follow a strict policy of law enforcement ethics.  His team will not bust a common street hustler.  They will be looking for the kingpins with unquestionable evidence to put them away for good.

American Gangster follows two separate stories for most of its running time.  At least during the first two acts of the film, Frank and Richie are unaware of one another.  It’s only through some gradual surveillance that the cop finally gets a whiff of an idea and starts to move methodically towards a conclusion. The methods are the fascinating parts the movie.

When Denzel Washington plays a villain it’s always memorable and contrary to popular opinion, Frank Lucas is my favorite of his antagonists, especially compared to his Oscar winning work in Training Day.  Watch how he walks or sits on a sofa and broods over how his family and his business are functioning.  He’s the only African American actor I can see playing this guy because I’m always convinced that whoever Denzel Washington portrays, it’s a character who will never be intimidated.  This guy faced down Gene Hackman during a threat of nuclear holocaust. Not many other actors can do that so authentically.

Russell Crowe works like that hero who doesn’t want to wear the cape.  Richie Roberts succeeds on so many levels where his peers surrender to their inhibitions.  This cop passes the bar exam while fighting for custody of his kid on top of going after the empirical criminals who litter the streets in drugs and murder.  I’m reminded of his role in The Insider, where he used a similar American accent.  Richie is not as temperamental or hard wired as that guy, but he is at least as focused on doing what’s right regardless of threat or distraction.  Russell Crowe has a way of getting audiences to admire the concentration needed for many of his complicated characters.  You have as much tunnel vision as he wants the men he’s portraying to have. You are zoned in with what his characters live by.  You only trust their standards.

There are signature staples within the construct of this true story adaptation.  There are gunfights.  Punches are thrown.  The guy at the top beats up one of his cronies when he gets out order.  Yet, what stands this material apart from others is that now I’m watching how Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe handle everything.

The truth behind the story of a black gangster defying the dirty cops and the Italian mobsters who were thought to run the metropolitan undergrounds is amazing.  It’s so interesting to see how novel Frank is with smuggling the product from one side of the world to the other. Then, you see how he uses his family members to distribute to the consumers and collect the monies. Ridley Scott provides all the breadcrumbs in an easy-to-understand fashion.  

Painted against the landscape of an unwinnable Vietnam War that just won’t end, power is acquired and thus the best police officers are forced to change their approach.  So again, you see two different stories that start out small and undetected.  Frank and Richie are the most careful and meticulous of guys in their respective fields.  Therefore, it only makes sense that their paths don’t cross until their missions are nearly over.

There’s much to learn from American Gangster.  

You get an idea of how the harm of the war was not exclusive to just what was happening over in Vietnam.  There were more indirect effects to that crisis impacting the streets of New York and New Jersey.  

You see what subtleties an investigation will collect upon before pouncing on to a bigger stake.  You also learn how to handle a criminal empire with trust and dignity rather than announcing your immorality. You witness the sheer defiance of a righteous guy in what is supposed to be a law-abiding field. Steve Zaillian’s script is not just good guy vs bad guy. It’s each of these guys holding on to the top while trying to catch up with or stay away from each other.

American Gangster is a very thorough and well-planned biographical thriller.  

DAS BOOT (GERMANY)

By Marc S. Sanders

Wolfgang Peterson demonstrated how much suspense he can squeeze out of the tightest of movies when he embarked on filming one of the most realistic and famous submarine movies of all time, Das Boot (translated as The Boat).

During World War II, a German U-Boat is assigned to carry out missions of war within the deep Atlantic.  The purpose is simply for attack and never to question motivations or reasons.  Because these Nazi sailors have no concept of the politics or the totalitarianism behind the Führer, it is not hard to empathize with their plights at sea.  Life on a submarine is no party.

The Captain of the vessel is played by Jürgen Prochnow, the only recognizable actor in the whole cast.  However, all of these men are working just to get by one more day within the very narrow confines of the sub.  In fact, the main character is the submarine.  Rarely has a setting been so evident.  I was told that Peterson used miniature cameras, rare for use in the late 1970s when the film was shot.  He would tightly hold the projector and pursue his cast of shipmates down one galley way after another.  He’d put the camera right up against their face and profiles.  The concentration of these actors to ignore the filming is astounding.  Wolfgang Peterson provides a very clear documentary style to the piece.  Herbert Grönemeyer portrays a war correspondent, easily used within the context of the story to accept Peterson’s approach of simply witnessing the activities and claustrophobia aboard a boat that is primarily under hundreds of feet of ocean water.

