MAN OF STEEL (2013)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 56% (damn…haters gonna hate)

PLOT: The last son of a dead planet finds a home on Earth and, thanks to enhanced senses and powers, becomes its mightiest defender when an ancient enemy attacks.


I never tire of repeating this: the majority of my enjoyment of a movie is derived from how it affects me on an emotional level.  And, brother, in my case, Man of Steel knows exactly which buttons to push to make the hairs on my arm stand on end.

I can still remember the first time I saw the very first teaser trailer, back in 2012.  It fired my imagination almost as much as the first trailers for The Phantom Menace did.  “At last,” I thought, “someone is going to make a SERIOUS Superman movie!  It worked for The Dark Knight, why not Superman?”

And in my humble opinion, it did work.  But before I get into the debate between different Superman versions, let me talk about this movie first.

Man of Steel is ambitious, audacious, and visually spectacular.  Its one major fault lies in the finale, in which a human family is threatened by a heat ray, and it seems all they have to do is just…run the other way.  But a point is being made (a good one, I might add), so I can forgive it after the fact.  On first viewing, though, I will admit the mildly absurd situation took me a little bit out of the moment.

But I’m picking nits.  The rest of Man of Steel is just a great experience at the movies.

Right from the get-go, we know we’re in for something different when, for the first time since Superman II [1980], we get a glimpse of Kal-El’s homeworld, Krypton.  But this is not your father’s Krypton.  This is a lush, red-sky world, with stunning vistas, flying creatures, and hyper-advanced technology.

The familiar story is all there: a dying race and a loving mother and father who send their infant son to the stars for one last chance of survival, for him and for their race.  In flashback, we see Kal-El’s childhood in Kansas, as he struggles to adapt to his enhanced senses.  This is one of the great concepts I’m glad the movie took the time to show.  We see him trying to cope with seeing and hearing EVERYTHING, all at once, and learning to focus his powers so he can function in this new world.  That was a nice touch.  The school bus scene was handled especially well.

We see him as a grown man (played by Henry Cavill) before he dons the familiar suit, a drifter, only reluctantly playing the hero from time to time.  I liked the beats in this section because they echoed some of the good deeds we saw in “Superman” [1978], but everything was done from a standpoint of genuine awe and astonishment.

Then an alien ship is discovered buried under the ice in northern Canada, Clark investigates, and so does ace reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), and things start to snowball from there.  But in “Man of Steel”, everything is handled in a way that makes the far-fetched story seem more real and relatable, more so than its predecessors.  And that appeals to some part of me that is hard to quantify or put into words.

Ever since I was a kid, I was drawn to the darker, grittier aspects of comic books.  My favorite Batman comic?  “The Dark Knight Returns,” Frank Miller’s magnum opus in which Bruce Wayne is an old man, the Joker winds up getting killed, and Batman and Superman fight to the death.  My favorite Marvel comic?  “Identity Crisis,” in which a superhero’s wife is murdered and the Justice League bands together to find her killer.  My other favorite comics?  “Preacher”, “Y: The Last Man”, “Saga”, “Watchmen”, “V for Vendetta”, and “Ronin.”  I was always, and still am, a fan of how the medium of comics can be used for telling mature stories that don’t always depend on happy endings, or heroes swooping from the skies to catch falling helicopters.

So when a movie DOES come along that, by default, has swooping heroes and a happy ending, but can ALSO make things a little darker or grittier than usual, I am thrilled, because it means the filmmakers are not confining themselves to ancient stereotypes.  They’re trying to surprise me.  They’re making a movie for ME.  …at least, that’s how I feel, because it’s right up my alley.  For example, one of the heaviest criticisms involves the overblown battle scenes.  But, man, I was TOTALLY okay with it.  No flying sheets of cellophane or creepy identical twins here.  These guys are playing for KEEPS.

Does this mean I am somehow in favor of comic book movies removing all traces of fun?  Of course not.  One of my favorite DC movies is “Shazam!” which was WAY more fun than I anticipated.  It’s pretty much a straight up comedy.  Would I prefer a grittier “Shazam” movie drained of fun, with dark skies and a darker ending?  No.  For “Shazam”, the fun approach worked.

When it comes to Superman, I think it’s a mark of the character’s versatility and endurance that it’s even possible for the “fun” Superman (yes, including “Superman Returns [2006]) to exist alongside the darker Superman.  It’s not like “Man of Steel” or its sequels somehow erased or replaced previously existing versions.  They’re still there.  If the comic book industry has taught us anything, it’s that the market for reboots and “remixes” is almost inexhaustible, as long as you stay true to the core principles of the character you’re working with.  In my opinion, “Man of Steel” does exactly that.  It keeps Clark Kent’s innate principles and values in place while dressing up the story to give us one of the best reboots of a character since “The Dark Knight” [2005].

There is, perhaps, one glaring exception, and it comes at the finale of “Man of Steel”, so SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER.

SPOILER ALERT.  You have been warned.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about: Superman is forced to kill General Zod (Michael Shannon) when it becomes clear that Zod will never stop his war on humanity, when he vows to kill everyone on Earth to avenge his lost civilization.  In the comic book, it’s a given that Superman himself does not kill anyone.  (There may be exceptions, but give me a break, I don’t read comic books religiously.)  So why this egregious contradiction?

Since “Man of Steel” is a reboot, I choose to think of it this way:

This is Kal-El’s first test as a hero, his first battle with an enemy as strong as he is in every physical way possible.  He is faced with an impossible choice: kill Zod, or allow countless more humans to die in who-knows-how-many-more battles.  He may be more powerful than a locomotive, but he is just plain inexperienced when it comes to this kind of decision.  So he does what he feels is necessary to preserve life.  He is definitely NOT okay with it.  Watch the movie, and you’ll see his howl of anguish and regret after the deed is done.

But he makes his choice.  He is the son of two worlds, but he chooses Earth.  “Krypton had its chance,” he yells at one point.  It’s time for him to move on.

I know, movies are subjective, and there are no doubt many excellent arguments against my interpretation.  Maybe that’s what makes “Man of Steel” and the Superman character so durable: the fact that there are so many vastly differing interpretations, and that they all apply equally.  Superman can be many things to many people, but no matter how many years go by, he’ll still be what he’s always been: a symbol of hope.

(Got a little mushy there at the end, hope you don’t mind.)

12 MONKEYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Bruce Willis is a time traveler from an ugly dystopian future in 12 Monkeys.  His name is James Cole and his mission is to uncover why all but one percent of the world’s human population perished from a mysterious virus in the year 1996. 

