Author: Marc Sanders

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

By Marc S. Sanders

Disney’s Christopher Robin is a live action interpretation of a classic story that I approve of. Like Maleficent, it’s a film that is based on new, original material with familiar and beloved classic characters of the Disney machine-unlike recent reinventions of Beauty & The Beast and Aladdin. Those films are just the same with minor tweaks that don’t generate enough hype or interest for me. (No—I will not be seeing The Lion King. I already saw it back in 1992.)

Marc Forster (Quantum Of Solace and Finding Neverland) directs while never losing sight of the fact that Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, etc all stem from classic children’s literature by A.A. Milne. The film opens with a backstory on the title character starting with his playful adolescent connection to Pooh & Friends, followed by his departure from them into a strict boarding school and then into adulthood (played sweetly by Ewan MacGregor). Christopher falls in love with Evelyn (Hayley Atwood) and before their child is born he is sent off to war only to return as a no nonsense efficiency manager for a luggage company. He has forgotten his friends who live and do nothing (which always leads to something) in 100 Acre Woods. Worse, Christopher never laughs nor hardly acknowledges his daughter Madeline. He is not a child anymore.

This is the film that Steven Spielberg probably wanted when he directed Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman in 1991’s Hook. It just came off too clunky and messy at the time.

As the story continues, Forster is not so covert in his symbolism of Christopher Robin shedding his crotchety adult persona and returning to his childhood whimsy. Christopher crawls through the hole in the tree, muddies his suit, loses his briefcase and disregards his paperwork.

I found myself rooting for Christopher’s new found happiness and his revived love for his wife and daughter. I loved the stuffed animal interpretations of the Pooh characters (with voice work from Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett and Toby Jones). Yet, the tears at the sweetness of it all never arrived. As quick as the film began, it was never a challenge to realize how it would all turn out.

So no surprises to be had in Christopher Robin, but an original story to appreciate nonetheless. That’s good enough for me.

A WRINKLE IN TIME

By Marc S. Sanders

Oprah Winfrey has a big head.

I don’t mean a big head as in a large ego. I mean Oprah Winfrey has a BIG HEAD. So BIG that I caught every sprinkle of glitter in her eyebrows and lipstick that it looked like it came out of the discount basket at Justice For Girls. Why do I focus on this first and foremost? Well…because that is about where the scope of imagination stops in Ava DuVernay’s direction of A Wrinkle In Time.

Remember the first time you saw The Wizard of Oz? Remember when Dorothy walks out of her monochromatic home and into the brightly lit Munchkinland? Judy Garland walked cautiously. Spoke carefully (“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”) There was a reaction to all of the grandeur and strangeness. Now, over 82 years later, many fantasies on film refuse to take inspiration from that timeless cinematic moment. A Wrinkle In Time definitely doesn’t.

In Duvaraney’s interpretation, Reese Witherspoon, dressed in a white king size bedsheet with hideously bright orange hair can just appear in the living room of a home and no one has nary a response to the unusual. There is neither panic, nor a “wow,” not an eye bulge, not a large swallow of gulp. Nothing. The protagonist, Meg, and her mother just say who are you (actually I’m not sure they even said that), and Reese puts on her over exaggerated smile and cheerful vocal inflection and speaks in some kind limerick dialogue. She walks out the front door, disappears into the night, and no one says anything; no one ponders anything. There is no imagination in the filmmaking here, nor in the scriptwriting. This is a fantasy, right?

Mindy Kaling is another fantasy character in garish makeup and costume. She quotes expressions from various poets and artists from history. Why? I don’t know. What does she lend to Meg’s mission? Yawn!!!! Nothing.

Zach Galifianakis accepted the role of another weird character that Johnny Depp probably turned down, and would have likely been offered to Robin Williams had he still been alive. Zach has nothing to say either.

Meg has a little brother named Charles Wallace. I know this because the script hammers away this kid’s name over and over again. Charles Wallace. Charles Wallace. CHARLES WALLACE!!!!! Not just Charles. This kid is always addressed as CHARLES WALLACE!!!! There’s a drinking game in the making. Give the movie 15 minutes and I promise you, you will be heavily intoxicated after hearing CHARLES WALLACE again and again and AGAIN!!!!

All of these claims go back to my one main, sole issue with this film. A complete lack of imagination and awareness of its fantasy.

DuVernay films Oprah as a towering 20 foot presence (literally) and fills in every void of space on the screen with her head. “CHARLES WALLACE” is about all Meg says to her little brother; there’s no sibling connection. Lastly, the most glaring error, is there is no reaction to the wonder of this fantasy. Were any of the actors informed there would be more to the green screens they were filming in front of?

So, it’s a nay for me. If you are going to do a fantasy make sure everyone in the production gets the memo please.

Oh yeah, Meg is on a mission to find her missing father in the universe of time or something like that. Yeah. That whole thing never mattered much to me. It didn’t really seem to matter much to Meg either.

READY PLAYER ONE

By Marc S. Sanders

Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, Ready Player One is the best Easter Egg to search for today.

As a huge fan of Ernest Cline’s novel chock full of pop culture salutes, this latest effort from Steven Spielberg is the film I was looking forward to the most in 2018; more than Solo and definitely more than Avengers: Infinity War.

The film adaptation almost completely succeeds. It is very well cast and the expansive imagination of Spielberg and his crew get everything right. It’s the greatest amusement park for the eyes. When there are not hidden gems to look for, I still found the young cast of characters portrayed by talented unknowns to be engrossing, and more importantly endearing to those cinematic kids of the ‘80s from John Hughes films, as well Spielberg’s other classics.

Authenticity was also truly a priority for Spielberg. I dare not spoil the highlight of the film’s second act but let’s just say the attention to detail was perfection to every minute crammed on the screen. You can’t help but laugh, grin and slap your knee. In fact, you really do it through the whole film practically, but Act 2 really reaches for the skies.

