the Digital Dogs

Now on Twitter

2009-04-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Being that I've worked hard to retain my anonymity ever since I first got online in 1988 (via the very first social networking site the WELL (Stewart Brand's creation on which we had to communicate writing code in picospan), I never in a gazillion years thought I would be into twittering. After all, I really don't care about what you had for breakfast or how stupid you look when drunk, so why would twitter ever appeal to me?

Dunno!

But I tried it anyway and now I'm hooked. My weekly column at gather (for whom I've been a blogger on a paid retainer for a few years now) quadrupled it's pageviews after just 1 wee twitter about my most recent column: HollywoodPOV: "Digital 3D and Monsters vs. Aliens". So, that's reason enough for me.

You can see the full listing of all my column's for gather here.
You can find me on Twitter here. Follow me and if you're interesting I'll follow you.

Finally Trying Out Scribe Fire

2009-02-12T22:44:00.001-08:00

Let's see if I can type right in a Firefox subwin and pub directly to blogger via scribe fire. Here goes.
Wow, adding the scribe fire link was almost automatic.
ScribeFire - Blog Editor

OVGuide.com - crazy & chaotic, but amazingly useful

2008-05-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

When I first heard about OVGuide.com I couldn't wait to check it out. What a great idea to have all the video content available online in one convenient place to search from. I quickly signed on, got my own account, and started exploring.

Upon first glance OVGuide.com looks like it's a dream, but after really exploring OVG it seemed more like a nightmare. The site looks too chaotic; the homepage is overwhelmingly crowded with paid ads promoting all sorts of sites that have videos, live streaming TV sites from around the world, regular US broadcast TV, news, sports, etc.

OVG is simply a guide to other sites, a portal of portals is really what it is... and a way for the sites owners to make money selling expanded text ads. But it can also be very helpful to those of us who watch TV, films, and videos online.

At the top of their homepage they have a search engine, which you will immediately try to use to find a specific TV show, film, or video. I searched for a Showtime series WEEDS and was given 10 results of which only 3 actually carried complete episodes from the first 3 seasons of the show. Next I searched for an old favorite of mine HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and got 20 results with only 3 sites that carried the show, but only had season 1 available to watch online. All the other results were for other HIGHLANDER films and trailers.

Next I searched for another Showtime series I watch THE L WORD. I immediately got 4 sites from their search engine and I was able to watch episodes I had missed the first time. I really appreciated this as I had been searching all over the net for the epi's I missed and could not find them anywhere. One quick search at OVG and I had a choice of sites to choose to watch my preferred show from.

Though the chaotic nature of OVG was off-putting at first, once I delved into it to try to find specific shows I was very impressed. After this experience I bookmarked OVGuide.com and plan on visiting it regularly. All they need now is for a zip code TV guide so I can also use their site as my own tv guide... my own online video guide.

I found OVGuide.com because I'm a bzzagent and it was suggested at their site. Read my frogpond review at bzz (if you want, but I've posted a much more complete review right here).

HOLLYWOOD POV: "Young At Heart"

2008-04-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

Forget those demographics that chase the false golden chalice of the male audience age 18-34. It's too bad all those demographic pundits are telling their clients to focus on a younger audience. Those clients are wasting their money and enriching the very people who don't know what they're doing by chasing a losing demo. The big bucks in this country are in the bank accounts and pockets of the quickly-aging Baby Boomers.

The best film of the year so far crosses all demographics and features a cast with an average age of 80. YOUNG AT HEART is an amazing feel-good documentary that won the doc competition at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival, and stars people who range in age from 72 through 95 who sing rock 'n roll classics with amazing ferver. They rock, they roll, they do it with humor and talent and a positive outlook on life that you will be inspired by.

YOUNG AT HEART is moving, touching, wonderful, and inspiring and it's the perfect film to see with your entire family. And you heard it here first, YOUNG AT HEART is the first nomination-worthy documentary of 2008.

In 1982 a young boomer, Bob Cilman, living in Northampton, MA, was kicking around trying to create his life. He happily found a job with health insurance at an old age home and began applying himself. Soon a piano player came to Cilman and asked him if he could find something for him to do. Out of that trail of happenstance grew an amazing story that will remain with you as long as you live. That story is about the cover band, the Young @ Heart Chorus. The film YOUNG AT HEART brings us a story more memorable and more heart-achingly brave than any you will likely ever see on the big screen.

A few years ago the producing partner and wife (Sally George) of Brit director, Stephen Walker, dragged him to a London Young @ Heart performance (who wants to see old people singing rock songs anyway? he thought) and within minutes he was enthralled. He walked out with his head spinning and he and his wife began bouncing ideas off their heads. Off to Channel 4 they went with visions of a documentary singing in their heads.

In Spring 2007 their small documentary aired on Channel 4 in the UK. A few months later the producers entered it in competition at just one film festival in thte US, the Los Angeles Film Festival. The audience was packed and the small documentary went on to win its category. Someone in the audience had the ear of Fox Searchlight and an offer was made that lifted this small TV documentary out of obscurity and into a full length feature film with global distribution.

Fox Searchlight's money was put to good use by the filmmakers, they re-mastered their original video into 35mm, redid the sound entirely into surround sound and paid for clearing the expensive music rights for most of the songs they perform. The money was used wisely and the film is being released now in the US.

The filmmakers also made a few music video set pieces with their Fox Searchlight funds; one standout is The Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated which the chorus performed in a hospital and just has got to be seen to be believed, it's that good; another great set piece is David Bowie's Road To Nowhere. You can meet the Young @ Heart Chorus here in a Fox Searchlight video at youtube.

Some of the iconic rock songs covered by the Young @ Heart Chorus are simply amazing. Coldplay's Fix You is one of those mesmerizing moments, as is the chorus singing Bob Dylan's heartbreaking Forever Young to a prison audience right after they found out a long term member of the chorus had just passed away. The prisoners sat enthralled as the chorus gave new meaning to Dylan's words. Click on the links to watch the videos on youtube.

If you're like me, you'll feel the urge to write the titles down because you won't want to forget them, they're that good... I've listed them below so you don't have to, but I'm sure I've left a few out. Having older people at the twilight of their lives singing these songs gives a whole new meaning to the words of songs that already have so much meaning for so many of us; it's an entire new spin on the words that end up meaning even more and much more deeply. And boy can these oldsters rock on!

Here's a small sampling of the songs covered in the film along with the names of the groups/people whose songs they are (links are provided to watch the performance videos on youtube, don't miss them):

Fix You by Coldplay
Schizophrenia by Sonic Youth
I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones
Staying Alive by The BeeGees
Forever Young by Bob Dylan
Walk On the Wild Side by Lou Reed
I Will Survive by Glorai Gaynor
One Fine Day by David Byrne (Byrne sings with the chorus in this video)
Life During Wartime by David Byrne
I Feel Good by James Brown
Every Breathe You Take by Sting & the Police
In the Midnight Hour - now a standard sung by just about everyone
Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix
Oh Yes You Can, Can
Golden Years by David Bowie
Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen
Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O'Connor
Somebody To Love by Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane
Road To Nowhere by David Byrne
She's Not There by the Zombies

Don't let anyone tell you that our tax dollars should not go to help support the Arts, without funding from The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the city of Northampton the Young @ Heart chorus would likely not still be around.

If there's one life lesson to be learned by YOUNG AT HEART, it's that It's never too late to fulfill your dreams. Allow yourself to be inspired. If ever there was a film that deserved your movie-going bucks YOUNG AT HEART is it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Digital Dogs rating: A

MPAA rating: Rated PG for some mild language and thematic elements.

Running Times: 107 minutes

Producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Sally George, Stephen Walker, Director Stephen Walker, DP Edward Amrritz, Actors Bob Cilman, Young @ Heart Chorus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2008 by Digital Dogs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOLLYWOOD POV: BAFTA/LA British Comedy Festival: You're Invited to Free Screenings of RUN FAT BOY RUN, HOT FUZZ, and MAGICIANS

2008-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

April 18, 2008 06:31 PM EDT
© 2008 by Digital Dogs

Living in Los Angeles just can't be beat. We've got perfect weather, access to great art museums, fantastic restaurants, tons of movie theaters showing the latest films that haven't even opened up in most other cities, a blossoming theater scene, amazing shopping and we're even developing our own Fashion Week (look out Manhattan, here comes LA!). We have the ability to surf the waves at the beach and then drive up the mountain to ski... all in just one day. We've even got multiple Farmer's Markets held in every city and neighborhood every day of the week. How can any other city beat that?

Industry screenings are another plus for those of us lucky enough to work in the filmbiz; one of many perks Hollywood insider's can take advantage of. And now you have an opportunity to take advantage of the same great perk too. As part of the 2008 BritWeek celebrations, BAFTA/LA is hosting the inaugural BAFTA/LA British Comedy Festival Presented by British Airways. Comedy has long been one of the UK's most acclaimed entertainment exports, and this festival will honor the best of Britain's film and television comedies from 2007. The Fest takes place from Monday, April 28 through Wednesday April 30, 2008... and you're invited!

BAFTA/LA are inviting the general public to join in their celebration of British comedy and these three screenings are free for you plus one guest. You can't cast a vote (only BAFTA/LA members can), but you can enjoy three free British comedy features which will be screened along with a few short Brit TV comedy episodes from a variety of nominated shows. No RSVP is required to attend, and seating is on a first-come first-served basis so be sure to get there early to secure yourself a seat.

Over the past few weeks, a select panel of top UK-based comedy talent chaired by Michael Hurll has short-listed 10 television programs, 5 films, and a list of comedy performers. This short-list is currently being judged by a panel of U.S. based comedy talent and executives.

The film panel includes Judd Apatow, Jake Kasdan, Adam Shankman, Nicholas Stoller, Steve Gaydos and Elizabeth Guider. The television panel includes Greg Daniels, Bill Hilary, Jeff Ingold, Al Jean, David Kissinger, Mike Schur, Mike Scully, Wendy Trilling, Dana Walden and Jane Wiseman.

Once the finalists are decided, the Voting Members of BAFTA/LA will receive screeners of the short-listed titles and be asked to vote for the winning Film and TV program. The finalists will be screened in late April, and the winners will be honored at an Awards ceremony on May 1st.

Members are now submitting their votes for the inaugural BAFTA/LA British Comedy Festival, and of course, the BAFTA/LA members already have special DVD screeners of these films. The nominated titles will be screened at three special Festival screenings that are open to the general public:

Monday, April 28 7:30pm
Screening of RUN FATBOY RUN and an episode of EXTRAS
Writers Guild of America Theater
135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills

Tuesday, April 29 7:30pm
Screening of HOT FUZZ and an episode of THE IT CROWD
Writers Guild of America Theater
135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills

Wednesday, April 30 7:30pm
Screening of MAGICIANS and episodes of GAVIN & STACEY and LITTLE BRITAIN.
Directors Guild of America Theater
7920 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles

Just remember, you won't be able to buy popcorn, and the WGA and DGA Theaters do not allow food of any kind in the theater (and that's a good thing! It means you won't have sticky shoes when you leave.)

It's a real pleasure for me to be able to invite you all to enjoy these free screenings! ENJOY!

----ABOUT THE FILMS----

HOT FUZZ

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is the finest cop London has to offer, with an arrest record 400% higher than any other officer on the force. He's so good, he makes everyone else look bad. As a result, Angel's superiors send him to a place where his talents won't be quite so embarrassing - the sleepy and seemingly crime-free village of Sandford.

Once there, he is partnered with the well-meaning but overeager police officer Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). The son of amiable Police Chief Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent), Danny is a huge action movie fan and believes his new big-city partner might just be a real-life "bad boy," and his chance to experience the life of gunfights and car chases he so longs for. Angel is quick to dismiss this as childish fantasy and Danny's puppy-like enthusiasm only adds to Angel's growing frustration. However, as a series of grisly accidents rocks the village, Angel is convinced that Sandford is not what it seems and as the intrigue deepens, Danny's dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gunfighting, all-out action seem more and more like a reality. It's time for these small-town cops to break out some big-city justice.

Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
Directed by Edgar Wright
Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Steve Coogan, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman, Bill Nighy, Lucy Punch, Anne Reid, Billie Whitelaw, Stuart Wilson and Edward Woodward

Rated R, Running time 121 min

RUN FATBOY RUN

Five years ago Dennis (Pegg) was at the altar about to marry Libby (Newton), his pregnant fiancée. He got cold feet and ran for the hills and he's been going in circles ever since. When Dennis discovers Libby's hooked up with high-flying-go-getter Whit (Azaria), he realizes it's now or never. He enters a marathon to show he's more than a quitter but then finds out just how much sweat, strain and tears it takes to run for 26 miles. Nobody gives him a chance but Dennis knows this is his only hope to more than a running joke.

Directed by David Schwimmer
Written by Michael Ian Black
Starring Simon Pegg, Hank Azaria, Ameet Chana, Dylan Moran, Thandie Newton, Harish Patel

Rated PG-13, Running time 97 min

MAGICIANS

Lifelong friends Harry and Karl (David Mitchell and Robert Webb) are the greatest magic double act in the country. But after a guillotine illusion goes horribly wrong, their friendship and careers are finished. Now, out of luck and totally broke, Harry sets his sights on the prize money of the prestigious 'International Magic Shield' tournament. But to win he will have to compete against the world's weirdest magicians - including his deadly rival Karl, performing as the psychic "Mindmonger". Can new tricks and a new assistant (Jessica Stevenson) help Harry triumph?

Directed by Andrew O'Connor
Written by Jesse Armstrong & Sam Bain
Starring David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Jessica Stevenson, Darren Boyd, Steve Edge, Andrea Riseborough and Peter Capaldi.

Rated 15 (UK), 97 Min
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2008 by Digital Dogs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2007 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2007

2008-03-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone who sees a film has an opinion.

Here’s Digital Dogs’ call on the films of 2007.

E-Ticket Rides

300
28 Weeks Later
Beowulf
Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard
I Am Legend
Transformers: The Movie

THE TOP FILMS

OF 2007:

The A List

300
3:10 To Yuma
Amazing Grace
American Gangster
A Mighty Heart
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The
Brave One, The
Bourne Ultimatum, The
Bucket List, The
Beowulf
Charlie Wilson’s War
Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
Enchanted
Hairspray
Hot Fuzz
Hoax, The
I Am Legend
Into the Wild
Juno
La Vie en Rose
Lust, Caution
Ratatouille
Rescue Dawn
Sicko
Transformers: The Movie

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The B List

28 Weeks Later
Atonement
Away From Her
Blades of Glory
Breach
Darjeeling Limited, The
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Eastern Promises
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Fracture
Golden Compass, The
Gone, Baby, Gone
Great Debaters, The
I’m Not There
In the Shadow of the Moon
In the Valley of Elah
Kingdom, The
Kite Runner, The
Miss Potter
Music Within, The
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Namesake, The
No Country For Old Men
Oceans 13
Reign Over Me
Rendition
There Will Be Blood
Savages, The
Simpsons Movie, The
Spiderman 3
Smokin’ Aces
Sunshine
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

Zodiac

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The C List

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
December Boys
Control
Grace Is Gone
Invasion, The
Joshua
Knocked Up
Lions For Lambs
Lucky You
Michael Clayton
Mist, The
Number 23, The
Once
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Reservation Road
Sleuth
Superbad
Things We Lost in the Fire

War

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF 2007: The D List, an incomplete grade

Don’t even waste your money on renting these losers...

Grindhouse – Yet another violent, unwatchable and incomplete film by the most over-rated director of all time, Quentin Tarantino. Folks, there’s a reason he has a hard time writing one complete film… he can’t! Stringing multiple stories together without reason does not make a feature length film, no matter which starlets you walk down the red carpet and no matter what kind of advance press you manage to get. The Robert Rodriguez section works much better.

Margot at the Wedding – Starring Director Noah Baumbach’s real-life wife Jennifer Jason Leigh and a botoxed-botched Nicole Kidman, this film was painful to watch because of detestable characters, ridiculous plot, and uneven direction.

Reaping, The - A painful waste of Hilary Swank’s talent.

Wind That Shakes the Barley, The – An important film about the beginnings of the IRA that was ruined by incomprehensible dialog. This film would have been more interesting were there subtitles. Please tell us director Ken Loach….exactly how many people in the world do you think are fluent in Irish? Don’t you think an important film deserves to be understood by your audience?

