Maria Full of Grace

Year 2, Day 233 - 8/21/10 - Movie #599

BEFORE: I didn't eat anything for almost 24 hours, except for a few crackers and some ginger ale - I've found that's the easiest and fastest way to clear out my system and feel better. Then I was starving at dinner time, so we went out for Chinese Buffet - so I'm going into this one with a full belly...

THE PLOT: A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

AFTER: Looks like I'm not the only one with a full stomach, of course I'm not carrying drug pellets from Colombia to New Jersey.

This was another film that was tough to watch, but for entirely different reasons. It was difficult to watch someone forcing down 50 or 60 drug-filled condoms and then nervously traveling to the U.S. I know it's a complicated issue, and I know there are parts of the world where this sort of thing takes place - I'm just not sure that it makes for an entertaining film.

I'm starting to think that films developed at the Sundance Institute, and regarded as "festival darlings" don't always translate to entertaining films to watch at home - which is tough for me to say, since I've enjoyed going to the Sundance Festival in the past, and I work with a lot of film festival people. I've found films at Sundance to be very entertaining - "Memento", "Donnie Darko", and "The Butterfly Effect" stand out as some of my favorites. So what is it about being in the festival atmosphere that seems to make these films more watchable? Or am I making too general of an assumption?

I guess I should just judge each individual film on its own merits. This one was dark, depressing, and left the main character in an unresolved situation. There, I said it.

One more drug-related film, and then I'll happily be moving on to another subject. I don't really feel connected to this topic, being drug-free since 1988, unless you count beer, screwdrivers and the occasional Sudafed.

RATING: 4 out of 10 passports

Half Nelson

Year 2, Day 232 - 8/20/10 - Movie #598

BEFORE: I haven't felt right since breakfast today - I think I got a bad egg sandwich and started feeling queasy around lunch - so I didn't eat dinner, and I'm just waiting it out and clearing out my system. ("American Runs on Dunkin'?" More like "America Gets the Runs from Dunkin'"...)

Maybe feeling crappy will help me watch and understand this movie about a drug-addicted high-school teacher.

THE PLOT: An inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret.

AFTER: This one was a real struggle to get through. It moved at a snail's pace, and there was no real progression or resolution. For a much better and non-boring film on a similar subject, please check out "Requiem For a Dream" if you haven't already seen it.

Ah, a credit at the end explains a lot - this film was workshopped at the Sundance Institute. Probably did very well at the Sundance Festival, too, because it's so dark and obtuse, and as I said, moves extrememly slowly. (Sure enough, it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize there in 2006. Won a few Independent Spirit Awards too - you know, the awards show that wants to be the Oscars when it grows up.)

There are a couple of key moments that the screenplay seemed to be built around - most notably when Dan Dunne has Drey, his student, in his car, and they get approached by another car, containing Dan's dealer, who is also an influence in Drey's life. The dealer says, "Want some candy?", and for a moment we're not sure if he's talking about drugs, or actual candy...

It takes about an hour for anything to, you know, happen - and the movie only perks up in a few places, like when Dan visits his parents' house for dinner near the end of the film. I would have liked to have seen more of that, his family seemed fairly disfunctional, which might have explained a lot about his background. Nope, I'm out of luck.

I get it, he uses drugs to escape his personal pain, but unfortunately watching someone get high and not hit their bottom point just isn't all that interesting. You could say he's learned to cover his tracks and function as part of "the machine", but so freakin' what?

In Happy Accident #178, like "Blow", this movie also features the song "Can't You See" by the Marshall Tucker Band - it's one of those few things that perks up the film for a few minutes.

Starring Ryan Gosling (last seen in "Murder By Numbers"), Shareeka Epps, Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Hollywood Homicide"), Tina Holmes, Deborah Rush (who I tend to confuse with Rachael Harris), and a cameo from Jay O. Sanders (last seen in "Cadillac Records")

RATING: 3 out of 10 nosebleeds

Blow

Year 2, Day 231 - 8/19/10 - Movie #597

BEFORE: Popeye Doyle might have cleaned out his system and got the monkey off his back, but around here, we're just getting started...

THE PLOT: The story of George Jung, the man who established the American cocaine market in the 1970's.

AFTER: A couple of negatives, but mostly positive things to say. I couldn't help notice the connections to "Goodfellas" - I guess any film about someone building up a criminal empire is going to be reminiscent of Scorcese's masterpiece, but it feels like not much new ground was broken here. The presence of Ray Liotta (last seen in "Observe and Report") as Jung's father only heightened the similarities.

