Charlie Wilson's War--Fast, funny look at how US helped Afghanistan beat Soviets

**** (out of 5)


In Charlie Wilson's War, Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman teaming up to beat the Russians in Afghanistan is like the funniest Hope and Crosby "Road..." movie ever, with Julia Roberts along as Dorothy Lamour. In fact, there is one very funny scene revolving around Congressman Tom Hanks' office that would fit in perfectly in a classic Neil Simon comedy.

Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, a real-life Texas Congressman, who ran high-powered weaponry into Afghanistan covertly 20+ years ago to help the Afghans win the first war against the USSR in history. It is no mere coincidence that two years later the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War effectively ended. But while the history is very enlightening, it's the comedic performances of the two leads that will make this repeat viewing for me on HBO in a year.

Hoffman plays Gust, a very smart CIA operative who's the son of Greek immigrants and who keeps reminding people where he came from. He wears his lower-class upbringing like a badge of honor and is determined to outsmart every rich person he comes in contact with. His main problem is his fiery temper and a big mouth. He spends three years learning Finnish, but will never get the Helsinki job because he tells his boss to go "F*** himself." He's funny alone, but the interplay between him and Hanks is priceless. It really makes you wish Hanks would mix more comedies into his repertoire, he's so subtly funny.

Of course, you don't get to play many characters like Charlie Wilson, who drinks habitually, has been known to snort coke with strippers in Vegas and staffs his Congressional office with all women who might better serve the Playboy mansion. He even has a great nickname for his staff that drew loud laughs from the men in the audience, "Jailbait."

This movie does not play up its 1980 roots for cheap laughs about clothes or other fashions. No, where you get your biggest kicks is in how the mores have changed since then. Like having your female staff all wear low cut blouses and having them make you drinks during work hours. "Like Charlie always says, 'You can teach a girl to type, but you can't teach her to grow (breasts).'" Charlie's like Congressman Dean Martin.

The one drawback, Julia Roberts. She is a good actress for parts made for her, but playing a politically Conservative Texas dragon lady, does not suit her at all. Christine Baranski could have knocked this role out of the park. Julianne Moore would have even been better, because she's younger (think of her in Big Lebowski). As Charlie's illicit lover and I think biggest contributor, there is one scene that is very important to the film and she plays it so underwhelmingly that I was thinking, why is Charlie Wilson interested in her? The only cool thing she does is separate her eye lashes with the point of a gold safety pin. I wouldn't even put contacts in my eyes let alone wave a pin one inch from them.

Mike Nichols might be the only director who could blend the miseries of war, so confidently with the obvious humor of Washington. Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and A Few Good Men, writes a very witty script, something he failed to do with his TV bust Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

The Freditor

I Am Legend Elevates Will Smith to the Pantheon of American Movie Stars

****1/2 (out of 5)

1988--"Parents Just Don't Understand" was a huge rap hit, possibly the biggest rap hit to that point. But the hip hop community wasn't in love with the recording, because it was a funny little novelty hit and not a serious message song. The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff continued to make music like this record and laughed all the way to the bank. Smith was 20 when I was 22 and he made his first million at that time. He blew it all in something like 2 years.

Desperate to regain his fortune, he went on to sitcom fame as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and while he had some pretty impressive moments on the show, you really couldn't take him seriously as an actor. But then Six Degrees of Separation came out and while it has its flaws, Smith's performance as a gay con man is not one of them. Then Bad Boys came out and all the good will he built up for me was lost. A junk movie with a junk performance, a major step back in my eyes. So much so that when I heard he was going to star in Independence Day, I lost all hope of it being a great movie and when I saw it my forecasts turned out to be true. His performance in it nearly killed it for me. Was he destined to be the next Richard Pryor, a potentially great star who could never make a good movie?