Youth Without Youth – A complete embarrassment for director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Tim Roth. This is a clear case of an auteur director indulging his fantasies in a confusing plot while forgetting that an audience has to be able to make sense of what’s going on. The look is beautiful, but the film is painful to see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's Hard to Keep Up

2008-03-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

It's getting real hard to keep up this blog. For the past year I've been a paid blogger on retainer with a weekly column called HOLLYWOOD POV at gather.com. It's lovely to be recognized as having something worthwhile to say, and it's even more lovely being paid to blog. But finding the time to see the number of films I see each year is hard on it's own, then add in the time it takes to do the research, getting the photos, doing the interviews, listening to the Q&A's, and of course, it takes even more time publishing to a few different blog sites (blogcritics, rotten tomatoes, gather, here). And of course, then there's life that always seems to get in the way.

So if you want to keep up with what my column, please go n read it at gather: DigitalDogs.gather.com and please forgive me for not having the time to keep up blogging here regularly.

MOVIE REVIEW: "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers"

2007-01-18T05:03:00.000-08:00

Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers are two full-length feature films that deserve to be screened together. They both tell the story of the battle for a small volcanic island, Mount Suribachi, in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Letters From Iwo Jima takes us to the island and shows us the gritty and challenging problems of living on and defending a volcanic island from the Japanese POV; Flags of our Fathers gives us the opening two days of the battle and then brings the story back to the States to tell the American soldiers personal stories on an Iwo Jima Tour in the USA.

Director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, Mystic River, Bird), rather than resting on his laurels as an American treasure, captures the heart of the story with his focus on the real story of both sides. Flags of Our Fathers is based on a New York Times best-selling book by James Bradley and Ron Powers published in May 2000 by Bantam Books. It’s about five United States Marines and one United States Navy Corpsman (a medic) who were made famous by award-winning news photographer Joe Rosenthal in his memorable photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. John Bradley was the son of the navy corpsman, and it through his voice-over that Eastwood tells the story of one moment caught in time in an iconic photograph of six men who raised an American flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. While most everyone has seen the photo at some point in their lives, few know the real story behind the one captured moment in the photograph. Eastwood sets out to enlighten us.

Letters From Iwo Jima (formerly titled Red Sun, Black Sand) was based on two Japanese books; Picture Letters from Commander in Chief by Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, and Sadness in Dying Gracefully by Kumiko Kakehashi. The story follows General Kuribayashi (played by the always wonderful Ken Watanabe) as he tries in vain to organize the defenses of his isolated and unsupported troops, and that of his good friend and former comrade in the cavalry, the aristocratic Lieutenant Colonel Takeichi Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihar), a 1932 Olypmic athlete and Gold Medal winner for Show Jumping. The audience will most identify with a lucky young draftee, Private Saigo (Kazumari Ninomiy), who yearns to return to his wife and newborn child back on the Japanese mainland, and who buried the letters we are reading. The men write these letters home telling their stories to their families, never knowing if any of the letters will ever reach their destination.

Letters shows us the horrid and claustrophobic conditions the Japanese were forced to survive in; they had to dig out the remains of the volcano’s lava tubes to create tunnels they could both live in and fight from to defend their land from what they considered to be the American invaders. The Japanese had little water, less food, and absolutely no support from their mainland; as they bicker among themselves we see flashbacks establishing the characters’ pasts and their repressive and restrictive society. They were suspicious and anxious and the stress forced them to turn on each other and override commanding orders. They faced an overwhelming American fleet and armed force that they could not match. In a horrific scene towards the end Eastwood shows us what they felt they had to resort to, and it is in this scene where both films collide in explanation.

Both Letters and Flags were shot concurrently at the same location in Iceland and it certainly does look like hell on this Iwo Jima. Iceland was only other place on earth with a similar terrain and appropriate sulfurous smoke trailing up to the sky from any crack in the ground. Eastwood chose to shoot Letters in a very desaturated manner, effecting a color-less black and white view of the island while Flags was shot with a more colorful look.

In Flags, for the US soldiers caught in the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Joe Rosenthal the war for Iwo Jima was only just beginning; the first of two flags that were raised was only after the first few days of a fight for the island that actually went on much longer. Only three of the six men survived the assault and the two surviving Marines and the one surviving Corpsman were pulled out of action and sent back to the U.S. to bolster sales for the government’s seventh war bond tour. Through their efforts they were able to raise $24 billion for the war effort though their war at home and within themselves continued on after they returned.

But these men couldn’t leave behind their friends they fought with and they felt guilty every step of the way once they left Iwo. They were selected to be heroes, but they never felt they had done anything heroic. Their compromises with the truth leave them troubled and in emotional pain. Hayes can’t stop drinking and all three men can’t stop thinking about the men they left behind on Iwo Jima. Confusion about exactly which soldiers were actually in the photo – and the fact that there were actually two different flags raised - only added to their personal problems.

The men were ill prepared for the war bond tour or the greeting they received and felt guilty that they had been forced to leave their units behind. Their guilt is best typified by the complex and enigmatic Marine, Ira Hayes, a Native American played with great fluidity by the excellent Adam Beach (Windtalkers, Smoke Signals), which just might garner a Supporting Actor nomination for his work here. On the other hand, Ryan Phillippe (Crash, Cruel Intentions, Gosford Park, I Know what You Did Last Summer) plays Corpsman John “Doc” Bradley in a performance could have easily been phoned in, and it is his character’s son that narrates this film. Phillippe just does not have the gravitas necessary to play grownup men, nor does he have the acting chops to create a believable war hero. It’s a shame casting went so awry and he ended up in the lead role. He plays the role with the same expression for the full 132 minutes of this film.

Director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Unforgiven, Bridges of Madison County, Bird) does his usual spare job in Flags, preferring to leave the actors to relate to bring out the spirit of the characters they play. Where Eastwood really excels is in the huge establishing shots of the American fleet steaming their way towards their destiny on the tiny island of Iwo Jima. What is most interesting is his meditation on the chaos and horrors of war, heroism, and inside look at instant media darlings created for ratings. The close-in fighting scenes are graphic and shocking, and we see the men who died in this battle were little more than boys themselves. Eastwood’s score is haunting and his music appropriate and memorable for this meditation on the chaos of war.

Eastwood makes the war personal in Flags as the film opens with a shot of a sailor falling off a carrier. The first thing we learn about war is that these ships can’t stop to pick up anyone who falls. The men on the ship toss a life preserver at him as they watch him struggle in the wake of the big boats that won’t stop to save his life. The battle scenes are close and dirty and pure chaos, the beach landings dangerous, the caves of Iwo swarming with dug-in Japanese soldiers, and the scenes of the U.S. fleet in the bay are huge.

Eastwood truly excels when he turns to the Japanese story in Letters. A brilliant nuanced performance by the charismatic Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha, Tampopo) shows the deft touch of a director and actor working in synergy; the rest of the Japanese cast is equally as compelling. If there were an award for Best Actor in a Foriegn-Language Film, Watanabe would be a shoo-in.

Letters From Iwo Jima is the more moving and emotionally honest of the two films and it’s somewhat ironic that Eastwood does his best work in a Japanese-language film with a non-English speaking cast. His touch is deft and sure, intimate and broad, and one can only look forward with anticipation to his next outing. It's a particular joy to see such a creative genius still being relevent, interesting, not to mention physically tough enough at 76 to still challenge his own artistic expression in making two films in two different languages back to back. Both Flags and Letters deserve a screening and together serve as a complete a picture as could be possible of one historic moment in time from both perspectives.

Another triumph for Eastwood puts Letters From Iwo Jima in the front-runner position for Oscars Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

Letters From Iwo Jima:

Digital Dogs rating: A

MPAA rating: Rated R for graphic war violence.

Running Time: 142 minutes

Producers Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Steven Speilberg, Director Clint Eastwood, Screenplay & Story Iris Yamashita, Story Paul Haggis from the book Picture Letters from Commander in Chief by Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Editor Joel Cox, Gary Roach, DP Tom Stern, Original Music Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens, Actors Ken Watanabe, Saigo, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase, Shido Nakamure, Hiro Watanabe, Takumi Bando

Flags of Our Fathers:

Digital Dogs rating: A-

MPAA rating: Rated R for sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language.

Running Time: 132 minutes

Producers Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Tim Moore, Steven Speilberg, Director Clint Eastwood, Screenplay William Broyles Jr, Paul Haggis, Editor Joel Cox, DP Tom Stern, Original Music Clint Eastwood, Actors Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell, Robert Patrick, Judith Ivey, Harve Presnell, George Hearn, Len Cariou, Gordon Clapp, David Clennon, David Rasche

__________________________

MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW: NAMM - The Largest Music Products Trade Show in the World

2007-01-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

The Winter Session NAMM show, January 18 – 21, 2007, is the largest music products trade show in the world. Held every year in January at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, the show brings everyone in the music products industry together for a big blow-out trade show featuring new products, live performances, drum circles, impromptu performances at the many booths, industry meetings, round table discussions, and professional development courses called NAMM University classes.

NAMM has a smaller show they call their Summer Session which is a full one third the size of the Winter Show, and it focuses more only on industry meetings and professional development courses. NAMM is not open to the general public; it is open for people in the music trade only, so if you’re interested in going speak to your local music merchandisers to ask for a day pass.

NAMM originally abbreviated the name of the organization, the National Association of Music Merchants, but has evolved from a national entity focused on music products, to a huge international bacchanal of all things music, from new products, to new performers, including commercial and retail affiliates.

NAMM takes over the entire huge Anaheim Convention Center and if you haven’t already booked your hotel room you will find getting a room a problem at this point. Performances take place all day long at various locations throughout the Convention Center, nearby hotels, and at the hundreds of booths where performers appear at the companies they rep product for. Here’s a sampling of just a few performances that will take place at NAMM...

Thursday 18 January

5:30pm – 6pm - Anaheim Convention Center Lobby - Rhodes Tribute: Jeff Lorber, George Duke, Patrice Rushen perform jazz, R&B, funk, fusion, and pop music in a special NAMM tribute in honor of the late Harold Rhodes.
6pm – 12m - JT Schmidt’s Restaurant & brewery, 2610 East Katella, Anaheim - The 2007 Bass Bash: High energy, world class bass performance featuring Alex Al, Jake Kot Ensemble, David Dyson & Friends, Todd Johnson, and more.

Friday 19 January

9am – 10am – Anaheim Convention Center Lobby – The Wicked Tinkers.
11am – Peavey Electronics Booth #5740 – Jerry Donahue clinic.
11am – 4pm – Back of Hall E, Booth #1897 – NAMM World’s Fastest Drummer Competition - takes place everyday throughout the Convention.
12n – 1pm - Anaheim Convention Center Outdoor Stage, Between Halls B&C – US Army Band.
1pm – 4pm– Seymour Duncan Booth #4358 – artists scheduled to appear include Slash, Warren DiMartini, George Lynch, Dave Mustaine, Scott Ian.
2pm – Peavey Electronics – Joe Satriani will sign autographs.
5pm – 6pm - Anaheim Convention Center Lobby – NAMM Jam ’07 – a big Jam with musicians who have played in such world-class bands as Yes, The Ventures, Spencer Davis Group, Mungo Jerry, Alabama, The Doobie Bros, Steely Dan, Steppenwolf, Toto, Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, Kiss.
5:45pm – 7pm – Hilton Hotel, Outdoor Plaza - All-Industry Drum Circle sponsored by Remo drums and facilitated by Remo Signature Artist and the Father of the Modern Drum Circle Movement, Arthur Hull. This is a FREE event open to the public; you don’t need a NAMM pass to attend. If you live nearby you should definitely drop by. Drums and percussion provided free courtesy of Drum Circle sponsor Remo.

Saturday 20 January

11am – Glen Dover from Megadeath will appear at Kahler International Booth #5727.
12n – Kerry King from Slayer will appear at Kahler International Booth #5727.
1pm – Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains will appear at Kahler International Booth #5727.
1pm – 3pm - Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue will appear at the Basson Sound Booth #5000.
3pm – 5pm – Artist signings (including Louie Bellson, Luis Conte, Gregg Bissonette, Kenny Aronoff, Mick Fleetwood, Max Weinberg, Aaron Spears, Alex Acuna) will take place at the Avedis Zildjian Company Booth # 2940.
7:30pm – 10pm – Hilton Anaheim, California Ballroom D - Muriel Anderson’s All Star Guitar Night – with a Silent Auction that benefits the Music For Life Alliance – Get FREE tix at the sponsors booths: GHS Strings, Sony Pro Audio, Sony Media, Audio Technica, Auralex, TrueFire, Reverend Guitars.

If you’re into Santana check out the LP Booth as their percussionists use the booth as their home field while at NAMM. You could easily find yourself deep in conversation with greats like Giovanni Hidalgo, who is also an LP artist. Check on the nearby Remo booth for other drummers like Arthur Hull, Paulo Mattioli, Adrian Young, Carter Beauford, Rick Allen, Alessandra Belloni, John Bergamo, Jason Bonham, and Stewart Copeland.

This is just a small sampling of the NAMM haps, if you’re lucky enough to snag a pass (ask your local music store or music merchandiser if they can loan you one for a day) be sure to check the program for a list of updated appearances. There are tons of cool products you can purchase to take home, and much swag along the lines of stickers, magnet-thingys, Tshirts, and other stuff you can win at the many booths. If you’re into music and live in SoCali you should definitely not miss NAMM.

SHOW LOCATION
(Registration is in Hall E and the NAMM Idea Center open at 9:30 a.m. each day of the show)

Anaheim Convention Center
800 West Katella Avenue
Anaheim, CA 92802

SHOW HOURS

Thursday, January 18 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Friday, January 19 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Saturday, January 20 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday, January 21 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

FUTURE NAMM SHOWS
Jan. 17 - 20, 2008
Jan. 15 - 18, 2009
Jan. 14 - 17, 2010
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2006 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2006

2007-01-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

THE TOP FILMS OF 2006: The A List

Casino Royale
Dreamgirls
United 93
The Queen
The Last King of Scotland
Catch a Fire
Apocalypto
The Prestige
Borat
Blood Diamond
Little Miss Sunshine
The Devil Wears Prada
Venus
Stranger Than Fiction
Pan’s Labyrinth
Notes On a Scandal
Flags of Our Fathers/ Letters From Iwo Jima

THE FILMS OF 2006: The B List

The Illusionist
Miss Potter
Charlotte’s Web
Pursuit of Happyness
Children of Men
An Inconvenvient Truth
The Departed
Flushed Away
Déjà vu
World Trade Center
The Departed
Happy Feet
A Scanner Darkly
Who Killed the Electric Car
Mission Impossible III
The Da Vinci Code
X-Men: The Last Stand
Bobby

THE FILMS OF 2006: The C List

The Lake House
The Good Shepherd
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Black Dahlia
For Your Consideration
Little Children
Hollywoodland
Marie Antoinette
The History Boys
The Navity Story
All The King’s Men
Poseidon

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF 2006: The D List: an incomplete grade

Babel – The second most annoying and pretentious film of the year. Babel is yet another triad of short stories strung together by the flimsiest of excuses. The one interesting story of the three told here involves Japanese newcomer Rinko Kikuchi whose performance is so interesting she deserves a supporting nomination for it. But her short story had absolutely nothing to do with the supposed story-line of this poorly plotted film. Babel is a big nothing mess that the less-educated will think is an important film (because that’s what they were told in the ads!). Wake Up! A feature film is NOT 3 short stories strung together!

Running With Scissors – A big failure with no likeable characters and a story-line that forces you to hate everyone in it. Annette Benning overacts to save her life… but nothing can save this mess of a film.

The Fountain – Completely pretentious and annoying, this new-agey yoga-spacey film makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley – An important film about the beginnings of the IRA that was ruined by incomprehensible dialog. This film would have been more interesting were there subtitles. Please tell us director Ken Loach….exactly how many people in the world do you think are fluent in Irish? Don’t you think an important film deserves to be understood by your audience?

Lady in the Water – Director M. Night Shyamalan keeps using the same old tricks. Get off your one-trick pony horse Night and live up to your reported talent!

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© 2006 by Digital Dogs

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Dreamgirls"

2006-12-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

December 15, 2006 08:17 PM EST © 2006 by Digital Dogs
A film adaptation of Michael Bennett’s 1981 Broadway musical, Dreamgirls is both a joy and a revelation. Sure to please just about anyone looking for a few hours of pure entertainment, Dreamgirls is the holiday season’s must-see for all. Dreamgirls boasts dream casting, and the cast, the sets, the wardrobe, the staging, and dreamy music are all top-notch. Director and Screenwriter Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey) has a deft touch and his work shines the best via the wonderful work his cast turned in.