Now the one issue I have. Like Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, the villain was pulled back in their deviousness from the original source material. The danger did not feel threatening enough for me. Here the antagonist is this large conglomerate run by a CEO, and I’m afraid that’s all that Ben Mendelsohn is sadly reduced to. The stakes didn’t seem high enough. Cline’s novel made sure that your life could end as you got closer to solving the puzzles of the “Oasis,” the interactive virtual world that everyone willingly engulfs themselves in. The threat was more convincing in the novel. In the film, I’m afraid it’s a little too watered down.

Still, Ready Player One is incredibly fun with an awesome soundtrack; “Staying Alive” by The Bee Gees will always be the greatest song to bless any film, ever. This film especially supports that argument.

“LET’S SAVE THE OASIS”

THE MATRIX FRANCHISE

By Marc S. Sanders

Miguel and I went to see the The Matrix Resurrections last night and honestly, when I woke up this morning, I had forgotten I’d even seen it.  That’s because, other than the original Matrix film, the subsequent chapters are about as special as cheap food court Chinese food.  When you get home from the mall, you recall what you may have window shopped, but you never reflect on what you had for lunch; well maybe your gut does later on, and that’s certainly not doing you any favors. 

When The Wachowskis introduced the world to The Matrix way back in 1999, it was one of the biggest surprises in films.  No one saw its uniqueness coming.  Everyone was focused on the over hyped resurgence of Star Wars, or a kid who desecrated a pie, or a hand held video film that was seemingly terrorizing audiences.  Yet The Matrix arguably may have had the best longevity that year.  It seemed like a combo sci fi/super hero picture with the players looking ultra-cool in designer sunglasses and leather night club outfits.  Guns and jiu jitsu flew off the screen, but it was done in a new visual kind of way.  Bruce Lee would have likely been a part of this picture had he been alive.  When someone took a kick to the face, it was edited super cool looking sloooooowwww motion.  Bullet time became a thing with projectiles warping through the space between characters and these players, especially Keanu Reeves as the messianic Neo and Carrie Anne Moss as Trinity, would bend and twist and twirl acrobatically (again in slow motion style) to dodge machine gun fire and endless shrapnel.  The look of the film remains absolutely superb.  Nothing (other than maybe the film’s sequels) has duplicated what was accomplished here. 

As well, the original Matrix stands apart from the other three because it actually told a story and developed its protagonist and his mentor (Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus) into fleshed out characters.  It also went so far as to describe what the Matrix is, and what the world outside of that realm represents.  Like all humans, Neo, also known as Thomas Anderson, was actually under the control of a machine-like community designed to sustain a world known as the Matrix, and…well…that’s just bad!  There was solid storytelling here with setting and character development that was later accompanied by well-choregraphed action and pulse pounding club music.  When the film ended, audiences couldn’t wait for more and Warner Bros happily greenlit two more films that were shot back-to-back.  Only the train derailed from there.

Gearing up for the 2021 installment, directed by Lana Wachowski, I watched the first three films again.  Other than the first film, I had forgotten much of what occurred in the 2nd (The Matrix Reloaded) and 3rd (The Matrix Revolutions) pictures.  I realize now that I only forgot what really wasn’t there.  Substance!  Of the two films, Reloaded is likely better, thanks especially to an outstanding highway car chase involving sci fi effects of the characters bouncing off of big rig trucks, motorcycles and car roofs.  A pair of characters dressed in evil white leather with dreadlocks morph in and out of the vehicles and concrete streets as well.  The scene comes late in the film and only wakes you up from the meandering ahead of it.  Truly, it’s hard to comprehend what the hell is being explained in this second film.  The Wachowskis almost would prefer you be impressed with the monosyllabic vocabulary that’s exchanged with each character.  Dialogue doesn’t advance the story any further from where the first film left off.  All that I gathered was our band of rebels who successfully broke free from the slave-controlled Matrix are regrouping at the promised land of Zion, and the machines (squid like metal robots with countless red light bulbs) are advancing for an attack.  Morpheus, Trinity and Neo take it upon themselves to reenter the Matrix (because they look so much cooler there) and do who knows what.  Near the end of the film, Neo walks down a long hallway, opens a number of doorways and encounters the one supposedly responsible for the Matrix, an older gentleman known as The Architect.  This moment was intended to be a highlight of the film and yet it was anything but.  This architect spews out word diarrhea at an alarming rate that only clouds your mind further and further.  The guy has a great radio voice and has an antithetic appearance against the heroic looking Neo, but what in the hell are we supposed to do with any of this?  What’s the point?

On to Revolutions which begins exactly where Reloaded left off.  This is a picture that could have had a running time of thirty minutes at best.  The robots are finally attacking Zion.  One character who seems like he should be important or necessary to the Matrix storyline saddles up in a robot suit equipped with massive machine guns and The Wachowskis make the poor choice of feeding their audience a good seven or eight minutes of this guy spraying endless amounts of bullets in an upwards direction towards the infinite swarm of octopi robotic armies.  His guns never run out of ammo.  He just bellows as he continues to fire.  Where’s the story here?  Where’s the innovation that the first film offered?  Also, what goes up, must come down.  Shouldn’t some of that ammunition have dropped down in a hail storm eventually?  Reader, if I have to ask that last question then you know there’s not much to pay attention to in this film.

The wisest character of the Matrix films, Morpheus, is given very little to say or do in either film.  Fishburne stands in the background and let’s everything happen around him.  He’s not utilized to explain anything like he was in the first picture.  His skill for teaching the audience has been completely diminished.  Whatever he had to offer was exhausted following the first picture.  With Revolutions, especially, the filmmakers rely on B characters that we’ve never really gotten a chance to know or remember or adore like Yoda or Jabba or even Boba Fett in the films that followed the original Star Wars. In fact, Revolutions seems more concerned with its extras than any other film I can recall.  So much so that when a major character from the first film has a death scene, you hardly care for the loss.  There wasn’t much to expound on the character after the original film.  Revolutions only relies on the war nature of the human armies against the monochrome metallic squid race.  Beyond shooting at one another, where’s the conflict?  Ms. Pac Man and Frogger have more depth than any of this.