Director Terry Gilliam specializes in disorienting his films.  No shot or closeup is well defined.  He’ll position his camera on a slant or he’ll turn it on an uneven axis so that nothing appears completely clear.  In 12 Monkeys, the viewer is as confused as the protagonist, James Cole, along with a psychiatrist he periodically encounters named Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe).  Beyond the camera trickery, the script of the film offers up oddball characters in both Cole’s present time period (the “future”) and in his past.  Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt, in his first Oscar nominated role) is one particular weirdo, residing in a mental institution that Cole is entered into when he time traveled back to Baltimore, Maryland in the year 1990.  During his stay in the loony bin, Cole is talking gibberish to Dr. Railly and her team.  Jeffrey has his own language of nonsense.

Cole’s dreams of himself as a child are intermittently weaved into the final edit of the film.  There’s a woman running after a man, a rapid beep, beep, beep and a gunshot.  Later returns to this dream will provide more clues fleshing out its significance.

It would be easy to have a five-minute conversation and spell out what occurs in 12 Monkeys, but that would be defeating the cleverness of the film.  The achievement of its story relies on the sum of its parts.  Terry Gilliam strategically lays out breadcrumbs with fractional pieces of dialogue, words and pictures that quickly flash in front of you.  It may even hinge on a news story or memorable pieces of music playing on a radio. Still, he also unnerves the characters and the viewer with uncomfortable and sometimes grotesque imagery. 

The first time you watch the film your attention may turn to the long stream of bloody drool hanging from Bruce Willis’ mouth when he shares his first scene with Madeleine Stowe.  Repeat viewings, which I believe only enhance the picture, will have you focus on the nonsensical dialogue that James Cole is continuously uttering.  Other characters are seemingly disruptive to your concentration, particularly the herky jerky behavior of Brad Pitt’s character, but their purpose is essential to a mystery that has left the world of the future in a tailspin where the last of the human race lives underground while animal wildlife roam the cities above.  Furthermore, who or what can explain the enigma behind a team of people perhaps known as The Army Of The 12 Monkeys?

12 Monkeys is a very weird and very unusual kind of science fiction film and that is its crowning achievement.  I have spoken before of how sometimes a movie can not be determined as a success until it reaches its climax, say the last five minutes of its running time.  Terry Gilliam’s picture is one such example.  Gilliam has a keen sense of foreshadowing with tactical layering of complexity.  He is wise with how everything neatly unravels at just the right moment. The answers to the mysteries that James Cole pursues eventually rise to the surface, reminding us that everything was right under our nose the whole time. 

I recall the elation I had the first time I saw the film in theaters.  On repeat viewings, I grin at how the movie is assembled.  Quick references that seem like blink and you miss it moments add up to a satisfying conclusion in Terry Gilliam’s film.  My colleague, Miguel, and I both agree on the time travel motif in 12 Monkeys.  It is one of those rare occasions where the science built within the story’s fiction seems to make sense.  Too often time travel movies paint themselves into a corner and can’t escape the gaping plot holes they leave behind.  Yet the different time settings of 12 Monkeys cooperate with themselves.  Because the film doesn’t color outside of its lines, its worth applauding how ingenious the picture truly is from beginning to end.

12 Monkeys may require your patience the first time you watch it.  It’s not a comfortable journey.  However, you’ll be glad you stayed with it as the story answers its own questions.

ELVIS (2022)

By Marc S. Sanders

Baz Luhrmann’s take on the legacy of Elvis Presley will certainly grab your attention, even if the director refuses to carry an attention span of his own lasting longer seven seconds.  Having watched the celebrated film from 2022 for a second time, eight months after my first viewing, I see more faults with the picture than achievements.  Elvis is strongest when the carnival ride stops moving, allowing its cast of colorful characters to have conversations with one another. 

Austin Butler is now a known name for his portrayal of the King Of Rock N Roll, whose career was squandered by a slimy business manager known as Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks).  Butler personifies what pop culture has recognized first and foremost about Elvis Presley, everything from the wild stage presence of dancing to the deep rockabilly singing or speaking (you decide) vocals.  He really bears an uncanny resemblance to The King as well.  Butler could have been better though had he been graced with a more economical and thoughtful script.  I don’t think Austin Butler was given enough to do.

The Elvis character hardly shares any conversations with any of the supporting characters.  That’s the film’s major shortcoming.  There are a scant few scenes of dialogue exchanged between Elvis and his mother and father, between Elvis and the Colonel, and between Elvis and his wife Priscilla Presley.  Baz Lurhmann wrote the script with Sam Bromell and Craig Pearce, and I guess it incorporates some major moments within the singer’s illustrious career but nothing seems to hold much weight.  Elvis gets threatened with being arrested for his pelvis swiveling gyrations while he performs.  We get a close up of the state Governor who leads this censoring campaign, but we don’t get an idea of his warped logic.  Elvis gets drafted into the army and the Colonel thinks to sell it as a comeback when his tour of duty will finish in two years.  Two years go by in a matter of sixty seconds however and the King is back to touring and donning the outrageous costumes, but we don’t see the marketing machinations led by the Colonel.  Where’s the deviousness and conniving?  Where’s the brainwashing of the public and our hero?  Elvis is also bedhopping from one woman to another and popping pills, but these incidents which arguably led to his life being cut short are glossed over with a sway of Luhrmann’s camera work.  When the third act of the film arrived, I didn’t even know Elvis was sleeping around until Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge) announces she is leaving him.  On her way out the door, the two characters share about five or six lines of dialogue before the film races to another transition or scenario.  In this film, the love of Elvis’ life, Priscilla, holds about as much presence as an extra in the film.  Their relationship isn’t explored like Johnny and June Carter Cash in Walk The Line, for example.

Lurhmann edits his scenes with title cards of what year it is or what place it is as Elvis tours the country.  Yet, I never got the feeling that I was inside these time periods.  A minute to a minute and a half go by and suddenly it is “One Year Later.”  What difference does that make?  Where’s the transition in Elvis’ character?  When exactly did he become a sensation?  Suddenly I see that Elvis is moving into a mansion (I think is what will eventually be Graceland) with his parents and I presume he’s…well…he’s a success?!?!?!

An opportunity presents itself for Elvis to have a mentor into the world of celebrity stardom by means of B.B. King (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), but as soon as he introduces himself, the man disappears and is not heard from again.  Elvis only offers a piece of dialogue later suggesting that “B.B. King once said…”  There’s no significance to the influences or naysayers who enter Elvis’ life.  The same goes for Elvis’ mother, Gladys (Helen Thomson).  The Colonel will assure Elvis’ parents that he has their son’s best interests in mind as he blossoms his career, but we don’t get enough of a solid foundation for his mother’s apprehension or her religious doctrine or the alcohol addiction that kills her.  