Set in the 1960s and 1970s, with a predominately African-American cast, Dreamgirls is loosely based on the lives and careers of Motown supergroup The Supremes, with a special focus on Motown puppeteer Berry Gordy, played here by the always enjoyable and extremely talented Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor, Jr. Dreamgirls provides a behind-the-scenes view of how hard it is to become a star, especially if your look is not what is considered the norm… and in this era, the norm for women was a compliant nature, straight hair, and a Twiggy-sized body.

Dreamgirls follows the lives of three women, Effie White, Deena Jones, and Lorell Robinson, who begin their professional singing careers as the Dreamettes singing back-up for soul singer Jimmy Early. Effie has a powerhouse voice and is the lead singer of the group. Behind the scenes manipulator Taylor is desperate for black acts to crossover to mainstream charts and he transforms the girls from back-up singers to lead act replacing the extremely talented and difficult dark zaftig Effie with an easy-going skinny light-skinned Deena. The puppeteer’s instinct for success is right on and his Dreamettes, now renamed the Dreams, become a huge crossover hit, leaving the truly talented Effie behind.

Denials about Dreamgirls will abound, but remember this story is almost the same as The Supremes origin story. Gordy replaced lead singer Florence Ballard with Diana Ross, who Gordy saw as prettier, skinnier, lighter, and more likely to crossover to white audiences. He was right, Diana became a huge international star and Ballard never recovered; she battled alcohol and depression until she died at the young age of 32 in 1976.

Even though Beyonce Knowles supposedly lost 20 pounds to play the lead Diana Ross-alike character of Deena Jones, and even though she is a delight to behold, she still did not show any spark or charisma on the big screen. From her work here, this reviewer does not expect Beyonce will have a long and fruitful film career. The real performance kudos of this film belong to newcomer and American Idol contestant and loser, Jennifer Hudson, who will definitely be receiving an Oscar nomination for her first acting gig as Effie. Another supporting cast member who will likely garner a nomination is Eddie Murphy, who disappears into his billiant portrayal of wild womanizing blues singer, James ‘Thunder’ Early (perhaps modeled on James Brown).

Condon wisely uses the background of the civil-rights movement to move his story along with authenticity using headlines, news clips, and a scene with a startled Effie seeing people riot in the streets outside their rehearsal hall. Hudson’s performance is fierce, raw, and emotional, while at the same time revealing her vulnerabilities.

Jennifer Hudson as Effie, at only 25, is a huge talent and a true revelation; this reviewer expects her not only to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but fully expects her to win the prize. If Hudson never sings another song, or acts in another film, she will, nonetheless, always be remembered for her transcendent performance in Dreamgirls. She can act, she can sing, and she will break your heart when she does. When she tears into “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. People were moaning out loud during her show-stopping performance of this song and the packed screening room audience broke out into thunderous applause at the end of the song while people took the time to dry their eyes. Hudson’s is a tour de force performance and she will likely be around for many years to come.

Eddie Murphy, in his most daring role in films to date (thankfully not played in drag) turns in another nomination-worthy performance as a star who has used and abused too many women and too many drugs for far too long. Murphy illuminates Jimmy Early’s talent, his humor, and his fear without dimming his charm. As all the cast members do, Murphy does all his own singing, and he reaches down deep for a smart and nuanced performance that will also garner a Supporting Actor nomination. You heard it here first.

A nice touch was to bring back original Broadway Dreamgirl Loretta Devine as a jazz singer at a wake the end of the film, and to see Broadway’s great Hinton Battle (The Tap Dance Kid, The Wiz, and the special musical episode of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer) on screen. Production design and set decoration are brilliant, as are the musical numbers. Since the singing is such an integral part of the story you will not find it jarring when characters break out into song.

Some might say that the score is not Motown enough, but DUH, it’s a Broadway score…, which most typically channels story, force, and emotion through song… as it should. Condon adds a few songs to help move the story along and his additions are seamless with the rest of the original score; he dedicates the film to author Michael Bennett who died of AIDS in 1987. This is a beautiful and sublime film that will bring tears of joy to your eyes. Look for its nomination for Oscar’s Best Film of the year.

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Digital Dogs rating: A

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content.

Running Time: 131 minutes

Producers David Geffen, Laurence Mark, Director, Screenplay Bill Condon, Book by Tom Eyen, Editor Virginia Katz, DP Tobias Schliessler, Music Harvery Mason Jr, Damon Thomas, Henry Krieger, Actors Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, Jennifer Hudson, Hinton Battle, John Lithgow, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose

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MOVIE REVIEW: "The Pursuit of Happyness"

2006-12-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

December 15, 2006 05:09 PM EST
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Stop right there! Don’t correct the spelling of the word Happyness in the title of this Will Smith outing. It’s a minor plot point that will all become clear when you see this film. Suffice it to say you might also be in a state of Happyness when you leave the theater after seeing this warm and involving true story of a remarkable man as played by another remarkable man, Will Smith. This is the perfect film to see over the holidays with everyone in your family and you will leave the theater with tears of Happyness in your eyes.

This film marks Will Smith’s entry into the world of serious dramatic acting and his work here makes clear that we can expect great things to come from The Fresh Prince. The Pursuit of Happyness is the true story of Christopher Gardner, an intelligent and loving family man in dire straits who is desperately trying to keep his family afloat. He and his wife Linda (Thandie Newton), the mother of his 5-year-old son, also named Christopher (and played by Smith’s real life son, Jaden Smith, who also has a long career ahead), are struggling under constant financial pressures. Their fragile financial state leaves Linda with what she feels is no choice and she decides she must leave them to make a go of her own life.

Suddenly a single – and very devoted – father, Gardner continues trying to sell bone scanning machines he had invested all his available cash into while trying for an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage company. Due to Gardener’s charisma and intelligence he lands the non-paying gig hoping he will end the program with a job offer and a better future. Since no money is coming in, Gardener runs out of funds to pay his rent and is turned out of his apartment with his young son in tow. Heart-wrenching scenes of Gardner and his son sleeping on the subway, waiting in lines to get space in a shelter, even spending nights on the floor in a men’s bathroom in the train station are painful to watch.

Happyness is Italian director Gabriele Muccino’s first English language film and he proves he has a deft touch with actors. Of course, Will Smith’s presence in this film is a beam of charisma and intensity and it is his work that lifts this film out of the Made-For-TV / Movie-of-the-Week genre the script really falls into. Attempts at lightening this sad story with humor involving the bone scanners, a missing shoe, and a speedy Rubik's Cube solution in a cab all help to make Gardner's struggle very human and very real.

A truly American rags-to-riches story, The Pursuit of Happyness is the story of what one man can do to end the cycle of poverty and get off the street. Today the real-life Chris Gardner (who can be seen in a cameo at the end of the film) is a millionaire who has devoted himself to the betterment of others. His story, as told on 60 Minutes and on Oprah, resonates with millions of Americans who are living on the edge, barely making it from paycheck to paycheck. The Pursuit of Happyness is a 21^st century It’s a Wonderful Life and is an inspiration to all.

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Digital Dogs rating: B

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for some language

Running Time: 117 minutes

Producers Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, James Lassiter, Steve Tisch, Will Smith, Teddy Zee, Director Gabriele Muccino, Screenplay Steve Conrad, Editor Hughes Winborne, DP Phedon Papamichael, Actors Will Smith, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Thandie Newton, Dan Castellaneta

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Blood Diamond"

2006-12-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

As director Ed Zwick (The Last Smaurai, Traffic, Shakespeare In Love, and TV's My So-Called Life & ThirySomething) says about his new film Blood Diamond: “There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive – in fact, each can fuel the other.” He goes on to say, “To me this movie is about what is valuable. To one person, it might be a stone; to someone else, a story in a magazine; to another, it is a child. The juxtaposition of one man obsessed with finding a valuable diamond with another man risking his life to find his son is the beating heart of this film.”

Zwick’s touch is deft and he is the first director who has been able to reach the deeper and more real-life-man inside of DiCaprio. The film runs a bit long, but this is a big story to tell and though Zwick takes his time setting up the plot for us, it’s time well used.

Leonardo DiCaprio is finally a success in his first real grown-up role as an ex-mercenary African smuggler in Blood Diamond after a rare red conflict diamond. Along with co-lead Djimon Hounsou, the two weave a compelling tale about the search for self under the cover of illegal conflict diamond trade and the child armies of the rebels in Sierra Leone. Complete with a dead-on clipped South African accent and a convincing mercenary demeanor DiCaprio has finally grown into his face and his body, though it is Hounsou’s work here that truly deserves attention. Hounsou's co-lead performance here (don't let anyone suggest that his is a supporting role) is Oscar-worthy, though this reviewer would be mighty surprised if he receives the attention his performance deserves.

Set against the chaotic background of the civil war that broke out in the 1990s in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Blood Diamond is the story of two African men, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ex-mercenary from Zimbabwe, and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Honsou), a Mende (descendents of the great Malian Empire founded by Sundiata Keita) fisherman from Sierra Leone. Even though they are both African, their lives couldn’t be more different until their fates become intertwined in a quest to recover a rare stone.

Filmed entirely in South Africa and Mozambique, the scenery is as much as star as the luminaries themselves. Long shots show us verdant vistas with exotic animals that belie the death and destruction going on inside the lush multitude of green. The title, Blood Diamond, refers to a rare huge red-tinted diamond found by forced-labor-miner Vandy. It is a conflict diamond, which are diamonds mined in mostly African war zones by forced labor and are sold to diamond buyers to finance the conflicts, hence the name conflict diamond.

Kidnapped by rebel forces and forced to work as a slave laborer in a diamond mining operation, Vandy finds a rare blood diamond the size of an ice cube and hides it between his toes to escape the evil eyes of his captors. He hides the diamond in a scrap of cloth and buries it deep beneath a toilet pit in the jungle next to a diamond mining river. Of course his secret is too good to keep and almost immediately an evil one-eyed rebel leader, Captain Poison, sees Vandy bury something. When the mining operation comes under attack Vandy takes his opportunity to escape, leaving the blood diamond buried deep within the waste pile. Once free his forced labor Vandy begins a desperate search for his wife and children while the audience meets DiCaprio’s Danny Archer, who is searching for a way out of the cycle of violence and corruption that is his life.

Vandy desperately searches for his wife and children, not knowing that his son, Dia, has already been kidnapped by rebels and forced to become a child soldier and kill on command, and that his wife and daughter are in a refugee camp. There is nothing quite like the sight of little children holding huge AK47’s like lollypops and shooting people dead with no regret, it is a horror that many African children live every day of their lives. Just watching it in a fictional film was painful enough. Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) understands this awful truth and as a reporter is in Sierra Leone to uncover the true story behind conflict diamonds, trying to expose the complicity of diamond industry leaders, here played by one composite character with only one whispered line, Simmons, Michael Sheen (Tony Blair in The Queen), who have chosen profits over principles. With Maddy’s help, Archer and Vandy embark on a dangerous trek through rebel territory to recover the blood diamond they are pinning all their hopes on.

The men are on a journey, one with the intent to leave the continent of his birth, the other with the intent to find his family. But each character ends up struggling with their own moral dilemmas. As the moral center of the film, Solomon Vandy, Djimon Hounsou sums it up: “Archer is pursuing a diamond, but Solomon’s diamond is his son." Archer realizes it too late, but his diamond is Maddy.

Though the cast is A list, the film tackles important social issues that are not often seen in major star vehicles. For that alone Blood Diamond deserves a viewing, as does seeing DiCaprio and Hounsou doing their best work. When you add on the two star turns, a minor role for another A lister, Jennifer Connelly, you have a compelling afternoon of enjoyable popcorn munching ahead.

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Digital Dogs rating: A-

MPAA rating: Rated R for strong violence and language.

Running Time: 188 minutes

Producers Kevin De La Noy, Gillian Gorfil, Philip Key, Graham King, Darrell Roodt, Paula Weinstein, Ed Zwick, Director Ed Zwick, Screenplay Charles Leavitt, Story C. Gaby Mitchell, Editor Steven Resenblum, DP Eduardo Serra, Actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Arnold Vosloo, Michael Sheen

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Learn more about conflict diamonds:

LEARN MORE ON THE NET

Globalwitness.org
Amnesty.org
How To Avoid Buying a Conflict Diamond
Partnership Africa-Canada
UN Conflict Diamonds

DOCUMENTARIES

War Photographer

Shadow Company

Cry Freedom & Return To Freetown

NON-FICTION

Blood Diamond by Greg Campbel

Blood From Stones by Douglas Farah

Innocents Lost by Jimmie Briggs

Mukiwa, A White Boy in Africa by Peter Godwin

How De Body? One Man's Terrifying Journey through an African Warby Teun Voeten

In the Land of Magical Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa by Daniel Bergner

The Devil Danced on Water: A Daughter’s Memoir by Aminatta Forna

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Casino Royale" Bond Begins!

2006-11-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

November 19, 2006 04:02 PM EST
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Filled with trepidation the audience entered the packed screening room to see the new 21st century James Bond. Capturing this larger-than-life character on film after the quintessential Bond, Sean Connery, aged out of his gig in 1971 was close to impossible for the owners of the Bond franchise, the Broccoli family company Danjaq, LLC. Pierce Brosnan gave it his best shot, Roger Moore sleepwalked his campy and faux-sophisticated way through his Bond, and George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton are better left forgotten.

Casino Royale could have been called Bond Begins as it is also a re-imagining of a beloved character and closely resembles the re-imagining of the beloved Super Hero journey in Christopher Nolan's excellent Batman Begins with a similarly new dark and intense leading man, Christian Bale, in the title role. Bond is recreated here in the same image of a deep and dark man of the people hero.

Hiring Daniel Craig to play the newest Bond had legions of fans and critics up in arms, some threatened boycotts of the film, blogs were written in and new websites were set up in protest - even this reviewer was mighty concerned. Everyone rushed to worry before all the facts were in. Now the new Bond film is out and now the new James Bond should be crowned! This reviewer is thrilled to report that Daniel Craig IS Bond!

Craig's Bond is full of charisma; he is grittier, sexier, deeper, tougher, more intense, more thoughtful, more human, less needy of special cars and gadgets, and just about the most perfect Bond since Sean Connery. Craig's work in this outing should be hailed as one of the best acting jobs of this season, especially after seeing his performance as serial killer Perry Smith in Infamous.

Only a true actor can take a role so closely defined by one man, Connery, and make it his own. Craig has done this in spades. His body is a blinding allure that women will be dreaming about, and his icy blue-eyed stare hints at the cold, haunted depth of a real man. Craig's Bond takes us back to the true roots of Bond as writer Ian Fleming imagined him, with a grittier update for our 21st century world.

Casino Royale was first filmed back in 1967 as a spy spoof with David Niven and Peter Sellers as Bond. It was loosely based on Fleming's first Bond novel of the same name, published in 1953. After Sean Connery's defining performance as Bond, no actor that played Bond even came close. The Bond films always had a big audience due to the popularity of the Fleming books, the Bond character, and the great SpFx and stunt set pieces, but no actor who played this role even came close to the intensity of Connery until now.

The film opens with Bond making his first kill as a 00 agent and after that he is sent to Madagascar to spy on a terrorist involved with the evil money-laundering expert Le Chiffre. The film proceeds at an astonishingly fast pace in an incredible action set piece that recalls the opening of many Hong Kong martial arts films starring any number of greats like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li. Bond races after a terrorist and in the process destroys an entire ship-building yard.

The terrorist he chases is the creator of the free running and jumping aerobatic Le Parkour, Sebastien Foucan. The physical art form he created, Le Parkour, is heavily influenced by Asian philosophy, as Foucan says "The art of moving from one place to another with fluidity allows you to see your environment differently. The quest's goal is to become a part of the environment in order to develop your mind and body." Le Parkour is best demonstrated by closely watching the opening free running chase scene, try to keep your eyes on Foucan during the chase. Even though wires were clearly used in some of the chase scene shots, most moves were pure Parkour, and it is a delight to behold. One could not imagine any Bond other than Craig's – even Sean Connery's - able to keep up with Foucan. This is a brilliant chase scene that sets the tone for the rest of the film. Another appropriate title for this film could have been Run Bond, Run.

Bond is next sent on a mission to infiltrate a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro to compete with Le Chiffre and other gazillionaires. Le Chiffre provides a global money-laundering service to the world's terrorist organizations, and he must win this game to pay back all the despots he has laundered money for before they kill him for it.

