Horrorfest Week 1: It’s October Already?!

It’s October already?! Wow! That one snuck up on me. The Wells household has been so busy over the past few months that Horrorfest snuck up on me for the first time since I started devoting the entire month of October to horror movies back in 2000.

I was able to compile a list of films to watch just days before the month began, but it’s so unlikely that I will get to all of my titles that I’m wary of announcing any sort of schedule for this year’s fest. 13 days into the month, and I’ve only gotten to five movies so far. Regardless, Horrorfest is officially under way, and it’s still my favorite time of the year.

Like a couple years ago, this year’s Horrorfest got a sneak about a month ahead of time when Rob Zombie’s sequel to his “Halloween” reboot was once again inexplicably released at the end of August. Hollywood does realize that Halloween falls in the month of October, right? Of course, the release date is only one of the first film’s mistakes to return in “Halloween II”. But I don’t want to focus on the negative right now. For that you can read my review here. It wasn’t Horrorfest when I saw “Halloween II”, but it is now; and so far, it’s already one to remember.

I kicked off the official Horrorfest entries with a British classic that I first read about in Roger Ebert’s first volume of “The Great Movies” series. “Peeping Tom” was advertised in 1960 as the British “Psycho”. Apparently the Brits were still bitter about Alfred Hitchcock’s defection to Hollywood at the time. While Michael Powell’s cult classic about a serial killer is not as accomplished as Hitch’s movie from the same year, it is strangely more intimate than the American horror classic.

It follows a young movie studio cameraman, who films even when he is not at work on a hand held camera. He is obsessed with filming beautiful women. He even moonlights as a photographer for soft-core pornographic stills. Soon it is revealed that he is behind a series of killings which he also films, but when he meets a woman in his own tenement building he makes a pact not to put her on camera for fear that he might kill her too.

“Peeping Tom” is a bit goofier than its contemporary American films, but its innocence helps fuel its anti-hero’s compulsions. This is a serial killer that it is very difficult not to like, even when he is in the act of killing.

“The Last Winter” is a horror film of a very different nature. The message horror flick is one of the best kinds, and the environment often takes the spotlight in the horror picture with a message. Such is the case with this winter isolation suspense film. In fact, nature is the horror in “The Last Winter”.

Taking place in an isolated research station in the Acrtic, “The Last Winter” provides all the classic horror devices. An isolated location, a small cast of characters that can be killed off at a decisive pace, a harsh environment, and lots of darkness set this movie up as a chiller. Of course, in the end it’s the lack of chill that winds up being the real horror. It is called “The Last Winter” after all.

Perhaps this movie isn’t quite as scary as it should be. There is no ubiquitous monster, as in a film like “Alien”, although for a while the filmmakers make it seem like it. Eventually a sort of spirit monster does rise, but it happens a little too late in the film to hold as much significance with the film’s environmental message as it should. But the movie does make you think and the cast does a good job of keeping their own tensions up, even if the “monster” doesn’t.

A wintery environment is also a major factor in Roman Polanski’s 1967 vampire spoof “The Fearless Vampire Killers: Or Pardon Me, but Your Teeth are in My Neck”. Taking the basic “Dracula” formula, the fearless vampire killers of the title are Professor Abronsius, a doddering old fool, and Polanski himself as the Professor’s hapless assistant Alfred. They visit a remote town in Transylvanian to try to prove Abronsius’s theories about bloodsuckers and find themselves in a slapstick caper version of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale.

While the movie never really quite works, it does benefit from Polanski’s skilled direction and superior production values, elevating it above the batting level of your typical spoof. It’s a spoof directed by someone who could’ve taken a serious swing at its subject, rather than looking like it was directed by someone who only directs spoofs. Hence the winter environment lends some truly striking visuals to go with its subject; and despite the slapstick humor, there is still some respect paid to the vampire cinematic traditions. Which is something that cannot necessarily be said about today’s serious takes at the vampire mythos.

“Feast”, the only horror film to come out of the Project: Greenlight reality television series about giving cinematic upstarts a shot at making a movie, however, is not interested in taking horror movie traditions seriously. And that is where it finds all of its charm. While not a spoof in itself so much as it spoofs the horror flick cast clichés, “Feast” is a gross, disgusting, and ultimately original take on the creature feature.

Like “The Last Winter”, “Feast” sets itself up in many horror film traditions. Again we see the isolated location, the limited cast that can be picked off one by one, and the nighttime setting. Although it gives us the archetypal characters we’ve come to expect in such situations, it does not conform to even the traditions with them that it claims to when it labels each character with title cards explaining their role and life expectancy. The first indication that something is awry with the way this film deals with its characters is when the “hero” is introduced as being the story’s most likely survivor and then within seconds of his introduction is decapitated. The unseen monsters then proceed to cut the cast in half in the first three minutes of the 95-minute runner. The movie replaces the hero with a second one; and then eventually, when that one meets another untimely demise, gives up on the traditional heroes by promoting one of the cast’s other roles to the eventual hero role.

“Feast” certainly isn’t for the faint at heart, as the gore level is ratcheted up to distract from the absurdity level. Nor does it contain the thought provocation or message of similar horror set-ups. But it is a fun time if you’re paying attention.

The first truly great horror movie to emerge from Horrorfest ’09 is the Spanish ghost story “The Orphanage”. Executive produced by Spaniard maestro Guillermo Del Toro, Juan Antonio Bayona, working from a screenplay by Sergio G. Sanchez, proves the rising Spanish film movement with this intelligent and truly heartbreaking masterpiece in personal horror.

A woman returns to the estate where she once lived as an orphan. Purchasing the property along with her husband and young boy, she plans to run her own institution for mentally handicapped children. Before her school opens, however, her son disappears under strange circumstances, and the woman begins to suspect the old orphanage might be haunted.

The development of the plot is deliberate and disturbing. It’s one of those movies with an ending you can’t see coming, but once it arrives you can retrace the steps toward its implacable logic. The ending is bitter sweet, and some might perceive it as a cop out, but without its meager attempt at some little bit of happiness to be found in its conclusion, the closing would be almost too much for an audience to endure. This is masterful filmmaking, and everything Horrorfest is about.

Julie & Julia / *** (PG-13)

Julia Child: Meryl Streep
Julie Powell: Amy Adams
Paul Child: Stanley Tucci
Eric Powell: Chris Messina
Simone Beck: Linda Emond
Louisette Bertholle: Helen Carey
Sarah: Mary Lynn Rajskub
Dorothy McWilliams: Jane Lynch

Columbia Pictures presents a film written and directed by Nora Ephron. Based on the book “Julie & Julia” by Julie Powell and the book “My Life in France” by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. Running time: 123 min. Rated PG-13 (for brief strong language and some sensuality).