I know, reader.  You can argue that I’m offering descriptive text for these people.  However, the text that I give in this column is all that you see.  Baz Lurhmann is a flashy director.  I don’t doubt his skill for color with sparkles and glamour. No subject is glitzier than Elvis Presley.  Yet, if a biography is going to be recounted on film, it needs to be more than just a near three-hour music video.  Luhrmann seems prouder of the letter fonts and graphics that introduce another year like 1956 or another state like Tennessee as it zooms towards you from the depths of the screen.  The gloss of the photography in the movie is overly animated, lacking feeling or character arcs.

The script for Elvis seems to also adopt the approach that Milos Forman’s Amadeus took, where the puppet master/antagonist recalls the celebrity’s story.  Colonel Parker provides voiceover with a thick, German/Austrian (maybe ???), dialect for Tom Hanks to deliver.  Unlike popular opinion, I was surprisingly taken with Hanks’ portrayal.  He’s quite the villain in a disproportioned fat suit and bulbous sweat-soaked head.  The relationship between Elvis and the Colonel is nothing surprising.  We’ve seen plenty of bios where the manager swindles the fortunes of the outstanding talent.  Considering that is how it happened, I don’t mind seeing it again in Elvis.  However, much like everything else in the film, it is glossed over.  Only very late in the film do we learn that Colonel Parker is deeply indebted to the Las Vegas casinos, and he signs away a long-term Elvis obligation in lieu of repayment.  Before all of that comes into play however, while we know we can’t trust the Colonel, we also don’t know what his endgame is.  Only near the end, Luhrmann and his script writers throw in a last-minute Hail Mary to shock the viewers and uncover how the Colonel destroyed Elvis’ financial assets and betrayed his trust.  Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much of a relationship between the two rivals after over two hours of film.  A build up is missing.  The best way for a villain to attack a hero is to whet his appetite with trust and then use that reliability as a control device.  The script for Elvis never sets up those early moments of exposition that get the viewer, and more importantly Elvis, to trust the Colonel. 

Michelle Williams once played Marilyn Monroe in a film called My Week With Marilyn.  It’s an astonishing performance in a very shallow film.  In my review of that picture, I wrote that I wish I could see Williams play the role again in a story more worthy of what she puts on screen.  She was above that movie.  I feel the same way for Austin Butler and Tom Hanks here.  These are great actors who were not given adequate material to shine.  If only another Elvis picture could be made with them in the principal roles.

What I find ironic about Elvis is that when I first saw the film upon initial release in theatres, I felt thoroughly impressed.  While I am always more cold than hot on Baz Luhrmann’s movies, I thought maybe this was the exception.  Watching it a second time however, eight months later, I realize that much of the film I could not remember and that is because that movie doesn’t invest in memorable scenes.  It focuses much too much on flashy edit, cut aways.  What I lost from that narrative is an intimate connection to Elvis or any of the other characters. 

Even the music is not as electrifying as it is known for.  There is not enough time devoted to individual set pieces of Elvis performing numbers like Heartbreak Hotel or Jailhouse Rock, and because of the quick cuts, I’m not convinced that Austin Butler is truly crooning away in an Elvis impersonation like Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles or Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash or Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison.  Austin Butler is just not offered ample opportunity to do his best Elvis performing.

As colorful as Elvis’ life was and his legacy continues to be, Baz Lurhmann is certainly a viable candidate to direct this biography.  The problem is maybe that Lurhmann needed an editor and producer who would put their foot down and tell him to try again.  Lurhmann was more concerned with showing his own kind of magic in filmmaking and reserving the story and plot devices for the closing act.  Exposition within the last thirty minutes of a movie usually never works.

BOY AND THE WORLD (Brazil, 2013)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Alê Abreu
CAST: Vinicius Garcia, Alê Abreu, Lu Horta
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A little boy goes on an adventurous quest in search of his father.


Filmmaker Brad Bird, the mind behind The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles, once said something that occurred to me multiple times while I was watching the Brazilian animated film, Boy and the World.

“…animation is not a genre.  And people keep saying, ‘The animation genre.’  It’s not a genre!  A Western is a genre!  Animation is an art form, and it can do any genre.  You know, it can do a detective film, a cowboy film, a horror film, an R-rated film, or a kids’ fairy tale.  But it doesn’t do one thing.”

Boy and the World proves Bird’s statement correct by delivering a succinct, poignant film, virtually without words, that defies classification.  Is it a kids’ film?  It’s colorful, vibrant, and contains no long words, but it was rated PG in America.  Is it a “grown-up” film?  There is absolutely some thematic material that might require some parental explanation, but the style of the film’s images is almost like a children’s book come to life.  Boy and the World is quite unique in animation, at least in the animated films I’ve seen.  The only film I might possibly compare it to is Walt Disney’s Fantasia…or more accurately, I’d say Boy and the World was inspired by Fantasia’s core concept.  It’s a fairy tale and a cautionary tale and a coming-of-age story and a visual tour-de-force all in one.


We first meet the titular Boy in this story as he seems to be hearing music coming from under a colorful rock in a field.  The Boy is never named.  Indeed, what little dialogue we ever hear in the movie is conveyed either by grunts and coughs and harrumphs, or by a peculiar, unrecognizable language.  I turned on the Blu-ray’s subtitles, and it only said “SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE.”  But the film’s story is so well-constructed, a literal understanding of their speech is never necessary.  (Trivia note: I learn from the disc’s special features that the language we hear is Portuguese…spoken backwards.)

The Boy lives with his mother and father in a humble dwelling in the Brazilian countryside during an unspecified time period, though his clothing indicates something close to present day.  One day, his father simply decides to leave, boards a train, and is gone.  We are not given a clear reason for his departure.  The Boy is distraught, so one night he packs a suitcase (its only contents: a photo of him with his mother and father) and sets off to find him…

From there, the movie becomes an absolute visual feast.  I do not wish to give further plot details – and there IS a surprisingly compelling plot – but I do want to give some idea of the startling originality on display during the film.

  • The Boy has a unique ability that no one else in this world seems to have: he can see music.  Whenever his mother hums a tune, or his father (in flashback) plays a song on a recorder, the Boy sees the music appear in the air as little balls of color, like cotton balls or tiny clouds.  Later, he watches a parade go down a street, and the music clouds rise and swirl together in the sky, forming a huge multicolored bird.  Later still, a military formation marches down another street.  The boy sees that music as blacks and greys, and the bird it forms in the sky is far more imposing and ominous.
  • Nothing in the film is a literal representation of what it’s depicting.  For example, when the Boy sees a big city for the first time, most of the vehicles appear to have faces.  The language on all the ads and billboards doesn’t make any sense.  The sports he sees on the TV sets in the shop windows are confusing and nonsensical.  It is more like an impression a child might have of a big city, and it feels more real because of its stylistic liberties.  When he sees large industrial machines in operation for the first time, they look more like elephants and dragons than tow trucks and construction cranes.  This is something animation can do better than any other medium.