The soundtrack was good, but I found the choices rather predictable, with songs like "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'", "Blinded By the Light", "Strange Brew" and "That Smell". They're great songs, but I feel like I've heard them each in a dozen other movies. Props for including "Can't You See" by the Marshall Tucker Band, though, which could be one of the best songs in the history of ever.

Johnny Depp (last seen in "Public Enemies") seemed very subdued here, almost sleepwalking through the film, which is neither here nor there, I guess it's just a choice. But his Boston accent was solid, and not every actor gets that right. Not every actor in this film got it right. I should say "Weymouth" accent, as there are different Boston-area accents - someone from, say, South Boston wouldn't have the same exact accent as someone from Revere. (Rev-EY-ah!) It's a lot like the different classes of English accent in that way. And since Jung started in Weymouth and then spent time in California, then Mexico, this presented a unique linguistic challenge, which I believe Depp met.

It's another Hollywood fallacy, I believe, that the people who run these criminal drug empires are all raging cokeheads themselves. How are we supposed to believe that someone maintains the technical savvy to run a complex smuggling operation if they're constantly stoned off their nut? The extreme, of course, is Al Pacino in "Scarface", knocking over piles of cocaine in his mansion, and swimming through it like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin. That empire would crumble in a week if its kingpin was blasted 24/7...

What's different about this film is that it shows Jung as someone who occasionally smoked pot and snorted coke - but after an incident where his blood contains more cocaine than actual hemoglobin, he gets himself clean and (presumably) stays that way. Whatever you do for a living, you probably need some time away from it on a daily basis, to keep from going crackers. If you're a puppeteer 9 to 5, on the weekend probably the last thing you want to do is go to a puppet show. Then there's the old joke about the gynecologist...

So, I appreciated the depiction of Jung as a businessman first, and occasional stoner second. However, some of the other characters were so ridiculous as to be almost cartoonish, like Mirtha (Penelope Cruz, last seen in "Sahara") and George's mother (Rachel Griffiths, last seen in "The Rookie", the baseball one). Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman) walked the line and fared very well, I think, playing a bisexual hairdresser who becomes a major drug dealer.

Also starring Ethan Suplee (last seen in "The Fountain"), Cliff Curtis (last seen in "Live Free or Die Hard") as Pablo Escobar, Miguel Sandoval (last seen in "Get Shorty", where he played a character named Escobar), Max Perlich, and Kevin Gage (last seen in "Heat") with cameos from Bobcat Goldthwait, Emma Roberts, and Jaime King.

Rating: 7 out of 10 suitcases

French Connection II

Year 2, Day 230 - 8/18/10 - Movie #596

BEFORE: Saw this one coming, did ya?

THE PLOT: "Popeye" Doyle travels to Marseilles to find Alain Charnier, the drug smuggler that eluded him in New York.

AFTER: What's interesting about Popeye Doyle is that he's not a perfect cop, like say a John McClain. Even in the first film, allusions are made to him causing the death of another officer - and then, well let's just say the first film didn't have a happy ending. But Doyle means well!

This time he travels to France to track down the head drug smuggler (this time, it's personal...) but he decides to travel to Marseilles without knowing even a little bit of French. Couldn't he have bought a French phrasebook at the airport or something?

I thought that last night's film had some comic elements - come on, is "Did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?" really meant to be a valid interrogation question? Maybe not funny enough for the fillm to be regarded as a comedy - but there were some perhaps unintentional laughs. Not so much in the sequel, as Doyle gets kidnapped by the drug smugglers, and they shoot him up with heroin. Are they trying to kill him, or turn him into a junkie? Or is this some form of French poetic justice or ironic humor?

This wraps up my police chain, one of the longest movie chains I've watched, but leads nicely into my next topic, drugs and addiction, as Doyle spends a few weeks in the police station basement going through cold-turkey withdrawal. Apparently part of the cure is drinking French cognac - but isn't alcohol a type of drug? Is it hypocritical for a narcotics cop to unwind with a few drinks? Perhaps, but I'm sure it happens...

Doyle gets a second shot at redemption - but can he kick the smack in time to take it?

Starring Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey and a bunch of French people...

RATING: 4 out of 10 chocolate bars

The French Connection

Year 2, Day 229 - 8/17/10 - Movie #595

BEFORE: From what I've heard, this is a true classic, and it will serve as my link between cop films and drug films.