Meryl Streep is the reigning Acting Oscar nomination champion with more than any other actor in the awards’ history. With 15 nominations (two wins), ahead of Katherine Hepburn with 12, and many more roles ahead of her, she promises to widen the gap. She will do just that when the next set of Academy Award nominations are announced next January with her role as famous American chef Julia Child in “Julie & Julia”.

Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” is taken from the book of the same name by author Julie Powell, who became famous by blogging about her experiences of cooking every recipe in Child’s first cook book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” over the course of one year. But as Ephron points out in the credits, her film is “based on two true stories” and is also inspired by Child’s autobiographical novel “My Life in France”, which highlights her love affair with her devoted husband Paul Child. Ephron intercuts Child’s struggle to be taken seriously as an American housewife attempting to spread well-conceived instruction on French cooking with Powell’s own struggles to give her writing career and life a necessary jump start.

Ephron (“You’ve Got Mail”, “Sleepless in Seatle”) sticks with her strengths and tells both Powell’s and Child’s stories as sentimental romances with the kind and devoted husbands with which each of them share their lives. Stanley Tucci brings as much charm and character to Paul as Streep does to Julia. The two were paired together in much different roles in 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada”, and it’s a joy to see them together again, bringing such love to these characters.

Powell also has the benefit of a supporting husband in Eric, played by Chris Messina (“Vicky Christina Barcelona”). The movie really rides on these two parallel romances, although they are not its subject. It’s great to see such positive portrayals of men in a story about women struggling for their place in the world. Usually the men in such a woman’s life are used as one of the story devices that hold the women back from their desires. Here the men push the women along in their ambition and provide a positive force upon which these women can fuel their own fire.

Amy Adams (“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”) is her usual charming self in the role of Powell, but she’s never given the great character work required from Streep as Child. While Powell falls into some of the more typical molds of the female romantic lead, Child breaks the mold of romance clichés. She’s too tall, too brash, too old, and yet she’s still filled with a positive outlook and insatiable yearning for acceptance.

Despite the wonderful portrayals, there is a certain lack of dramatic conflict in the two women’s stories. Ephron ties to inject some tension into Julie’s and Eric’s relationship late in the story. I don’t know if their brief breakup is in Powell’s book or not, but it seems thrown in and unsupported by Eric’s rather understanding character. Julia’s difficulty in getting publisher’s interested in her book and the issues of credit that come up between her co-authors ring more true, but they don’t grab the audience’s interest as well as the romance elements between Julia and Paul.

Overall, however, “Julie & Julia” makes for an entertaining engagement. Although Streep has certainly performed in more profound films, her performance here ranks among one of her best. When an actress is arguably the best actor of hers and many a generation, that is reason enough to see a movie.

Julie & Julia | Movie Trailers

The Informant! / ***½ (R)

Mark Whitacre: Matt Damon
Ginger Whitacre: Melanie Lynskey
FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard: Scott Bakula
FBI Special Agent Bob Herndon: Joel McHale
Mick Andreas: Tom Papa
Terry Wilson: Rick Overton
Robin Mann: Ann Cusack

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a movie directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns. Based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald. Running time: 108 min. Rated R (for language).

There is a scene in Steven Soderbergh’s new comedy, “The Informant!” in which directing FBI agents sit aghast with their mouths hanging open during an inundation of criminal accusations against one of their civilian spies. That matches the reaction anyone might have to the complete oblivion with which Mark Whitacre seems to go about both his “espionage” work and his crimes. It is by no mistake that Soderbergh and his star, Matt Damon, chose to produce this real-life story of corporate corruption mere months after the biggest economic collapse this country has seen since The Great Depression.

The subject of this dark comedy is not the price-fixing crimes committed by agri-giant ADM and various other international agri-businesses in the early 90s, but rather it’s the strange and ultimately shocking conduct of physicist Mark Whitacre, who decides to go to the FBI to collect evidence against his employer, ADM, because of an alleged “conflict of conscience.” Whitacre makes you think of that adage that in order to be a good liar, you must believe your own lies.

Damon is a tour de force, in a sense, as Whitacre. The seemingly meek businessman is a far cry from Damon’s role as Jason Bourne in the popular spy franchise, but in his own way, Whitacre is nearly as successful as Bourne at what he does. He is so earnest that you can’t help but like the guy, even once you realize there is nothing that comes out of his mouth that can be trusted. He truly believes that reporting the price-fixing practices of his cohorts at ADM is in the best interest of everybody, and he will only be rewarded for it. It never occurs to him that such a betrayal will make him a pariah in the agriculture industry. Nor does it occur to him that all the lies he tells will have an effect on the FBI’s case against the corporate giant. As the lies are revealed—even through the final moments of the film—it becomes apparent that Whitacre just has no concept that his view is completely separated from reality.

The poor FBI agents who try to help him are so blindsided by his schemes that they might as well be some of the nameless dead agents left in Bourne’s wake in Damon’s more sophisticated spy films. Scott Bakula (of “Quantum Leap” fame) gets a rare film opportunity as the baffled Special Agent, Brian Shepard. Bakula’s own earnest delivery makes it easy for the audience to believe the FBI could be so easily duped by Whitacre’s oblivion. In fact, almost everyone in this movie seems so nice and unaware that it seems like they live in what would be a wonderful world, if it weren’t for Whitacre’s strange disjointed sense of right and wrong.

Soderbergh (“Ocean’s” trilogy) steers this happy, sad, quirky ship with throwback techniques that recall the espionage filmmaking of the 60s. The use of washed out filters and film stock makes the movie look vintage. Even the font used in his credits sequences looks like something from 40 years ago. The employment of Marvin Hamlisch to compose the score is a stroke of genius. Multiple Academy Award winner Hamlisch’s scores and songs were incredibly popular throughout the 70s, and here he perfectly captures the sappy, corny innocence of an earlier period in film. The film’s entire emphasis on an innocent outlook fuels the comedy behind what are really terrible financial crimes against the American people.

The film’s goofy approach to its subject matter gives it the feel of a “Hee Haw” version of a James Bond thriller. Perhaps that’s because instead of nuclear guidance systems, the secrets being revealed here involve corn syrup, but the characterizations also have a Podunk quality to them. Everybody from Whitacre, to the FBI agents, to the higher ups at ADM are just clueless hick versions of what you might normally find in a typical spy thriller, but they’re all playing at a bigger game than any of them understand. It allows us to sit back and laugh at what they’ve done.