That’s the problem with these films.  A discovery was made with the 1999 installment and the filmmakers opted to capitalize on the effects and not the challenge of story. 

Furthermore, and this goes back to the original film when I first saw it in theatres, I was always of the mindset that I’d rather live in the Matrix.  After all that Morpheus has revealed to me, the Matrix still seems like the better place to reside.  The real world consists of living on a dirty, dreary ship and eating slop for food while wearing torn sweaters and having electrical plug orifices running down my spine.  Who wants that?  A Judas character from the first film turns on his crew by telling the evil Agent Smith that he will bring them Neo as long as in return he doesn’t know that he’s under the control of the Matrix and he can savor the taste of a juicy steak again.  Now I’m with this guy.  Aren’t The Wachowskis as well, though?  More footage and highlights take place in the computer mainframe of the Matrix than outside of it.  Thereby, more cool looking action sequences can happen and the cast appears more glamourized.  The films want us to fear the horrors of the Matrix on the humans by showing them plugged into wires while drowning in a pod like puddle of KY jelly embryonic ectoplasm.  You know what?  What I don’t know won’t kill me.  So, leave me be.  Perhaps the argument would have been more convincing had the environments been reversed.  Put the rebels as slave dilemma in the real-world areas and the utopian setting within the Matrix.  Then I might buy the problem here.

The newest film, Resurrections, is nothing special and nothing new.  It’s rather boring actually.  Revolutions was boring too.  It only kept me awake because it was two hours of headache inducing noise.  With the new 2021 film, apparently a new Matrix has been developed and thus a new Neo and Trinity have been conceived.  The antagonist is represented by Neil Patrick Harris and that’s about it.  Miguel pondered much, following the picture as to what was going on.  That’s not a good sign for a popcorn action flick, and it’s consistent with what was done with the 2nd and 3rd films.  What the hell is anyone talking about. Once again, dialogue moves to a beat of answering questions with questions. Even the allies speak to one another that way, and if it is not a question, then it is a cliché of some sort.  Don’t these people want to help one another?  If so, then speak to each other like your four years old and get to the point.  The action scenes drone on and on.  A goal of the picture is to keep Neo from finding Trinity because if they do, then the Matrix crashes.  Okay.  That’s simple enough.  Yet (spoiler alert), when they do find each other, somehow this new Matrix continues on.  Huh??????  The movie just betrayed me, and I don’t like that. 

Miguel attempted to conjure up the idea that Lana Wachowski was trying to demonstrate her transition from a man to a woman and this new picture was a representation of that.  Could that be true?  Maybe, but it never occurs to me while I’m watching the picture.  Am I watching The Matrix Resurrections because it’s the newest Wachowski film?  No.  This isn’t a Quentin Tarantino or Christopher Nolan piece.  This is leather and gunfire and sunglasses and noise, all depicted in a green DOS computer hue lens.

The Matrix was always worthy of a sequel; a subsequent follow up that explored imagination and perhaps more background.  What has Neo not yet uncovered.  Yet, the series as a whole continues to deny those opportunities and simply settles for cool looking visuals that get overly exhausted and tired.  No new skills are featured with each passing film.  Over the course of the series, the big bang, so to speak, of the first Matrix never reveals itself.  Instead, we are mind controlled viewers relegated to depend on overlong dialogue with no point and no where left to explore.  We are simply gifted with Neo punching Agent Smith and/or infinite duplicates of Agent Smith with no one getting weakened or wounded or defeated.  Look no further than an early fight scene in Reloaded.  The scene goes on forever.  The editing is amazing.  So is the choreography but after four minutes of this, it’s time to show some progress.  The Wachowskis limit their imagination to just having Neo fly away.  Scenes like this only allow me ample time to exit the theatre for a bathroom break and return having not lost out on any storytelling.  My friends, you can find plenty of bathroom breaks in this series of films.

The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections should never have been made.  Producer Joel Silver and Warner Bros would argue otherwise though.  Their wallets continue to get fatter, but at the cost of controlling moviegoers’ appetite for something more when all they really got was dry rice and overcooked orange chicken from the food court.

GOLD

By Marc S. Sanders

Fantastic find on Netflix with Matthew McConaughey doing his best chain smoking, hard drinking, pot bellied method acting.

Stephan Gaghan directs a patchwork film that zig zags from the sleazy get rich quick offices of Reno, NV, to the wet, mud strewn Indonesian jungles,and on to the steely ice nature of white collar New York City.

What is depicted is the hunt for the most precious metal, and when it is found how best to capitalize on it while maintaining your name and growing your fortunes. Yet any sudden development could crash it all in what seem like seconds.

I had no idea what to expect from this movie. Early on for about 15 minutes, it seemed to be moving too slow but then it picks up because the true life story is mired in twists I never saw coming. Great acting. Great script. Great direction.

Fantastic movie. McConaughey doesn’t get enough credit for his fantastic career of performances. He’s just a top notch actor in so many ways.

This is so worth checking out.

STAND AND DELIVER

By Marc S. Sanders

One of the most inspiring classroom setting films is Stand And Deliver directed by Ramon Menéndez and written by him with producer Tom Musca. This pair took great pains to protect the integrity of their script.

