James Thurber is said not to have been impressed with the 1947 version adaptation of his 1939 short story, which starred Danny Kaye. But then, the story itself is barely 2000 words in which Mitty fantasizes about being a flying ace, a brilliant surgeon, and a Navy Commander, all the while running errands with a bossy wife. It ends with Mitty facing an (imaginary) firing squad. Hardly enough plot for a short, let alone a feature. Kaye was well suited to playing Mitty, a “loveable henpecked dreamer,” as the ads for the movie put it, whereas Ben Stiller has usually brought a nervous quality to his characters. He is not a natural choice for the part then, but as the producer and director he had the luxury of casting himself. The screenplay is by Steve Conrad, who has managed to pen among the more creditable movies to feature Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness) and Nicholas Cage (The Weather Man).
Stiller gives a less-showy-than-usual performance in a character that is somewhat underwritten. The story is what most stands out. With Mitty re-created as a bachelor working for Life magazine in the computer-dating age, the only thing tying it to Thurber is the fantasy sequences. Oddly, these are the weakest aspect of the movie, clumsily integrated into the story and seemingly there to provide the special effects crew with something to to. In one, Mitty fantasizes about beating up his new boss (Adam Scott) in a mercifully short sequence that looks like an Incredible Hulk outtake. Fortunately, Stiller must have gotten bored with them too, and the second half of the film mostly ditches them as Mitty abandons his milquetoast ways in a quest to find a missing photograph that will adorn the magazine’s last print issue, meanwhile trying to get the courage to ask out a new coworker (Kristin Wiig).
The odyssey that transforms Mitty is not altogether convincing as to what the character would do (though we don’t know much about him), as to what the character could do, or as to cell-phone reception in remote places. But as the film takes a tone somewhere in the haze between fantasy, comedy, and adventure — with a little mystery thrown in — this isn’t too worrisome. Those expecting the movie to be a pure comedy may be disappointed that it isn’t funnier. But those looking for a departure from the loud fare that dominates the holiday season may well find in this a bit of Christmas cheer.
IMDb link
viewed 11/26/13 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and posted 11/26/13
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Tillman Story (***1/4)
These fact are known about Pat Tillman: One, that the NFL safety turned US Army private died on April 22, 2004, in Afghanistan, in what was at first widely reported as a heroic act, in the face of enemy fire, for which Tillman was given a Silver Star. Second, that, as revealed to the public about a month later, Tillman had in fact died in a friendly fire incident, shot by troops from his own platoon. The discrepancy between what was reported and what occurred, and the efforts of Tillman’s family to find out why, is the subject of Amir Bar-Lev’s (My Kid Could Paint That) documentary, which follows by about a year Jon Krakauer’s book on the same subject.
Charles Spurgeon’s adage, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on,” seems particularly apt here, when the boots in question are army boots. Coincidentally, Tillman had been involved, peripherally, in an similar episode in Iraq, where he had served his first tour of duty. There, he was part of the unit sent to rescue the captured Jessica Lynch, a mission that was, as he wrote in his journal, a “ big Public Relations stunt.” Lynch herself would confirm that she had not, in fact, shot at the enemy, nor was she in the kind of danger that the public would be told.
Tillman’s reaction to this underscores his independence of thought and the contradictions of a man who both opposed the Iraq War and felt compelled to fight it, who became a bigger celebrity by volunteering for the military, and a bigger one still by dying, yet refused interviews and shunned that role. It is the character of Pat Tillman and his family—his two brothers, one of whom fought with him, his parents, and even his wife, the only girl he ever dated—that elevates this documentary. All of them are interviewed on camera, and the story of the movie is largely of the indefatigable efforts of his mother, especially, and his father to learn what happened.