While I'm on the subject of connections, and distributing things on the street, tonight I watched the first episode of "The Great Food Truck Race" on Food Network. Amy, a friend and former co-worker of mine, is appearing on the show as a member of the Austin Daily Press sandwich team. I suppose it was inevitable that I would have a friend on a food-based reality show, given the eclectic nature of my friends, our mutual love of food, and the proliferation of these shows. I'm just glad it's not me appearing on "The Biggest Loser"...

If you're like me, your DVR is already jammed with food-based competition shows, like Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef America, The Next Food Network Star, Hell's Kitchen, Chefs vs. City, Chopped, Food Network Challenge, MasterChef, and Cupcake Wars. (I was very disappointed to learn that no cupcakes are used as projectile weapons in the Cupcake Wars, but I'm continuing to watch the show anyway) But that's what great about food and food shows - they leave you hungry for more. If you've still got an appetite for them, please check out The Great Food Truck Race and root for the team from Texas. (Of course the show was taped months ago, but Amy was prohibited from telling me how far her team got.) It's almost not exactly like a combination of "The Amazing Race" and that VH1 show where people had to promote bands in different towns.

Full disclosure: Amy texted me during the taping of the first episode, asking for my advice on locations in San Diego, a city that I've been to many times - but I only really know the 5 blocks around the Convention Center, and which restaurants to eat at. I wish I could have been more help, but I'm guessing that food trucks are frowned upon in the Gaslamp District. Now, if she had needed to know where to get a beer float in San Diego, I'd definitely be the go-to guy - but where to PARK a food truck? I had to plead ignorance.

THE PLOT: A pair of NYC cops in the Narcotics Bureau stumble onto a drug smuggling job with a French connection.

AFTER: Yeah, it's a classic all right, but it's showing signs of age. It's so old-school, I'm not sure it holds up when compared to flashier films like "Live Free or Die Hard" and "Heat".

I will say it's interesting to see old-school police tactics, like your basic tailing suspects and busting small-time dealers for information on the big dealers. There's a lot of scenes of suspects in hats and overcoats dodging narcotics cops, also wearing hats and overcoats. And it's nice to see some of the NYC landmarks I'm familiar with, and what they looked like back in 1971. A custard stand right on the subway platform at Grand Central?

But man, they sure picked some crappy neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens to shoot in. I recognized the Williamsburg Bridge, but Williamsburg looksed like someone dropped a bomb on it - there was more pothole than actual street! There were huge vacant lots in Bed-Stuy, and the Rockaways just looked like swampland...

Of course there's a car chase here, almost as famous as the one in "Bullitt" - Popeye Doyle pursues a sniper who makes it on a subway car - so Doyle jacks a car and follows the elevated tracks, hitting countless cars along the way. Why there's no mission in "Grand Theft Auto" that references this scene is beyond me - it seems tailor-made for a videogame.

According to what I found on-line, while the train Popeye chases is a "D" train, which goes out through Bensonhurst to Coney Island, some of the scenes from the car chase were shot under some elevated "M"-line tracks very near to where I live now - I'll have to investigate this further...

This won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971? Damn, maybe I should have saved it for film #600...

Starring Gene Hackman (last seen in "Get Shorty") and one of my favorite actors, Roy Scheider (last seen in "Jaws 2")

RATING: 5 out of 10 wiretaps

Miami Vice

Year 2, Day 228 - 8/17/10 - Movie #594

BEFORE: In another happy accident, this is the third film in a row from director Michael Mann. This is the 2006 update of the 1980's TV show - I was a big fan of the show, I even bought a white sportcoat to wear to high school, over pastel t-shirts. That look didn't go over so well in suburban Massachusetts...

THE PLOT: This update focuses on vice detectives Crockett and Tubbs as their respective personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined.

AFTER: This was something of a disappointment to me - the 80's show was hip, flashy and action-packed. When Crockett and Tubbs go undercover as drug couriers, to determine which government agency is leaking information about drug busts, there are some tense negotiations as they work their way up the drug chain, but except for an action-packed finale, there wasn't much going on here.

Congratulations, you found a way to make undercover work and drug smuggling boring. And the parts that weren't boring were somewhat confusing. Crockett and Tubbs become defacto federal agents (but double-secret ones) so right there, they've contradicted their essence. They're vice cops, says it right in the title - it's not "Miami Federal Agents".