They say laughter has a healing quality. In times filled with Bernie Madoffs and government bailouts for both the banking and auto industries, we could all use a good laugh over corporate greed. “The Informant!” is just what the doctor ordered.

The Informant! | Movie Trailers

Halloween II / ** (R)

Laurie Strode: Scout Taylor-Compton
Michael Myers: Tyler Mane
Dr. Samuel Loomis: Malcolm McDowell
Sherriff Lee Brackett: Brad Dourif
Deborah Myers: Sheri Moon Zombie
Young Michael: Chase Vanek
Annie Brackett: Danielle Harris
Nancy McDonald: Mary Birdsong
Mya Rockwell: Brea Grant
Harley David: Angela Timbur

Dimension Films presents a film written and directed by Rob Zombie. Running time: 101 min. Rated R (for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, terror, disturbing graphic images, language, some crude sexual content, and nudity).

As any horror aficionado knows, the art of the slasher flick lies in the art of the slasher to kill creatively. Such creativity allows for great randomness in the killings even though there may be some vague driving force behind the killer’s madness. John Carpenter’s original “Halloween”, while not the first slasher flick ever, set the standard for what a slasher flick should be. Perhaps it was foolish of anyone to think they could improve upon Carpenter’s model, but if anyone could do it, it would be Rob Zombie. Unfortunately, with his remake of “Halloween” two years ago, Zombie failed. Now, he is back with the sequel to his “Halloween” vision, and he continues to make the same mistakes the second time around.

I had great hopes that Zombie could rectify the errors of his first “Halloween” with this revisitation. Although his first movie “House of 1,000 Corpses” was a creative but flawed piece of horror, Zombie was able to craft a masterpiece with his sequel to that, “The Devil’s Rejects”. But while “The Devil’s Rejects” defined the subgenre of serial killing families, “Halloween II” seems stuck between the traditional conventions of the slasher flick and the deeper, more thoughtful filmmaking for which Zombie seems destined.

“H2” starts out hitting all the right notes. Like Carpenter’s sequel to his “Halloween”, it picks up in the moments immediately following the first film. In fact, Zombie does a stupendous job of basically retelling pretty much the entire story of the Carpenter penned “Halloween II” in the first twenty minutes of his own sequel. We follow the killer, Michael Myers, in his undefined need to continue to pursue his sister, Laurie Strode. Like the 1978 sequel, Laurie finds herself at the Haddonfield hospital following the Halloween night murders of the first movie. Michael quickly and horrifically dispatches the entire skeleton crew hospital staff to get to her. These are the best scenes in the movie, with Zombie fully embracing the conventions of the slasher flick, using location, mood, lighting, and spatial timing for effective shocks and thrilling terror. But then…

Let’s just leave it at two years pass. The world thinks Michael Myers is dead, while the audience knows better or else they wouldn’t have bought their tickets. Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton, “Obsessed”) is still failing to cope well with the events that led to the deaths of her friends and family. Now living with Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif, “Deadwood”) and his daughter, Annie (Danielle Harris, “Urban Legend”), another survivor of Michael’s attacks, Laurie is still unaware of her blood relation to Myers.

Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, “Heroes”) has turned his involvement as Myers’ shrink into a career boost. He’s preparing to release a tell all book on the two year anniversary of Myers’ killing spree and is doing a pretty good job proving what an egomaniac he is on the talk circuit leading up to the book’s release. This mishandling of Loomis is one of Zombie’s greatest mistakes. The original’s Loomis, played masterfully by the great Donald Pleasance, is one of Carpenter’s greatest creations. He seemed to be a crazy man, but spoke as the voice of sanity to deaf ears. McDowell’s, by fault of the writing, not the actor, is a greedy, megalomaniac, devoid of morality, who builds his own fame and success on the suffering of Michael’s victims. I think Zombie is trying to make some statement on our media driven society, but he chooses the wrong vehicle for his message driven on a beaten down path that is far too easy a road for such an innovative filmmaker.

The voice of reason in this version is Sheriff Brackett. I’m happy to see Zombie give Dourif, who more often plays the psychotic, the opportunity to play such a good character. Unfortunately, Brackett is delivered an emotional blow late in the movie, which Zombie never gives him a chance to deal with.

Meanwhile, the family bonds between Michael and Laurie and their deceased mother, Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie, “The Devil’s Rejects”), create some interesting developments with some potentially, yet somewhat unexplored, horrific implications about the afterlife. These “dream sequences” are the most interesting aspect of Zombie’s vision. A whole movie involving them would be quite welcome and—I would speculate—quite frightening.

While Zombie’s creepy notions of life after death tease us throughout the picture, the slasher model dictates that many teenagers must die senselessly. Typically their deaths are quite creative. Here they only manage to be brutal, and therefore, disturbing. This isn’t a fun slasher flick where you wonder just how the killer is going to murder the next person. “Ooo, there’s a band saw in the background. I’ll bet that gets used.” No, here the hulking Myers, played by former pro wrestler Tyler Mane (“X-Men”), kills in the most sensible way, with his fists, his feet and a very big knife. Practical, but not exciting.

I will give Zombie credit for ending the film on just the right note, however, with a nice homage to “Psycho”.

Halloween II | Movie Trailers

Inglourious Basterds / **** (R)

Lt. Aldo Raines: Brad Pitt
Shosanna Dreyfus: Mélanie Laurent
Col. Hans Landa: Christoph Waltz
Sgt. Donny Donowitz: Eli Roth
Lt. Archie Hicox: Michael Fassbender
Bridget von Hammersmark: Diane Kruger
Fredrick Zoller: Daniel Brühl
Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz: Til Schweiger
Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki: Gedeon Burkhard
Marcel: Jacky Ido
Pfc. Smithson Utivich: B.J. Novak
Pfc. Omar Ulmer: Omar Doom
Josef Goebbels: Sylvester Groth
Adolf Hitler: Martin Wuttke
General Ed Fenech: Mike Myers

The Weinstein Co. presents a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Running time 153 min. Rated R (for strong graphic violence, language, and brief sexuality).

Chapter One

Once upon a time… in German Occupied France

In May 1940, the German Army occupied France. They discriminated against Jews by recording all of their whereabouts and banning them from many public places. Starting in 1942, all Jews were required to wear a yellow star designating them as lesser citizens. Jews were rounded up to live in ghettos where the living conditions were unbearable, and eventually the Germans developed their plans for the Final Solution—a more efficient way to eliminate “undesirables”. The Final Solution involved the mass execution of Jews and other social and religious groups felt to be inferior by the leaders of the Nazi Party. By the end of World War II, in May 1945, some 6 million Jews and “inferiors” had been “eliminated” throughout Europe by the Nazi regime. It is said that only about 200,000 Jews survived the Holocaust. This is one of humanity’s darkest chapters.