To my knowledge, Das Boot is a fictional story loosely based off of accounts from an actual military journalist who was aboard a similar cruiser during the war.  I suppose the film could have been told from an Allies perspective rather than the Axis German superpower.  However, the film works and as a viewer, as you become more engrossed in the picture, you become blinded to the fact that these men served Adolph Hitler.  There’s hardly a swastika in the film.  So, I’m seeing men like any other cadets and officers serving a military branch, working to survive while completing the assignments bestowed upon them.

The torment comes in all forms.  The controls are old and clunky.  It gets very dark at times.  The vessel does not move at a comfortably smooth pace.  They have no choice but to eat rotten food.  It is so bad that the bread turns blue or green.  The men are unbathed and you can practically smell the stench of their body odor and the raw sewage that remains behind.  Sleeping quarters are cramped and are never efficient.

There is such miniscule space available for these people to carry on. The top officers get their exclusive table, but they must get up and move out of the way during dinner, while seamen pass them by on their way to different stations.  Luxury is not afforded for anyone.  The beards of the men become longer.  Wolfgang Peterson shot the film in sequence to accurately show the progression of their beards.  It maintained proper continuity as their sojourn of the boat carried on. 

Most agonizing is when the submarine attacks back at the crew.  A long sequence of suspense occurs following a surprise attack from the air.  The boat has dive into the depths of the ocean, but their controls are malfunctioning and they just continue to sink and sink.  Nuts and bolts pop out of nowhere like ricocheting bullets as the water pressure gets heavier.  My car or my smart phone is more technologically developed and capable than this sub, and I question how this clunker can even withstand the compression.  To maintain balance and direction, the men have to race to the front or back of the ship applying their body weight to work like a scale. 

Imagine the boat coming to a rest on a rocky perch hundreds of feet deep underwater.  There is no propulsion or engine power.  No communications either and the crew has less than a few hours left to survive among the carbon monoxide flooding the ship.  It’s a helpless scenario and at multiple points during the movie, I was convinced this is how it will all end.  Often, I was prepared not to be surprised how this all wrapped up at any given period of time.  Das Boot is a long film. The special edition is over three and a half hours. So, you get a vibe of how stretched out this crew has been away, cramped in these quarters.  Because Peterson stages these challenging scenarios to be extensive, you easily relate to the stress of these men. 

War is hell, even for the Nazis.  The Captain agonizes over a successful attack he’s accomplished when he takes out an American naval destroyer.  He’s done his job well, but he’s angered as he witnesses the aftermath through his binoculars.  Crewmen are set ablaze as they fall off the ship and into water below, and he wonders where the rest of their convoy has gone.  Shouldn’t they be rescuing their men?  This Captain is not a Nazi.  He’s a pawn on a chess board, not assigned to think of the fallen, but rather to do what he is told, absent of questions or emotions.

I do not want to spoil the ending but I cannot recall feeling so much anguish for a collection of Nazi officers before.  Another submarine movie was bold enough to say that the only true enemy in war is war itself and having watched Das Boot, I can clearly see the meaning behind that perspective.  This is not a war picture where one side torments and personally tortures individuals before brutally killing them with gunshots to the head.  In a submarine, the crew is somewhat blind to what they must attack. They are only aware of the environment that troubles them. The men of Das Boot don’t curse the Americans or the British, or the Jews.  They show no prejudice.  That’s not their mentality.

When I see them overcome one daunting challenge after another, I’m relieved for these Germans.  They survived.  They made it. 

However, after watching for over three and a half hours, the final sequence and frame send me a cold, all to real reminder of what occurred during that terrible world war less than eighty years ago and it the film’s ending is the only way this picture could have ended.

Das Boot is a masterpiece of filmmaking.

UMBERTO D. (Italy, 1952)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Vittorio De Sica
CAST: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An elderly man and his beloved pet dog struggle to survive on his government pension in Rome.