Bar-Lev focuses narrowly. He does not place this in the larger context of the Bush administration’s efforts to boost support for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or of military propaganda of the past. Krakauer gets more political, crediting the Tillman story with a temporary boost in public support for the war going into the 2004 election season. He is also more noticeably critical of the role of General Stanley McChrystal, later to become the commander of all forces in Afghanistan. It was McChrystal whose name was on the paperwork for Tillman’s unearned Silver Star, as the film shows. The implication of both the book and the film is that McChrystal would not have blatantly violated the rules without the knowledge and approval of higher-ups such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Besides the military, the media come in for some criticism. The inclusion of footage of Ann Coulter acting incredulous at being told of Tillman’s antiwar sentiments is almost too obvious. But possibly the public deserves a good deal of criticism too, for it is our need for heroes and apparent willingness to be persuaded by celebrities that encourages such myth-making.
The film’s biggest flaw is an unavoidable one. Because it cannot answer the central question it asks—who, ultimately, was responsible for covering up what happened, and why—the film is ultimately frustrating. But it is valuable.
IMDB link
viewed 9/1/10 at Rave UPenn and reviewed 9/2–5/10
Charles Spurgeon’s adage, “A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on,” seems particularly apt here, when the boots in question are army boots. Coincidentally, Tillman had been involved, peripherally, in an similar episode in Iraq, where he had served his first tour of duty. There, he was part of the unit sent to rescue the captured Jessica Lynch, a mission that was, as he wrote in his journal, a “ big Public Relations stunt.” Lynch herself would confirm that she had not, in fact, shot at the enemy, nor was she in the kind of danger that the public would be told.
Tillman’s reaction to this underscores his independence of thought and the contradictions of a man who both opposed the Iraq War and felt compelled to fight it, who became a bigger celebrity by volunteering for the military, and a bigger one still by dying, yet refused interviews and shunned that role. It is the character of Pat Tillman and his family—his two brothers, one of whom fought with him, his parents, and even his wife, the only girl he ever dated—that elevates this documentary. All of them are interviewed on camera, and the story of the movie is largely of the indefatigable efforts of his mother, especially, and his father to learn what happened.
Bar-Lev focuses narrowly. He does not place this in the larger context of the Bush administration’s efforts to boost support for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or of military propaganda of the past. Krakauer gets more political, crediting the Tillman story with a temporary boost in public support for the war going into the 2004 election season. He is also more noticeably critical of the role of General Stanley McChrystal, later to become the commander of all forces in Afghanistan. It was McChrystal whose name was on the paperwork for Tillman’s unearned Silver Star, as the film shows. The implication of both the book and the film is that McChrystal would not have blatantly violated the rules without the knowledge and approval of higher-ups such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Besides the military, the media come in for some criticism. The inclusion of footage of Ann Coulter acting incredulous at being told of Tillman’s antiwar sentiments is almost too obvious. But possibly the public deserves a good deal of criticism too, for it is our need for heroes and apparent willingness to be persuaded by celebrities that encourages such myth-making.
The film’s biggest flaw is an unavoidable one. Because it cannot answer the central question it asks—who, ultimately, was responsible for covering up what happened, and why—the film is ultimately frustrating. But it is valuable.
IMDB link
viewed 9/1/10 at Rave UPenn and reviewed 9/2–5/10
Friday, December 4, 2009
Brothers (***1/4)
Who’d have figured, back in 2004 when Susanne Bier directed the original Danish version of this Afghanistan war drama, that years later a present-tense American version could be filmed? Both version deals with a soldier presumed lost in battle, here played by Tobey Maguire. Like most of the recent crop of American war films, the focus is on the trauma of war to the soldiers fighting it. In this case, it is also on how that plays out with those left at home—the distraught wife (Natalie Portman), the just-out-of-prison older brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) who’s also felt the disfavor of his father (Sam Shepard), the father himself, and the children who adapt quickly as their uncle takes up some of the father role. The audience knows, as the family does not, what has happened to the soldier. So a lot of the movie feels like mere prelude to what will happen in the last half hour or so. Still, the acting is very good, maybe Portman’s best role, and that last part is powerful, albeit showy. It’s a smart tearjerker, for sure, as well as a film about ethics and family dynamics.