Bond girl, Vesper Lynd (played by the inexperienced Eva Green, who looks like she still belongs in high school, not traipsing around Europe with Bond) is sent along as the representative of Her Majesty's Treasury to keep tabs on Bonds' bids. No Bond film would be complete without the girl, but in this Bond film the girl never takes her clothes off. In this film it is Bond who keeps taking his shirt off - to the audiences great enjoyment.

During the poker game one hour breaks are taken and it is during these times that Bond's life is continuously threatened by Le Chiffre's minions by poison and stairwell gun battles. When Bond loses his stake in the game, and Lynd refuses to up his ante, he is staked by CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) who has also been playing in the game but knows he cannot win. Bond eventually squeaks out a win in the game and Le Chiffre repays him in a horrific torture scene that belies the fairness of the MPAA's PG-13 rating.

Vesper Lynd finally falls for Bond and the two begin a romantic waterside idle ending with Bond emailing his resignation to M as they sail into Venice in a breathtakingly beautiful scene. Of course the plot twists once again and Bond is betrayed and the audience is treated to a thrilling finale as we watch an old Venetian building collapse into the water below while Lynd, Bond, and an army of terrorists fight for their lives.

A film that could have had many titles: Bond Begins, Run Bond, Run, Hard Body, Back to the Roots… This reimagined and updated 21st century Bond has redefined the archetypal spy genre… and it's all for the good.

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Digital Dogs rating: A! A brilliant new Bond for the 21st century.

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, a scene of torture, sexual content and nudity. (The torture scene alone deserves an R rating).

Running Time: 144 minutes

Producers Barbara Broccoli, David Minkowski, Matthew Sullivan, Michael G. Wilson, Charlie Woebcken, Director Martin Campbell, Screenplay Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis from the book by Ian Fleming, Editor Stuart Baird, DP Phil Meheux, Actors Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Sebastien Foucan, Jeffrey Wright

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MOVIE REVIEW: "The Fountain"

2006-11-11T15:12:00.000-08:00

MOVIE REVIEW: "The Fountain"
November 11, 2006 06:07 PM EST
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Completely annoying and impossible to understand, The Fountain is a pretentious and cryptic musing on immortality that fails miserably in comparison to the ultimate musing on the same fascinating topic, Highlander, and it's many offshoots (Highlander II: The Quickening, Highlander III: The Sorcerer, Highlander: Endgame, TV's outstanding Highlander: The Series, and Highlander: The Raven). How this film ever got the money it needed to be made is beyond reason, other than to suppose the studio had a deal with Rachel Weisz and gave money to this film so she would star in another 2oth Century Fox (international distribution) or Warner Bros. Pictures (domestic distribution) vehicle.

This reviewer has heard director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) compare this film with classics like The Matrix, and 2001: A Space Odyssey and could barely constrain their laughter in the packed screening room. Aronofsky was asked why he made The Fountain, his answer: "Why? Because it's fun to watch conquistadors fight Mayans, and it's fun to shoot guys into outer space floating around, so I wanted to do a little bit of everything." This is where the trouble begins. It seems as if Aronofsky tossed together whatever odd unconnected ideas he got from watching sicfi channel marathons resulting in a troubled and confusing mélange that blends these ideas with metaphysical mythology into a confusing mess with some interesting SpEfx, incredibly beautiful close-ups of Weisz, and a boring and repetitive new-agey score.

Aronofsky hoped to make a film about one man's eternal struggle to save the woman he loves, and after forty five minutes you will begin to grok that plot point, but at that point you probably won't care anymore. The always interesting Hugh Jackman (Tomas, Tommy Creo) does his best to make you care about his character, and the gorgeous Rachel Weisz (Izzi, Isabel Creo) is featured in some of the most beautiful close-ups of any film star in recent history – but she does little acting. Their efforts aren't enough to save this confusing time-traveling, star-traveling, conquistador and Queen Isabella of Spain, Tree-of-Life, Tree-of-Knowledge, and Fountain of Youth seeking Tai Chi-practicing Vedic-leaning story. The blame falls directly to the feet of the director, as his hand is not seen at all in the actors work. It seems that mega-stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette have good advisors as they both backed out of the film while in pre-pro.

Weisz said she prepared for the film by reading "lots of books about people who had been terminally ill." She goes on to say, "I spoke to people in hospice, it's wonderful, I had never heard of hospice before, have you?" And then she went on to explain it. The audience snickered, as the hospice care movement was founded in the UK before Weisz was born, and Brit Dr. Cicely Saunders is widely regarded as the founder of the hospice movement. In 2005 there were close to 1700 hospice services. How could someone who graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge not have heard of the hospice movement made famous by her own country? Actors legacy admission anyone?

The film begins in 16th century Guatemala where conquistador Tomas is searching for something we later find out is the Tree of Life. He and two scared comrades face an army of pointy-teethed Mayan warriors out for their blood. Then we meet Tomas as he is sitting in lotus position in a bubble of light – which Weisz describes as a spaceship from the future, though it looked like a huge clear balloon filled with extreme close-ups of undersea life. About fifty percent of Tomas' and Izzi's dialog is whispered one liners like, "Finish," "I'm coming," and "I love you." Vague whispers that mean nothing to the audience except to let us know we're in for a pretentious 96 minutes. At some point someone says "Death is the path to awe" and you will have visions of suicide bombers being brainwashed to think this. Death is not the path to awe, death is the path to the end of life. Thankfully this film is under two hours.

We finally realize that Izzi is dying of brain cancer and Tomas is a scientist experimenting on animals to find a cure for her disease. He uses an untested herb from South America and the monkey he experiments on recovers from his human-induced brain cancer… but it is too late to save Izzi. By that time you probably won't care any more. Izzi is also writing a book – in longhand, with no errors (so how bad could her brain cancer really be?) – about the Mayan connection to a nebula in space called something like "Mohamma," and she gives the book to Tommy with the last chapter, Chapter Twelve, for him to finish.

The film ends with Tomas drinking a thick white liquid (that looks just like cum) from the Tree of Life which turns him into a tree, leaving us to assume he is joining Izzi in their death-heaven of Trees of Life and Knowledge. This convoluted mess might look beautiful, but it will bore you to tears.

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Digital Dogs rating: D, An incomplete. Don't waste your hard-earned bucks to rent, wait for cable.

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of violent action, some sensuality and language. Originally rated R for "some violence."

Producers Darren Aronofsky, Arnon Milchan, Iain Smith, Eric Watson, Director Darren Aronofsky, Screenplay Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel, Music Clint Mansell, Editor Jay Rabinowitz, DP Matthew Libatique, Actors Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Sean Patrick Thomas,

Running Time: 96 minutes

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FILM REVIEW: "The Prestige"

2006-10-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2006 07:04 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

pres·tige (prÃ„â€¢-stÃ„â€œzh', -stÃ„â€œj') n.

1. Every great magic trick consists of three acts.

1a. The first act is called "The Pledge"; The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course... it probably isn't.

1b. The second act is called "The Turn"; The magician makes his ordinary some thing do something extraordinary. Now if you're looking for the secret... you won't find it, that's why there's a third act called,

1c. "The Prestige"; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you've never seen before.

Completely engrossing and compelling from the first line of dialog until the last, The Prestige is a grand success of a tightly plotted and twisted screenplay by a fascinating director, Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, and the upcoming Batman sequel, The Dark Knight), that will definitely keep you guessing until the very end. This period Victorian twisted mystery chiller tells the story of an intense rivalry and long-time feud between two Illusionists living out their lives – and their feud – publicly on the stage in London.

In a rapidly changing turn-of-the-century London, magicians are the rock stars of their time. Two wonderful lead performances, both worthy of possible nominations, are turned in by the two competing magicians, Hugh Jackman as the sophisticated and courtly showman, Robert Angier (called Rupert in the Christopher Priest book from which it is based), and Christian Bale as his darker half, the brainier and more internalized, Alfred Borden. Both leads have shaded characters to play with many dark edges, and if careful attention is not paid the story will be hard to follow. In fact, the film opens with Michael Caine's character, Cutter, urging the audience to "watch closely" and those are not idle words.

Being that so many films are rushed into production without a truly finished script these days, it is an artful surprise to find a film with a tightly plotted story that almost, but not quite, feels a bit too long. The twists and turns of a plot well wound will impress you - as well as confound you - until the end. It's entirely likely that this script will receive a nomination for best adaptation.

In addition to the excellent script and lead actors, Director Nolan also deserves attention for his wickedly tricky direction and dark POV that tints the film with depth and darkness.

The film opens with Borden's arrest for the murder of Angier, and from there we flash back to reveal their story. The story begins at home for these Illusionists – on stage – as they are introduced as friends working a magic act together with Angier's wife, Julia (Piper Perabo, excellent in an extremely short-lived role).

Mistakes are made and one life is lost and that sets the stage for the competitive feud between the two magicians that ultimately defines both their lives. From that moment on they begin to focus on topping each other's illusions, and each illusion gets tougher and tougher to top.

When Borden creates the ultimate teleportation illusion "The Transported Man," Angier goes half mad in his attempt to find out how the trick is done so he can top his rival. Once he connives and bribes himself to the solution of the trick tables are turned once again. And the tables keep on turning through the entire film. Don't drink a lot of soda because you won't want to miss a thing if you have to leave the theater.

Michael Caine is his usual excellent self, a true actor with many faces; the face he exposes here is as a loyal assistant to Angier. It is Caine's character, Cutter, who steals each scene he's in as the insider who exposes the workings of a few of the illusions featured in the film. And it is Cutter who explains what the prestige is for the audience (via the definition at the beginning of this review, and of the film).

In another plot point Angier consults physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor Nikola Tesla (played wonderfully serious by David Bowie, whom you might not even recognize) who, at the time this story takes place, was working on theoretical work that formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems. Angier wants Tesla to create an illusion to top Borden. Tesla's assistant is played by the always-fascinating Andy Serkis in a sort of "Renfield" role, and his appearance in this film is always an amusing interlude.

Another in a long line of male-monk films, The Prestige features two actresses who look almost exactly alike playing the paramours of each magician, Scarlett Johansson as Olivia, and Rebecca Hall as Sarah, confusing matters even further. The only way to tell them apart is their hair color, wardrobe, and attitude, leaving one to wonder if this is yet another illusion of Nolan's purposefully thrown in to confuse us even more than we already are.

The Prestige keeps the audience guessing and wondering what's going to happen next – or wondering what you're not seeing that might clue you in to how a trick is done. After all, it's all sleight of hand… or is it?

NOTE: If you're a fan of the amazing Illusionist Criss Angel you just might be able to figure out how he does his incredible disappearing acts after seeing The Prestige. Good luck.

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Digital Dogs rating: A

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing images.

Running Time: 128 minutes

Producers Christopher Nolan, Aaron Ryder, Emma Thomas Director Christopher Nolan, Screenplay Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, Music David Julyan, Editor Lee Smith, DP Wally Pfister, Actors Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Piper Perabo, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, David Bowie, Andy Serkis, Ricky Jay

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MUSIC REVIEW: John Mayer "Continuum"

2006-10-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

MUSIC REVIEW: John Mayer "Continuum"
October 24, 2006 05:42 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Released on September 12, 2006, John Mayer's Continuum is a recording full of reverential and derivative music. This is his third studio album following his multi-platinum Room for Squares (2001) and Heavier Things(2003), and he is currently on a world tour promoting it… next stop Dubai, the new Las Vegas of the Middle East.

Any true rocker will quickly relegate Continuum to the dinner music category. Mayer's laid-back white guy blues style, and his voice reminiscent of Dave Matthews', can lull anyone into amiable conversation and an insightful view of the world. But if you give this album a few devoted listenings you might find yourself tapping your foot and humming along with Mayer's catchy tunes, probably because they all sound so familiar.

While Mayer's music on this release is obviously derivative of many fine singer songwriters, Mayer himself is all about the lyrics. While listening to Continuum you might find yourself humming along to the first song on this recording, also the first single from this release, "Waiting on the World to Change", with the words "People get ready, there's a train a coming, you don't need no baggage, you just get on board," from Curtis Mayfield's 1964 brilliant hit song "People Get Ready."

When listening to other Mayer songs you might find yourself thinking of Van Morrison, Leon Russell, and Paul Simon. Being compared to the cream of the 60-70's singer songwriters is no low blow. But Mayer needs to develop his own sound, not favor the songs, tunes, and styles of others for his own material. With this issue in mind this reviewer won't be surprised to hear Mayer's next release will feature a bigger horn section ala Morrison, the addition of an acoustic piano player ala Leon Russell, or the collaboration with African and other World music artists ala Paul Simon. It would all be more inviting were Mayer to find his own unique musical style instead of borrowing from other masters of the singer songwriter genre.

On many Continuum cuts you will find yourself wishing for just one ripping guitar solo, but once again, Mayer tightly constricts himself and refuses to open up his music for a little jamming. He takes a few 2 bar solos on a few cuts - and one song fades out to the only 4 bar lead solo on the album - but Mayer never lets loose with his guitar, leaving this reviewer aching for some true guitar leads.

Perhaps Mayer needs to stop thinking of himself as a great guitarist, which he is clearly not – no matter how many times his own press material touts him as a great guitarist – none of his hoped-for guitar greatness is apparent on this release. Instead Mayer should take heed and focus on his real skill – that of writing lyrics. Then he can hire himself a true guitar gunslinger to rock the crowd - or to rock with.

How Mayer could compare himself to true guitar legends like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, while exhibiting no flashy guitar work himself on his recordings, is hard to understand, except for the possible explanation of hero worship and wishful thinking. Nothing on Continuum would leave anyone thinking Mayer is a great guitarist. Mayer has a long way to go before he can be compared to such guitar legends. Perhaps that's why he realized he could never graduate from the Berklee College of Music in Boston – which he calls a "short-lived stint" on his website - and dropped out and moved to Atlanta at the age of 19.

Mayer is clearly a gifted lyrical songwriter and on Continuum he uses this gift to delve into the world of aging. About this he says:

"My generation was never told we were going to get older. We thought we were going to hear our names on 'Romper Room' for the rest of our lives. For a long time, I was really upset about getting older, worried that things were just going to level out. But then I realized that everyone around me was all getting older at the same time. We're all fighting it together, and we're always going to be those kids, the first really emotionally aware generation. When I realized that, I could relax about it a little bit. And I thought that maybe I can be the guy to sing about it."

Mayer might need to get a better perspective on life as all generations have said the same things about their own generations. Mayer, at 29, and his generation, was raised on Sesame Street and it's short segments and commercials for letters and numbers… the model for MTV programming. Perhaps the choppy 2-bar-only guitar-leads on Continuum reflect that life experience. That the young feel invincible is something that crosses all generational lines, and any good songwriter should be cognizant of that fact as it would only serve to make their work stronger… well that, and working on their guitar chops.

Though this release is pleasant enough to listen to – and you will definitely be tapping your foot to many of the songs - it's nothing groundbreaking, and nothing we haven't heard before from much more talented artists.

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Digital Dogs Rating: a solid B. Something relaxing and meditative to listen to while stuck in traffic or at the dinner table.

Read John Mayer's blog

Participate in the John Mayer forum

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Flags of our Fathers"

2006-10-21T12:55:00.000-07:00

MOVIE REVIEW: "Flags of our Fathers"
October 21, 2006 12:48 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Flags of Our Fathers is based on the best-selling book by James Bradley (the narrator of this film) and co-written with Ron Powers, which chronicled the battle for Iwo Jima and the fates of the existing flag raisers.

One moment caught in time in an iconic photograph of six men who raised an American flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945, provides the basis for the story of Flags of our Fathers. Five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raised the U.S. flag on a desolate volcanic island of black sand beaches and scrub brush hills pockmarked with sulfurous caves that proves war is hell.

Flags was shot in Iceland and it certainly looks like hell on this Iwo Jima. Iceland was only other place on earth with a similar terrain and appropriate sulfurous smoke trailing up to the sky from any crack in the ground.

For these men caught in this Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Joe Rosenthal the war for Iwo Jima was only just beginning as the flag was raised only after the first few days of a fight that went on much longer. Only three of the six men survived the assault and the two surviving Marines and the one surviving Corpsman were pulled out of action and sent back to the U.S. to bolster sales for the government's seventh war bond tour. Through their efforts they were able to raise $24 billion for the war effort though their war at home and within themselves continued on after they returned.

But these men couldn't leave behind their friends they fought with and they felt guilty every step of the way once they left Iwo. They were selected to be heroes, but they never felt they had done anything heroic. Their compromises with the truth leave them troubled and in emotional pain. Hayes can't stop drinking and all three men can't stop thinking about the men they left behind on Iwo Jima. Confusion about exactly which soldiers were actually in the photo – and the fact that there were actually two different flags raised - only added to their personal problems.