The greatness of Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D. is something I was only able to appreciate after it was over.  As the film plays out, I was waiting for something more to happen, something to add to the paper-thin plot of an elderly man struggling to make ends meet in a city whose government has forsaken him and thousands or millions like him.  When the screen faded to black at the end, my first thought was, “That’s it???  Well, what happens next?”  The fact that the film prompted me, not only to ask the question, but to attempt to come up with an answer, is probably one of the reasons why this film is widely regarded as a classic.  Not many films can claim to keep the story running forward in your head after it’s over.

Umberto Domenico Ferrari is an elderly man living in post-war Rome.  The film opens with him joining a crowd protesting the city government’s policy of cutting their pensions.  Umberto is in dire straits.  He’s behind on his rent, low on cash, his landlady threatens eviction, and he must somehow still feed his beloved dog, Flike (rhymes with “like”).  The film will follow Umberto’s tribulations over the course of several days as he berates his landlady, tries to get some cash by selling some of his books and other possessions, dines at a soup kitchen while furtively feeding scraps to Flike, and befriends the young maid in his building who has problems of her own.

Umberto D. is as good an example as any, and better than most, of Italian post-war neo-realism, a cinematic movement in which Italian film directors aimed to paint the silver screen with portraits of everyday life in their country, which was wracked with poverty and unemployment at the time.  Rather than provide an escape from such hardships, these directors felt it was their civic duty to bring the everyman (or everywoman) into the spotlight, to remind the audience that movies could be more than escapist entertainment.  They felt obliged to say, “There are more stories of despair and hardship ten feet out your front door than can be imagined by any Hollywood screenwriter.”

There are pros and cons to this approach, at least in my opinion.  On one hand, the neo-realist movement created such immortal classics as La strada [1954], Bicycle Thieves [1948, also directed by De Sica], and a little later, Rocco and His Brothers [1960]; these are films that have stood the test of time and will continue to do so for decades to come.

On the other hand, a quote from Roger Ebert comes to mind: “A man goes to the movies; the critic must admit that he is this man.”  In other words, learn to say exactly what you think about a film as opposed to what you think you should think.  And when it comes to Italian neo-realism, I’ll say this: give me a choice between a De Sica retrospective and a Christopher Nolan marathon, and it’s the Nolan marathon seven days a week and twice on Sunday.  Yes, I am aware of the place that neo-realism films have in cinematic history, and I can appreciate their greatness on a cerebral level.  However, on a gut level, I can usually only watch them once or twice, with very few exceptions.  La strada, for example, is heart-wrenching, but in such a way that I want to revisit it just to relive those emotional gut-punches at the end.

Umberto D. didn’t quite deliver those gut-punches, at least not during its running time.  …okay, there IS a moment when Flike runs away, and the possibility arises that he may or may not have been put down by the local pound.  There is a cringe-inducing scene when we watch hardened men roll a cage full of stray dogs into a large box where the dogs will be gassed; we are spared the sight of the actual procedure, but we see enough of it to get the picture.  Umberto watches the box with fear in his eyes.  Another man wants to retrieve his captured pet, but he falters when he lacks the money to pay for his return.  The look on his face as he repeatedly asks, “So, if I don’t take him, you’ll kill him?”  THAT is a scene where my emotional juices where stirred up.

(Okay, there is ONE other scene that got me a little riled up emotionally, but it happens near the film’s climax, so I can’t describe it without spoiling something.)

Aside from those very rare moments of heightened emotion, the film is mostly pedestrian, giving us more details of Umberto’s daily life as he tries and tries to find a way to get enough cash to pay his rent.  In one pathetic scene, he debates whether he should resort to panhandling like so many other men he sees on the streets.  At first, he tries it himself, practicing holding out his hand on a street corner, but when someone actually turns to give him some money, Umberto pretends he was just stretching – he just can’t bring himself to accept handouts from a stranger.  He tries to enlist Flike instead, getting him to hold his hat while sitting on his hind legs, but that doesn’t work out either.  He reaches out to former friends, to no avail.