IMDB link
viewed 11/30/09 at Ritz East (PFS screening); review written unknown date and posted 4/16/10
IMDB link
viewed 11/30/09 at Ritz East (PFS screening); review written unknown date and posted 4/16/10
Friday, April 18, 2008
Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (***)
Morgan Spurlock’s follow-up to Super Size Me is a fun voyage around the Middle East, but it’s longer on touchy-feely we-are-the-world vibes than factual information. The whiz-bang video game graphics that dominate the beginning of the documentary are probably a better fit for a movie about visiting McDonald’s that one that’s about visiting regular folks in Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Morocco. Like Michael Moore, Spurlock injects his own story (and his wife’s pregnancy) into the movie, and a bit of comedy, but he’s way less prescriptive, if also less informative. And, not to give away the ending, but he never does find Osama bin Laden.
IMDB link
viewed 4/2/08 (screening at Bridge); reviewed 4/18/08
IMDB link
viewed 4/2/08 (screening at Bridge); reviewed 4/18/08
Friday, April 11, 2008
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (***1/4)
I really enjoyed this simple tale of an Afghan girl who determines to get an education. Leaving her home, a room cut into the side of a mountain, she sets out to follow the neighbor boy to his school. Impediments await—she has no money for pen or notebook, and the boys’ school will not teach her. Significantly, there’s a Lord of the Flies style interlude as local boys cast themselves as Taliban in training. The title and the opening/closing image of a giant statue of Buddha being destroyed by the Taliban suggest a rather heavy-handed film, but it’s best viewed as a story of an unbelievably (take that word literally or not) determined girl, whatever allegorical purpose may have been intended by its 19-year-old director, Iranian Hana Makhmalbaf, or the screenwriter, who is her mother. Makhmalbaf coaxes wonderful performances from the children, including her five-year-old leading lady. The young boys who harass her can be seen as Taliban-in-training, but the ending of the movie suggests that maybe they were just playing the Afghan version of cowboys-and-Indians.
IMDB link
viewed 4/11/08; reviewed 4/27/08; screened at Philadelphia Film Festival
IMDB link
viewed 4/11/08; reviewed 4/27/08; screened at Philadelphia Film Festival
Friday, February 22, 2008
Taxi to the Dark Side (***1/2)
Alex Gibney won the Academy Award for this documentary over, among other films, the Iraq war chronicle No End in Sight. Using the story of of an Afghani cab driver, Dilawar, as a jumping point, Gibney portrays the moral failures that have accompanied the global war on terror declared by President Bush. As with Gibney’s previous effort, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, the movie is a triumph of reportage rather than filmmaking technique. The tape of Enron employees blatantly manipulating the California energy market finds its equivalent in the autopsy footage of Dilawar’s beaten corpse, the death certificate reading “homicide,” and the famous photographs and films of blatant prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. All this is attested to by, among others, military police who were, much later, charged in the death of Dilawar.
No officers were convicted of abuse in either Afghanistan, Iraq, or Guantanemo Bay, where prisoners continue to be held, but Gibney clearly connects the abuses in all of these places to tacit and explicit policies of the administration promulgated by Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, and Department of Justice counsel John Yoo. Yoo wrote legal memoranda suggesting that no treaty, and perhaps no act of Congress, impeded the president’s ability to order torture. By removing or failing to enforce the restrictions that limited abuse, these higher-ups created the climate that encouraged a lawless climate to persist, punished the innocent, and produced no additional quantity of useful intelligence. (In fact, a coerced confession was the basis Colin Powell would use in his UN speech to suggest a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; the link and the confession were both later discredited.)
There are many tentacles to this tale, more than I can describe. The film is divided into thematic segments, and lacks a strong narrative thread. The story of Dilawar, who died after five days in US custody, only takes up a small portion of the film. Nonetheless, Gibney utilizes a range of voices and makes a strong case that, whatever the merits of the war on terror, the battle against it has produced unnecessary victims and unintelligent “intelligence.”