After Men In Black and Wild Wild West, I basically wrote him off. He seemed destined to be a shucking, jiving character and never the serious but entertaining lead man that I thought he had in him. A George Clooney type, who burns with charisma and looks like he could lead men into battle, but still has a bit of mischief in his eyes. Then he broke away from his tomfoolery and made one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years--Enemy of the State. From that jumping off point, it's been a steady climb for him to the top of the ranks.

For several years, Will Smith has been fighting to be among the elite of American movie stars. You know the select few who can act well enough for Oscar attention and still be a face that the Oscar-ignoring masses will pay to see. Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington top that list now, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise used to be there. Will Smith is finally there.

I Am Legend raises his game to a whole new level. He literally carries the movie by himself, as Colonel Robert Neville, the last man living in New York City. A deadly virus has wiped out most of Manhattan and the few immune people like him, have been eaten by these living, rabid zombies.

Like vampires, sunlight is deadly to these zombies, so Smith and his trusty dog Sam roam the city freely during daylight. The movie is a tour-de-force for Smith, as he gets to talk to his dog and mannequins, with his usual carefree style, but then shows his acting muscle both when fear strikes him over the marauding invaders or deep melancholy for the past that is now all gone.

When he wakes up he watches old videos of morning newscasts. I guess if you're trying to survive, Katie Couric's morning smile will help you through the day. Why is he staying? Because Manhattan is Ground Zero from when the virus first struck and he is a top Army doctor desperately trying to find a cure.

The movie sometimes draws comparisons to Cast Away, which is the most recent film of that type, but it is a lot easier to see Smith relate to his dog than to a volleyball. It also draws comparisons to the dozen zombie movies we've seen over the last few years and ranks up there with the best of them for tension and scares, but unfortunately the zombies look very cartoonish in good lighting. Reminds me of the CGI in I Robot and Hulk. They did such a beautiful job of CGI matting New York City to look like an overgrown wasteland, why couldn't they have spent as much time on the creatures?

Sci-Fi/horror movies almost never win acting awards, but Smith deserves serious consideration for this role. The applause during the final credits tells you what the public thinks.

The Freditor

Enchanted gently pokes fun at, relives good ol' days of Disney animation

***1/2


Trailer and Videos

Takes a strong movie buff of a grown man to walk up to a ticket counter and say, "one for Enchanted, please." But that's what I did and I'm glad I went. What a fun way to spend an afternoon, watching Amy Adams embody all the great animated princesses of Disney lore, in real-life Manhattan.
Very few modern actresses could pull off the kind of fresh-faced innocence that Adams needed for this film, but few have that remarkably old-fashioned, sweet gentle mug to do it with. She's 33, but you wonder if she's ever sipped a beer or even been around second-hand smoke. She's stood out and I've liked her in everything I've seen her in so far (as Leonardo DiCaprio's fiancee in Catch Me If You Can; Jim's cheerleader girlfriend in The Office; and her Oscar-nominated turn as a sad, but adorable pregnant woman in Junebug), but she blows you away as Giselle in Enchanted.
As an animated young woman excitedly waiting for Prince Charming to marry her, she is tricked into leaving the animated world for the cruel harsh life of reality. Once she enters modern day New York City she meets a bitter, but nice divorce lawyer played by Patrick Dempsey. Luckily for Giselle, Dempsey has an adorable 6-year old daughter who is the perfect age to believe in singing princesses and Prince Charmings.
Thankfully, there are few musical numbers, because this movie is basically a spoof of a Disney animated musical and too many songs could kill the joke, but what few there are are great. The song and dance sequence in Central Park is a big highlight. The songs in this film have the kind of zip that made the Disney grand slam of the early '90s so wonderful (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King) and I thought wow, they sound like old Alan Mencken-type songs. They are. Mencken spoofing his early '90s work is pretty cool.
Amy Adams never winks at us once throughout the movie, allowing the character to become as real in an unreal setting as possible, while James Marsden as Prince Charming and Susan Sarandon as his mother the wicked queen have a ball playing their parts. My only problem with the film is that while it is aimed at little girls and fun-loving adults, we are all probably Disney fans and as experienced Disney filmgoers it would have been nice if they had surprised us more along the way. I don't necessarily feel that I've seen this movie before, but I certainly knew how it was going to end and that disappointed me. From about the halfway point onward, I felt like we were playing connect the dots. I mean the Shreks are similar in tone to this movie and I had no idea how those three would end.
All that being said, Amy Adams probably will get and deserves another Oscar nomination for this role. Her star is on the rise.