As I’ve said before, DURING the film, these scenes, and others like them, didn’t stir me up the way I felt the director was shooting for.  It was only afterwards that I found myself pondering those scenes and Umberto’s actions.  I used to own a dog, a very long time ago.  If my dog were my only remaining connection, with no family or friends to reach out to in times of need, how would I feel if I learned he might have been captured and put down?  If I suddenly had no means of income, no way to pay the rent/mortgage/whatever, and nowhere to go if I got kicked out of my apartment/house/whatever, how would I manage?  Would I manage?  Late in the film, Umberto makes a couple of hard choices.  Would I make the same choices in his position?

As FINE appears on the screen, Umberto D. invites us to wonder about Umberto’s fate.  The last scene is, on the surface, a happy one, but somber music plays over it, and the scene does not address or solve Umberto’s situation.  This is in the neo-realist tradition.  If De Sica were asked, “But what happened to him at the end?”, I can imagine him saying, “The same thing that happens to all such men.”  If he was told, “But I don’t know what happens to such men,” De Sica might say, “Well, now you have something to think about.”  Q.E.D.

[Trivia: The lead actor, Carlo Battisti, was not a professional actor, but a professor of linguistics. Umberto D. would be his only film, and not many people can claim that kind of legacy with just one film.]

DJANGO UNCHAINED

By Marc S. Sanders

Quentin Tarantino’s scripts have never been shy with using the N-word or any other colorful terminology.  He turns harsh and biting vocabulary into rhythmic stanzas of dialogue.  When he films these scripts, he’s not bashful with the buckets of blood splashed all over the set either.  His interpretation of violence works in a kind of slapstick fashion among his seedy one-dimensional characters.  Normally, I never get uneasy with his approach.  I know what to expect of the guy.  Yet, as well cast, written and formulated his Oscar winning film Django Unchained may be, I wince at both his word play and physical carnage.  I think Tarantino gets a little too comfortable with his slave era storylines and the African American actors he stages in his set ups.  A good portion of this Western may be thrilling, but it’s also cringy like watching a drunk uncle at a three-year old’s birthday party, and I defy viewers not to squint at the movie if they so much as live day to day with even the smallest shred of kindness in their hearts.

Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) is released from slavery by the former dentist now bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, in his second Oscar winning performance cast by Tarantino).  Django is a good man, though uneducated and mostly illiterate.  Once he assists the doctor with locating and collecting a bounty, the two make an arrangement to stick together through the winter collecting further ransoms.  In return for the former slave’s help, Dr. Schultz will assist in rescuing Django’s wife, the German speaking Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).  She is believed to be held at the infamous Mississippi slave plantation known as Candyland, owned by the ruthless Calvin Candie. He is played by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best roles while also delivering one of his most unforgiving portrayals.  Calvin Candie is a mean son of a bitch slave owner who has too much fun with investing in slaves for brutal Mandingo wrestling matches that don’t finish until the loser is dead in bloody, bone cracking fashion.  

All of these figures belong at the top of Quentin Tarantino’s list of sensational character inventions, particularly Django.  He has more depth than most of the writer’s other creations.  This guy goes from an unkempt, nearly naked, tortured and chained slave to a free man proudly wearing a bright blue court jester costume on horseback.  His third iteration places him in a gunslinger wardrobe comparable to a Clint Eastwood cowboy and when the conclusion arrives, Django is meaner, more confident and instinctively wiser, glamorously dressed (purple vest with gold inlay designer seems) like a graphic novel superhero ready to take on an endless army of redneck slave abusing outlaws.  Django is taught everything he needs to know from Doc Schultz.  Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx stand as an impressionable mentor/student pair.  They are the spine of Django Unchained.

The villainy of the piece belongs to DiCaprio and his head slave in charge, known as Steven, played by the director’s go to player for happy street slang and N-word droppings, Samuel L Jackson.  Steven is Jackson’s best career role because as an old, decrepit and frightening individual it’s this portrayal which looks like no other part the actor has ever played.    Both actors are funny, and you can’t take your eyes off of their unlimited grandstanding, but they will leave you feeling terribly uncomfortable.

I think what is most unsettling about Django Unchained is that the cruelty persists for nearly the whole three hour run time, and it is more so at a shameless attempt of comedic, pulpy entertainment, rather than just insight and education.  A Schindler’s List finds no glee in the torment that kept the Holocaust alive.  Tarantino didn’t even go to great heights with Inglourious Basterds because that film featured ongoing grisly heroics with his assortment of vengeful protagonists.  The Nazis were never celebrated in that film at the cost of innocent Jewish lives that faced peril and threat.

