Under the Parthenon

Add this to the list of reasons to vacation in Greece, right next to nude beaches, free-flowing booze, birthplace of democracy, and so on:

A new museum of glass and concrete opened today at the base of the Acropolis, under the gaze of the limestone and marble Parthenon. It contains 226,000 square feet of antiquities: the statues and sculptures and papyrus that constitute the legacy left by the Greek civilization.

Conspicuously absent are the Elgin Marbles that were spirited away by a pompous aristocrat/wannabe archaeologist to the British Museum. There they have remained, since the British have claimed Greece is too politically unstable and too economically ill-equipped to maintain the looted freezes and statues. The museum's curators hope the new $200 million facility will shoot holes in that argument for once and for all. Here's hoping the British Museum is willing to part with at least some of its pilfered treasures.

In the meantime, check out some beautiful photos of the new museum.

Reach into your pockets...

Although his guerrilla tactics make him the antithesis of a competent, objective journalist, Michael Moore tends to get a pass from liberals because he's a mouthpiece for the "right" side of most arguments. Sure, he harasses aging, sickly movie stars. And, yes, he picks some of the most ridiculous examples to illustrate his points. But, the War in Iraq was wrong. And guns do kill. And so on.

I can't say I'm eagerly awaiting this New Film by Michael Moore, the teaser for which just showed up on Yahoo Movies, but there's something to be said for his blunt force rhetoric. After dealing with the absurdity of having PR spokesmen deliver prepared comments full of ill-conceived talking points (on behalf of so-and-so senator and such-and-such company), I can understand and almost admire his firebrand approach to reporting.

Images from a Day of Reckoning

Here are just a few of the most affecting photos posted of the Iranian protests posted today by a photographer named mousavi1388 on Flickr. They display visually what a million words could not convey.

I've always thought that if a people want something enough, they will put everything on the line for it and the Iranian people clearly have. I don't know what the solution should or will be, but my heart and mind is with the people of Iran. Hopefully, they will receive the kind of government they demand. Hopefully, they will not have to shed any more blood for that. Hopefully, their sacrifice won't be ignored and their will won't be beaten down (as it has been in Burma/Myanmar).

Review: Angels & Demons

It's an angel! It's a demon! It's the camerlengo flying a CG helicopter!

Like the trite Dan Brown novel it was based upon, Angels & Demons has a lot of important-sounding things to say but very little in the way of real insight. It wants to sound profound. It wants to bridge the gap between science and religion. It wants to show that belief and logic are just two sides of the same coin. Most of all, it wants the audience to think that it wants all these things. The only thing Brown and director Ron Howard want are the up-front salaries and back-end deals.

Despite giving Tom Hanks' Robert Langdon a more conservative haircut and making the female lead—at least superficially—more intelligent and headstrong, Angels & Demons is actually more ridiculous than it's cinematic predecessor, The Da Vinci Code.

The CG visual effects, the true barometer of a good summer popcorn flick, are terrible. It seems the closer we come to virtual perfection, the more unreal it all seems. Call it the uncanny valley of digital imaging. St. Peter's Square looks good enough, populated with a mix of real human extras and digital fascimiles, but it doesn't have the gravity of the real thing. It looks a little distant, a little warped, like a meticulously constructed 1/16 scale model. The same can be said for all of the familiar landmarks that Tom Hanks didn't have permission to dash through, but does so anyway with a little movie magic.

Thematically, the film is a mess. And not a good, moral-ambiguity-explored-artfully mess. Early on, it presents a character who espouses the virtues of both science and religion. It is time, he says, for the two warring philosophies to unite. And then, after his breathless proselytizing, he calls science the "younger brother" of religion. Another priest is steadfastly against science while quietly campaigning for his chance to become the new pope. Which one is the ideal man of faith and which one is the villain who's scheming to bring down the Vatican? The answer isn't all that surprising.