The men were ill prepared for the war bond tour or the greeting they received and felt guilty that they had been forced to leave their units behind. Their guilt is best typified by the complex and enigmatic Marine, Ira Hayes, a Native American played with great fluidity by the excellent Adam Beach (Windtalkers, Smoke Signals), which just might garner a Supporting Actor nomination for his work here. Ryan Phillippe (Crash, Cruel Intentions, Gosford Park, I Know what You Did Last Summer) plays Corpsman John "Doc" Bradley in a male model performance that could have easily been phoned in, and it is his character's son that narrates this film. Phillippe just does not have the gravitas necessary to play grownup men, nor does he have the acting chops to create a believable war hero. It's a shame casting went so awry and he ended up in the lead role. He plays the role with the same expression for the full 132 minutes of this film.

Director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Unforgiven) does his usual spare job here, preferring to leave the actors to relate to bring out the spirit of the characters they play. Where Eastwood really excels is in the huge establishing shots of the American fleet steaming their way towards their destiny on the tiny island of Iwo Jima. What is most interesting is his meditation on the chaos and horrors of war, heroism, and instant media darlings created for ratings. The close fighting scenes are graphic and shocking, and we see the men who died in this battle were little more than boys themselves. Eastwood's score is haunting and his music appropriate for his meditation on the chaos of war.

Eastwood makes the war personal as the film opens with a shot of a sailor falling off a carrier. The first thing we learn about war is that these ships can't stop to pick up anyone who falls. The men on the ship toss a life preserver at him as they watch him struggle in the wake of the big boats that won't stop to save his life. The battle scenes are close and dirty and pure chaos, the beach landings dangerous, the caves of Iwo swarming with dug-in Japanese soldiers, and the scenes of the U.S. fleet in the bay are huge.

Shot back-to-back with Flags of our Fathers, and due out in 2007, is another Eastwood film, Letters From Iwo Jima that is the story of the same battle, but told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it in with English subtitles.

Though Eastwood favors male-monk movies he most often has a deft hand and treats his subjects with nuance and respect. At 72 Eastwood is still producing some of the best work in the U.S. film biz. Let's hope he has a long life.

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Digital Dogs rating: A-. A good 25 minutes could have been cut from this film without affecting the story or it's quality.

MPAA rating: Rated R for sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language.

Running Time: 132 minutes

A Paramount Pictures release. Producers Clint Eastwood, Steven Speilberg, Rob Lorenz, Director Clint Eastwood, Screenplay William Broyles, Paul Haggis, Music Clint Eastwood, Editor Joel Cox, DP Tom Stern, Actors Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell, Barry Pepper, Robert Patrick

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Infamous"

2006-10-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

MOVIE REVIEW: Infamous
October 20, 2006 02:37 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Though worthy of being remembered on its own, Infamous will likely always be known as "the other Truman Capote film." That's really too bad, as this film delves deeper into both Truman's life and his relationship with the killers he wrote about, focusing especially on Capote's relationship with killer Perry Smith during the writing of his greatest, and last, book, In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences.

Taken from the oral biography by George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career. This book of interviews with Capote friends covering the same period of time as the other Capote film (1959-1965) helps give Infamous a more realistic and urbane look at the New York society Capote cavorted about within.

A true friend to famous rich society ladies-who-lunch – most likely because Capote was no threat to the rich and powerful men they were married to – Capote loved nothing more than to sit in elite New York restaurants and gossip over long boozy lunches and parties with his socialite girlfriends.

Gossiping served Capote well as he is shown here snaking his way into the hearts and minds of the people who were close to the Clutter family in Kansas, the family who's murder was depicted in Truman Capote's last book, In Cold Blood. The book was a huge bestseller and created a new type of reportage that all current celebretainment magazines now feature.

Lovely cameo appearances of Capote's real life gal pals include brief performances by Gwyneth Paltrow playing Peggy Lee singing in an opening scene, Signourney Weaver as Babe Paley (wife of William Paley, founder of CBS, and famous for the saying "One can never be too rich or too thin"), Juliet Stevenson as fashionista editor Diana Vreeland, Hope Davis as Slim Keith, Issabella Rossellini as Marella Agnelli. There are more lengthy and interesting supporting performances by Peter Bogdonovich as columnist Bennett Cerf and, in yet another forgettable whitebread performance, Jeff Daniels as policeman Alvin Dewey, who knew the Clutter family and was protective of their memory.

Sandra Bullock as Capote's lifelong childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee, turns in her first real grownup role – played with gravitas and an excellent Southern accent - and Daniel Craig's Perry Smith is excellently menacing and desperate for attention. Craig plays gritty low class criminals with expertise, leaving this reviewer to wonder how he could possibly play an urbane and witty James Bond. It will be interesting to see if Craig can rise to play 007, with his apparently small stature - he is only slightly taller than the diminutive Jones - blond features, and petty criminal looks.

Playing Truman Capote is English stage actor Toby Jones who does a marvelous job and is as deserving of an Oscar as was Philip Seymour Hoffman for his role in 2005's Truman film, Capote. Jones has had minor supporting roles in various films (Mrs Henderson Presents, Finding Neverland, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), but is mostly unknown to American audiences and his Capote will surprise you as it is so close to the real Truman. Bullock adds a dose of reality to Jones' Capote as his lifelong friend, companion, liaison, assistant, and author (To Kill a Mocking Bird, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961).

Capote and Infamous will, no doubt, long be compared to each other. It's quite interesting to see two films about the same person focusing on the same period of time, but each with different focuses. Both certainly depend on the lead performances and Jones is particularly appropriate as he is as small a man as was Capote. He adopts the same fey Capote attitude and affected speech patterns, but in this Capote we also see a man yearning for love, even though he is shown here as having a lifelong significant other. The two films are different in a significant aspect, Infamous shows us how Capote becomes engrossed with one of the killers of the Clutter family, Perry Smith, during many intimate moments Truman spent in Smith's cell. Each begins to reveal facts about themselves to the other and they find that they have much in common, fathers who disappeared from their lives, mothers who were depressed and committed suicide, and both were clearly greedy for any attention they could get. In this film their commonalities connect the two and Truman was greatly affected by Smith's death.

The last half of the film focuses on the development of their relationship and provides a possible answer as to why Capote never had another book in him after Smith was hung for his crime. The scenes in Smith's cell show us a long protracted courtship between the two, culminating in a prison sex scene, and give a possible explanation for Capote's behavior afterwards. Capote finds himself waiting for his love to die so he can achieve the end of his book. And that end kills him as well, Truman Capote never finished another book, even though he was working on one even during the last days of Smith's life, it was called Answered Prayers and was published posthumously. Desperation for attention, and regret for the lives lived were what really connected these two.

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Digital Dogs rating: A

MPAA rating: Rated R for language, violence and some sexuality.

Running Time: 118 minutes

Producers Jocelyn Hayes, Sidney Kimmel, Anne Walker-McBay, Christine Vachon, Director Douglas McGrath, Screenplay Douglas MvGrath from the book by George Plimpton, Music Rachel Portman, Editor Camilla Toniolo, DP Bruno Delbonnel, Actors Toby Jones, Daniel Craig, Signourney Weaver, Gwyneth Paltrow, Juliet Stevenson, Hope Davis, Sandra Bullock, Isabella Rossellini, Peter Bogdonovich

Digital Dogs

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MOVIE REVIEW: "The Departed"

2006-10-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

MOVIE REVIEW: "The Departed"
October 09, 2006 03:20 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Any film starring Jack Nicholson will always deserve a screening and The Departed is no exception. Even at 69 years old, Nicholson is the most interesting character in this film, and any scene he's in is absorbing and often uncomfortable. In The Departed Nicholson plays Frank Costello, a violently out-of-control nasty womanizing drug-loving South Boston Irish gangland leader who's mouth is as dirty as the weird wardrobe he clothes himself in.

The film opens with a younger Costello playing up to a young boy, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon - whose acting skills still leave much to be desired), and the audience is well aware that Costello has big plans for Sullivan's future. Costello becomes a father figure to Sullivan who grows up to infiltrate the Boston police department and rises to be the leader of the Special Investigation Unit, which is ultimately tasked with finally making an arrest of Costello. True to his superior and devious mind, Costello has prepared well for this eventuality, as the adult Sullivan calls Costello Dad. Playing his doppelganger on the opposite side is Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young undercover Massachusetts State Policeman, who is sent under deep cover to become a member of Costello's gang. Each man becomes consumed with the impossibilities of dealing with their hidden double lives and soon they are running for their lives as both the mob boss and the cops realize they both have a mole in their midst. The ticking clock keeps time as each character tries to outrun being uncovered as a mole by the other. Complicating things is a thoughtful performance by the wonderful Vera Farmiga, who's work this reviewer has loved ever since she first co-starred in the short-lived sword and sorcery 1997 TV series Roar. Farmiga's time to shine as a leading actress has hopefully come. Though Farmiga is great, she is the only female in this male-monk cast, and the love triangle between her and Sullivan and Costigan feels a bit too contrived to really work - a common problem with male-monk films, the female role is added to improve cut-away choices for the editor, rather than to help the script move forward.

Steeped in testosterone and sweetened with a big measure of profanity and nastiness, The Departed is full of violence, anger, gore, and blood, and tons of actors who look alarmingly alike in many scenes. One standout performance that might garner attention is Mark Wahlberg's (as good cop Sgt. Dignam), who displays the most authentic Southie accent of this bunch and some of the best acting moments of this film. DiCaprio finally plays a real grown-up man for the first time in a film and doesn't do too badly, though he still feels a bit too lightweight to fully carry a film as a leading man. Perhaps that is why films he stars in as the sole leading man have faired so poorly in the critic's – and the public's – eyes. It's hard to understand DiCaprio's appeal to the masses as he often plays inadequate man-child roles and is his acting is most often sub-par.

Nicholson is over-the-top in many scenes, but isn't that what the audience has come to accept from him? He has some of the best lines and most violent scenes… and he must have had a ball playing Costello. The Costello role was first offered to Robert De Niro who turned it down (perhaps he's tired of playing the same violent mob role he's so famous for?), and Nicholson took it, most likely as a foil for his past few comedic outings.

Director Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator) is adored by many great Hong Kong filmmakers, John Woo dedicated The Killer to him, and many Hong Kong films owe Taxi Driver a debt of gratitude for their slo-mo urban filmic styles, and here Scorsese returns the favor as he remakes this Hong Kong hit trilogy. A remake of the 2002 Hong Kong hit film Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs, which was so well received it went on to become a trilogy), The Departed does best when it sticks closer to it's original story, there are too many confusing and unnecessary scenes added in this version, and that's why this film clocks in at a full 48 minutes longer than the original.

As in most of Scorsese's films the music here is used to move the story along and many rock classics, as well as an interesting and appropriate score, are fully enjoyable. Exciting and fast-paced editing, typical of Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker, make the first 1.5 hours of this film great fun, but it bogs down in the last unnecessary hour, and the film slows way down.

Problems with this script abound as many plot points are left out, cheated, or completely unexplainable. In the end, a triple undercover mole that had nary a speaking line ends up as another secret mole that completes the picture. It's really too bad that Screenwriter William Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven) felt it necessary to resort to such unprofessional tricks to make his screenplay work. What's surprising is that a director of the caliber of Scorsese didn't protest the obvious plot holes. In the end, it appears that so many undercover cops and FBI agents were in Costello's gang – and on the police force – that without them both the bad and the good guys would have consisted of just a few men… the bad represented by Costello and his right-hand nut-job Mr. French (the marvelous English character actor Ray Winstone, who was the sexy beast in Sexy Beast), and the good by the various cops. Regarding possible nominations, as one of the many producer's, Graham King, said, "This film was made for commerce" not for awards. Remember that when you go see it.

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Digital Dogs rating: A-

MPAA rating: Rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, some strong sexual content and drug material.

Running Time: 149 minutes

Producers Martin Scorsese, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Graham King, Michael Aguilar, Rick Schwartz, Joseph P. Reidy, Director Martin Scorsese, Screenplay William Monahan, Music Howard Shore, Editor Thelma Schoonmaker, DP Michael BallhausActors Leornardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Marl Walberg, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Vera Farmiga, Ray Winstone

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MOVIE REVIEW: "The Queen"

2006-10-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

MOVIE REVIEW: "The Queen"
October 05, 2006 06:53 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

To fully enjoy director Stephen Frears new historical docudrama, The Queen, one must be decidedly British, have an interest in the royals, or love a great actress in a fascinating performance. Through slow and dry at times, The Queen tells the story of what occurred behind-the-scenes in the British royal palaces in August 1997, the week after Princess Diana's death-by-paparazzi with a sense of humor and decorum. Though dealing with the subject matter seriously, Frears added just enough irreverence and humor to get the audience to laugh out loud through much of the film. Though this story has been told on TV – and is still MFTV fodder - the casting choices here catapult this film into an Oscar contender.

Intercut with news footage of Diana, the British mourning Diana, and scenes of her royal funeral, the true majesty here is another brilliant performance by the ever-classy Helen Mirren, who will be one of the top contenders for the Academy award this Oscar season for her performance as Queen Elizabeth. To prepare for a role as the leader of a royal family that, as a child of lefty communists she was taught to loathe (Mirren's words), Helen Mirren spent hours staring at portraits of the Queen she was to play. And that time served her well, as her Queen is so close to the real Queen as to be amazingly accurate, down to the small facial movements, pinched, expressionless mouth, out-of-date behavior and ideas, and her ever-present old lady handbag.

Director Stephen Frears has a long list of interesting credits from My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears (which should have won Oscars for its two leads, Gary Oldham and Alfred Molina) to Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, High Fidelity, and 2005's joyful elder-romp Mrs. Henderson Presents (all films you should immediately netflix if you haven't yet seen them). The only thing typical about Frears directorial choices is his penchant for taking chances with unusual scripts focusing on outsider characters. And The Queen fits in that mold, as the royal family depicted here is more outsider than any other characters in recent history, save perhaps for the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. What this film almost lovingly – and with humor - shows is how completely out of touch the royals are with the rest of their country.

The script, by screenwriter Peter Morgan, one of the co-writers of another 2006 Oscar contender, The Last King of Scotland, was written using "inside sources" in a period of only three weeks. Research, of course, took longer, but once Morgan had his focus down – that of the differences between new and old – the new typified by Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), who had just been chosen as Prime Minister, and the old represented, of course, by the Queen herself, who is focused on her family's royal duty and its legacy. The juxtaposition of these two pivotal characters provides the audience with an outgoing and engaging Blair to identify with, and a reserved Queen, bred from childhood to serve her country, more focused on privacy, decorum, past glories, and a true dislike of Diana, who gave up everything the Queen herself holds dear.

Sheen is fantastic as Blair, and if you shut your eyes you could almost swear it is Blair himself who is up on the screen speaking. But once you open your eyes you will be drawn to Sheen's huge right ear, which is one-third the size of his full head. His right ear is so big, in fact, that not once in the film do we even get a glimpse of his left ear, which, one supposes, has a more modest proportion. Close-ups of Sheen begin to get a bit distracting as you might find yourself ruminating on his ears. Sheen must have excellent hearing. This reviewer wonders if Frears next film will star Sheen in My Right Ear. American James Cromwell (with the excellent and appropriate accent and dour face) was surprisingly chosen to play the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, who is more focused on murdering 14 point stags on the family's Balmoral Castle hunting grounds with Diana's two boys to, supposedly, distract them from the constant news stories about Diana.

The behind-the-scenes footage of the royal family is fascinating as we watch them view the outpouring of love focused on "The People's Princess" a famous Blair quote he rode well, and written for him by speechwriter Alastair Campbell (Mark Bazeley). The Queen is rigidly in line with maintaining a royal distance from everyone around her, it is clear that she has been raised to do so from an early age, and she does not seem to understand how to express any appropriate emotion. At times you will feel sorry for her distraction from real life as she lives in a world of manners and propriety that no longer have much import in the world. It is Mirren's performance that takes this film to Oscar heights, otherwise it is a story we have heard before, just not with the humor and pathos brought to it in this outing.

The only question remaining is why does the Queen carry a handbag? With drivers, footmen, aides, and servants galore, why would she need a handbag at all? What could possibly be in it?