Chapter Two

THE CRITIC IN THE SHOW

A couple of weeks ago, I played a role in a professional production of the play “The Diary of Anne Frank”. It was a small role. Mr. Kraler was a character made up by Frank to represent two men, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler, employees of her father’s business, Opekta. They helped hide the Frank family and four other Jews in the company’s secret annex building for two years during the German occupation of Holland. It was a difficult play for all the actors, many of whom suffered headaches and other signs of stress while dealing with replicating the emotions of these real people who went through this terrible ordeal. My role was relatively easy in comparison to the others, but there was still the obligation to do these brave people justice. Their sacrifice was more heroic and noble than anything an actor could do in representing them. What was going on around them was unthinkable, and yet they rose above it. To see people you knew and worked with and cared for carted off simply for being Jewish, never to be heard from again. It must have been like living a nightmare.

Chapter Three

THE QT

Back in the eighties, there was a young man who loved movies. He worked in a video store and consumed them by the genre. Exploitation, horror, noir, crime, western, sci-fi, war movies; he loved them all. He loved movies so much he aspired to make them himself and soon sold some screenplays to Hollywood and proceeded to direct his first movie starting from a workshop at the famed Sundance Institute. “Reservoir Dogs”, released in 1992, was certainly an accomplished first effort; but it was with his second film in 1994, “Pulp Fiction”, that Quentin Tarantino’s unique gift for film was realized and accepted by the masses. QT revolutionized a cinema that had become stagnant since the ‘70s, and he did it with a retro flare visually and on the soundtrack, but with a fresh new dialogue-heavy take and layered plot lines. A QT character doesn’t talk like real people, he talks like a movie character in love with the way people talk in movies. His movies also seem to relish in their cinematic looks and atmosphere.

Chapter Four

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Pt. 1

Some have asked me whether this movie is based on a true story. If you’ve seen the movie, you know beyond any doubt that it is most certainly not. Some have asked if it is a remake. No, although it almost borrows its named from “Inglorious Bastards”, an Italian made 1978 movie about a band of American commandos on a special mission behind Nazi lines. Some say the idea of the commando unit in this “Basterds” is taken from the German unit portrayed in Sam Peckinpah’s 1977 German Army point of view WWII film “Cross of Iron”, but I don’t really see it. QT’s Basterds are an American unit made up of Jewish soldiers commissioned to work undercover behind enemy lines killing and scalping Nazis for the express purpose of spreading fear and doubt throughout the Nazi ranks. While that set up certainly suggests an interesting World War II movie, what develops from that initial idea is something purely Tarantino, and most-likely only QT himself could pull it off.

Chapter Five

WHAT WENT DOWN

QT’s movie isn’t really about The Basterds, however. It is about a plot to take down most of the higher ranking officials in Hitler’s Third Reich during the premiere of a Nazi propaganda movie that the Führer himself may be attending. Of course, the long and winding road QT takes to get to that plot and the intertwining storylines that cross and parallel each other in order to get there are also purely Tarantino. The Basterds are merely a cog in the wheel of that plot.

Like many a Tarantino plot, there are some major players—the Americans (i.e. The Basterds), the British, the Nazi SS—hard at some big time plans, who will come to see those plans teeter on the quibbles of some fairly minor players. The Basterds have spent a good deal of the war building up a reputation as the Nazi headhunters they were commissioned to be, letting only a few live to tell the tale, never taking prisoners. The Nazis have been building their reputations hunting Jews, Colonel Hans Landa in particular has risen through the Nazi ranks from one of their best Jew hunters to head of security for the special screening of the propaganda film “Nation’s Pride”, about a sniper named Zoller who held off hundreds of American troops single handedly and starring Zoller himself. The British have developed Operation: Kino, a plot to kill most of the top ranking Nazi inner circle by sending The Basterds in with one of their own to blow the screening up. Unbeknownst to the British, Americans, or Germans is the fact that Zoller has developed a crush on a young woman who is the proprietor of a small but beautiful movie house. When Zoller convinces Goebbels to move the venue to his crush’s cinema, he sets into motion events that neither side will be able to predict, for his crush is none other than Shosanna Dreyfus the sole survivor of one of Landa’s hunting parties. She will now have her revenge.

Of course, this synopsis cannot suggest the style and skill with which Tarantino executes his strange tale of vengeance. Like all of his films, he laces his heavy storyline with moments of lacerating humor, mostly along the more morbid lines here, as when he has a German soldier recount the tale of how he came to live through one of The Basterds raids, or the pomposity with which he depicts the British High Command’s attitude toward what will basically be a suicide mission for The Basterds, or the boyish charm he infuses into Landa, easily the film’s most evil character. The violence—when it comes—is graphic and gory.

Tarantino once again displays his exquisite use of music in the soundtrack, as when he opens the film and introduces The Basterds with the spaghetti western music of Ennio Morricone, or his use of David Bowie’s song from the early ‘80’s horror movie “Cat People” as Shosanna prepares for her final revenge. Not only does the out of period music fit incredibly well, but the French actress, Mélanie Laurent, looks remarkably like the young Nastassja Kinski from “Cat People”. And then there are all the twists and unexpected developments Tarantino throws in throughout the story.

Chapter Six

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, Pt. 2

QT has established his knack for redefining actors’ careers with his casting, often resurrecting fallen stars. There are no career revolutions for American stars in this one, unless you count Mike Myers (“Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery), who shows up in an unusual cameo as the British general in charge of Operation: Kino. While I don’t think this brief appearance will do much for his career, Myers is spot on in his presentation of how the British SIS Command is historically depicted in WWII movies.

As for the primary cast, QT gives Brad Pitt (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) yet another whack at one of his fun oddball roles with The Basterds’ commander, Lt. Aldo Raines. He delivers a speech to his troops that only a very select few actors could even hope to pull off. Mélanie Laurent (“Indigènes”) displays an amazing skill to tell a story with her eyes, as she must hide her intensions and true identity to the SS as they rearrange their screening plans to fit her theater. And Christoph Waltz has already deservedly won Best Actor at Cannes International Film Festival with his quite comical performance as the delightfully evil Landa. Let’s hope the Academy remembers him in February.