The acting, on all fronts, is actually an improvement on The Da Vinci Code, where the performances were either wooden or overwrought with little middle ground. Ewan McGregor gets a lot of mileage out of the Camerlengo McKenna; right up until a last-minute plot twist robs his character of any realistically human motivation. Armin Mueller-Stahl succeeds as a cardinal whose self-interest is thoroughly realistic. I get the feeling that there's a lot of depth yet to be mined in Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer (Eric Bana's wife in Munich). The screenplay asks only that she say stupid things ("Isn't it cold in here?") smartly, but she brings more emotion to her scenes than are dictated by the vapid dialogue she's forced to recite. Tom Hanks is...Tom Hanks, and you can't really argue against that.

The Vatican was right to ignore this thoroughly unincendiary film. The audience will leave the multiplex with nothing more or less than what they came in with. Well, except 138 minutes they can never retrieve.

Rating: 3 / 10

Review: The Hangover

Although I spent the weekend away from the web (with limited wireless access, I didn't even try), I did catch three recent popcorn flicks at the movieplex—an admitted rarity for me. Here's some thoughts on the first of the three... Spoilers follow.

The Hangover is what it is. If you've seen the trailer, you know precisely what you're in for. Two frat guys and an oddball brother-in-law take their friend on a bachelor party in Sin City. Bad shit happens. None of the survivors of the bender can remember what they did when they wake up the next morning to a chicken, a tiger and no sign of the would-be groom. It's a story told at backyard barbecues and reenacted on sitcoms that you suspect has never actually happened.

The jokes come so fast and loose that the duds don't really factor. Ed Helms' Stu is a variation on Andy Bernard: cuckolded by his fiancee and repressed by his middle-class life. Bradley Cooper is a little too convincing as douchebag Phil. Zach Galifianakis (from the short-lived Comedy Central show "Dog Bites Man") is particularly well-suited to the role of an infantile pedophile, Alan, who doesn't know the difference between Ecstasy and Rufinol. Despite some truly disturbing "quirks," Galifianakis manages to make Alan seem harmless. He just wants to be one of the guys, after all.

There's never any real suspense in The Hangover. In a different film—not necessarily better, but more serious-minded—Alan's desperation for acceptance, his naivete and his hinted-at pedophilia would lead to something worse than short-term amnesia. Going in, the audience knows nothing truly dire will happen to these guys. Tiger maulings, run-ins with sociopathic drug dealers and heat stroke won't be fatal events here.

In that sense, The Hangover falls neatly into the fantasy Las Vegas of the ad campaigns. Bad things may happen to you there but, as a tourist, you can expect to leave relatively unscathed and with a really awesome story to tell your friends. The Hangover's conclusion falls right in line with the endings of Indecent Proposal, Vegas Vacation or last year's 21. As refreshing as it would be to see this familiar story get a perverse twist—imagine if the groom died after 2 days of exposure to the wild temperature fluctuations of the desert city—the film was never meant to be anything other than a funny retread of a familiar story.

On it's own relatively modest terms, The Hangover works. It's the funniest straight comedy I've seen in a long time. Watch it with a few of your bros and make sure to stay for the credits.

Rating: 7 / 10

Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying

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The Set Up: One Punch Away...

One of my regular reads, the always engaging Noir of the Week, recently posted a commentary on one of my favorite noirs, Robert Wise's The Set Up. Although their write-up veers a little too close to verbatim summary, it also gives some good insight into the film's backstory. Probably the most memorable aspect of the film, 60 years later, is that it was filmed in (more or less) real time. That aspect works pretty well in building suspense and providing a semblance of reality, although I have to admit, the protagonist boxer Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) spends an excruciating amount of time changing into his shorts and gloves.


An example of Robert Wise's use of real-time and the long shot.

I figured I'd add some of my own thoughts to the mix, but, if you haven't seen the film yet: Beware. Spoilers ahead.