  • There is a heartbreaking scene when the Boy sees a train pull in at a station and sees his father step out.  The Boy runs forward…and then his father steps out of another car.  And another, and another.  And soon the platform is crowded with scores of men, all identical to the Boy’s father, and the Boy falls to his knees in frustration.  I interpreted this as an eloquent analogy of how anyone in the Boy’s situation might see a recognizable figure in the distance, only to be disappointed again and again.  Instead of it happening 15 or 20 times in the movie, we got it all at once, and it was an unexpectedly powerful moment.
  • Listen closely, and you’ll hear that a lot of sound effects, from birds in the jungle to car horns honking to clattering machinery, are made by musical instruments or the human voice and/or body.  Yet another unique element to an already unique film.
  • The resolution of the boy’s search took me completely by surprise.  There were little visual clues that had me believing the movie was not going to have a happy ending.  But then it unfolded, and the effect was eye-opening.  I won’t say one way or the other if he found his father or not, but I will say the ending felt earned, authentic, and very satisfying.

All told, Boy and the World is a marvelous little discovery, one that I plan to re-watch soon to drink in its marvelous visual concoction once more.  My colleague, Marc, is a playwright who once wrote a short play as a pantomime.  He believed (and still does, I think) that the main purpose of the visual arts is to show us something new and exciting whenever possible.  Boy and the World would be right up his alley.

ENTER THE DRAGON (Hong Kong, 1973)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Robert Clouse
CAST: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly
MY RATING: 8/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 95% Certified Fresh
Everyone’s a Critic Category: “Watch a ‘B’ Movie”

PLOT: A Shaolin martial artist travels to an island fortress to spy on an opium lord under the guise of attending a fighting tournament.


I have just finished watching the quintessential ‘70s chop-socky kung fu flick, Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee’s fitting, if all-too-early, swan song.  I now sit in front of my computer terminal and try to figure out how to review this movie that screams low-budget, from its liberal use of zoom shots and slow-motion, to the gloriously cheesy score from Lalo Schifrin, interspersed with kung fu yells during the opening credits, to the cookie-cutter nature of the bare-bones screenplay.

I sit.  I ponder.  By any “serious” metric of film criticism, this is not a “good” film.  Sure, it was probably groundbreaking for its time, but in the years since its release, other movies have trumped it on many levels.  I’ve seen movies with WAY more kung fu action (Drunken Master II, Kung Fu Hustle), movies with way higher production values (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Big Trouble in Little China), and movies with way better screenplays (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Kill Bill).

But Enter the Dragon has one thing those other movies don’t: the sheer charisma and magnetism of the master, Bruce Lee.  In every scene he’s in, Lee’s eyes always seem to be working, working, working, whether he’s having a conversation with a British official or defeating an opponent twice his size in a kung fu tournament.  His intensity radiates off the screen.  In one scene, he instructs a young pupil in short, clipped tones, exhibiting nothing but concentration and admonition.  Then later he wins a bet on an unusual animal fight – praying mantises – and check out his cocky smirk as he reaches out for his winnings.  He may not be subtle, but who cares.  He’s Bruce freaking Lee.

He is the single “x-factor” that elevates Enter the Dragon into the pantheon of hallowed action films.  If it had been made with another actor in the lead, it would have been forgotten a long time ago, the second half of a double bill for all eternity.  The story is decent enough, although it feels cribbed from more than one Bond movie, or maybe all of them at once.  The screenplay is…well, let’s say it doesn’t give its characters very good things to say.  One of my favorites is when Williams (Jim Kelly) looks at the vast squalor of the “boat cities” in Hong Kong Bay.  He shakes his head ruefully and says, “Ghettoes are the same all over the world.  They stink.”  It’s not exactly Tennessee Williams.

Then again, that may be one of the factors that works in the film’s favor.  We must come back once again to Bruce Lee.  With his imposing presence throughout the film, that fierce stare, that iconic yell, that chiseled physique, perhaps more realistic or polished dialogue wouldn’t quite fit.  If you’ve got an actor swinging for the fences, don’t try to hinder him, or anyone else in the film, with exquisitely crafted lines.  Accept the fact that all the characters, not just Lee’s, are intended, nay, EXPECTED to behave in very specific ways, and just switch your brain to “low-power mode.”  That’s where Enter the Dragon lives.

By the way, I’m a big Jackie Chan fan (he has a VERY brief appearance in Enter the Dragon as “Thug in Prison”).  I love the intricately choreographed, unbelievably long action sequences in his films.  Enter the Dragon has multiple fight scenes, but none of them are very long when compared to Chan’s movies.  Truth be told, some of the fights in Dragon feel a little…stagey.  But that staginess is balanced by, once again, Bruce Lee’s intimidating aura that brings believability to every scene because, by god, HE certainly believes it.

Is Enter the Dragon the end-all/beat-all of kung fu movies?  In my opinion, no.  That title goes to Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master II with its mind-boggling battles that go on forever.  However, Enter the Dragon is an excellent example of how any movie, however badly written or shot, can be improved with the right actor in the starring role.


QUESTIONS FROM EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Best line or memorable quote?
[after watching an opponent trying to intimidate him by smashing a board in mid-air:]
“Boards don’t hit back.”

Why did you choose this particular film?
First, I had to Google search “notable B movies” to see what would fit the bill.  I’ve seen Birdemic, Troll 2, and the execrable The Room, but I don’t own any of them.  I saw a lot of 50’s monster movies on the lists I found, but I don’t own any of them, either.  Suddenly, pay dirt.  Turns out Psycho qualifies as a B movie…who knew?  But that movie is too darn good to be lumped with movies like The Blob and The Tingler.  I needed a movie that exhibited its low-budget restrictions on its sleeve and still managed to be unironically entertaining.  Voila: Enter the Dragon.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

By Marc S. Sanders

Before Fatal Attraction and countless other stalker/possessive lover thrillers that continue to monopolize all kinds of entertainment mediums, there was Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty For Me.  Watching it for the first time in modern day, I can say that it pushes all the standard buttons of this kind of thriller formula.  The over enthusiasm of the mentally disturbed stalker, the uninvited appearances at inopportune times, the late night phone calls, and of course the knife wielding.  Nevertheless, I remain impressed with Eastwood’s interpretation.