What made Crockett think it was a good idea to mix pleasure with business, by romancing the top woman in the drug ring? And why would the woman in charge fall in love with a lowly courier? (I know, because he's Sonny Crockett...) Gee, I can't imagine that causing problems later on...

They do have an ingenious plan to discover where the leak is on the inter-agency task force - they tell the DEA that the shipment's coming in on Monday, the FBI that it's coming in on Tuesday, the Customs Dept. on Wednesday. Then they wait to see which day turns up in the drug ring's memos. It's such a great plan, I wondered why they didn't just try that in the first place, without anyone needing to go undercover and risk their lives...

The team has a chance to bust the shipments, but they turn it down, in order to land some bigger fish. But doesn't that mean that they let some drug shipments get through, in order to gain the confidence of the smugglers? Doesn't that make our heroes into, you know, ACTUAL drug smugglers? Is it OK to let drugs hit the streets, in the course of your undercover work? Does this mean they're in too deep?

Well, at least there was an action-packed finale. But again I was reminded of "Grand Theft Auto" - if I see someone with a sniper rifle shooting gunmen on a ship in the harbor, naturally I think of the "Bomb da Base" mission from GTA3. But the moral of the story seems to be that you can't trust white supremacists, which they probably should have known in the first place...

The cool Jan Hammer synth-music was sadly missing, but at least they ran an updated version of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" during the end credits, performed by Nonpoint. Nice harmonies!

Starring Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Ray"), Gong Li (or is it Li Gong? Get it straight, people...), Ciaran Hinds, Justin Theroux (last seen in "Zoolander"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Public Enemies") and John Hawkes (last seen in "American Gangster")

RATING: 4 out of 10 safehouses

Manhunter

Year 2, Day 227 - 8/15/10 - Movie #593

BEFORE: My initial plan was to watch this after "To Live and Die in L.A.", then I thought it might be more appropriate to watch in October, with other films about serial killers - this was the first movie made based on the book "Red Dragon" and the first screen appearance of Hannibal Lechter. But I think it might fit best here, with the focus on the people who catch killers. Director Michael Mann and actor Tom Noonan carry over from last night's film.

THE PLOT: An FBI specialist tracks a serial killer who appears to select his victims at random.

AFTER: Another element which carries over from last night's film is the discussion of the nature of police work (or the work of FBI agents, as seen here). A policeman is called upon to track and hunt criminals - but at what point does a "good" cop become a predator himself? To catch a crook, one must think like a crook, by extension to catch a killer, one must think like a killer. This film takes that even further, with an FBI agent who has to profile and get inside the mind of a serial killer - what are the professional and psychological consequences of that?

Like "Bullitt" inspired many other car chases, this film probably inspired dozens of crime dramas, everything from "The Silence of the Lambs" (based on a book by the same author), to "CSI". And "CSI" itself launched a whole wave of TV crime shows - "Bones", "Cold Case", "Lie to Me", "The Mentalist", "Monk", etc. Basically, if you enjoy a show about the private lives of people who solve crimes and catch killers, the makers of "Manhunter" have a message for you - "You're welcome."

That doesn't mean that "Manhunter" is the BEST example of the genre, merely one of the earliest and most influential. I'm hard-pressed to think of an earlier example, but if there is one, I'm sure one of my friends will correct me. With William Petersen appearing in the title role here, the influence on "CSI" is quite apparent. In fact, I'd go so far to say that his "CSI" character, Gil Grissom, is a huge nod to Will Graham, the FBI agent he plays here.

I learned of this movie when Tom Noonan guest-starred on "CSI", and the TV critics pointed out that it was sort of a reprise of their roles here (though they don't share many scenes here, just the end-game) Tom Noonan is a large, but gentle man who got typecast as movie thugs and killers, in films like "F/X" and "Last Action Hero", probably due to his size and his oddly-shaped head. But I've spent time with the man, he did a voice in an animated feature I produced, and came with us to the Slamdance Festival in 2004 and stayed in our Park City ski loft. A very nice, soft-spoken man (still, I'm glad I hadn't seen this film before spending a week as his roommate...) Seriously, though, it must be tough to play a serial killer in a film and walk away intact.

Brian Cox (last seen in "The Rookie" - the baseball movie) has the distinction of being the first actor to play Hannibal Lechter (spelled "Lecktor" in this film) and when Will Graham goes to visit the notorious killer in prison, to get an opinion on the new killer, it's a precursor to Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling visiting him in "The Silence of the Lambs". But here Hannibal is portrayed just as a wayward genius, it took Anthony Hopkins to really bump up the creepiness.