For Thompson, redemption is always just one punch away. He repeats that mantra to his wife, his manager, his cornerman and himself, as if sheer repetition will make it true. Like the amateur criminals that dwell in the shadows of film noir, Stoker yearns for something more than the sweat-stained towels of second-rate stadiums. With a measure of brute force, skill and dumb luck, he hopes to have one last shot at the title and the $500 it promises. The boxer, as portrayed in The Set-Up, becomes another tragic film noir protagonist who, despite having only tenuous links to criminal activity, falls prey to blind ambition.

Professional athletes aren't obvious candidates for the Walter Neff treatment. We've become accustomed to seeing them survive scandal and navigate the legal system with ease. Although shady women may scramble to spend one night in a basketball player's bed, seldom does it lead to anything more than an embarassing press conference and the ensuing tabloid feeding frenzy. Ask Kobe Bryant. Even athletes of the washed-up variety have Viagra commercials and used car lots to turn to. While the cliches surrounding private eyes and insurance salesmen typically involve back alleys and broken hearts, athletes are rarely subject to such fatalism.

While a baseball game could never serve as the backdrop to the real-time suspense of The Set-Up, an inherent tension present in boxing lends itself to such treatment. The prize fight consists of four rounds of equal time. When one fighter is laid flat on the mat, there is the countdown to the knockout and the inevitable—at least in cinema—last-minute resurrection. Time itself also imposes its own tension on the proceedings. At some point, a prize fighter will be too old to continue challenging fresh-faced upstarts.

There is immediacy to a boxing match that few sports can rival. Like many of the crimes perpetrated in film noir, boxing is an endeavor that rewards aggression. Even spectators are swept into the action: timid middle-aged women become hecklers and mild-mannered husbands beat the air with their fists. The fighters need to be able to both give and take a punch, to size up their opponents quickly and act with little concern for the consequences. Stoker pushes himself to the limit every night, despite the fact that he’s “blown 100 fights” according to his manager Tiny. Mrs. Dietrichson of Double Indemnity continues to kill in order to attain her goals; Stoker continues to take a beating in order to keep his dream alive.


The crowd is frothing with testosterone as Stoker Thompson looks on at the fight. He knows he will soon be on the other side; from a spectator to an an actor.

Before the audience gets a glimpse of Stoker, we know he has crossed that invisible divide between experienced boxer and aging has-been. After the camera passes a middle-aged man exclaims that he remembers seeing Stoker in the ring as a kid, Stoker’s ever-supportive wife entreats her husband to give up his foolhardy passion and open a cigarette stand. “I remember the first time you told me that,” she says, her back turned. “You were just one punch away from the title shot then.” This time, Stoker insists, is different. “They’re building this guy up,” he says of his 23-year-old opponent Tiger Nelson, “feeding him a lot of pushovers.” Deluded by the promise of glory, Stoker fails to see himself amongst those aforementioned pushovers. With no sense of irony, he presents Julie with a variation on the old chestnut: “if I could belt him solid just once…”

Even after learning that he must throw the fight, Stoker continues against seemingly insurmountable odds. “It’s better to play it safe and go the distance,” Tiny says, “than to get your head knocked off.” The closest people in his life are pleading with him to follow the safe road toward a safe life eking out a safe living. Stoker’s rebellion cements his position as a film noir hero. While the others play for the easy money and the comfortable life, Stoker dreams of the big score. Although his delusions aren’t as literal as Gunboat’s—believing he is Frankie Manilla, the underdog middle-weight champion of the world—they are no less potent in their influence and disastrous in their consequences. With little concern for what Little Boy will do, he continues to fight for his pride, his masculinity and the title run. To fail now, so close to the big score, would be the ultimate defeat.

Another element that aligns boxers with the noir hero is isolation. Whether they leave the ring victorious or require smelling salts to walk away under their own power, both boxers are alone in the ring. The Set-Up plays up this aspect of the sport through low-angle shots of the ring with no audience members in the frame. It’s just two men approaching the point of total exertion, trying to land that one solid punch that will fell the opponent.