There are some wonderful supporting performances as well. Til Schweiger (“King Arthur”) is intimidatingly funny as a German officer who joins The Basterds because he enjoys killing his countrymen even more than they do. Michael Fassbender (“Hunger”) carries the British pomposity established by Myers into The Basterds’ realm. German-born Diane Kruger, probably the second most recognizable star to American audiences due to her role in the “National Treasure” films, provides the beauty for the film as a German actress spying for the British. Eli Roth (“Death Proof”) is adequately deranged as the deadliest of the Basterds, known to the Germans as The Bear Jew. As with most of Tarantino’s endeavors, the fates of all his characters are totally unpredictable.

Chapter Seven

FUCKING NAZIS!

Nothing can make up for the horrors that befell the Jewish people during World War II. The nobility of the many people like Kleiman and Kugler, who tried to help Jews during the Holocaust could never be replaced by acts of vengeance. Vengeance isn’t noble and makes us as bad as them. As with all of his heroes, Tarantino requires some sort of penance or sacrifice from his characters for the moral liberties they take. But, without diminishing the trials and struggles of all who suffered and fought during World War II, I am compelled to say about this fantasy of vengeance against the German Army, “It’s about time those fucking Nazis got what they deserve.” True, it’s only a movie; and no matter how Tarantino reimagines history in “Inglourious Basterds”, it will never change 6 million civilian exterminations. But isn’t it great to see Hitler and his cronies finally getting it really stuck to them?

Inglourious Basterds | Movie Trailers

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra / *½ (PG-13)

Duke: Channing Tatum
Ana/Baroness: Sienna Miller
Ripcord: Marlon Wayans
McCullen/Destro: Christopher Eccleston
Storm Shadow: Byung-hun Lee
Shana ‘Scarlett’ O’Hara: Rachel Nichols
Breaker: Saïd Taghmaoui
Snake Eyes: Ray Park
Heavy Duty: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaji
Zartan: Arnold Vosloo
Rex: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
General Hawk: Dennis Quaid
U.S. President: Jonathan Pryce

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Stephen Sommers. Written by Stuart Beattie and David Elliot & Paul Lovett and Michael B. Gordon and Sommers. Based on characters created by Hasbro. Running time: 118 min. Rated PG-13 (for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout).

Now, I’m sure all you G.I. Joe fans took one look at my poor star rating and decided that like the legions of critics who have panned the new live action movie, I have no understanding of the G.I. Joe universe and what it is all about. I can hear you saying, “It’s supposed to be an action movie, not some thought provoking treatise.” I understand this very well.

I was a great Joe fan as a youth. I watched the cartoon every day with cookies and a glass of milk after school—it immediately followed “Inspector Gadget”. I collected the comic books. I loved the combination of combat war action with the melodramatic soap opera-like leanings of the plot. Who was attracted to whom on the Joe team? How were they secretly connected to the Cobras (the bad guys)? I delighted in the bickering and inner turmoil that plagued the Cobras, often thwarting their own plans of world domination. So, I didn’t go into my screening of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” with the typical film snob trepidation of some critics. But oh, how the gems of our youth can lose their luster.

“The Rise of Cobra” tells the story of how Cobra begins and becomes the ultimate enemy power the G.I. Joes will ever face. Taking place in the near future, we meet key members of the Cobra team before they’ve taken on their moniker. The Baroness (Sienna Miller, “Stardust”) is a leather clad dominatrix who seems to be the secret Cobra Commander’s go to henchman for getting things done. When she fails to obtain a new weapon from a NATO convoy, the second in command, a weapons manufacturer named McCullen (Christopher Eccleston, “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising”), puts the assassin Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee, “Hero”) on her case to make sure she gets the job done. Meanwhile an almost peripheral Cobra operative named Zartan (Arnold Vosloo, “The Mummy”) seems to be on a mission of his own. And, the mysterious Doctor develops a serum to control people and make them nearly indestructible using nanotechnology.

We discover the existence of the secret G.I. Joe unit along with the movie’s hero, Duke (Channing Tatum, “Fighting”), and his best friend, nicknamed Ripcord (Marlon Wayans, “Little Man”). As the only survivors of the convoy attacked by Baroness, and because of Duke’s intimate knowledge of the woman underneath the leather, the two are asked to join the elite military unit by its leader, General Hawk (Dennis Quaid, “The Express”). They meet other key players in the G.I. Joe operation—communications expert, Breaker (Saïd Taghmaoui, “Traitor”), physical training expert and all around big muscle, Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaji, ABC’s “Lost”), the sexy and brainy Scarlett (Rachel Nichols, “P2”), and the mute ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park, “X-Men”).

To go any further into the plot of this film would be a waste of time. All that must be known is that the Commander has a plot to take over the world involving the destruction of well-known world monuments, and it’s up to the Joes to stop him.

Here’s what I liked about the movie. 1) Director Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy”) utilizes spectacular special effects to evoke that great summer blockbuster tradition of thrilling the audience with the impressive destruction of famous settings like the Eiffel Tower. He precedes this with a spectacular chase through Paris as the Joes try to prevent the disaster. 2) Hyung-hun’s Storm Shadow, when out of his combat costume, is a suave, sharply dressed, enigmatic character. 3) Although not the primary focus, the screenplay does keep the soap opera elements of the comic book, most notably in the relationship between Duke and Baroness and the flashback events that led to their emotional split involving her brother Rex (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “The Lookout”).

The drawbacks of the movie are so plentiful I probably won’t even get to them all. One very distressing element is the various flashbacks dealing with Storm Shadow’s past relationship with the Joe Snake Eyes. They encountered each other as children and shared the same sensei, but their entire relationship consists of fighting each other. There are no significant emotional moments for either of them. I think their connection would’ve been stronger had some sort of friendship been shared, but here it seems not only were they always enemies, but for no apparent reason.

Everything in this movie is dealt with in pure military efficiency, and generally with the same lack of imagination. There is no character development. Each character is given a name and job—sometimes one and the same—and their development is finished. There is no plot development. We are shown weapons and gadgets, the characters are given singular objectives and the play button is pushed to set the action in motion. The jokes are all one-liners of the ilk that even Schwarzenegger might feel uncomfortable uttering. I don’t think any character is required to string any more than two or three sentences together at any point in time. And, the dialogue is so atrocious it makes George Lucas’s dialogue for the “Star Wars” prequels sound like Shakespeare.