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Digital Dogs rating: A-

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

Running Time: 103 minutes

Producers Pathe Pictures, Andy Harries, Tracey Seaward, Scott Rudin, Director Stephen Frear, Screenplay Peter Morgan, Actors Helen Mirren, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings, Michael Sheen, Sylvia Syms

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Movie Review: "All the King's Men"

2006-09-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

A remake of the 1949 Oscar-winning Best Film by the same title, All the King's Men, originally from the Robert Penn Warren 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, tells the story of an idealistic man who rises from poverty to be the governor of his state. With an all-star A-list cast like this one you would expect some tour de force acting to occur. Sadly, such is not the case. Whatever possessed the director, Steven Zaillian, to cast five of the six leads who play native Louisianans using English actors who could not duplicate the correct accent is beyond this reviewer. The accent problem creates much havoc as a good third of the dialog is hard to understand, much less care about. Why do the five of the six lead characters, who in this script all grew up together, have six distinctly different accents? It's just one of many problems with this film that will distract you from their work and from this story.

Sean Penn, one of our finer actors, had moments of brilliance in this film as Willie Stark, but in the end, was let down by his director. It's hard to understand why million dollar movie budgets are often based on the work of someone with little directorial experience. But that is how Hollywood is run these days, and writer Zallian, author of many fine scripts such as Schindler's List, Awakenings, and Gangs of New York, fails miserably here in directing this remake from his own screenplay. The intricacies of directing a film are completely different skills than writing a film. This is a common problem in Hollywood, someone who is the writer/director/producer of a movie will not have what it takes to edit it down into an enjoyable experience for the audience. Each line, each shot, each moment is held too dear to such a director. We have this problem to thank for overly long films with too many endings. This reviewer counted four endings for this film, each might have made this a stronger outing.

Being that the story of Willie Stark, a fictionalized version of real-life Louisiana politician Huey P. Long, is jam-packed with great characters, huge ideas and life-shattering disappointments, it's hard to understand why a voice-over was needed to tell this larger-than-life story… unless you understand the use of voice-overs in Hollywood. When copious voice-over is used in a film it is often a good indication that the dialog and action itself was not good enough to tell the story alone. Often, this voice-over is added in ADR at the end of the Post process to help explain the story for the audience. If the action and dialog cannot tell the story sufficiently the voice-over is the only way to get the story across. It is often a solution of last resort. Jude Law's Jack Burden tells the story here, and, though his performance left no complaints, his monotone voice-over and odd accent did. Accents changed and morphed throughout the film and left one wondering if the film had lost its budget for a dialog coach.

In keeping with the apparent official Hollywood 2006 Autumn theme of neo-noir films All the King's Men features overwrought gothic storytelling in a mixed up confusing gumbo of usually interesting actors who look great in their clothes and on the gorgeous sets by Production Designer Patrizia von Brandenstein, but have no clue as to what they are supposed to be doing. Jude Law's character, Jack, was supposed to have grown up with Kate Winslet's Anne Stanton and her brother Adam, both the children of a former beloved governor of the state, played by a consistently depressed and expressionless Mark Ruffalo. How Ruffalo gets cast in anything is beyond understanding, perhaps there's a market for actors who are unable to move their facial muscles. They all lived next to each other in huge swampy gothic mansions covered by kudzu and mud, and also hung out with a nearby judge, Anthony Hopkins, and a Stark advisor, Patricia Clarkson. Except for Clarkson, who is usually the best thing in whatever she appears in – and doesn't disappoint here, each actor had a different, and unusual accent, that stopped everything just about every time they opened their mouths. Even James Gandolfini, playing against type here as a Stark advisor in a pointless role with little dialog, feels like he's sleepwalking through time. The only partially interesting character in this film was Starks bodyguard Sugar Boy, played almost silently by Jackie Earle Haley, a true working actor with thirty years in the biz - and one of the best actors in this bunch of sleepwalkers.

In line with the poor choices made for this film, James Horner's music was baroque, it loudly and annoyingly cued the audience as to what emotion they should be feeling before every plot point. The script tells us Stark had a connection to the other "hicks" in Louisianna and that he did great things for the state as governor, but the film doesn't show us one thing Stark accomplished. All we see of Stark are some close-ups of him screaming his impassioned stump speeches at his hick audiences as he campaigns around the state. About two-thirds into the film the entire focus changes and we realize we are not watching the same story about Stark as we were at the beginning. Suddenly this film is all about four other characters and their smarmy personal lives. Very confusing.

The real questions here are… why the painful remake of a past award-winning film? Why choose Zallian? Why the overly dramatic and unsuccessful music and score by James Horner? Why wasn't film editor Wayne Wahrman allowed do his job? And, most of all…why didn't any of the twelve credited producers do their job in reining in an out-of-control director with only three minor prior efforts? Why remake a formerly great film, miscast it and then waste millions promoting it, if no one involved cared about doing their jobs right? This film was on the shelf for over a year before its release, now we know why.

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Digital Dogs rating: D for a big Disappointment, wait for cable.

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for an intense sequence of violence, sexual content and partial nudity.

Running Time: 120 minutes, but it felt like 145 minutes.

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Movie Review: "Last King of Scotland"

2006-09-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: "Last King of Scotland"
September 24, 2006 06:47 AM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

A long-awaited tour de force performance by Forest Whitaker carries The Last Kind of Scotland to the top of the heap in Hollywood at the beginning of Academy season. Academy season is when the studios begin tripping all over themselves to schedule special screenings of the movies they deem appropriate for possible nominations. And if ever a nomination looms, it looms for Forest Whitaker in the performance of a lifetime as brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin during the height of his reign from 1971 to 1979. Alternately warmly engaging and threateningly psychotic, Whitaker's Amin merges so closely with the real-life Amin as to be an amazing portrayal. Complete with black face and army uniforms with ribbons that grow across and down his grand chest, Whitaker is so in character he is downright scary in a glaringly brilliant performance.

An adaptation of the award-winning first novel by Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland combines fact and fiction to tell the story of how a Scottish doctor became Idi Amin's personal physician, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a composite character that combines three men into one for the sake of filmic brevity - thankfully.

Born into a dirt poor Ugandan family, Amin rises to the presidency of Uganda as a champion of the common African men and women who line the streets to cheer him as he and his entourage ride by in his huge Mercedes luxury limo. On the other side of the world in rural Scotland a young man follows in his father's footsteps to become a doctor. The young man can't bear to settle down in practice with his disapproving father and, on a complete whim, decides on a medical mission in Africa, selecting Uganda only by chance. Once there he shrugs aside good advice from the wife of the mission doctor, Gillian Anderson, and allows himself to become entangled in Idi Amin's tentacles. Carefree and naïve, Garrigan isn't capable of understanding the actions of the people around him, least of all Amin, who charms him into being his private physician almost against his will. Garrigan is unable to see the paranoid psychotic side of Amin until it is almost too late, and even then he causes the death of the only good man left in Uganda, a doctor who gives his own life so Garrigan can survive to tell the true story of Amin – from a white man's mouth, as the soon-to-be-dead-African-doctor tells him – so the world will believe. It is sad beyond speech to understand this kind of sincere patriotism. The story becomes involved with one of Amin's many wives and betrayal, insanity, and cruelty ensue. Some of Garrigan's behavior is hard to believe, but it is forgiveable since the character is a composite of three separate men. But the focus is all on Amin and the incredible performance-of-a-lifetime of Forest Whitaker which towers above all others so far this Academy season.

At just over two hours The Last King of Scotland is engrossing and disgusting at the same time. Whitaker's accent, command of two different local African dialects, physical attitude, persona, maniacal paranoia, even his skin breathes as did Idi Amin's. Whitaker spent two months in Uganda researching his role and learning local customs, speech patterns, and dialects. He found that many Ugandan's are surprisingly conflicted about Amin, most of the generation who remembers him best have passed from power and today's Ugandan's remember Amin as a man who made a big impact of the international political scene, and for that they remain proud of him. Amin persecuted many ethnic groups who resided in Uganda, the Acholi, Lango, Christians, Karamojong, the Turkana nomads from Kenya, Asians from the Indian sub-continent, and aligned himself with the Soviet Union and Libya. Shortly after Amin took power the US and then the UK closed their embassies in Uganda. Amin's full lengthy self-endowed title reads: His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr. Idi Amin,VC, DSO, MC, King of Scotland, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.

The colorful, brutal, and ruthless Amin never wrote his biography, what remains about him is recorded in public record and remembered by people still alive from his time. His father was an ethnic Kakwa and Catholic who converted to Islam in his early 20s. The father abandonded Amin early on and he was raised by his mother. He studied the Q'uran in a madrassa for a short time and then was recruited to the army by a British colonial army officer. He worked, and some say trained, with a Scots regiment and formed a lifelong admiration of all things Scottish, even going so far as to have his own regiment of kilted African bagpipers parading around Kampala – a scene that can be viewed at the end of the film in news footage. He had a lifelong interest in Scotland, believing Uganda and Scotland were both under the yoke of the English colonials, and he believed he could save Scotland from the English and thus be The Last King of Scotland.

Amin formed alliances with the new terror groups that were beginning to pop up in the 70s, groups like the PLO, and the Red Army Faction. If you remember the word Entebbe, you'll remember it as the airport in Uganda's capital city, Kampala, where the Israeli army led a successful raid on an Air France Airbus filled with passengers and hijacked from Athens being held by PLO terrorists in June 1976. Israeli commandos attacked the airport and freed all but two of the 256 passengers. Entebbe was the beginning of the end for Amin, his erratic behavior increased, fear and terror ruled the country. Some go so far as to suggest Amin was suffering from neurosyphilis. Amin left Uganda in 1979 and lived the rest of his days in exile on a stipend from the government in Saudi Arabia, dying in August 2003, never setting foot again in Uganda.

The African music in this film is the most authentic heard on the big screen so far, displaying the joyous Pan-Africanism fever that was spreading around the continent in the years following independence from colonial powers. Tony Allen, a Nigerian Fela disciple, authors two of the Afro-beat songs used, and other local traditional music are heard, as well as South African Hugh Masakela and Bob Marley, … all hughly popular on a continent in the midst of a grand pan-African dream.

Director Kevin MacDonald, who has made a name for himself in documentaries, approached this film with the appropriate documentarians eye for setting time and place. A big story with an even bigger lead character needs a director who knows when to step back and allow the magic to happen. Once Whitaker was in character I imagine magic was all over the place. Whitaker's is a stand-out performance that should win the Oscar… at least so far this season.

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Digital Dogs rating: A+, definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

MPAA rating: Rated R for some strong violence and gruesome images, sexual content and language.

Running Time: 121 minutes

Producers Andrea Calderwood, Lisa Bryer, Charles Steel, Director Kevin MacDonald, Screenplay Peter Morgan, Jeremy Brock, based on the novel by Giles Foden, Actors Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson

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Movie Review: "Catch a Fire"

2006-09-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: "Catch a Fire"
September 20, 2006 06:42 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

Australian Philip Noyce directs Catch a Fire, one of the best films of the year that few people in the US might actually see. Catch a Fire is a classic hero's journey that dramatizes the story of Patrick Chamusso, an ordinary man whose life is turned upside down by extraordinary circumstances. Set in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, Catch a Fire is a beautiful and haunting film that bears great relevance to circumstances in the world today. Noyce deftly tells Patrick's story of how easily a terrorist can be created from a gentle ordinary man.

The film is set in the 1980's, a time when life is hard for the black people of South Africa, but family man Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a foreman at the Secunda Oil Refinery (which turns coal into oil and is a symbol of South Africa's self-sufficiency during apartheid), is doing better than most. He is a loving, attentive husband with a beautiful wife, Precious (South African Bonnie Mbuli, aka Bonnie Henna), 2 young daughters he dearly loves, a home, a car, a son (he also dearly loves) from another woman, and he is the coach for the local township football team. Patrick is completely apolitical and has made his life as good as it could be while still being black in apartheid South Africa.

Patrick is only interested in living the best life he possibly can. He is successful even though the ANC (African National Congress) is organizing against apartheid resulting in tensions between whites and blacks being at an all-time high. Considered a terrorist organization by the minority white South African government, the ANC is outlawed while the SA government desperately tries to hold on to its power. Academy Award winner (for 2003's Mystic River) Tim Robbins plays Nic Vos, a composite character who, in this film, is a Colonel in the country's Police Security Branch. Thoughtful yet shrewd, Vos is concerned about his family's security and teaches his two daughters to shoot guns for their protection. Vos leads a team that focuses on the outlawed ANC. One night while Patrick is secretly visiting with his son by another woman (so his wife doesn't find out), Secunda is sabotaged and a big explosion occurs. An innocent Patrick comes under suspicion because his whereabouts cannot be explained. Patrick does not want to hurt his wife by admitting his past indiscretion with a woman other than his wife, so he keeps mum about his alibi. Patrick is arrested in June 1980 and he is ill-prepared to withstand the brutal interrogations by Vos and his men that follow. After an unsuccessful series of torture, Vos arrests Patrick's wife Precious and that, and the beating she receives, are the beginnings of Patrick's radicalization. Vos finally realizes Patrick was not involved and he is released from prison and ultimately leaves his family to travel to Mozambique to train with the ANC. Once there he becomes involved with the ANC's military wing, Mkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and with their support he eventually prepares a successful solo follow-up attack on Secunda.

In Mozambique Patrick meets MK Commander Joe Slovo, one of very few senior white members of the ANC. Slovo, born in Lithuania to a Jewish family who emigrated to South Africa when he was eight, ran Special Ops for the MK, a military unit set up to run spectacular acts of armed propaganda inside South Africa, the Secunda attacks being part of its agenda. Patrick's attack on Secunda was successful and, after evading the police for three days, he was arrested, convicted of terrorism, and sentenced to jail for 24 years. Patrick served 10 years in the prison on Robben Island, the same location Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years.

Derek Luke plays Patrick with gentleness and sensitivity, and his Oscar-worthy performance is the true highlight of this film along with its story. Luke, remembered best for his brilliant performance as Antowne Fisher, outdoes himself in this film, and it is almost impossible to believe he hails from New Jersey, his South African demeanor and accent are spot-on. Luke deserves more lead roles and more recognition. Hopefully this role will boost him up the Hollywood ladder of success. Tim Robbins displays a cruel and conflicted Nic Vos with restraint and gravity.

Catch a Fire is a neat 98 minutes, proving that a big story can be told without wasting time and money catering to a director's or producer's whims. The audience was enthralled with this huge emotional well-acted story and gave it a standing ovation when Noyce, the Slovos, Luke, Henna, and the real-life Patrick came out for a Q&A afterwards. The Slovo sisters talked about how their father had considered this story so important that he asked them to make sure the world would one day hear Patrick's story. The connections you will draw from this film to present day terrorism will surprise you.

Today the quiet gentle Patrick lives in North East South Africa with his wife Conney, a woman he married after his release from prison. Together they have three children of their own and run a home for children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic that is devastating much of the African continent. You can help support their work by making a donation to their organization, also the name of their orphanage, Two Sisters.

This is a film you will not only enjoy, but will learn from on many levels. Highly recommended!

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Digital Dogs rating: A+, dead and tortured bodies litter the film, so be prepared. Bring tissues.

MPAA rating: Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving torture and abuse, violence and brief language.

Producers Sydney Pollack, Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin, Anthony Minghella, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo, Director Philip Noyce, Writer Shawn Slovo, Actors Derek Luke, Bonnie Mbuli, Tim Robbins

Running Time: 98 minutes

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Movie Review: "The Black Dahlia"

2006-09-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

The Black Dahlia is director Brian De Palma's take on an adaptation of James Ellroy's period-1940 novel about two L.A. cops who head up the hunt for the killer of fledgling actress and Hollywood party girl Elizabeth Short. One of many young women who came to Hollywood to pursue dreams of Hollywood glory, Short never held down a steady job. She shared a top floor one-bedroom apartment in the middle of Hollywood, on Cherokee near Franklin, with seven other young women like herself who dated-for-dinner, and though she liked to party, she rarely drank and did not do drugs, she was not a prostitute as many accountings of her story allude. She was just one of many girls who had a Hollywood dream… a dream that went terribly wrong.