IMDB link
viewed and reviewed 3/4/08
No officers were convicted of abuse in either Afghanistan, Iraq, or Guantanemo Bay, where prisoners continue to be held, but Gibney clearly connects the abuses in all of these places to tacit and explicit policies of the administration promulgated by Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, and Department of Justice counsel John Yoo. Yoo wrote legal memoranda suggesting that no treaty, and perhaps no act of Congress, impeded the president’s ability to order torture. By removing or failing to enforce the restrictions that limited abuse, these higher-ups created the climate that encouraged a lawless climate to persist, punished the innocent, and produced no additional quantity of useful intelligence. (In fact, a coerced confession was the basis Colin Powell would use in his UN speech to suggest a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda; the link and the confession were both later discredited.)
There are many tentacles to this tale, more than I can describe. The film is divided into thematic segments, and lacks a strong narrative thread. The story of Dilawar, who died after five days in US custody, only takes up a small portion of the film. Nonetheless, Gibney utilizes a range of voices and makes a strong case that, whatever the merits of the war on terror, the battle against it has produced unnecessary victims and unintelligent “intelligence.”
IMDB link
viewed and reviewed 3/4/08
Friday, December 21, 2007
Charlie Wilson’s War (***1/2)
Texas senator procures financing for covert war against Soviets. What great material for a comedy! But it actually is in this retelling based on the nonfiction book by George Crile. Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) was best known, if at all, as a playboy, and as the movie opens we find him charming a couple of much younger women in a hot tub, pausing just long enough to take in a TV news report on the latest news from Afghanistan, where the Soviet army is consolidating its hold following the 1979 invasion. All I remember about that was being pissed off that it caused Jimmy Carter to boycott the Moscow Olympics the next year, which had no discernible impact on the Kremlin. And neither, apparently, did the CIA’s meager efforts to aid the Afghans. Enter Wilson, who, using that same charm, a position on a defense subcommittee, and the assistance of a conservative socialite (Julia Roberts) and an insubordinate agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman), managed to get Congress to appropriate funds to arm the Afghan mujihadeen.
Mike Nichols (The Graduate), who directed the underrated Clintonian drama Primary Colors, has made a different kind of political movie here, one that may appeal to people who aren’t ordinarily fascinated by politics. It will, however, appeal to people who liked The West Wing, whose creator Aaron Sorkin is responsible for the smart dialogue and economical script. In well under two hours, Sorkin and Nichols make what must have been an arduous process look something like fun. Of course, wars, cold and otherwise, aren’t fun, and there’s just enough in there to remind us of that, but mostly this movie is about outsize personalities, not history. Hanks and Roberts are ideally cast, and Hoffman, having a banner year with The Savages and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, seems to be having a blast as blowsy CIA man Gust Avrakotos. The ending is a reminder that some of the mujihadeen of the 1980s became the Taliban of the 1990s, but that’s another story, and this movie succeeds by keeping it concise.
IMDB link
reviewed 1/13/08
Mike Nichols (The Graduate), who directed the underrated Clintonian drama Primary Colors, has made a different kind of political movie here, one that may appeal to people who aren’t ordinarily fascinated by politics. It will, however, appeal to people who liked The West Wing, whose creator Aaron Sorkin is responsible for the smart dialogue and economical script. In well under two hours, Sorkin and Nichols make what must have been an arduous process look something like fun. Of course, wars, cold and otherwise, aren’t fun, and there’s just enough in there to remind us of that, but mostly this movie is about outsize personalities, not history. Hanks and Roberts are ideally cast, and Hoffman, having a banner year with The Savages and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, seems to be having a blast as blowsy CIA man Gust Avrakotos. The ending is a reminder that some of the mujihadeen of the 1980s became the Taliban of the 1990s, but that’s another story, and this movie succeeds by keeping it concise.
IMDB link
reviewed 1/13/08
Friday, December 14, 2007
The Kite Runner (***1/2)
Having seen Atonement the day before this, I thought the title could well apply to this adaptation of another best-seller, Khaled Hosseini’s semiautobiographical story based on his childhood in Afghanistan. The first hour mostly tells the story of young Amir’s friendship with a shy boy who was, nonetheless, his fierce protector. Also vividly portrayed is Amir’s father, a sophisticated, literate, man who nonetheless cannot repress his contempt for the boy’s cowardice. Although the father is only a supporting character, he is surprisingly multidimensional, and I wound up feeling that I understood him.