The Freditor

Hairspray buffs away original film's rusty elements, adds exceptional musical numbers

****1/2 (out of 5)


Netflix: Hairspray


John Travolta in a dress. I've been hearing about it for 6 months and finally got to witness it today on DVD. He plays a woman in a fat suit very well, and does some great dance numbers that I doubt a real fat woman could pull off. But his role is just one part of the great musical that is Hairspray.
When I discovered the original cult musical back in 1988, I thought I was the only one who saw it. Introducing Ricki Lake to the world as Tracy Turnblad, this modest movie was director John Waters' attempt at going mainstream. Before this he made small, grungy films like Pink Flamingoes and Polyester, but here he had a big "name" cast and used them in hysterically original ways. By 1988 the world had forgotten about Sonny Bono, Blondie's Debbie Harry and Jerry Stiller. Not to mention famed transvestite, Divine.
After the movie, Bono's political career took off, Harry had a bit of a comeback and of course Stiller starred as Seinfeld's Frank Costanzo. Ricki Lake made more movies and a had very successful talk show. And while Waters enjoyed some success with later movies he will always be known as the man behind Hairspray. So his greatest accomplishment since, was reimagining it as a Broadway play and while I've never seen that, if it's half as good as the movie, then it must be great.
I am hard critic of musicals, because so many of the songs sound a like, but this movie has a varied and exhilarating soundtrack. Both the lyrics and script are filled with funny one liners. And though it could have been shaved down 15 minutes, it still has a satisfying ending.
Newcomer Nikki Blonsky plays Tracy Turnblad, a heavy Baltimore teenager who's dream is to be on "local daytime television" as a dancer on the "Corny Collins Show." It is 1962 and the world is changing, even in this moderately Southern town. Corny Collins (played by the always dependable James Marsden-Superman Returns, X-Men) wants to integrate his show, but the station's executives will only allow one "Negro Day" a month. The integration stuff in the movie is treated for macabre laughs, but has a serious, bittersweet moment during the march sequence with the Queen Latifah song "I Know Where I've Been."
Everyone shines in the film. Michelle Pfeiffer, as one TV Executive, plays a queen witch to such perfection, she should have her own nighttime soap. Christopher Walken is his usual quirky self as Mr. Turnblad, a man so deeply in love with his large wife, he doesn't even recognize when a red-dressed Pfeiffer is trying to seduce him. Latifah continues to surprise me with both her acting and singing even after her Oscar-nominated performance in Chicago. Blonsky is a much better singer than Ricki Lake, but I'm not sure she has as much star quality, we'll see. And Travolta's eyes and Southern-accented voice are the only recognizable parts of his performance, that is until he dances. 50+ years old and in a fat suit and heels and he can still move, amazing. And he peels off some of the funniest lines of the film. "I dreamed of owning a coin-operated laundromat, missy, but I quickly came down to earth."


The Freditor

Golden Compass blends a few ingredients from other stories to make its own great fantasy stew

****1/2 (out of 5)

Trailer--http://www.fandango.com/videos/v290504

Went to a Sneak Preview of The Golden Compass (GC) this afternoon at the Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall movie theatre. On the coldest day of this late Fall, and not being a mall regular, I forgot that going to a shopping center on a Christmas Saturday is not the brightest move. The parking was a nightmare, fortunately the movie was a dream.
I knew very little about the story of GC, only the controversy the Catholic League is causing over it. The League's president, Bill Donohue, has tried to muster a boycott of the movie when it comes out, because the book is supposedly anti-Catholic Church. He feels that the movie, like the book, is aimed at impressionable children and families, and they will get wrong ideas from the film.
Well, maybe Mr. Donohue should actually see the movie before condemning it, because he would note that writer/director Chris Weitz has taken any reference to religion out of the film and made it simply about retaining your individuality. The author, Phillip Pullman, might have an axe to grind with the Catholic Church, but here the message is simple, just be yourself and stand up to anyone who tries to stop you.