One fan of the movie pointed out to me that many critics were saying “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” made their I.Q.s drop. This is a ridiculous and uninventive statement for a critic to make. Had my I.Q. dropped, I most likely would’ve enjoyed the movie. But it isn’t really a matter of intelligence so much as one of maturity. I’m not twelve anymore and demand more competence in my entertainment. I require some quality filmmaking to go along with the dazzling explosions and sexy commandos. While the explosions, breasts and abs are all impressive here; it’s the storytelling that is in short supply.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | Movie Trailers

“No More Yankie My Wankie”: In Memory of John Hughes 1950-2009

As a film buff, I often dread the deaths of certain filmmakers. The thought of never seeing another movie by Eastwood, Scorsese, or Spielberg is a disheartening one. One filmmaker I had never thought of in that way was John Hughes. In fact, Hughes hadn’t directed a movie since 1991. But when his sudden death was announced, I found myself both nostalgic for his high school comedies that permeated my own high school experience and saddened that we had lost an artist who so accurately portrayed the psyche of a generation.

On Thursday, August 6, 2009, filmmaker John Hughes died from a heart attack suffered on his morning walk in Manhattan. He was 59. Hughes had been a staple of the Cineplex during the eighties and early nineties. He started out as a writer for National Lampoon magazine. The movies that sprung from the comedy publication gave Hughes his first screenplay success. While his debut screenplay for “Class Reunion” (1982) didn’t enjoy the success of the earlier National Lampoon film “Animal House” (1978), it got Hughes on his way toward building a reputation as one of Hollywood’s premiere comedy screenplay writers.

Hughes’ first big success came with the screenplay for the Michael Keaton vehicle “Mr. Mom” (1983). Once his third screenplay was filmed, Hughes shot into the stratosphere of ‘80s comedy. “National Lampoon’s Vacation”(1983) became a national phenomenon, coming at the beginning of both the public acceptance of paid cable channels and the birth of the home video market. Within a few years of its release the family vacation comedy became loved by audiences of all ages despite its ‘R’ rating.

Hughes made his directorial debut in 1984 with “Sixteen Candles”, another family-oriented movie that pushed the bounds of good taste while perfectly capturing the alienation of adolescence. Stamped with the an inexplicable ‘PG’ rating, which allowed for the profane humor to reach a larger audience, “Sixteen Candles” kicked off a quick succession of high school-based movies that would help to define a generation and usher in a whole new era of filmmaking. Hughes followed up with a teen comedy or drama in quick succession including, “The Breakfast Club”(1985), “Weird Science”(1985), “Pretty In Pink”(screenplay only 1986), “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off”(1986), and “Some Kind of Wonderful”(screenplay only 1987), often utilizing the stars of “Candles”, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, and always depicting awkward teenagers flying in the face of authority and defying the class-oriented structures of their environments.

In 1987 Hughes directed his first grown up-themed movie “Planes, Trains & Automobiles”. Centered on a family holiday—Thanksgiving—the movie followed a man’s (Steve Martin) failing attempts to get home to his family during the busy travel holiday. He continued in the adult vein for his next project “She’s Having a Baby”(1988), about the loss of identity a man (Kevin Bacon) feels as he attempts to start his own family. He returned to family-based movies with his next two directorial efforts “Uncle Buck”(1989) and “Curly Sue”(1991), which focus on the unanticipated relationships adults can share with children.

“Curly Sue” would be Hughes’ final trip to the director’s chair, but he continued to pen a number of family films, including National Lampoon’s “European Vacation”(1985) and “Christmas Vacation”(1989), “The Great Outdoors”(1988), “Home Alone”(1990) and two sequels, “Dutch”(1991), “Career Opportunities”(1991), “Beethoven”(1992), “Dennis the Menace”(1993), the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street”(1994), “Baby’s Day Out”(1994), “101 Dalmatians”(1996), “Flubber”(1997), “Reach the Rock”(1998), and “Just Visiting”(2001).

Hughes was not a flashy director, but his writing skills helped him get into the mindset of the American high school teenager in a way that no other writer-director ever had before. Aside from a few contributions by a handful of other directors, Hughes essentially created the high school genre, one that to this day produces a new picture every couple of months. For the first time, Hughes ushered audiences inside the psyche of high school aged kids, and he took them seriously. Even in his most raucous comedies, his teenagers were intellectual and striving beyond the positions that had been predetermined for them.

He always had a great depth to his cast of characters. They were kids that really existed in American high schools. For the first time teenagers recognized themselves represented in film. As Hughes matured as a filmmaker, so did his characters. What were at first essentially plots constructed to provide shocking laughs provided by the imagination of his teens, eventually evolved into studies in how adults tried without success to control these kids as cattle, and then into examinations of the class systems that formed in high school society. His direction got more inventive as he moved into his adult fare, but he seemed most at home with his teenage characters.

Hughes also introduced the world to a new generation of actors. They became known as the Brat Pack; although, I imagine this categorization must have frustrated Hughes. He was trying to tell adults that these kids weren’t brats, but intelligent thinking people just trying to survive a period in their lives that most adults had lost touch with. Many of his stars never survived this inaccurate label. Molly Ringwald, Alley Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Lea Thompson, Eric Stoltz and others shared well over fifteen minutes of fame, but never seemed to outlive their ‘80s personas. Others, like John Cusack, Matthew Broderick, Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Joan Cusack, and Bill Paxton became major stars. Hughes also showed a knack for creating the perfect vehicles for well-established performers such as, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, John Candy, Walter Mathau, Glenn Close, Catherine O’Hara, Dan Aykroyd, Paul Dooley, and Charles Grodin.

A contribution that Hughes had a hand in was the development of the soundtrack album as a moneymaking enterprise of its own. While George Lucas and Martin Scosese blazed the trail of incorporating pop songs into the structure of a film, Hughes is in a small part responsible for making the soundtrack album more marketable. Although the studio executives probably would have driven the market on their own anyway, Hughes touched the ever-important teen market with his ability to include underground bands on his soundtrack that spoke to the counter culture leanings of teens. Hughes introduced audiences to the likes of The Smiths, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, Everything But the Girl, Kate Bush, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Suzanne Vega, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, and INXS. Suddenly teens were exploring music beyond the American Top 40 charts. Soon bands would be making more money by contributing tracks to a film soundtrack album than they might from their own album sales.

Following the announcement of Hughes’ death, my home page on Facebook was aflutter with quotes from his movies. High school friends and college friends all had their favorite quotations. Quoting “The Breakfast Club”, one friend in particular noted that nobody had ever summed up his high school experience better, “You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.” Thank you for opening our eyes. R.I.P. John Hughes.

Music: Food for the Movie Soul

A long time ago, in a state far far away I was a high school kid still developing my obsessive nature for film. In fact, in high school my movie obsession was probably fairly normal. It didn’t go much beyond seeing “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” on opening weekend, or renting that strange “Blue Velvet” thing with Dennis Hopper that all my friends had been hearing about.