Eastwood also headlines the cast as a late-night disc jockey named David.  Each night he gets a call from a devoted fan named Evelyn (Jessica Walter) requesting he play the jazzy tune, Misty by Erroll Garner.  Included in Dave’s regular programming are stanzas from poetry that he reads to his listeners and endorsements of favorite hang outs and bars that he frequents within the breezy coastal town of Carmel-By-The-Sea, California.  (Years later, Clint Eastwood would be elected Mayor of this community.)  Naturally, Evelyn shows up at one such regular hangout and the two have a one night stand under the presumption of no strings attached.  Of course, there would not be much of a film if Evelyn adhered to that policy.  Thus, the pattern begins.

Evelyn follows Dave around town.  She shows up uninvited at his house ready to prepare a steak dinner.  She’s knocking on his door in the middle of the night, naked under an overcoat.  There are phone calls along with disturbing, unexpected outbursts as well.  Complicating matters for Evelyn is that Dave is on his way to rekindling a romance with a former flame named Tobie (Donna Mills).  Then, it really gets frightening.

For a first time director, Clint Eastwood really shows some expert skill in Play Misty For Me.  The film opens with an overhead shot above the cliffs adjacent to the coastline, and then the camera circles around through the sky and finally zooms in on Eastwood standing on a veranda looking out to the sea.  It’s a glorious scenic shot and the director carries this theme throughout the course of the film.  A locale that impresses me is The Sardine Factory.  It is where Dave and Evelyn first meet, and Eastwood’s friend, mentor and often director, Don Siegel makes an appearance as a bartender.  The Sardine Factory is still there to this very day. 

Eastwood seems to offer a tourist guide and a photographic devotion for this quiet little town, and it contrasts well with the disturbing storyline.  Carmel-By-The-Sea seems like a comfortable and trusting area to live.  Therefore, it is all the more easy for an intruder to lay claim within the unguarded setting.  This film might be from 1971, over fifty years ago, but it makes me want to go visit.  We are treated to live footage at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and it does not overstay its welcome.  Eastwood’s film work is gorgeous throughout the whole picture. Particularly during a midway music sequence featuring Roberta Flack’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, playing over footage of Dave and Tobie spending time and making love together. 

Jessica Walter is especially good in her role as the menace to this man’s livelihood.  She’s alluring and relaxing with her first encounter with Dave.  Then, she’s upended by the disruption and unwelcome halt of her romantic tryst and outbursts come from out of nowhere.  Eastwood lives up to the thriller characteristics of the film by the way he shoots Walter in close ups that appear with no build up.  He includes shots of her face and brunette hair in nothing but darkness with an agonizing scream.  It’ll shiver you.  It just makes Evelyn’s appearances even more shocking. 

The film that comes to mind when I watch Play Misty For Me, is Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction from 1987.  I think that would be the go-to response for most viewers today.  However, it would be unfair for me to say I know what happens next.  Yes, I did know where everything was leading to.  However, Eastwood’s film is the pioneering installment, released years ahead of the other film.  I’ve always had mixed feelings about Fatal Attraction honestly.  I can’t take my eyes off it, especially because of the performances from Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer, but I frown heavily on the slasher ending that was pasted on to film.  Glenn Close did too.   Now that I’ve seen Eastwood’s movie, it astounds me how much Lyne’s picture lifts from the 1971 thriller.  Both films incorporate references to Madame Butterfly.  There’s a suicide attempt for attention.  There are phone calls and knocks on the door in the middle of the night.  There’s another lover who may be in harm’s way.  There’s an abundance of similarities in both films.

I have to wonder.  Should I now go back and revise my review of Adrian Lyne’s film? 

SAFE (1995)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Todd Haynes
CAST: Julianne Moore, Xander Berkeley, Peter Friedman
MY RATING: 4/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 87% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An affluent but unexceptional homemaker in the suburbs develops multiple chemical sensitivity.


From Wikipedia:  “Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS)…is an unrecognized and controversial diagnosis characterized by chronic symptoms attributed to exposure to low levels of commonly used chemicals…Blinded clinical trials show that people with MCS react as often and as strongly to placebos as they do to chemical stimuli; the existence and severity of symptoms is seemingly related to perception that a chemical stimulus is present.”

I lead off with that because the disease showcased in Safe is utterly unknown to me.  To me, it sounds like a fancy term for bad allergic reactions, but I’m not a pharmacologist, so there you go.  I don’t mean to suggest it isn’t real, despite the blinded trials.  For the people afflicted by it, their symptoms are real enough for them, so it’s good enough for me.

And yet, despite the fact that Carol (Julianne Moore), the protagonist of Safe, is clearly suffering from something – clinically, mentally, or otherwise – affecting her health in unusual ways…I simply didn’t care.  Safe is one of those movies probably best discussed with a group so I can get opposing viewpoints, because mine is fairly negative.  Apart from Julianne Moore’s effective performance, the movie is a well-photographed but ultimately confusing slog.

Carol is an affluent housewife – sorry, homemaker, she makes that correction herself in the film – whose days are filled with making sure the 2-piece sofa she and her husband ordered is the right color, tending to her rose garden, lunching with friends, baby showers, and Jazzercise (the film takes place in 1987).  Her speaking voice sounds as if she’s internally apologizing for filling the gaps in conversations.  Her relationship with her stepson isn’t the greatest, and the role of her husband (Xander Berkeley) seems to be little more than that of a breadwinner and baby-maker.  Moore is a great actress, and in Safe she succeeds in making Carol a void, which is not an easy task.  (I was sometimes reminded of Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day where his one goal as a butler was to make sure everyone forgot he was there.)

One day, Carol suffers a coughing fit after driving behind a dump truck that spews vast amounts of smoke.  Later, she zones out at a dinner engagement with her husband’s clients.  She has trouble breathing after drinking a glass of milk.  She gets a spontaneous nosebleed after getting a salon perm.  The way the movie and Carol’s character are constructed, I got the idea that her illness was directly related to her nearly crippling ennui.  Actually, Carol reminded me of the main character in Jeanne Dielman 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, that semi-obscure Belgian film that was recently named the best film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine.  In both cases, a woman goes through the routine of everyday life while something percolates beneath the surface.  Safe attacks the story directly while Jeanne Dielman takes the long, long, LONG way around the barn, but the principle is the same.

Carol sees her family doctor who pronounces her perfectly healthy, aside from her apparent reactions to chemicals.  She starts wearing a mask when going outdoors.  One day, she walks into her local dry cleaner’s wearing her mask before realizing the place is being fumigated for pests.  She immediately falls to the floor with convulsions; blood suddenly appears in her mask.