The relationship of the boys and their fathers (one works for the other) is not particular to the time and place. On the other hand, it may come as a shock to see the re-creation of 1970s Kabul, a place that, if not a sophisticated place, was nonetheless a place where a sophisticated man could find a niche. Also particular to the setting are the kite battles alluded to in the title. Director Marc Forster (Stranger Than Fiction, Stay) wonderfully captures this colorful custom of Hosseini’s youth. (He again collaborates with Stay screenwriter David Benioff.) It is before the Soviet invasion, before war, before the Taliban. Knowing about these things, the viewer awaits devastation that turns out to be as much emotional as physical.
The adult Amir (Khalid Abdalla), who has wound up in California, is a less vivid character, and plot and the prospect of returning to Afghanistan must sustain the film’s second half. Like Atonement’s Briony, Amir feels guilt but cannot undo the past, and so crafts an ending to his own story that will allow him to live with himself.
The relationship of the boys and their fathers (one works for the other) is not particular to the time and place. On the other hand, it may come as a shock to see the re-creation of 1970s Kabul, a place that, if not a sophisticated place, was nonetheless a place where a sophisticated man could find a niche. Also particular to the setting are the kite battles alluded to in the title. Director Marc Forster (Stranger Than Fiction, Stay) wonderfully captures this colorful custom of Hosseini’s youth. (He again collaborates with Stay screenwriter David Benioff.) It is before the Soviet invasion, before war, before the Taliban. Knowing about these things, the viewer awaits devastation that turns out to be as much emotional as physical.
The adult Amir (Khalid Abdalla), who has wound up in California, is a less vivid character, and plot and the prospect of returning to Afghanistan must sustain the film’s second half. Like Atonement’s Briony, Amir feels guilt but cannot undo the past, and so crafts an ending to his own story that will allow him to live with himself.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Lions for Lambs (**1/4)
Soldiers in Afghanistan, a student and a professor in a California college, and a journalist and a politician in DC cohabit Robert Redford’s triptych drama. Redford himself plays the professor, who in the most didactic segment spars (conversationally) with an unmotivated but bright history student. Though the screenplay is by Matthew Carnahan, the professor’s lines sound a lot like what the director himself might be saying to the audience at large. It’s a liberal’s case against cynicism. Meanwhile, reporter Meryl Streep is listening to a hawkish senator (Tom Cruise) explaining a new military strategy for Afghanistan. This is easily the best segment, and a perfect part for the naturally cocky Cruise, who got an Oscar nomination for his similarly slick huckster in Magnolia. When the reporter and her editor clash about whether the new tactic is front-page news or just more of the same seen through rose-colored glasses, you could be forgiven for thinking the topic was really Iraq. The scene wasn’t entirely authentic to me (the editor barely hears the facts before he starts arguing), but does point to the difficulty of telling when refraining from bias crosses over into refraining from all critical judgment.
There’s a third part where we actually see soldiers on the ground. It reminds us of the difference between plotting strategy and executing it, and mildly elaborates the other stories. However, when all is said and done, a lot gets said but nothing much happens. Either this movie, only 88 minutes, could have been even shorter, or it could have used some fleshing out of the characters and weakly linked plots. Like Carnahan’s other 2007 screenplay, The Kingdom, the movie is vast in ambition but modest in achievement.
IMDB link
reviewed 11/9/07
There’s a third part where we actually see soldiers on the ground. It reminds us of the difference between plotting strategy and executing it, and mildly elaborates the other stories. However, when all is said and done, a lot gets said but nothing much happens. Either this movie, only 88 minutes, could have been even shorter, or it could have used some fleshing out of the characters and weakly linked plots. Like Carnahan’s other 2007 screenplay, The Kingdom, the movie is vast in ambition but modest in achievement.
IMDB link
reviewed 11/9/07
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