No, my obsession at that time was with music. I had always had something that consumed me as I grew up. First there were Legos, then Dungeons & Dragons, Garbage Pail Kids, and G.I. Joe—but as adulthood loomed a deeper investment into something more profound and personal became necessary. Pushed along by my best friend at the time and the opening of an independent music store, I grabbed onto music as an outcry of the soul.

Really the roots of my music obsession began in grade school, when that same friend and I would throw in a song on his boombox—“a boombox is a powerful thing”—lie down and visualize some form of story to go along with the music. I remember I had trouble separating the movie in my mind for Billy Joel’s “Pressure” from the video that was in heavy rotation on MTV at the time, but Journey’s “Lights” was something wholly original in my mind. After a song had ended the two of us would relate the stories we each envisioned to each other.

Later, after we had already developed our music obsessions into something above and beyond the average teenager’s tastes, we would get together with two other friends as equally ensconced in their music obsessions as the two of us and combine our CD collections into a giant mass of music collage. We developed an intricate system to randomly select which albums would be thrown into a multi-disc player set to shuffle and spend from dusk to dawn playing pool, philosophizing, and commencing with our early discussions on film, while listening to the tunes that inspired us.

In college, I finally started to develop my deep-rooted obsession with film as I studied to be a professional actor. Surround by other actors who recast “The Godfather” as it would’ve been with the Hofstra Drama Department—the honor of Concigliore Tom Hagen was bestowed upon me—my full passion for movies could no longer be denied. But even with the new fascination, I found my music mania flourishing due to the school’s close proximity to a Tower Records.

With a subscription to CMJ (College Music Journal), I soon discovered bands considered obscure by the average music consumer—Bark Psychosis, Codine, Red Red Meat, Julian Cope. I gained a reputation on campus as a music guru. If somebody wanted to know when a new album would be released, they came to me. If someone needed a mix tape of new and fresh music rather than the same old pop tunes, they came to me. The editor of one of the student magazines asked me to review REM’s “Automatic for the People” because he knew I would have it well listened to before anyone else.

The advent of DVD changed the way everyone consumed movies, especially the film buff. It also drastically altered my own consumption of music. My free time shifted to watching more movies. Building my movie collection became my primary fixation and music took a back seat. As I began to know more movies, I became fonder of movie scores, less reliant on popular music, and to a degree less in touch with my own emotions. I no longer sought music for my own emotional outlet, but as in a movie, music became a background element in my life.

Recently, I’ve rediscovered my passion for music. In a way, I feel I lost a decade of my life by failing to pursue my music interests. However, the hard times that a recession brings also will force us to return to comforts of the past. Throughout, what has become an extremely busy summer I’ve eased back to some degree on my movie watching and greatly increased the amount of music I listen to.

My passion for film is just as strong as ever, but it is once again matched by my enthusiasm for music. And once again I feel the connection between the two. Both embody fantasy, but the music can be much more personal than the movies, something I can make my own as well as admire.

The other day, as I sat outside the Lyceum Theater in Arrow Rock, calming myself prior to a performance. I listened to the sad and seductive voice of Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies. She told a story with her lyrics and I pictured it, once again forming a movie in my mind to go along with the song. It was sad and tragic, but it filled me with joy.

You said never to grow old,
But you forgot to tell me how.
You said never to grow old,
And then you sank your teeth into those final feet.
Cowboy Junkies, “Those Final Feet”

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince / *** (PG)

Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Professor Albus Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Professor Horace Slughorn: Jim Broadbent
Ginny Weasley: Bonnie Wright
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Professor Severus Snape: Alan Rickman
Bellatrix Lestrange: Helena Bonham Carter
Luna Lovegood: Evanna Lynch
Lavender Brown: Jessie Cave
Cormac McLaggen: Freddie Stroma

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by David Yates. Written by Steve Kloves. Based on the book by J.K. Rowling. Running time: 153 min. Rated PG (for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality).

The opening sequence of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” gave me the distinct impression that second time Potter director David Yates (“The Girl in the Cafe”) is a fan of anther Warner Bros. franchise, the “Superman” series. During the thrilling opening, three black clouds of smoke race through London—first the London of the real world, known as the Muggle world in the Potter universe, then into the magic world. The three clouds cause mayhem and terror everywhere they go, materializing in an explosion at a magic shop into three imposing dark figures reminiscent of General Zod and his followers from “Superman II”. Later in the film, the adolescent wizard hero Harry Potter and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry superintendant Professor Albus Dumbledore visit a lair of the series’ villain, Lord Voldemort, which looks remarkably similar to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

What impact do the image parallels with the “Superman” films have on the Harry Potter universe? Not much beyond the fact that they indicate that like “Superman” the Harry Potter series is an incredible showcase of movie magic that exemplifies the best special effects-laden entertainment placed on the foundation of great ideas and characters. Many complained that the fifth Potter film skimped on its developmental elements in favor of the special effects and action. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is a return to form for the series—probably due to the return of screenwriter Steve Kloves (“Wonder Boys”)—with the characters back in the foreground and a plot that embraces the same mystery elements featured in each Harry Potter episode without pushing the characters beyond their motivations.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe, “December Boys”) has found his celebrity status elevated even above his fame from previous films as Voldemort’s return was confirmed at the end of the previous adventure, legitimizing Harry’s claims. “The Half-Blood Prince” continues to bring our hero down a very dark path, but much of the wonder and charm of the series has found its way back into the mix as Harry’s two best friends Ron (Rupert Grint, “Driving Lessons”) and Hermione (Emma Watson, ”The Tale of Despereaux”) explore teen infatuation and their own hidden feelings for each other. Harry also feels the pangs of love with some fairly touching romantic developments between him and Ron’s younger sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright). Honestly, their flirtings were so gently handled, I would have liked to see more of Ginny just to witness their sweet relationship.

More so than anything else, this Potter focuses on Harry’s relationship and partnership with his mentor and protector, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon, “Layer Cake”). Dumbledore hasn’t had this much of a presence in any of the previous films. His authority has always been an anchoring spirit in the series, and its good to see him take a more active role in events. He insists upon his own insignificance compared to Harry’s, but it’s hard to imagine Harry’s magic containing the power and confidence of Dumbledore’s.

As for the titular Half-Blood Prince, his identity is the great mystery of the story. Harry’s personal nemesis Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton, “The Disappeared”) is recruited by the evil Death Eaters—who work in the service of Voldemort—for a special assignment. Harry is suspicious of Malfoy’s behavior, but has his own assignment from Dumbledore to learn a secret about Voldemort known only to the eccentric Professor Horace Slughorn. In order to get in Slughorn’s graces, Harry utilizes the notes of the mysterious Half-Blood Prince to ace Slughorn’s potions class. I would not think to reveal the identity of the half-blood, but it tears at the fabric of all we may think we know of Harry’s world.