So far, it’s looking like a “Disease-of-the-Week” Lifetime movie.  Ah, but here’s where it gets sort of interesting.  In a nearly throwaway line, it is revealed that the blood in Carol’s mask didn’t come from her lungs or her nose.  Apparently, she bit her lip.  No one can fathom why she bit her lip, least of all Carol herself.  So, I’m thinking, “Okay, she’s really suffering, but it’s not from anything real.  She bit her lip because she saw the exterminators and their masks and their sprayers and she needed to be sick.”

Mind you, despite the sensational nature of that plot description, the movie up to this point is slow as molasses.  It seems to want to create a sense of creepiness or dread, but because I was pretty sure she wasn’t truly sick, based on the information provided in the story, it didn’t really grab me.

Eventually, Carol winds up at Wrenwood, a kind of “rehabilitation clinic” she saw in a commercial on TV.  If the movie was weird and confusing before, it gets more so from here on out.  Wrenwood is not so much a clinic as a metaphysical/holistic retreat.  Its leader, Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman), speaks to his patients/slash congregation with a curious message that can be distilled down to this: if you’re sick, it’s because your negative emotions – anger, fear, envy, etc. – have gotten the best of you and are affecting your immune system.  In other words, it’s your fault.  And to get better, you just have to be more positive.

This philosophy is insidious to the extreme.  I have a friend right now who was just recently diagnosed with ALS, a disease for which there is no known cure, and which is invariably fatal.  I wonder how he would respond if someone told him that, not only is this disease his fault, but he would get better if he would only be more positive.  Pardon my French, but that’s a load of horseshit.  ALS and cancer kill many thousands of people a day, no matter how positive their attitudes are.  Are you telling me they died because they didn’t smile enough?  Give me a break.

So, here Carol is, with this guy, and she listens to his orientation speech (which is followed by a musical duet right out of a stereotypical hippy commune from the late ‘60s), and she goes back to her cabin and cries her heart out.  And I’m thinking, “Finally, she’s come to her senses.  She realizes, like we the audience do, that this guy isn’t going to help her illness, imagined or not, because he’s a charlatan.”

But no!  She buys into it.  The movie keeps throwing these plot-related curveballs that made it difficult for me to understand what the filmmakers are getting at.  I’ve read that Carol’s illness is a metaphor for AIDS.  Okay, if that’s the case, what is Safe trying to say?  That there’s no cure?  What else is new?  This movie was made in 1995, long after AIDS first invaded the cultural zeitgeist, and two years after the movie Philadelphia brought it into the cinematic mainstream.

But let’s say that is the message.  Okay, let’s talk about how Safe delivers the message.  Short answer: it doesn’t.  At first, the movie would have you believe Carol’s illness is motivated by hysteria and not pharmacological.  Then it isn’t.  Then it is again.  Then she finds a haven that might provide a cure.  Then the haven turns out to be a fraud.  But she goes along with it anyway.  But then her condition seems to get even worse…

Safe wants to have it both ways.  Maybe it’s a Rorschach test.  Or maybe it’s more accurate to call it Schrodinger’s movie, where both solutions are equally possible, depending on who’s watching.  Are there movies that can pull this off?  Maybe you can list other examples besides 2001: A Space Odyssey, because I can’t.  By the time the cryptic ending rolled around, my chains had been yanked so many times that I just didn’t care anymore.  Carol is suffering from her illness, imagined or not, so it’s real to her.  But if the movie isn’t going to come down either way, what is it actually saying?  Having no perspective is worse than having one I disagree with.

Like I said, I need to watch this movie with other people, and we need to discuss it afterwards.  Maybe other viewpoints will broaden my mind a little bit to grasp Safe’s message, whatever the heck it is.  Viewed by itself in a vacuum, much like Carol herself, I was bored sick.

[P.S. The trailer for Safe is one of the most misleading trailers in film history, yet another in a long line of scenarios where a studio cuts the trailer for the movie they thought they’d get as opposed to the one they have. Watching it, you’d think you were in for another Outbreak. But, alas, no.]

MONSTER (2003)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Patty Jenkins
CAST: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 81% Certified Fresh Fresh
Everyone’s a Critic Category: “A Movie Based on a True Story”

PLOT: Charlize Theron gives a searing, deglamorized performance as real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, an intense, disquieting portrait of a profoundly damaged soul.


The first time I tried watching Monster, some years ago, I watched it with my girlfriend, but we never finished it.  The scene where Aileen Wuornos (Theron) is attacked and raped, leading to her first murder, was so visceral that my girlfriend had to leave the room before it had finished.  Since that time, she has watched hours and hours of “true crime” documentaries about Wuornos and Bundy and Manson and Speck and so many others.  Go figure.  Having finally finished Monster on my own this morning, I believe she could be ready to give this movie another try, although I’m not sure the version of Aileen Wuornos portrayed in the film will have much resemblance to the one seen in all those documentaries.

In the past, I’ve enjoyed movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs and even Zodiac, featuring implacable, inhuman murderers with unfathomable motives and blank faces.  I enjoyed David Fincher’s series Mindhunters far more than I thought I would, despite its disquieting subject matter, partially because the killers portrayed in that series may seem normal at first, but they are eventually revealed to have massive personality disorders, genuine sociopaths with little to no consciences to speak of.  But in Monster, director/screenwriter Patty Jenkins (who wouldn’t direct another film until 2017’s Wonder Woman) denies us the ability to pigeonhole Aileen Wuornos so easily.  She pulls a Hitchcock/Psycho on the audience: getting us to root for the ostensible villain even as she commits one murder after another.

Jenkins accomplishes this by showing how a dysfunctional home life and a sometimes apathetic and cruel society ground down a young girl with the same kinds of hopes and dreams we’ve all had into a damaged woman desperately looking for a connection.  One such apathetic soul in the film says what I’ve thought so many times in my own past about anyone who makes questionable life choices: “Lots of people have bad lives, and they still choose to move towards the light.  Otherwise, we’d all be hookers and druggies.”  Well, sure, that’s easy for me to say, with two loving parents, a private school education, living in a 3-bedroom house and a steady job, etcetera.  But what choices would I have made if my father knew his friend had been molesting me for years and not only did nothing, but beat ME up for it?  What if, in my first job interview, the office manager hadn’t taken a chance on a teenager with no job experience and instead berated me for not having a master’s degree or my own apartment yet?

Monster is not a typical serial killer movie because, while it absolutely does NOT approve of Aileen’s murders, it does not try to pretend she is a mindless, man-hating predator.  She is motivated by hopelessness and, as it happens, love.  Aileen meets and falls desperately in love with a naïve young woman, Selby Wall (Ricci), the first bright spot in her otherwise bleak existence, and will do anything to keep her in her life.  If “anything” happens to encompass hooking and murdering the occasional john, for her it’s a small price to pay for the happiness she has been denied for so long.