The film tells the story of math teacher Jaime Escalante’s (Edward James Olmos) uncompromising drive to bring 18 students at Garfield High School to passing the state’s AP Calculus exam. These students come from working class Hispanic families who hardly offer their own children any bright future beyond fixing cars, waitressing in the family restaurant or remaining as a gang member in a life of crime. Their parents laugh and shake their heads at their dreams of becoming doctors or engineers. Their parents never had a teacher like Jaime Escalante.

Escalante motivates them to find a ticket out, and become the first members of their families to graduate high school and go to college. The first two acts of the film focus on Escalante’s drive and brief encounters with some members of his classroom. He shows how he’s not intimidated by gang member Angel (Lou Diamond Phillips) and how he convinces a restauranteur to allow his daughter to return to class. Another student is overcome with stress. Escalante listens but doesn’t allow the student to give up. I like these scenes a lot and my descriptions do not give these moments enough credit.

The film does not rely on classroom speechifying or inspiring rock music to cut in with sequences of kids reading books. Instead, it drives home the fact that Jaime Escalante never loses sight of the nowhere potential these students live with. The students learn to respect the one man who never underestimates them, regarding him as “Kemosabe.” He never allows them to lose their “ganas;” a desire for something better.

Even after they pass the exam, the students’ own environment will not allow them to celebrate their success. It’s too hard to accept the result. It’s easier to accuse them of cheating as it’s presumed that this sect of Hispanic/Mexican people could never have accomplished what their scores indicate. No other explanation could merit what’s occurred. Escalante is angered by this racism, but his confidence in his students pushes them to retake the exam. Blatant racism will not prevent a future without poverty.

The students consist of mostly unknown actors. Following this film from 1988, I’d catch one of them guest starring on a TV show here or there. Collectively speaking though, they really come through by convincingly displaying their lower class lives. It’s easy to see a lack of potential for these kids early on in the film. It’s also comfortably easy to see how Escalante takes command of their lives with a sense of unity and motivation. No one ever told these kids they could solve some of the hardest mathematical equations ever conceived. No one ever told these kids they could amount to something. It took someone from their own environment to help them defy a stereotype and demonstrate that intelligence is a gift that any human being is blessed with. They just have to have the “ganas.”

Edward James Olmos was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. I’d say it was one of the most under the radar performances to ever be considered frankly. Stand And Deliver was made on a small budget. It’s easy to see that. Still, that is also what is so special about the film. This film stood on its performances and the genuine inspiring story it’s based on. It had all the ingredients it needed to be a winning film. This film eventually reached the exclusive annals of the prestigious National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Stand And Deliver will tell you to never surrender. 

THE KARATE KID (1984)

By Marc S. Sanders

Though it may feel like an After School Special at times, there’s always been a charming quality about The Karate Kid, and that stems from the relationship between Daniel LaRouso (Ralph Macchio) and his elderly Asian mentor from Okinawa, Mr. Miyagi (Oscar nominee Pat Morita).

John G. Avildsen, director of Rocky, is harsh in the expository bullying that Daniel endures when he moves from Newark, NJ to California. The Kobra Kai kids led by William Zabka (your go to bully for 1980s films) are brutal in their fighting skills as they use Daniel as a means to exercise their Sensei’s philosophy of “No Mercy!” The Sensei is played very frighteningly by Martin Kove.

What’s hard for me to digest with The Karate Kid is that Macchio is not very good in the role. He kind of comes off as a kid I’d never want to hang out with. He tries too hard to be cool, but he doesn’t look cool. His sense of humor is really never funny. It’s too hokey really when he puts the charms on his crush Alli (Elisabeth Shue). While Shue is fine her in her sweetness, Macchio is really why I never found any chemistry between the two actors. He comes off like Shue’s little brother more than a high school crush. He’s a twerp. What saves me from giving up on Daniel, or Macchio in the role, is the maintenance man who steps in to rescue Daniel from another beating.

Pat Morita is excellent as Mr. Miyagi and has truly created one of the most pop culturally significant characters in film from the last forty years. There’s an authenticity to his role. Most importantly, he’s a veteran of World War II who suffered loss. A great scene occurs mid way through the film where Daniel finds a drunken Miyagi commemorating the death of his wife and newborn both lost due to complications in childbirth while he was away in service. Screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen brought a depth to the Miyagi role. Along with Morita’s performance, he allowed a likability in Daniel that eventually catches my interest. Daniel eventually appreciates the elderly man beyond his devotion of karate. When Macchio is responding to Morita, I like him. When he’s responding to any other character in the film, I don’t like him.

The centerpiece of the film is the mundane training that Daniel endures. “Wax on. Wax off,” and so on. It’s hardly forgettable but it’s also a little slow moving. Still, I like the lesson. Miyagi demonstrates that the best way to learn karate is ironically when you have no inkling that you’re learning karate. Use the fundamentals of any skill and apply it to the art of karate. Karate doesn’t stem from an urge of violence. It comes from something more intrinsic. Karen’s script with Avildsen’s direction never forgets that.

The payoff moment is when it dawns upon the very naive Daniel of what Miyagi was teaching him all along. Daniel might be painting the house and sanding the floor and waxing the cars on Miyagi’s property, but is that all he’s doing? Soon we discover the significance of this drawn out sequence. Morita opens your eyes when he throws punches and kicks at a frustrated Daniel, and it dawns on the kid that he suddenly knows how to defend himself. Avlidsen films a hair raising scene at this moment. Its like when the frail Yoda uses the Force to lift Luke’s X-Wing fighter out of the swamp. It’s another layer revealed in the Miyagi character.

So, without Mr. Miyagi The Karate Kid plays like a cheesy home room, early 80s lesson film. When a scene includes Morita, the wow factor is front and center. Often I talk about the best characters are the multi dimensional ones. Mr. Miyagi is the perfect example. We see him as the quiet maintenance man, then he’s the master fighter, then he’s the guy with a healing skill, then he’s the guy who’s got the secret crane technique for delivering a kick, and then he’s the guy with a sorrowful past and finally he’s the mentor and most importantly, he’s the friend. All of this crammed into one little old man from Okinawa. Pat Morita is the reason to watch The Karate Kid.