Born in Boston in the summer of 1924, Elizabeth Short drifted away from her family due to her father's boozing behavior. She wandered around the country as an early slacker chatting up guys to help pay for her drinks and meals. She arrived in Los Angeles in the summer of 1946 just as writer and screenwriter Raymond Chandler's film The Blue Dahlia was playing all over town. Smart was a proto-goth girl - obviously way ahead of her time - who dressed all in black, died her hair black, and wore a black flower in her hair. The list of people who were considered "people of interest" for her murder reads like a Hollywood celebrity guest list: gangsters Bugsy Seigel and Mickey Cohen, LA Times publisher Norman Chandler, surrealist Man Ray, directors John Huston and Orson Welles, artists Marcel Duchamp and Diego Rivera, screenwriter Ben Hecht, writer Henry Miller, actors Vincent Price and Edward G. Robinson, even Woody Guthrie was questioned, and there were whispers that Marilyn Monroe was her lover, but to this day the crime is still unsolved. Smart's posed dead body was found in an empty lot that today is a fully developed neighborhood on Norton Street in the middle of Los Angeles. She was found bludgeoned to death and then posed, her mouth extended on both sides in a sick clownish grin, with cuts on both breasts, details the cops held back from press reports. The clean cutting technique that severed Short's body in half was made exactly between the second and third lumbar vertebrae, all the blood was drained from her body and all of her internal organs were removed and never found, that, and the quality of the implement used, have also led many to believe that the killer had detailed knowledge of surgical techniques, leading to seven different doctors being under suspicion as well.

A Los Angeles Police Detective, Steve Hodel, believes his physician father, George Hodel, was the killer. The home in which he grew up was a place where Hollywood cocktail parties and great architecture mixed fantasy with reality. The house, architect Lloyd Wright's (son of archect-extraordinaire Frank Lloyd Wright) "Sowden House," a true-life Mayan Temple of Doom, is a well-known poured concrete bunker on Franklin Avenue near Normandie that has been used countless times as a film location; L.A. Confidential and The Aviator are two recent films shot there. Hodel was a dapper doctor with a long list of young girlfriends, his daughter accused him of incest, though the eventual court case was dismissed. The house was a celebrity party house fully equipped with a secret room hidden behind a bookcase. George Hodel was one of those doctors on the list of "people of interest."

You have now learned more about the Black Dahlia than you will from this film.

Brian De Palma, known for such classic crime dramas as The Untouchables, Scarface, Wise Guys, Carlito's Way, thrillers Carrie, Dressed to Kill, and Blow Out, directs this adaptation of Ellroy's (L.A. Confidential, American Tabloid) best-selling take on one of the most infamous and still unsolved crimes in Hollywood's history. You might think that with all the juicy stories, celebrity names, great sets, not to mention the strange slacker story of Elizabeth Short's shortened life, that are part of the sad tale of the Black Dahlia that we might get a film rich with Hollywood's seamy and steamy heritage from De Palma. But sadly such is not the case.

You might think that a film titled The Black Dahlia would be about the murder of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner). Instead, this is a story about two smarmy detectives who started out as amateur boxers and ended up as partners in the LAPD. Called Fire and Ice by the LAPD movers and shakers who are more interested in playing politics than solving crime, Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Harnett) become two parts of a strange threesome, completed by Scarlett Johanson's Kay Lake, an ex-hooker with her pimp's initials carved in her back. It is through their story we witness events and it is hard to identify with characters with few redeeming qualities, and fewer acting chops. Poorly miscast as Bucky, Josh Harnett is too lightweight, too blank and emotionless, to play this pivotal character. On the other hand, Aaron Eckhart displays a full range of emotions as he keeps running to catch up with the winning cop and fighter he used to be. Mixed in the jumble are a rich nutty family whose daughter, Madeline Linscott (Hilary Swank), believes she looks like Short (but doesn't, Swank looks as much like Mia Kirshner as she does Sandra Bullock – not at all), dresses as a Black Dahlia wannabe, and picks up Bucky in a lesbian bar; and the only bit of interesting footage about Short - flashbacks of imagined black and white audition films of her (which never existed in real life), played mysteriously weird and wonderfully by Mia Kirshner. The lesbian bar scene had a floor show topped by a haunting cameo appearance of k. d. lang singing in drag. Though beautiful to behold, Scarlett Johansson's work in Dahlia is thin and weedy, desperately in need of some direction to appropriately portray the damaged woman she plays. Fiona Shaw adds her wacky over-the-top campy take as Swank's mother. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond did his usual standout work, and if any nominations are forthcoming from this film it will be for his work.

The story of The Black Dahlia seems only an after-thought in this film. There are odd scarred men, suspicious gangsters, pimps, and rapists, and a crooked LAPD, and a strange-looking Los Angeles that looks nothing like the real town where these events were supposed to take place, other than one quick exterior shot of the Pantages Theater and the Frolic Room next door. Someone should have acquainted the Location Manager with the town he was supposed to be doubling, the long rolling hills in this film, shot mostly in Bulgaria, bear no resemblance to the cragged peaks and valleys of The Santa Monica Mountains, which Hollywood is nestled in and below, where the Hollywoodland sign lives, and where pivotal action takes place at the end of this film.

Someone should have also re-acquainted De Palma with some of his past glories, as his work here is sadly lacking, with many performances almost bordering on camp. Much of the serious dialog in the film was laughed at by the packed insider audience, and many voices were heard nastily demeaning the film as the audience left the theater.

This film might burn brightly on opening weekend due to the heavy hype - and current lackluster box ofice offerings in general, but its flame will fall fast. Mr. De Palma would benefit by taking some time reviewing his past oeuvre on DVD before returning to the set. Perhaps he had a balloon mortgage payment come due and he simply called in his work.

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Digital Dogs rating: B-

MPAA rating: Rated R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and language.

Running Time: 121 minutes

Producers Art Linson, Avi Lerner, Moshe Diamant, Michael P, Flannigan, Rudy Cohen, Director Brian De Palma, Writer Josh Friedman, from the James Ellroy novel The Black Dahlia, Actors Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Mia Kirshner

-- Digital Dogs

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Movie Review: "Hollywoodland"

2006-09-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: "Hollywoodland"
September 07, 2006 06:31 PM EDT
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

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The dark and sleazy side of Hollywood snares center stage this month as the city gears up for the release of two neo-noir films. Fueled first by Hollywoodland, a lengthy and imaginative speculation on the untimely and ever-suspicious death of TV's Superman, George Reeves (Ben Affleck), whose death began the infamous Superman death-legend (that anyone who plays the super hero dies an untimely death like Reeves and Christopher Reeve). The period noir-ish The Black Dahlia follows next week.

Back in the days when Hollywood was monochromatic, the hard-boiled detective crime drama was one popular vehicle of choice for many top directors in the Hollywood studio system. Classics like Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard showcased lurid tales of men and women who lived in the midst - and on the edge - of Hollywood. To the world Hollywood means glamour, but to the people who crew its films, the extras in the background, the countless wannabe's who come to Hollywood who are competing with the top one per cent of people in the world with dreams of Hollywood grandeur, Hollywood can mean terrible failure and can often end with great loss. The greatness aspired to - and the desperation of those who fail - in Tinsel Town litter Hollywoodland with its ghosts.

Inspired by one of Hollywood greatest real-life mysteries, Hollywoodland is a film noir period piece that follows low-rent Private Detective Louis Simo, played by the poorly cast Adrien Brody, as he investigates the strange death of '50s TV Superman star George Reeves. Felled by a single gunshot to his head in his Hollywood Hills home, Reeves' death has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories. Reeves began his career with a high in the late 30's when he was cast as one of Vivien Leigh's suitors in one of the opening scenes of Gone With the Wind. He lad a long 20-year career that ended with a five year run as the title character on TV's Adventures of Superman. He was never able to accept his speedy Hollywood descent from leading man to cartoon character in tights and a cape. With a broad-shouldered iron-jawed façade, Reeves was born to play a leading man. Only problem was that George was only one of many leading men in Hollywood - the competition was fierce and Reeves was not that lucky. Hollywoodland opens with a desperate-to-be-seen Reeves sticking his head into a Hollywood society photograph, which introduces him to a long-term love affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), the wife of MGM exec and ex-mobster Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins).

Praised as "one of the best unproduced scripts" during it's years spent in "development hell," Hollywoodland is yet another overly-long offering by a first-time feature director, Allen Coulter, who has extensive TV credits, including multiple episodes of The Sopranos, and Sex and the City. The period noir Hollywood we see in Hollywoodland is lush and tainted, stained by the hopes and dreams of all the people who failed to succeed, and an exhausting and depressing lethargy hangs over the film like a pall. Simo is hired by Reeves mother to investigate her sons' murder and he sets out on a Rashoman-style hunt to decipher who did the dirty deed of doing away with Superman. As Simo connects the dots he comes up with three compelling scenarios, any one of which could have easily been the truth. The guesswork is interesting, but it takes Coulter too long to make his points and we become bogged down in the seedy desperation of the characters, none of which have any redeeming characteristics. Affleck does well with the 20 pounds he gained to bulk up for the square-jawed Reeves, but the many flashbacks only serve to confuse and produce jagged transitions. Diane Lane plays the older and wiser Norma Desmond… woops, I mean Toni Mannix who slowly turns Reeves into a kept man with his tacit approval and purchases a lovely house in the Hollywood Hills for him. The period look of fading Hollywood grandeur is captured perfectly by Production Designer Leslie McDonald and Costume Designer Julie Weiss.

All in all, this is an interesting take on the Reeves death, though much too long to sit through. Casting should've been given more consideration, as Brody is too light-weight to be the hard-boiled detective, perhaps his wardrobe could have been used to help depict a more meaningful character, Simo is too-often clothed in a lightweight short sleeve guyabera-type shirt that only points out his slight build and youthful appearance. In addition, though Brody is an interesting actor, this reviewer wished more than a few times that he would blow his nose or get his deviated septum repaired. Affleck, Lane, and Hoskins aquit themselves well, though no nominations will be forthcoming from this outing.
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Running Time: 126 min

Digital Dogs rating: B; set Tivo to record and watch at your leisure.

MPAA rating: R

Distributer Focus Features Miramax Films, Producers Glenn Williamson, Miles Dale, Director Allen Coulter, Writer Paul Bernbaum, Actors Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins, Robin Tunney, Joe Spano

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Movie Review: "World Trade Center"

2006-08-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Movie Review: "World Trade Center"
© 2006 by Digital Dogs

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September 11, 2001 is a date no one in the US will soon forget. It will remain in our memories forever, separating the Before from the After just as it separated those who were lost from those who survived. After the Twin Towers fell only 20 people were pulled from the wreckage alive, this film, World Trade Center, is the true story of the 18th and 19th people who were saved. It is a story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen – John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno – who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape… and who were involved closely in the telling of their story (in fact, both the McLoughlin's & the Jimeno's share writing credit with the actual writer, Andrea Berloff).

The movie opens with the early start of a new workday for New York City Transit policeman John McLoughlin, played in a surprisingly quiet and subtle performance by Nicolas Cage. It's just another workday for New Yorkers, and Cage is one among many on their way to work in the early morning hours. Normal ends quickly as the first Tower is hit only 15 minutes into this 2 hour+ film. Without knowing what exactly is happening at the World Trade Center buildings, but watching as papers fly out of the buildings along with some people, McLoughlin leads a team of men into the belly of the beast to try to save people. How these men had the courage to enter these buildings as people were fleeing for their lives is still hard to understand. McLoughlin's team makes their way down to the lower levels between the Twin Towers to gather emergency equipment before they can offer help to anyone and it is their location and McLoughlin's fast thinking that ultimately saves him and one of his men as he begins to realize the entire complex is collapsing before they are even able to assist one person...he yells "Run - to the elevator shaft" just before the WTC buildings crash down on top of him and his team. The rest of the film is spent with the only two survivors of the team, McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), stuck in the rubble and unable to move as the buildings continue to collapse and rocks and fireballs shoot around them like a pinball machine. It is a lone Marine, Staff Sgt. Dave Karnes, who finally finds them buried alive beneath the rubble and saves their lives.

Once the buildings collapse, the film shifts focus onto the families of the two TA Cops as they and their families grapple with trying to understand what has happened to their city and their loved ones. Though not overly emotional nor manipulative, World Trade Center, nevertheless, leaves the audience with somewhat of a better understanding of what happened to those who never made it out of the Twin Towers that day. The EFX were powerful and pristine - footage in this film looks as if it were shot on-site on 9/11, and the actor's work is restrained. This reviewer sat in the audience and felt an oncoming migraine headache for the entire length of the film. Eyes hot and dry, head pounding, it was only after leaving the film that the reviewer realized why they felt so ill. This film brings you close to how it all felt to the people buried in the rubble. Regardless, this film clocked in at over 2 hours, and would have benefited by some judicial work in the FCP/Avid suite.

A prolific, brilliant, and difficult director, Oliver Stone, has produced some excellent work in his life, but not in his recent past. His last big Hollywood hit was 1995's Nixon, for which he received an Oscar nomination for a shared Best Writing credit. Prior to that Stone had a string of excellent, though decidedly intense films that received attention, among them, Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, JFK, and Natural Born Killers. After Nixon, Stone seems to have had a problem climbing back on the big-hit horse. He has had a string of films that have not served him as well, ending with the fiasco of Alexander, which actually received multiple nominations for the Razzie Awards. The Razzie, The Golden Raspberry Awards, honors the worst films of the year. With Stone's film history in mind it is easy to understand why he includes nothing of his own paranoid conspiracy theories about 9/11 in World Trade Center. For that this reviewer will remain eternally thankful for. World Trade Center felt as if it is Stone's attempt to get back in the good graces of Hollywood by trying for a win, rather than succumbing to paranoid fantasies, entertaining as they may be.

Though many voices are still questioning "Is it too soon for this film?" clearly, after almost 5 years - an eternity in our fast always-connected lives – it is not too soon. I imagine people will be asking this question for a long time. But if you're not ready to sit through the filmic agony of 9/11, then you have the option of not driving to the theater, paying your hard-earned bucks and sitting through a 126 minute film while people text message around you – simply stay home. But don't continue to ask pointless questions, it is never too soon – or too late, for that matter – to remember an historic occasion. It's far better to remember than to forget such a heinous act.

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Digital Dogs rating: B+

Running Time: 125 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13, for intense and emotional content, some disturbing images and language.

Producers Double Feature Films, Paramount Pictures, Donald Lee Jr, Norm Golightly, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Debra Hill, Moritz Borman, Director Oliver Stone, Writer Andrea Berloff, Actors Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Stephen Dorff, Frank Whaley, Nick Turtorro, Pattu D'Arbanville.

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Movie Review: "The DaVinci Code"

2006-05-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

What if the world's greatest works of art held a secret that could change history as we know it? Dan Brown's theological thriller The Da Vinci Code, one of the most popular novels of our time and translated into 44 languages, is brought to the big screen by Director Ron Howard and Writer Akiva Goldsman in this theological thriller.

But what if one of the most anticipated films of the summer release season bombed at the box office? Jobs will be lost, staff reshuffling will occur. The Knights of Templar-wood will pay!

As usual, Tom Hanks plays his everyman character, here as Harvard Symbologist professor, Robert Langdon. With his Mr. Potato Man features slimmed down somewhat by his longer hair, Hanks could have easily called in instead of showing up for work each day. He has zero charisma and absolutely no connection whatsoever with his leading lady Audrey Taoutou, who's French-accented English is so hard to understand that one could easily miss a full third of her dialog. This obvious lack of charisma between his two leads must have forced Director Howard to add scenes to prove to the audience that a spark existed between them. This leads to too many unnecessary scenes that are there simply for the sake of proving to the audience that there is some connection between the two. And that leads to this film ending up a pointless and unwieldy 2 hours and 32 minutes. Bring a pillow.

Considering that most people in the known world have by now read The DaVinci Code it seems unnecessary to mention the plot, but the film begins with Langdon receiving an urgent late-night phone call that sets the plot in motion. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered, his naked body posed in an imitation of DaVinci's Vitruvian Man with a bloody pentagram drawn on his naked chest, and with the security gates to the gallery down and locked. Lying nearby, police find a strange message written in code that they can't understand. Enter Hanks, who was scheduled to meet the curator and is the prime candidate under suspicion for his murder, and Audrey Tautou, the beautiful, young (is there any other kind of heroine in the movies?) French cryptographer, and who just happens to be the curator's granddaughter. The two team up to solve the crime so they can stay one step ahead of French Captain Bezu Fache, played by the always interesting Jean Reno, and out of a French prison.