For Stoker, the world recedes into darkness after the fight, as well. Tiny and Red abandon him as soon as Tiger Nelson hits the floor. The spectators immediately file out of stands. Gus and his assistant blow with one word from Danny. The lights are out in his hotel room—his wife isn’t with him and she isn’t waiting up for him. She may be picking up sandwiches, deciding to stand by her husband as he faces a slow descent, but Stoker doesn’t know that. With fear supplanting single-minded ambition, he dashes through the darkened arena, from door to door. He’s trapped inside the arena, forced to face whatever grisly end awaits.

Consumed by an impossible dream of personal glory and a shot at the big time that has escaped him, Stoker Thompson blinds himself to the trap he falls into. His solidarity with the film noir protagonist springs from this desperation and the tragic end it expedites. Although he never actively pursues a life of crime as a path to his dreams, the character flaws at his core leave him vulnerable to defeat. In some alternate movie universe, in which Stoker lost in the third round, the boxer is one punch away from returning to Julie a vegetable. And he, too, is a tragic hero in search of a film noir.

Sundown

On The Road

Somehow I missed the trailer for The Road that showed up on Yahoo last month, so this is news to me if not to anyone else. Apple has just posted some HD trailers for this Cormac McCarthy adaptation from John Hillcoat, the director of the bloody Outback oater The Proposition (highly recommended).

Although the trailer itself follows the tired convention of the television broadcast narration (exhibit A: Blindness), it's the one film this year I'm anticipating the most. The novel was thoroughly deserving of the Pulitzer Prize McCarthy walked away with in 2007, although placement in the Oprah Book Club was probably an unwarranted punishment.

Like Proposition, The Road will feature a score composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis--the team responsible for the beautiful music of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Guy Pearce, who played the bedraggled outlaw in Hillcoat's last film, is back in a bit role here. And Viggo Mortensen seems entirely suited the role of "The Man."

Also interesting to note, a lot of the film was shot in south central Pennsylvania, around the Harrisburg area. Specifically, the highway tunnel is part of an abandoned segment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I saw it when I was a kid and it is eerie in real life, too. Or at least it was then. The Road was also filmed in Louisiana. Unfortunately, the location scouts probably had no difficulty finding abandoned highways and devastated buildings there. For an interesting short article about the filming from last year, check out Filmmaker Magazine.

After a lot of release date shuffles, The Road will hit theatres on Oct. 16.

Cut that man's hair!

Good stuff.

You'll never leave this island...

Even with a brilliant director and a richly talented cast, Shutter Island—the trailer of which just premiered on Apple—is a tough sell for me. Everything about the film seems like a plus. Joining Scorsese's new old stand-by DiCaprio, the cast is filled out by Mark Ruffalo (the realistically world-weary David Toschi in Zodiac), Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow and, a personal favorite, Patricia Clarkson. The fact that Clarkson features so prominently in the trailer is almost enough to make me cautiously optimistic. Add to this Scorsese's company of old-pros behind the camera (d.p. Richardson, editor Schoonmaker and production designer Dante Ferretti) and all should be right with the world.

Unfortunately, Scorsese's latest is based on the worst of the three Dennis Lehane novels I've read. I can't elaborate without (potentially) spoiling the plot of the film, but those who've read the book know where I'm coming from. Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis retained the anagram character names. Not good. The trailer telegraphs the same plot twists found in the novel. Not good. And, finally, check out the video game-quality CG imagery. Not good.

Really, Scorsese. That's the best you could do? I'd rather to see him go the old school route of using matte paintings instead of falling back on bargain-basement CGI. I miss the matte paintings and process shots of Vertigo, Citizen Kane or Black Narcissus. There was a real art to seamlessly blending the world of the cinema and the world of the still frame. Comparatively, the CGI backdrops found nearly everywhere today are mere window dressing.

I guess this is a long way of saying I'm apprehensive about Shutter Island and the trailer didn't do a thing to dispel that feeling. Also, welcome to In Widescreen. I don't have any real idea where I'll be taking this blog, but it gives me a place to relax and write about the things that interest me. I promise I won't be this grumpy all the time. After all, everything's better in widescreen (har har har).