LEAN ON ME

By Marc S. Sanders

The career of director John G. Avildsen is best defined by his inspirational stories of athletic prowess for the underdog, particularly The Karate Kid from 1984, and the Oscar winning Best Picture sensation, Rocky.  Both films follow similar formulas once the exposition phase is completed.  Music montages fill the screen with endless training with the protagonists giving it their all.  Avildsen’s film, Lean On Me, teeters on these conventions and it tells me one thing.  Training montages belong in the field of physical activities, not with tests of intelligence and academics.

Morgan Freeman portrays Joe Clark, or Crazy Joe Clark with the baseball bat, who singlehandedly (at least according to the film) turned around the Eastside High School of Paterson, New Jersey from a hell hole of violence, drugs and terror into a respectable institution of education.  Eastside, where the actual film was shot, is depicted as the absolute worst.  You can’t even tell the original paint colors of walls because they are covered in so much graffiti.  Early in the film, a teacher’s head is bashed into a puddle of his own blood while trying to break up a fight among the students.  Drugs are exchanged out in the open.  This is a dangerous place. How dangerous?  “Welcome To The Jungle” by Guns N Roses is playing over all of this footage. 

Worst of all, however, seems to be the last place ranking of the school’s score on state’s standardized test for basic education.  After all that I saw in the first ten minutes of the film, that is the biggest concern? 

Joe seems to be the one and only candidate to get in there and clean this mess up.  His tough exterior and reputation for not getting along with his superiors or his peers is a gamble but what other choice does the mayor have at this point.  The first move that Joe carries out is to have all the drug pushers and criminals explicated from the school immediately.  His second move is to chain every door in the school to keep this riff raff out, which only ticks off the fire marshal and a firebrand activist mother who wants Clark terminated.  While I thought the mother was needlessly a pain in the ass, only to serve as a poorly written antagonist, I can’t help but empathize with the fire marshal; cuz, yeah, what would happen if there was an actual fire?

In between all of this, Crazy Joe bullies, berates and screams at his teaching staff and administration while the students paint over the graffiti.  Some of the staff scream back or toss over desks.  Morgan Freeman is such a capable actor and you can’t take your eyes off the energy he brings to his roles, whether they are subdued like in The Shawshank Redemption or Driving Miss Daisy, or they are out of control hyper as on display here.  Yet, I didn’t feel fulfilled or inspired by his portrayal of Mr. Clark or the film as a whole.  It’s not his fault.  Rather it’s the outline of the script.

A running theme here focuses on the scores of the test.  Joe is first mad as all hell at the low score of the practice tests.  We eventually reach the actual final exam.  Much has been cleaned up at Eastside and Joe screams like a hyped-up football or wrestling coach to the entire study body about how important it is to pass the exam they are about to take within the hour.  The students clap and applaud and sing the title song in harmony.  This scene supplies the inevitable and inspiring training montage that Avildsen relies on.  You know what’s going to happen, right?  They pass of course!  Yet, how did they really pass this exam within the ninety days that the film tells us they have to study?

Lean On Me gets distracted with its other problems such as single mothers who kick out their children and drug pushers who manage to get back into the school, where Crazy Joe disarms one of them threatening with a switch blade.  Late in the film, a teenage student gets pregnant, only to have this storyline abandoned thereafter.  The debate with the erratic mother and the fire marshal takes up large portions of the film as well, and when they don’t, Joe is screaming at his band of teachers making sure they know it is their own fault that the students are failing.  All of these moments are meant to get the audience to nod and shake their heads at how much the world is falling apart, while getting tearfully inspired by the angry, tough love of Mr. Clark.  Right on Joe!!!! It’s like a bad afterschool special, really.  I’m not in denial of the endless variety of problems our schools encounter.  However, this film is less than two hours, and these kids have a test to pass, people!

I just think the wrong movie was made here.  I recall from the late 1980s, the real Joe Clark on the cover a Time Magazine defiantly holding his baseball bat.  My teenage self found the cover shocking.  Having gone to private schools full of unspoken discipline, I’d never imagine a teacher brandishing a bat to make his point.  So unusual was this to me that naturally Clark’s story should be made into a movie.  Yet, the triumph of Lean On Me depends on the passing score of the state exam.  Only, just how did these students pass this exam? 

It’s easy to compare Lean On Me to the film Stand And Deliver.  It’s also easy to see which is the better film.  The latter film focused on underprivileged and uneducated Southeast Los Angeles students who triumphantly passed the most difficult of standardized mathematic exams.  When the passing scores arrive at the end, though, I believed the truth of it all because the film focused on the inspiring teacher Jaime Escalante and his methods for teaching algebra and calculus.  Stand And Deliver showed how those students sacrificed their Saturdays to attend class and studied while working or tending to their families.  In Lean On Me, I don’t recall one student opening a single book or any teacher even writing on a blackboard.  They did learn the school song though.

I don’t disagree with anything that Avildsen’s film offers.  Joe Clark saw the importance of learning the school song to build up pride among his students.  He saw the necessity in painting over the graffiti to maintain the image of a proper institution for learning.  He went to desperate and defiant measures to protect the integrity of Eastside High School.  My problem is the means don’t justify the end.  How does chaining doors, painting over graffiti, and singing the school song, accompanied with endless screaming measure up to passing a standardized test?  Did it all just hinge on one proud moment ahead of taking the test with a beautiful and soulful rendition of the song “Lean On Me”?   I know the passing scores were all achieved in real life.  I just wish I got to see it on screen.