It helps that the only new major character this time around is Slughorn. Once again the casting of Jim Broadbent (“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”) in the role proves that casting director Fiona Weir has the magic touch for finding just the right actors to enhance this fantastical world. There are a few new minor characters that are barely introduced, which may leave some fans of the books disgruntled. In terms of the movies however, this one is more connected with its subjects than any of the other movies. It makes for a somewhat slower adventure, but satisfying in that the characters come first.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” plays like a set up to the finale in the next two films based on the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows”. This makes it a little less urgent than previous films that each had a self-contained story to tell. But it also leaves the audience with a cliffhanger that makes it easy to understand why Warner Bros. felt it was necessary to delay this movie by six months in order to have a shorter wait until the release of the final two films.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | Movie Trailers

Public Enemies / *** (R)

John Dillinger: Johnny Depp
Melvin Purvis: Christian Bale
Billie Frechette: Marion Cotillard
John ‘Red’ Hamilton: Jason Clarke
Harry ‘Pete’ Pierpont: David Wenham
Charles Makley: Christian Stolte
Homer Van Meter: Stephen Dorff
Baby Face Nelson: Stephen Graham
Alvin Karpis: Giovanni Ribisi
Charles Winsted: Stephen Lang
Phil D’Andrea: John Ortiz
Frank Nitti: Bill Camp
J. Edgar Hoover: Billy Crudup

Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Michael Mann. Written by Ronan Bennett and Mann & Ann Biderman. Based on the book “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34” by Bryan Burrough. Running time: 140 min. Rated R (for gangster violence and some language).

Who will get Michael Jackson’s children? Who is Lindsey Lohan’s lesbian lover? And, are Brad and Angelina breaking up? The gossip of celebrity has always captured the imaginations of Americans. There was a time when the criminal was celebrity. Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” is a movie that remembers this and in it he tries to dig under the skin of one of the greatest criminal celebrities in American history.

John Dillinger was arguably the poster boy of the American criminal at a time when the breed was entering its final spotlight. J. Edgar Hoover’s creation of the FBI would put the nails in the coffin of the criminal celebrity by nationalizing the laws against major criminal acts and demystifying the men the public mythologized by exposing their cold-hearted ways with a cold-hearted approach to law enforcement. In its portrayals of Dillinger and the man who would bring the playboy bank robber down, Melvin Purvis, Mann and his co-writers, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, depict two men driven obsessively toward their fates in American history.

Opening with the famous jailbreak lead by Dillinger at Indiana State Prison, Mann quickly establishes his cold approach to this period picture with handheld camera work and stark landscapes. The jailbreak depicts the brutality these criminals are willing to inflict upon their relatively innocent jailers when one of the escapees feels a guard isn’t moving fast enough. He then shows Dillinger’s own sense of justice as he deals with the hasty cohort with the same violence dispatched against the guard.

Johnny Depp (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) portrays Dillinger as an intensely loyal leader who will go to great lengths to help a friend, but won’t suffer fools kindly. Although he is a master of his domain and has imposed himself as a living monument in his stopping grounds in Chicago, there is a slight detachment in his demeanor about what he represents. During one robbery he tells a civilian to put his money back in his pocket. “I’m here for the bank’s money, not yours.” It’s as if he doesn’t notice the effect his actions have on the innocents around him. A colleague of Dillinger’s observes this practice as some sort of joke.

This effect doesn’t escape the attention of Mann, however. During the gunfights—and there are many—in the streets of Chicago, crowds gather as if observing the staging of a play. The gunfire is loud and echoes, as if inside a tin can, through the streets even louder. The sound is unsettling, punctuating the onlookers’ vulnerability. When the gunfire finds its way to the policemen and into the crowd of innocents, there is shock and awe.

Despite his detachment, it’s Dillinger’s inner workings the filmmakers seem to be digging for. His loyalty is fierce, but as his fame rises he moves further into circles where no loyalties lie. Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi, “Flight of the Phoenix”) tries to recruit him for a train job, and he gets mixed up with a job gone wrong involving Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Grant, “Inkheart”). But it is his love affair with French-American Indian coat check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en Rose”) that provides the opportunity for the FBI to eventually bring him down. Dillinger offers Billie an escape from the everyday grind of the fading depression that drew all Americans to criminal celebrity. As the economy recovered the everyday American needed that fascination less, and so the criminal’s days are numbered and Frechette is pulled down in the undertow.

Mann also shows the criminal spotlight doesn’t extend as glowingly onto the law enforcement community, despite Hoover’s attempts to pull the FBI out of the political arena and into a public relations venue. Although Billy Crudup (“Watchmen”) as Hoover adopts the vocal styling of 1930s crime movies, his performance avoids the temptation of ridicule that Hoover is generally treated to in film. His Hoover is still the power-mongering character usually depicted, but he seems more interested in securing the safety of the country than the Washington bureaucrats.

Hoover’s big publicity launch is based around his decision to place Purvis in charge of the Chicago branch and specifically charged with the apprehension of Dillinger. Christian Bale (“Terminator Salvation”) gives Purvis a discontented yet noble attitude. He is uncompromising, but in a scene where one of his officers is overly abusive to a female detainee, he shows his sense of justice includes compassion. As his suicide years later might suggest, Purvis never quite seems satisfied with his successful results.

As I walked out of the theater, I heard an older gentleman express his dissatisfaction with the film saying, “I thought it’d be more like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’.” It struck me that it’s really very similar to that film. It lacks the humor that can be found in that classic, but the basic story is very much the same. Criminals live the highlife until their own habits make them vulnerable. “Public Enemies” begins at the start of that decrescendo.

I think the real reason a fan of “Bonnie and Clyde” might be disappointed with this movie is that this story is no longer fresh. Every criminals-on-the-run picture that has been released over the past forty years has modeled itself after the lives that these real life criminals lived. We’ve seen Dillinger’s story in every fictional criminal of the past forty years and even in the years between when these people lived and “Bonnie and Clyde” broke the mold.

The reality is Michael Mann has made a solid movie here, where the emotions are cold, the guns are loud and the end is etched in history. This is a good period crime picture. Mann has made better movies. His “Heat” really peers into the private lives of both thief and pursuer. “Public Enemies” may not dig as deep, but it’s worth watching.

Public Enemies | Movie Trailers