Monster has the look of a film shot on a shoestring, much like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which enhances its authenticity, especially when it’s clear the movie was shot in the real locations visited by Aileen and Selby in real life.  Having lived in Florida for over 35 years, I recognized the feel of the locations, the city streets crowded with convenience stores and car dealerships and seedy motels.  I’m pretty sure I’ve actually been to the “Fun Stop” where Aileen and Selby ride the Ferris wheel.  The usage of these real locations made everything feel legitimate, almost like a documentary.  (Full disclosure: Selby Wall is loosely based on Aileen’s actual girlfriend, Tyria Moore, but Moore refused to allow her name or likeness to be used in the film and divulged little-to-no information about her personal life, so Selby’s character is an estimation at best.)

And then, of course, there’s Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning performance as Aileen Wuornos.  Anyone familiar with the Wuornos story has seen her most famous photos.  Take it from me: the makeup department used every trick in the book to make Theron look like Wuornos’ double.  It’s uncanny, on par with Rami Malek’s transformation for Bohemian Rhapsody, down to the false teeth that subtly alter her profile.  She even shaved her eyebrows.  But those cosmetic marvels are nothing, nothing compared to Theron’s performance itself.  I recently watched Cate Blanchett in Tár and called that the greatest performance I had ever seen by a woman.  I must now amend that statement.  Theron completely sublimates her famously glamorous persona into a chaotic jumble of nervous speech patterns and a fake swagger and the rambling patter reminiscent of a junkie looking for her next fix.  The only time she ever seems at peace is in the arms of her lover.  This performance is even more remarkable considering how “non-flashy” it is compared to other movie killers like Hannibal Lecter or John Doe.  Sure, she has her outbursts, but rather than feeling like hammy histrionics, they felt raw, like watching hidden camera footage of someone genuinely losing their shit because of some deep personal loss and not because they got the wrong size coffee at Starbucks.  It’s a phenomenal performance.


Attention should also be paid to Christina Ricci’s performance as Selby.  It’s easy to lose sight of Ricci in a film that clearly belongs to Theron, but she pitches her performance just right as another needy soul looking for a connection and all too willing to overlook (initially, at first) the red flags of a girlfriend who comes home in a different car every other night.  Her home life may not have been as scarring as Aileen’s, but she will take any port in a storm offering relief from oppression.

I enjoyed Monster in almost the same way I enjoyed Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.  These people are not the most sympathetic characters ever, or the most relatable, or even the most likable.  But I see how their dysfunctional backgrounds brought them to their desolate situations step by step, and it makes me wonder whether I would have done anything differently in their situation.  I’d like to think I wouldn’t turn to murder and/or drug use in my despair, but Monster made me realize there’s no way to know for sure unless I walk a mile in their shoes.  The last lines spoken in Monster, which I won’t spoil here, lay out the kind of misery Aileen Wuornos seems to have faced at every stage in her life.  Imagine how things might have turned out if she had just been given a chance.


QUESTIONS FROM EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Best line or memorable quote?
“‘All you need is love and to believe in yourself.’  Nice idea.  It doesn’t exactly work out that way.  But I guess it was better to hear a flat-out lie than to know the truth at 13.”

After watching this film, did you want to learn more about the true story?  Why or why not?
I must be honest and say, no, I did not.  I do not claim that Monster tells the 100% true story from beginning to end.  It’s not a historical document.  It’s a piece of entertainment that strives for truth at the expense of slavish dedication to factual accuracy, and I’m okay with that.  I’m one of those people who believe JFK is a marvelous film, inaccurate though it may be, because it captures the feeling of what it was like during that timeframe.  The same with Monster.  I could watch however many documentaries on the life and death of Aileen Wuornos, and I can’t imagine any other piece of filmmaking approaching truth to any greater degree than this movie did.

EXECUTIVE DECISION

By Marc S. Sanders

A commercial passenger plane carrying a bomb with enough explosives to wipe out the entire eastern seaboard of the United States has been hijacked.  Fortunately, Steven Seagal has come up with an idea to get his squad of commandos on board and contain the threat.  It’s also a blessing that in the first twenty minutes of Executive Decision, Seagal dies during the midair transfer.  There!  I spoiled it for you.  I’m not big on spoilers, but this is worth it because I believe it’ll entice you even more to watch this scrappy, under the radar action picture directed by Stuart Baird.

Before all of the action gets started, Kurt Russell makes his introduction attempting to land a small plane during a flying lesson.  I wonder if that’ll play into the story later.  Hmmm!!!! Russell plays David Grant, a consulting analyst for the US Army. Dressed in his tuxedo, he’s swept up from a dinner party and informed of the terrorist hijacking at play.  Grant is familiar with the lead terrorist and his ideals.  For whatever reason he’s instructed to board a specialized jet with Seagal’s crew.  This jet carries a tube that will attach to the hull of the captive plane in midflight. The soldiers will climb aboard and go to work.  Complications ensue though, and after that harrowing scene is over, four members of the elite squad (one becomes paralyzed) have made it on board along with Grant and the design engineer (Oliver Platt) of the jet.  Now the fun begins. 

Baird invests a lot of moments with the commandos (led by John Leguizamo) sneaking around, and drilling small holes in the ceiling and floorboards of the plane to insert tiny cameras and get a look at the activity going on.  Every so often the terrorists threaten or give scary looks and we hope they don’t look down that hallway or in the elevator shaft.  The bomb also has to be deactivated but it’s never as easy as knowing to cut the blue or red wire, and there’s a “sleeper” passenger who can detonate the bomb by remote.  Where on the plane is that guy, though?  As well, the government debates with shooting down the plane of 400 passengers before it reaches America.  So, there’s a lot going on here.  Kurt Russell is especially good as a “work the problem” kind of leader who manages to earn the assistance of a flight attendant (Halle Berry).  We may know how this standard story will end up.  However, that doesn’t mean the journey can’t keep us on pins and needles. 

Executive Decision is never boring.  It’s engaging from beginning to end, even if we’ve seen this very basic formula countless times before.  Credit has to go to Stuart Baird and his lengthy experience as a film editor (the Superman and Lethal Weapon films), as well as the cast.  Kurt Russell is always reliable with upholding the tension of a situation.  Like Harrison Ford, he’s really good at playing the everyman caught up in a jarring, nerve-wracking situation.  Look at his film Breakdown for further evidence. 

Beyond Seagal’s early demise, the most amusing part of Executive Decision is watching Marla Maples Trump as another flight attendant emoting the worst panicked expressions for Halle Berry to act off.  Marla never delivers a single word of dialogue.  Even in 1996, long before the Trump name became regarded for many other reasons I need not discuss here, this likely unintended joke generated so much amusement for me, personally.  It must be seen to be believed.