Note: Eastside High School is where my mom graduated from.  It did her proud to see the school recover to its original reputation.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

By Marc S. Sanders

Everyone remembers Anthony Hopkins’ memorable turn as the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of Lambs.  He was “Hannibal The Cannibal;” a renowned and brilliant psychiatrist who was eventually captured for being the one who ate his victims with sophisticated glee.  The real attraction, though, is how director Jonathan Demme delivers the film adaptation of Thomas Harris’ best selling novel through a lens that only finds one strong heroine amid a sea of intimidating men.  The heroine is the intuitive, but petite Clarice Starling.  The men are nearly everyone else cast in the film, and I mean everyone all the way down to the extras; the extras, here, are a perfect example how necessary they are towards any film’s palette.

Ever since the film was released in 1991, the dialogue of Ted Tally’s script is worthy of repeating and mimicking in social circles.  Lecter remains spoofed in nearly every pop culture medium.  Hopkins’ character is unforgettable and he’s been ranked among the greatest film villains of all time with the likes of Darth Vader and Harry Lyme.  It’s a worthy honor.  His timing is subtle and mischievous while he remains silently dangerous.  You can’t take your eyes off the actor and you can’t erase the devilishly fun and evil character from your sub conscious.  Opposite this performance though is Jodie Foster in a top billing role as an FBI trainee named Clarice Starling, assigned to interview and maybe study Lecter as a means to a solid lead in finding a serial killer that has been identified in the media as “Buffalo Bill.”  Bill has been skinning and killing girls with large physicalities, around the east to mid-west portion of the United States.

So, there is a detective story at play here as Hannibal aids Clarice in her search for the killer, but only under his rules.  Demme paints the film with Clarice ably performing her job no matter the towering strength or perverted fantasies found in nearly any man.  An outstanding image early on shows her small frame entering an elevator.  She has been summoned to her supervisor’s office from the outdoor obstacle course.  She is sweaty, and looking tired.  The elevator is full of a dozen men in red uniform polo shirts that hug every muscle; they are strong, fit and healthy.  Clarice stands front and center and she has no reluctance to stand among this exclusive group.  Later in the film, Clarice is invited by her supervisor, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn in a deservedly dark and quiet performance), to investigate one of Bill’s victims that turned up in the swampy waters of West Virginia.  The coroner’s examination room is filled to the max with sheriffs who believe they serve a purpose to stay there to witness what’s uncovered.  The strength of Clarice is really shown here as she shoos them away.  The men’s facial expressions tell us they don’t care for this request, but Clarice isn’t going to allow them to remain.  Most importantly are her encounters with the head of the Baltimore psychiatric ward that houses Lecter.  He is known as Dr. Chilton played by Anthony Heald.  Chilton – a great character name that clearly colors in the twisted perversion of this guy.  Chilton is happy to boast of his prized attraction, Lecter, as if he’s a rare tiger and he has no reluctance to hit on Clarice when she comes to visit with Lecter.  Always, Clarice will not allow herself to be succumbed, patronized or victimized by any of these towering figures of masculinity in what is unfairly regarded as a man’s world in law enforcement, crime or psychiatry.  Starling easily reminds Chilton that she was a student at the University of West Virginia, not a charm school.  With Tally’s script, Jodie Foster uses these deflective techniques of her character without effort.  Her methods of fencing with these men are a natural ability.  Even when she’s in film transition periods of training at the Academy, Clarice can maintain her stance against a hard-hitting male boxer pounding away at her boxing shield.  She just won’t fall over. As well, she doesn’t wince as the male students give her a glance from behind when she’s jogging on the grounds. 

Demme is an outstanding director who uses these interpretations of this woman to drive his film.  This very same year, 1991, Ridley Scott directed Thelma & Louise.  In that film, the title characters had to realize that they didn’t have to take any shit from a man.  They started out weak, though, and had no choice but to eventually get stronger.  Here, it’s already part of the woman’s instinctive nature. 

Hannibal Lecter is shown to be well versed in the finer things of art, literature, music and, forgive me, cuisine.  At one point, Demme focuses on a picture Lecter has sketched depicting Clarice in an almost angelic nature.  I’ve never forgotten that image.  Nearly all of the settings in The Silence Of The Lambs include stairways that always lead us in the down direction, to an assortment of various hells.  Clarice, the pure angel with nary a fault beyond limited experience as an FBI agent peels the onion away on her quest for a killer by entering into the treacherous depths beneath her; pits of hells.  The opening shot of the film has Clarice pulling herself up with a rope on an obstacle course as if she is ready to enter the heavens, ready to stand above everything, but then she is summoned to Crawford’s office located at the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the FBI.  She has to take an elevator down and then various stairways further down into a labyrinth of claustrophobic offices with no windows, surrounded by cinderblock and populated with men in uncharacteristic suits that don’t appear warm or cuddly.  Crawford may seem like her ally, but really, he’s using her as a sacrificial pawn on a chess board putting her in an arena with psychotically dangerous prisoners, in particular, the worst of them all, Hannibal The Cannibal. 

When Clarice goes to visit Hannibal, she is escorted by Dr. Chilton, who relishes in describing how careful he handles his prized thing, and willingly shows what this monster is truly capable of by providing an unwelcome photograph of how Lecter brutalized a female nurse.  This conversation is played upon a much more frightening descent of unlimited stairways and bars that clang loudly and are painted red and rusted, eventually leading to a stone walled dungeon for these unimaginable beings of death and perversion.  Clarice is left all alone to navigate her way down a long corridor until she reaches Lecter’s cell.

Yet, an even more frightening third descent into hell occurs in the final act as Clarice’s pursuit leads to Buffalo Bill.  Bill’s home is dark, lurid, filthy and maze like; but always seeming to go down further and further into one doorway after another and down one staircase after another, including a deep well where his latest victim is kept.  Like the other descents, Clarice uses her femineity as a tool of strength to survive.  I can claim without any hesitation that Clarice Starling is one of the greatest heroines in the history of film. 