In a non-stop race around Paris and London the two discover that the late curator was a member of the Priory of Scion, a secret society involved in international banking and other nefarious affairs, and whose members include historical luminaries such as DaVinci, Botticelli, Christopher Columbus, Victor Hugo, and Sir Isaac Newton. During the Crusades The Priory supported the Knights Templar (also sometimes referred to as The Illuminati) whose members took an oath to protect the roads to the Holy Land, and later - as this story goes - to protect the spawn of Jesus' union with Mary Magdalene. Together the two race around some of Western Europe's most beautiful sites to uncover clues, puzzles, and cryptic codes to solve the riddle while trying to evade Reno's lawmen and a weird, creepy albino monk into self-flagellation and stalking the two leads with the help of Opus Dei Bishop Manuel Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), and played to the hilt by Paul Bettany. With additional over-acting by the usually compelling Ian McKellan as cripple Leigh Teabing who Langdon turns to for help as a last resort, The DaVinci Code rates as a film with some of the most over-acted roles so far this year. Screenwriter Goldsman and Director Howard will not be in line for an Oscar come Academy season, but their work will most likely interest scores of the curious. The DaVinci Code is a dense story packed with fascinating arcane detail and Goldsman needed a good screenplay editor to make the story move along faster. A good 30-40 minutes could have been edited out of this film without anyone missing a beat.

Some of the most interesting scenes were the flashbacks filmed as though we are watching ancient events through a veil. Even without dialog or any recognizable characters, these flashbacks provide some of the more interesting moments in the film and I would have like to see them expanded.

You will see copious "news" stories on The DaVinci Code in the next few weeks as this film opens across the US. Don't mistake the Christians who speak out, either for and against the film, as they all see it as the same thing - an opportunity to connect with possible converts to their beliefs. Proceed with caution.
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Digital Dogs rating: B- Read the book again while waiting for the DVD or Cable TV release.

MPAA rating: PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content... though I must say we didn't notice any of the above.

A Columbia Pictures (Sony) and Imagine Entertainment release. Director Ron Howard, Screenplay Akiva Goldsman, based on the novel by Dan Brown. Producers Brian Grazer, John Calley.

Running time: 2 hours, 32 minutes
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Watch the trailer: The DaVinci Code
Crack the Code: Play The DaVinci Code Quest
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Movie Review: "Poseidon"

2006-05-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Poseidon's release brings the hot summer film market to the starting line. In the ages-old Hollywood tradition of remakes, Poseidon is another in a long line of CGI-assisted action adventure film remakes that hope to drive audiences to the theaters in droves this all-important summer season.

With New Year's Eve festivities underway, the luxury cruise ship Poseidon is at sea in the North Atlantic and everyone on board, save for a small crew manning the Bridge, is celebrating in the Grand Ballroom. The band, led by Black Eyed Peas' Fergie (Stacy Ferguson) sings "Auld Lang Syne" while the end of their world unknowingly awaits them. A wall of water, called a 'rogue wave' well over 150 feet high is bearing down on them and efforts to avert the danger by the Chief Officer on the Bridge is thwarted by the colossal force of the wave. Hit by this towering rogue wave, awesome in it's power, the cruise ship Poseidon is capsized and turned on its head, lying on top of the water but turned completely upside down. Passengers and crew are thrown into free fall and must team up to work their way to the bottom (now the top) of the ship. Ship Captain, Andre Braugher, tells everyone to stay where they are in the ballroom, insisting that the huge room can take the water pressure brought on by the shift in weight and remain water-tight until rescue, but a few hardy souls with a working brain and an urge to live – most of whom met while playing high-stakes poker - take matters into their own hands and begin the climb to the top of the overturned ship. With ex-Navy gambler Dylan, played by Josh Lucas, leading the way, a group of about eight people scramble their way upwards through the bowels of the ship as it begins to sink.

The action and effects in Poseidon take the audience for a ride which comes to an abrupt halt just about every time dialog ensues. The audience we watched this with laughed out loud during most of the ridiculous dialog - which screenplay writer Mark Protosevich (The Cell) must have found in some romantic novel. Scenes without the cheesy dialog were handled well by Director Wolfgang Peterson (who made his name helming Das Boot many moons ago, and followed up with Outbreak, The Perfect Storm, and, more recently, Troy). As the cast goes, Richard Dreyfuss made every effort, most of them successful, in sincere line delivery.

As a summer action adventure film, Poseidon fits the bill as an E-Ticket ride. As a movie with believable characters and dialog, Poseidon falls way short… which could make this a great date movie.

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Digital Dogs rating: B- / E-Ticket ride

MPAA rating: PG-13

Director Producer Wolfgang Peterson (Troy, The Perfect Storm); Producer Mike Fliess, Duncan Henderson, Akiva Goldman.

Movie Review: “United 93”

2006-04-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

Arriving in theaters five years after September 11, United 93 is a desperately poignant film that focuses on the only flight that day not to reach its intended target. United 93 recreates the events of this doomed flight in real time, from take-off to hijacking to the horrifying realization by the passengers and crew that they were on a flight that was part of a coordinated attack on U.S. soil. Director Paul Greengrass creates an amazing reality that makes you feel as if you are watching the events as they occur through a window.

The film starts slowly as the early morning crowd waits around Newark Airport, then hustles on board United 93. We see the crowded skies on the Air Traffic Controllers screens (over 2200 planes were in the air that morning!) and we experience the second a controller realizes a hijacking might be in progress. The controllers have a clear view of the World Trade Center and as they notice a Tower smoking, slowly the realization dawns that the plane that just fell off radar actually flew into the Tower. We continue to cut back and forth while United 93 takes off after a short delay. The four hijackers all sit in first class and look appropriately scary and hostile and after a short wait they take out both pilots.

As the information makes it way up the chain of command we watch as everyone scrambles to do the right thing. It was the actions of so many heroes that day that this film honors. It’s painful to watch the passengers on United 93 calling their loved ones and saying goodbye, and thrilling to watch a group of scared unarmed men rush the armed hijackers and struggle to take back control of the plane.

There is only one familiar face in this film (David Rasche plays one of the passengers), everyone else is an unknown, with FAA’s Ben Sliney, and many of the controllers and military played by the real people who lived the experience. Contrary to public comments United 93 is not the first film to focus on events that occurred on that day (DC9/11:Time of Crisis was done for HBO in 2003 and focused on events that day in Washington) but it is the first film to pose what events might have occurred on one of the flights. Chilling in its reality, every moment reads true.

The ironically sad experience of this film is watching everyone, terrorists and passengers alike, praying to their god as the plane goes down. There was a deep, painful silence for a few beats as the film ended, then applause.

Many people have been speculating about whether or not now is a good time for this film. That’s a personal decision. No one, of course wants to go to a movie and feel bad when they leave, we go for entertainment, but sometimes it’s important to remember.

Sometimes there are things we should never forget.

Digital Dogs rating: A. This film sets the bar high for this release season.

MPAA rating: R

Writer, Director, Producer Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, Bourne Supremacy, Live Aid documentary); Producer Lloyd Levin (Hellboy, Rocketeer, Boogie Nights, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider); Producer Tim Bevin; Producer Eric Fellner

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You can make a donation to the National Park Foundation for a memorial to the heroes on United 93 here - http://www.nationalparks.org/flight93/default.asp

Let's Idolize the American Presidential Vote

2006-04-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

The ratings and cultural juggernaut, American Idol, is in the final weeks of its fifth year. This season my top three are Chris Daughtry, Catherine McPhee, and the brilliant Taylor Hicks. I'm sure you've got a top three. And that's the point… everyone is watching and everyone is voting.

Each year the Idol audience grows and each year more people vote for the winner of American Idol than vote for the President of the United States of America. It's reported that an average of 31 million Americans are tuning in and voting for talented unknowns to reach uncharted celebrity in an updated version of shows like Star Search, Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour, Showtime at the Apollo, Nashville Star, Minutes to Fame, Superstar USA, Fame, You're A Star, Rock Star: INXS (soon to be Rock Star: Super Group), etc. Americans obviously can't get enough of watching wannabe's reach the top.

In the complete 2005 season of American Idol just over 500 million votes were cast. In 2004 the American Presidential election garnered a paltry 122 million votes, 20 full percentage points behind the Afghanistan presidential election that same year. Compare that with Afghanistan's 96 per cent voter turnout.

Whatever shows are thrown up by competing channels against American Idol are churned over and tossed away in the rush to watch the wannabe celebrities. The American public is now in a glow of participatory democracy, at least as far as American Idol goes. Why not bring the same dream of full participation to the Presidential election?

It would be so easy to do. No worrying about Deibold voting machines, no paper ballots, no wasting gas on driving to ones polling place, no worries about non-drivers making it to their polling place, no lines, no anger…no muss, no fuss.

Each registered voter could simply register their phone number, and that one number would be allowed to vote only once or twice, etc. depending on the number of regsitered voters at that address, thus eliminating the redial issue that American Idol encourages. Voting would be open for a predetermined period of time to allow everyone to cast their vote. Since votes would be tied to a pre-registered phone number everyone would have an equal chance to cast their vote.

This is such a good idea, in fact, that the entire presidential election could be modeled after Idol. There could be a panel of Senators to select the top 50 men and women to run for American Idol President. Each week the public could narrow that number down after watching the candidates compete in public debates on such topics as Public Policy, Race Relations, The Economy, The Clash of Civilizations, The American Army, Nuclear Arms, The Middle east, Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Eurabia, , New Orleans Recovery, etc. If we "Idolize" election we can also eliminate those pesky, opportunistic lobbyists like Jack Abramoff thus eliminating a huge source of fraud and waste of everyones dollars.

I can only see an upside here. Are you with me?

It's participatory democracy in action.

I say let's Idolize the American voting process!

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If you're so inclined you can download all the 2006 American Idol contestant songs as MP3's from the Idol Forums.

Bush & Cheney Should Be Tried for Treason

2006-04-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

In the pursuit of Republican Party Values and their "Faith-Based" Intelligence mandate George Walker Bush, Dick Cheney, and their "Conservative" cabal have purposefully, willfully, and with premeditation, committed treason. This crime should make every patriotic American sick to their stomach. It made me want to vomit.

The definition of treason from the wikipedia is:

"A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship ... is considered to be a traitor. "

From The National Journal (the bible of Washington insders) :
Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks

"According to court papers, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that President Bush authorized disclosure of the contents of highy classified information to the media to defend the administrations's use of pre-war intelligence while making it's case for war in Iraq."

From The Nation:

"U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey, D-New York, who has been the most determined Congressional watchdog with regard to the administration's misuse of intelligence information, says that, "If what Scooter Libby said to the grand jury is true, then this latest development clearly reveals yet again that the CIA leak case goes much deeper than the disclosure of a CIA agent's identity to the press. The heart and motive of this case is about the deliberate attempt at the highest levels of this administration to discredit those who were publicly revealing that the White House lied about its uranium claims leading up to the war. The Bush Administration knew that Iraq had not sought uranium from Africa for a nuclear weapon, yet they went around telling the Congress, the country, and the world just the opposite. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson's husband, publicly spoke out with proof that the administration was not telling the truth on uranium, the administration engaged in an orchestrated plot, which now reportedly includes President Bush, to discredit Ambassador Wilson and dismiss any notion that they had lied about pre-war intelligence."

Watch as the Republicans try to explain this away

As usual, bloggers like gay conservative (an insane contradiction in terms if I ever heard of one) Andrew Sullivan are already jumping to attempt to wash away the seriousness of this crime when he prints:

"The president's self-defense at this point must be that if he, the president, decides to leak classified information, like the NIE assessment, then, by definition, it isn't a classified leak. POTUS gets to decide what is and isn't classified. And so he cannot commit the wrong or crime he decries in others. He can break no secrets because the secrets are his to break. He is above the law because, in terms of executive privilege, he is the law."

Perhaps Sullivan is trying to see both sides of this issue, but this is plain wrong. The President exposed an active CIA agent in an attempt to cover up a series of lies that led us into an unwinable war. They used these lies to cover up their "faith-based" intelligence. This is an obvious betrayal of our country on the highest order.

A definition of Faith-based intelligence - I will pick and choose intelligence I prefer to believe. If I have the faith to believe a lie to be true, then I will only listen to people who agree with me and help me propogate my lies as truth ignoring all other facts to the contrary.

According to these same court documents:

"Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax."

Useless, But Fascinating Nerd Fact

2006-04-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 n the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

Exactly one thousand years from now this will happen again at 01:02:03 04/05/06 (3006)

About Darfur, Sudan (please pay attention Fareed Zakaria)...

2006-03-22T18:18:00.000-08:00

I usually enjoy reading Fareed Zakaria who:

“...oversees all Newsweek’s editions abroad. He also writes a regular column for Newsweek, which also appears in Newsweek International and often The Washington Post. He is a regular member of the roundtable of ABC News’ "This Week with George Stephanapoulos" as well as an analyst for ABC News. He is the host of a new weekly PBS show, "Foreign Exchange," which focuses on international affairs.”

So you’d think that this New Yorker with B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard might actually get his facts straight. But alas! No such luck. Here’s what he writes about Darfur, Sudan, in his most recent column, entitled "How To Stop a Genocide" (at least the headline speaks the truth) in Newsweek (March 20, 2006), which you can read on his website:

The conflict in Darfur arose from a series of political disputes between two
groups: the Arabs who make up the government-backed Janjaweed militia versus the region's non-Arab farmers. In 002, the Janjaweed engaged in particularly bloody massacres, and the non-Arab tribes launched a rebellion against the dictatorship
in Khartoum. The government responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, who since
then have engaged in mass rapes, killings and lootings…”

This is a politically correct statement, an accepted de facto fact that really contains only partial facts. As usual with reports about Sudan, his comment is only a half-truth and barely touches on the actual facts. Here are the facts…

QUESTION: WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN SUDAN?
ANSWER: The Arabification of Africa. The systematic killing-off of the indigenous black African population.

The Sudan conflict is specifically about Arabs killing off the indigenous black African population, even though that black African population is alrady 98 per cent Muslim. The conflict in Darfur arose from a series of political disputes between two groups – The Arabs who are in control of the government and give orders to their “Janjaweed” militias after years of systematically killing off the indigenous black African population. This has nothing to do with "the region's non-Arab farmers." They could be cowboys or miners or lawyers, this is about skin color and tribal heritage, green fertile land in the South, and oil the Sudanese are hoping to find off their coastline. At least Zakaria got the "non-Arab" part correct.

When Sudan gained independence from colonial Britian in 1956 they had an estimated 30 million inhabitants of Africa’s largest country (equal in size to the US east of the Mississippi). Even the name “Sudan” comes from the Arabic bilad as-Sudan “land of the blacks.” Almost all of the people of the North are Muslim, with the Southern part of Sudan mostly animists or Christians, though the Muslims are making big inroads there due to forced conversion and outright murder. Prior to 1956 Sudan was often portrayed as a “bridge” between the Arab world and black Africa. Prior to that this land has been fought over for generations. The two parties doing the fighting? Ethnic Arabs and the indigenous black African population. It’s that simple.

What this conflict is is not is new. This conflict has been going on for hundreds of years. What we see now is through the veil of current politics, much like the various “Intifada’s” in the disputed region North, East, and South of Israel. This is all about the Arabification of North Africa. The Arab's Muslim religion is now the predominant religion in that region. Once they succeed in completely killing off the indigenous black African population all of North Africa will be completely controlled by an increasingly hostile radical Islamist mindset. That this fact is rarely mentioned, pointed out, or even eluded to is mind boggling.

Now the Islamists have moved down into the middle of the continent. Nigeria is the most recent battleground. The second largest untapped oil reserves in the world are located just off the coast of Nigeria in West Africa, and it will all fall into the control of Islamists who are quickly taking control in that African nation. In fact, Sharia law is now the norm in the Northern half of Nigeria, and religious riots in support of Sharia for the entire country now roil the land. In Southern Nigeria, “rebels” (Islamists) are fighting government forces much as they did in North Africa. It’s all about control - control of people by controlling the religion to control the wealth.

So the Western media will continue to call these radical Islamist fundamentalists "rebels" never identifying them as who they truly are (Islamists focused on the Arabification of the world via the Caliphate) so the rest of the world will watch and wait until it's too late to do anything about it.

2006-03-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

HaPpY BiRThDaY MoM!

2006-03-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Dad!

the Digital Dogs

Now on Twitter

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OVGuide.com - crazy & chaotic, but amazingly useful

HOLLYWOOD POV: "Young At Heart"

HOLLYWOOD POV: BAFTA/LA British Comedy Festival: You're Invited to Free Screenings of RUN FAT BOY RUN, HOT FUZZ, and MAGICIANS

2007 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2007

E-Ticket Rides

THE TOP FILMS

OF 2007:

The A List

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The B List

THE FILMS

OF 2007:

The C List

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF 2007: The D List, an incomplete grade

It's Hard to Keep Up

MOVIE REVIEW: "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers"

MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT REVIEW: NAMM - The Largest Music Products Trade Show in the World

2006 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2006

MOVIE REVIEW: "Dreamgirls"

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MOVIE REVIEW: "Blood Diamond"

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