That being said. Don’t watch Executive Decision just for Marla Maples Trump and Steven Seagal.  Watch it for the taut, suspenseful story it is, with a fantastic lead role performance from Kurt Russell, a solid supporting cast and a gripping assembly of tension from Stuart Baird.

CHICAGO

By Marc S. Sanders

When you are a sexy, sultry lady killer, infamy can just about save you from a hanging.  That’s what Rob Marshall’s Oscar winning adaptation of Bob Fosse’s Broadway jazz musical capitalizes on in Chicago. The movie is hot, steamy, dazzling and blazing with magnetic song and dance numbers that are easy to follow while getting your pulse racing.  The design, direction, music, and choreography are magnificent.  The cast is outstanding too.

During the glitzy 1920’s in the Windy City, Roxy Hart (Renée Zellweger) is a wanna be night club performer who gets arrested for the murder of her extra marital lover (Dominic West).  She’s thrown in the pokey where the well known warden Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) oversees all of the other murderesses, and often profits off of their sensationalistic crimes.  Roxy’s loser schlub of a husband, Amos (John C Reilly), manages to hire the hottest defense attorney in town, the handsomely slick and underhanded Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), to represent Roxy at trial.  Billy has never lost a case because his specialty is to manufacture drama for his accused clients, generating sympathy in the papers and among the jury.  In the film, there is a scene where Billy is literally pulling the strings on his puppets, particularly a marionette appearance of Roxy on his lap while he does the obvious ventriloquism.  A memorable moment for both Gere and Zellweger.  On the side is Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a double murderer of her husband and performing partner/sister.  Velma owned the public outcry until Roxy’s name was splashed along the headlines.  Now, the spotlight is quickly moving away from Velma.

Rob Marshall choreographed and directed Chicago.  He demonstrates the fun that can be had with murder.  Call it a new kind of excitement that normally we take jubilant delight with episodes of Murder She Wrote or Agatha Christie tales. 

The theme of this picture is how the story is narrated in a colorful reality.  On a parallel level it is performed on a stage nightclub with a bandleader (Taye Diggs) introducing the players who then breakout into their own testimonial song amid large choruses and dancers to enhance the attraction of headlines and sleazy, operatic narratives.  Christine Baranski is the reporter whose front and center, trying to collect the next big chapter development of whoever leads the hottest storyline at any given moment. 

Marshall will turn a courtroom proceeding led by Billy Flynn into a three-ring circus, while at the same time he’ll cut away to the nightclub.  Billy will be on stage, but he’s now wearing a glittery three-piece suit and doing a ragtime song and dance with a chorus of scantily clad, Burlesque women to apply a little Razzle Dazzle for the judge and jury.  Richard Gere is not who you think of for stage musicals, but he is positively charming.

Queen Latifah has a scene stealing moment to show off her entrance into the picture.  Mama Morton is in a skintight evening dress, complete with a swanky boa while performing When You’re Good To Mama on stage at the nightclub. Frequent cut aways have her dictating her powerhouse tune to the inmates.  John C Reilly performs Mr. Cellophane. He lays out certainty that there’s nothing inauthentic about the pushover loser husband he really is.  Both actors got well deserved Oscar nominations.

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger are a perfect pair of competitors.  They each have their individual moments and they act with such solid gusto; tough broads not to messed with.  The confidence they exude on screen with character acting, singing, and dancing is second to none.  The script will offer moments when Roxy and Velma think they are high and mighty, and winning the court of public opinion.  Then it will be undone when their hotshot attorney, Billy Flynn, knocks some sarcastic sense into them and a dose of reality sets in.  Roxy isn’t so fond of wearing a conservative black dress with a white collar in court until she sees a fellow cellmate lose her last motion of appeal, and there’s nothing left but to be punished by hanging.  She might be putting on a helluva performance, and signing autographs while souvenir dolls of her likeness are selling on the streets, but none of that ain’t gonna mean a thing if the jury finds her guilty of murder.

Just like I began this article, infamy is the word that kept coming back to me while watching Chicago.  Infamy bears celebrity.  Granted, it’s enhanced for a lively musical motion picture and stage show.  However, there’s a very, sad, and no longer surprising truth to that ideal.  A few years back, I recall news reports about a criminal’s sexy mug shot where he had donned a tattooed tear drop below his eye.  This guy was prime for runway modeling.  However, he was proven to be a violent car thief. He actually got signed by a talent scout following his bail out.  (I think the agent posted the bond.)  Later, he got arrested for some other crime. 

I never saw the reality program Chrisley Knows Best, about a God loving family who proudly live among the finest that money can buy.  Recently, the ultra-vain mother and father were sentenced to over a decade in federal prison for fraud and tax evasion.  Yet, their brand is stronger than ever, as the gossip columns can’t get enough, and their adult daughter’s podcast has millions of listeners.  Word is that a new program is being designed as a follow up to their prison sentences. 

Infamy bears reward.

Chicago pokes fun at the obsessions adhered by the media, the public, the courts and within the penal community.  The well known musical is now decades old, but the topics contained within clearly identify how news is not reported in a simple, objective Walter Cronkite kind of way, anymore.  Everything is heightened.  Everything is dramatized.  It’s not enough that Roxy kills her lover.  That will get her only so much mileage, until the next lady killer comes along (in the form of Lucy Liu, for example).  Roxy must stay relevant.  Announcing she’s pregnant will keep her on the front page (It could help that she faints while doing it). Velma knows all too well that the public favoritism she once had, accompanied with Billy’s sleazy promotion, is even further away. 

Rob Marshall presents a film where any song can be pulled out of context just for its sizzling entertainment.  Try not to forget the Cell Block Tango with solos from Zeta-Jones, as well as her fellow inmate chorus girls, each proudly describing how their guy “Had it coming!!!”.  All That Jazz is arguably one of the best opening numbers to a show, and Catherine Zeta-Jones owns the performance.  Individually, these songs and the performers win my attention in the car or the shower or during a workout.  Assemble them together with the overall storyline, and Chicago becomes a fast paced, kinetic roller coaster that makes you think while you smirk at all the scruples and vices being dismissed. 

The last time I saw Chicago was in theaters in 2002.  I had also seen a stage production of it before then.  I loved it both times.  Rewatching it recently gave me such a jolt of energy.  It is why theatre is a vital source of escapism. Here is an example where you can feel positively entertained while reflecting on a sad truth.  It might be sad, but you’re smiling all the way through while you mouth the brilliant lyrics and tap your feet.

Roxy Hart, Velma Kelly, Billy Flynn and the rest of the cast of characters make Chicago red hot and gleefully sinful.