The one man who rattles her, and weakens her, though is Hannibal Lecter.  Watch their tete a tete when they meet for the first time.  Starling demonstrates some overconfidence against Lecter’s seemingly polite demeanor.  With her white trash Virginia dialect, she even gets a little smarmy with the Doctor, but then he disarms her immediately with a comeback that shakes her very core.  Demme’s reliance on close ups for both characters serve this scene and others so well.  Clarice’s encounters with Hannibal are the most important and vital moments in the film because they are the only opportunities for Jonathan Demme and Ted Tally to show the main character’s weakness.  Every hero has to have a weakness if they are to remain compelling.  Clarice is not, in fact, undefeatable. 

The film could have simply worked as a basic detective story.  Put up the clues and the narration of the picture will eventually assemble all together for a resolution where the bad guy is captured.  Yet, Thomas Harris’ character creation uses Hannibal as a defiant obstacle blocking the path for Clarice.  Hannibal lacks much stimulation in a cold, specially designed prison cell.  He’s maybe only honored with impenetrable plexiglass to contain him as opposed to traditional bars.  He needs to be enthralled.  On the surface, Clarice appears as a frail prey that he can take his time munching on.  He’s happy to help Clarice catch Buffalo Bill with the case files she provides, but in exchange he wants to uncover what haunts her psyche.  Such a strong character Clarice is, but she has to be willing to weaken and expose herself to desperately find a dangerous killer.  Can she do it?  She’s never allowed herself to do that before.  And thus, we come to comprehend the obscure title of this film and the book it stems from.  (Anthony Hopkins actually thought it was a children’s fantasy when he was sent the script to read over.)

This write up is not necessarily a review, but a means to honor the careful film and storytelling technique that Jonathan Demme strives for with The Silence Of The Lambs.  You might say, yeah, there’s a lot of walking in this picture, but pay attention to the direction of the walking.  Always going down, somewhat reminiscent as Little Red Riding Hood entering a dark and spooky forest and encountering the biggest and baddest wolf.  Jodie Foster might be in a company of men here, but the film works as a dual of femineity vs masculinity.  It’s strange to believe that Demme actually had Michelle Pfeiffer in mind for the Starling role initially, a more than capable actress, but one who at the time was more glamourous (The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Witches Of Eastwick).  Beyond the silly Disney films, Foster was known for lurid pieces like Taxi Driver and her first Oscar winning role as a rape victim in The Accused.  Clarice Starling is a character beyond a pop culture appearance of the time, and Jodie Foster emanates that portrayal.

The writing of The Silence Of The Lambs is so intelligent.  There’s a witty, yet deliberately poor taste, of sarcasm to Hannibal Lecter as he thrives off his superior intellect over Jack Crawford and the FBI.  It’s only enhanced when he’s dealt a lowly, formally white trash female student to play with.  Ted Tally offers precise timing in the dialogue with Clarice and Hannibal.  Thomas Harris’ drive to further a cameo appearance of Lecter in a prior novel (Red Dragon) with this book is a gift to readers and eventually movie watchers.  The Silence Of The Lambs doesn’t follow formula with a Law & Order technique of ballistics and witness interviews.  It drives into other directions to feed its development. 

Jonathan Demme’s film is pioneering.  I recall seeing it in theatres with other high school friends.  I was not enthused to see it.  The title was too odd.  The picture was primarily a talking piece.  There were gross and unwelcome images within the film.  It’s very ugly at times.  I was frankly accustomed to the likes of Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon films for my cops pursuing the robbers ideals.  I recall not even liking the film when we left, and I couldn’t comprehend its appeal that followed for the remainder of nearly an entire year, all the way up to when it was awarded the five main categories of Oscar wins (Actress, Actor, Screenplay, Director and Picture).  I definitely wasn’t accustomed to a strong character like Clarice.  Later that year, I saw Thelma & Louise and fell in love with their eventual triumph.  I needed to be spoon-fed their initial weaknesses at first.  Who was this Clarice in this picture, though?  I could not identify her strength that displayed right from the get go.  I wasn’t even 18 years old at the time and now I can say I just wasn’t mature enough for this film back in 1991.  Now, it’s thankfully clearer, though I still appreciate its subtlety so much. Jonathan Demme had such a clear vision of where he was taking this film and because it’s not dated, The Silence Of The Lambs stands as thriller, and an intelligent thought provoking piece that stays with you for a long time after each viewing.

WEST SIDE STORY (2021)

By Marc S. Sanders

Okay!  Let’s get the comparison out of the way first.  Steven Spielberg’s interpretation of West Side Story far exceeds the original 1961 version from Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins that won the Best Picture Academy Award.  I strongly encourage you to see this new film in theatres before it’s gone.  If you miss it, be sure that when you watch it at home, you have the highest upgraded flatscreen with the most enhanced sound system imaginable.  West Side Story of 2021 is a gift of sight and sound.

What Spielberg accomplishes with an updated and outstanding script from Tony Kushner is a more fleshed out, grittier and honest account of territorial entitlement and heated prejudice when the west side of New York City was on the brink of catering to a wealthy white populace and the Puerto Rican community had become established as Americans, even if they were never considered equals.  )The best promise the Puerto Ricans have here for a life is to live as doormen and housekeepers.)  The music and lyrics are more meaningful than ever before.  The characters are given more depth.  The settings become characters themselves.

West Side Story is another example of solid evidence that Steven Spielberg is our greatest modern director.  He not only focuses on the positions his characters hold, allowing them to act with passion and humor and heartache and despair, but he also takes advantage of the props and settings allowed to him beyond limits.  To watch classic numbers come alive not just with the outstanding vocals and dancing, but to see everything in the frame serve a purpose is so gratifying. 