It's just too bad that the movie doesn't take the time to explain HOW the "Tooth Fairy" or Dr. Lecktor got to be the way they are, or WHY exactly they do what they do. The nature of Lecktor's crimes is alluded to only vaguely, we see only the mental scars that Graham's previous encounters with Lecktor have left behind.

I also have to take points off for the bad, dated 80's soundtrack - one piece just sounds like Vangelis ripped off the chord progression from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb".

Also starring Dennis Farina (last seen in "Get Shorty"), Joan Allen (last seen in "Face/Off"), Kim Greist, with cameos from TV's Dan Butler ("Frasier") and Chris Elliott.

RATING: 5 out of 10 blindfolds (again, this is purely a reflection of tonight's entertainment value - if I were judging on cultural influence, this would be at least a 9)

Heat

Year 2, Day 226 - 8/14/10 - Movie #592

BEFORE: I've been avoiding this one due to its length, just shy of 3 hours, but in retrospect maybe that's not too bad. I can stay up late on Saturday night to finish it, and I can't really close out the cop/crime category without watching it. This is the 2nd of the three team-ups between DeNiro and Pacino, the others being "Righteous Kill" and "The Godfather, Part II" (though they shared no screen time in that one).

THE PLOT: A Los Angeles crime saga that focuses on the lives of two men on opposite sides of the law - one a detective; the other a thief.

AFTER: Do you figure that they flipped a coin to see who got which role? Essay topic: How would the film be different if the two lead actors swapped roles?

Unfortunately, DeNiro and Pacino don't share much screen time here, either - except for the ending scenes, and a notable scene in which they go out for coffee together. That's right, the master thief Neil McCauley (DeNiro, last seen in "Stardust") and Lt. Vincent Hanna (Pacino, last seen in "The Insider") sit down and have a face-to-face chat over coffee, to discuss the situation, and their natures. It's part of this film's examination of what it means to be a career cop, and what it means to be a career criminal.

You get the feeling that maybe these guys might have been friends, if they weren't on opposite sides of the law. I can't really say they respect each other, because it wouldn't make sense for a cop to respect a criminal, or vice versa - but they each are forced to acknowledge that the other is very good at what he does. The irony is that neither character seems able to have a stable relationship with the opposite sex - Hanna's on his third marriage, which is falling apart, because he's unable to share his emotions, or talk about his day ("Hey honey, let me tell you about the dead hooker that we found in motel room today...") while McCauley follows the advice of not forming any permanent attachments, since he might have to pack up and leave town to evade the law at any moment.

Is the movie too long? Perhaps. Is it overly complicated? Possibly - but life is complicated sometimes, so I'm prepared to give it a pass. And the life of a top cop, or a top thief, is probably extensively complicated, and when they intersect, it makes for good entertainment for us at home. The preparations for the heists are definitely complicated, which I appreciated, and watching the police work breaking apart the crimes, and tracking down the perps, was delightfully intricate as well. Watching hunches pay off, and small clues lead to bigger ones, is a delight for me - probably would be less so if it was my job, and not part of my nightly entertainment.

Like last night's film, the climactic showdown takes place at an airport - nice coincidence.

Tonight I've got to dust off the old DENIR-O-meter (patent pending) - haven't used it in a while, I hope it still works...

Also starring (and this is a huge cast of a-listers AND b-listers) Val Kilmer (last seen in "The Real McCoy"), Tom Sizemore (last seen in "Blue Steel"), Mykelti Williamson (last seen in "The Assassination of Richard Nixon"), Jon Voight (last seen in "Zoolander"), Amy Brenneman (last seen in "Casper"), Ashley Judd (last seen in "De-Lovely"), Dennis Haysbert (last heard in "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas"), Natalie Portman (last seen by me at Comic-Con, before that in "The Professional"), Ted Levine (last seen in "American Gangster"), Danny Trejo (last seen in "From Dusk Till Dawn"), William Fichtner (last seen in "The Perfect Storm"), with cameos from Hank Azaria (last seen in "Run, Fatboy, Run"), Henry Rollins, Tone Loc, Jeremy Pivan and Tom Noonan (last seen in "Synechdoche, New York", but more on him tomorrow)

RATING: 8 out of 10 hockey masks

DENIR-O-METER: 6 out of 10 - Bobby D. seems pretty reserved here, like he's holding back. His thief character does a slow smolder, while Pacino gets most of the best lines, and is much more animated.