In Django Unchained, it’s hard to watch the Negro characters and extras getting brutally whipped while bound by inescapable chains.  Kerry Washington’s nude character is yanked out of a sweat box on the Candyland plantation and while I’m watching it, I ask myself if I’m too much of a prude.  No.  I don’t think I am.  This teeters on torture porn. The N-word is now being used way too freely to stab at the slaves for gleeful poetry. It grows tiring and, yeah even for a Quentin Tarantino picture downright ugly and offensive. I imagine Tarantino grinning behind the camera every time DiCaprio or Jackson happily drop another N-bomb.

Quentin Tarantino has been applauded time and again for his excessive abuse and tortuous murders committed by his characters.  Because he’s courageously gone so far before, the line of acceptance is either pushed out farther or maybe in the case of Django Unchained it is entirely erased.  

My compliments to a well-known humanitarian like Leonardo DiCaprio for energetically acting through this bastard of a role that requires a twisted pleasure in watching two husky black bruisers beat the bloody tar out of each other in a formal drinking parlor.  Later in the picture, a weeping slave is shredded to pieces by ravaged, bloodthirsty dogs.  These fictional scenes staged by Tarantino and his filmmakers come off a little too real and even by the director’s standards much too over the top for the temperature of this film’s narrative.  

What could these extras cast to play these slave and Mandingo roles have really been thinking while shooting this picture?  Did these men recognize the racially poetic humor in Tarantino’s verbiage? Did they find a commitment to demonstrate a once historic atrocity for a lesson learned? I doubt it. Did these actors simply succumb because they needed the work?  Believe me.  I empathize.  Yet, Tarantino took this film to a very uncomfortable extreme for a movie intended on following his reputable and always admired lurid material.  Here, despite my reverence for his work, I think Quentin Tarantino goes unnecessarily over the line.  The whippings and dog torture are quite uneven from what The Bride commits in Kill Bill when a Crazy 88 henchman gets spanked with a sword and there’s nothing to compare to whatever sick, graphic novel atrocities occur in his later western, The Hateful Eight – both are PG rated compared to what is offered in Django Unchained.

Much of Tarantino’s signature comedy works.  The Ku Klux Klan of the late 1850s are represented with brilliant stupidity by a cameo appearing Jonah Hill and a racist, foul speaking, plantation owning charmer played by Don Johnson, known by what else but Big Daddy.  The filmmaker turns these guys into bumbling stooges who can’t even wear their hoods properly. And yes, they also freely drop the N-word in cruel like fashion. I get it, Mississippi and Southern Plantation owners were not the Mickey Mouse sort, and I’m not asking for whitewashing what the real-life despicable characters stood for or how they carried themselves. Still, when all of this compounded together, it goes too far. In a drama like 12 Years A Slave, I see an authenticity to an ugly slave era. In Tarantino’s world, I see a kid who learned a bad word and dad said go ahead son, play with the machine gun but make sure the vocabulary ammo will riddle the entire script to pieces.

Django Unchained is a gorgeous looking picture.  Tarantino goes to the outdoor plains following the interiors of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.  Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz’ cowboy antics look marvelous riding on horseback or even simply camping by the fire as well written exposition is revealed on cold moonlight evenings.  

I can watch this western on repeat and feel a free-spirited energy when Django steps out in his cowboy outfit with boots, spurs, the hat, and a brand-new saddle to ride off on his steed while Jim Croce’s uplifting “I Got A Name” cues into the picture.  I love how Jamie Foxx appears as a super heroic action star, especially in the final act of the movie.  I can absorb the sadism of DiCaprio’s downright mischievous evil, particularly when he uses a bone saw and skull prop to make a point.  I feel like I’ve gained a comforting friend in Christop Waltz’ kindly sensible Doc Schultz, and I welcome a very funny and altogether different Samuel L Jackson that finally arrives.  

It’s the filling within these strong moments and characterizations that is very hard to swallow.  Django Unchained is that great picture that still should have been made but with a modicum of caution. Perhaps one of the Weinsteins, or maybe even these powerhouse, marquee actors who led this piece should have shared some constructive input with the writer/director.

Django Unchained is fun, but it’s not entirely fun.