When the Jets strut and ballet down the city streets claiming their elite status in song, Spielberg makes sure these guys literally stop traffic.  Unlike the mundane placement of the winning song “Officer Krupke,” in the original film which only happens on a sidewalk, Spielberg place the boys in the police station where the props of papers and office supplies along with the furniture pieces serve to lampoon the city judge, the cops, the psychiatrists and even themselves.  Maria (20-year-old sensation, Rachel Zegler) owns her rendition of “I Feel Pretty” while the picture enhances the performance with a run through the dress department of Gimbell’s.  Clothes and accessories fly off the racks to send Maria’s enthusiasm of love and happiness into the heavens.  Kushner and Spielberg make a very wise modification to have “Cool” performed by the romantic lead Tony (Ansel Elgort) as a means to calm down his buddy, Riff – leader of the Jets (Mike Faist), before going into a head-to-head rumble with Maria’s brother, Bernardo, leader of the Puerto Rican gang known as the Sharks. Spielberg places these guys on a rickety old dock complete with wide gaps in the floor for the boys to leap over along with smooth planks to slide around on while tossing a gun around like it’s a football.  These characters teetering on manhood beautifully display their recklessness for danger and pride.

Rita Moreno is the significant attraction early on as she fills the Doc mentor role in the local drug store.  Wise & Robbins’ film never made Doc into much of a mentor.  Moreno fills that void.  She portrays a new character named Valentina, the widow of Doc, and the film’s tool of sensibility during these troubled times.  Kushner creates a fleshed-out character who explains that while she married a Gringo, she remains a Puerto Rican and there’s no room for bloodshed.  She has learned to live with others, and now Tony and Bernardo and Riff and the rest need to do so as well.  In another writer’s hands, this might come off preachy.  Not with Kushner’s dialogue though.  The background of Valentina is paved out early on and her elderly physicality can only do so much.  She can’t disarm the toughies, but she won’t stand for their stupidity either.  It’s Moreno’s presence that brings the chaos to a halt even if she knows it’ll never end the senseless war.  She is sure to get an Oscar nomination and like her win as Anita in the original film, she’s likely to win the award here as well.  (The only Hispanic woman to win an Oscar since 1961, and she’s likely to repeat that accomplishment again.)

Another fleshed out character that I really appreciated is that of Chino (Josh Andres Rivera), the nerdy student and best friend to Bernardo.  He’s studying accounting and calculator repair, but Chino wants to join the Sharks and fight for their cause. Bernardo, the tough guy boxer, wants none of that for his friend.  He wants Chino to date Maria.  There’s multi dimension to Chino now that I never saw before, and it is so very necessary.  The character puts a heartbreaking seal on the end of the film or play, whichever you are watching.  With Spielberg’s film, we get more of Chino’s motivation.  We now can understand why it is Chino that really delivers the final punch of the show.

Ariana DeBose plays Anita, Bernardo’s wife, and she’s spectacular as well.  I could watch her lead “America” through the colorful, daylight city streets over and over again.  In her yellow dress, with red lace underneath, and her magnificent energy, she’s a powerhouse of magnetism.  She leads a company of dancers with such a drive.  Again, Spielberg uses the environment of these characters to build them up and Anita dueling with Bernardo during this song in broad daylight (as opposed to just an evening rooftop from the original) is sensational.  Clotheslines and soft fabrics of pink, yellow and blue even sway to the pounding drum of the number from Leonard Bernstein, along with Stephen Sondheim’s original lyrics.

Having seen this film twice, I now recall when I watched it the first time how inappropriate it really was to have Natalie Wood cast as Maria in Robert Wise’s film.  Beyond the fact that she was never an accomplished singer or dancer, she is certainly not the correct ethnicity.  Her skin complexion was actually bronzed for the role and she lip synched her dialogue and singing.  Obviously, she was a marquee name at the time and the bills had to be paid while profits were collected.  Still, what an insult to point of the piece.  West Side Story’s conflicts hinge on racial and ethnic divides.  With Spielberg’s film, he went so far as to not even include subtitles for the Spanish dialogue.  I don’t speak Spanish, and yet while I can not translate, I could understand the emotions and motivations among the Puerto Rican populace.  Why should subtitles be provided?  Why should whites play Hispanics?  It’s a disgrace to consider, especially in a film that relies on ethnic identity.  Often, the Puerto Ricans are reminded by the cops or among themselves to speak in English.  Yet they continue on with the primary language.  Bravo.  Just because the soon to be famed Lincoln Center will be erected on these grounds doesn’t erase a heritage.  You can not whitewash a culture within a melting pot, and you cannot change a mentality that really doesn’t need to be altered.  Puerto Rico is America and Puerto Rico, within the confines of this film’s New York is here to stay.  Spielberg, the Jewish, typically non-musical director, ensures an equal playing field among the divided cast.

The chemistry among the cast has to be celebrated.  The Jets and Sharks work in pitch perfect precision with one another.  You only need to watch the high school dance to recognize that.  Moreover, look at the balletic fight scenes among the Jets in blue and the Sharks in red.  Elgort and the physically much shorter Zegler work beautifully as a couple forbidden to love, much less talk with one another.  Spielberg makes up the odd height differential by placing Tony on a ladder below Maria, who stands assuredly on a balcony or simply by seating Tony while Maria stands, thereby allowing their duets to work nicely in sync as they beautifully gaze upon one another.

2021’s version of West Side Story is an absolute masterpiece.  It is one of Steven Spielberg’s best films.  It’s entertaining, funny, celebratory and authentically heartbreaking. It’s the film I never, ever realized was needed to be conceived again.  West Side Story was the very first stage musical – Broadway musical – I ever saw and it always remained my favorite.  Yet, until I finally saw what Steven Spielberg could do with West Side Story, I actually never realized I hadn’t seen all of West Side Story.