The parking was a nightmare, fortunately the movie was a dream.

Weitz didn't surprise me with this film as much as make me proud. He was the co-writer and director of American Pie and I felt that even without the gross-out scenes it was still a very well-made movie. Weitz also directed Hugh Grant's About a Boy, which was a classier comedy, but with GC he has jumped up in weight class to approach the Peter Jackson-type directors. In fact, Weitz went to visit Jackson in New Zealand for a crash course in special effects and blockbuster movie making and I have to say the lessons took.
The movie is stirring, fun, well-paced, well-written, touching and filled with action that flows with the story rather than feeling added on. True you might catch similarities between this and other fantasy films before it, specifically Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, but those movies sampled from other stories as well.
GC stars another great child actress named Dakota, Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, a little orphan living with her famous scientist uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig-James Bond). The story takes places in an alternate universe where people's souls travel alongside them in the form of animals. The souls (called Demons) speak with different voices and fight for their human counterparts, but receive similar injuries as well. If the human is being choked the souls get choked, too.
One of the cool things about the movie is how the adults have one kind of animal representing them, but the children (who are still trying to find themselves) have souls that are in flux, jumping in form from birds to cats to ferrets and such. Lyra's soul (named Pan) has a menagerie of forms depending on how strong she feels. At times Pan's a scared little mouse, other times he's a ferocious bobcat. And with the voice of Willy Wonka's Freddie Highmore, you feel very protective towards him.
Lord Asriel has discovered a connection between the other universes that flows through the Demons, but appears to come through only at their world's North Pole region. He embarks on his journey there, leaving Lyra behind, but she soon follows him with her new friend, the indomitable Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman). Kidman plays Coulter with fiery eyes and icy charm and makes grown men quiver in her presence.
Along with Kidman and Craig, there are so many great secondary characters, played either in person or in voice by Ian McKellen (Gandalf-Lord of the Rings), Sam Elliot, Chirstopher Lee, Derek Jacobi and Ian McShane (Swearingen-Deadwood).
But despite stars Kidman and Craig, this is really Dakota's movie. I don't remember the last time I saw a little girl get such a big part, in such a big movie and do such a great job. She's tough enough that both boys and girls should be able to root for her, but still retains her sweetness.
Like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, this movie has its own ending while setting you up for a sequel, which I can't wait to see. This movie is a major achievement and should become a perennial favorite.

The Freditor

No Country For Old Men-Sheer brilliance until last 20 Minutes go off the tracks

****1/2 (Out of 5)


I snuck in a bag of Dirty Chips (Sour Cream and Onion) and for the first time in a long time, Cracker Jacks. I used a 7-11 gift card that my wife Barbara bought me for my birthday. That way I wouldn't have to waste money at the candy counter. Loud, crunchy popcorn doesn't make a bit of difference in a large-scale Hollywood blockbuster, but in a quiet film like No Country For Old Men, it can be very distracting. The movie starts you off with the kind of inspiring, quiet you might hear deep in the woods. The kind of Zen-like quiet that makes you not want to disturb it with chip crunching.
Well quiet might not be the right word, but I don't believe this movie has any background music. That is just one of the amazingly simple, realistic touches that draws you into this film and almost never lets go. This hard country is Southern Texas, right near the Mexican border and the river Rio Grande. So many great, tough westerns have been filmed in this part of the world, but this is a Coen Brothers movie and it takes place in 1980. I'm not sure why the date is so important, because if it wasn't for the cars, it would be hard to tell when it takes place. This is the kind of place where time stands still.
But one thing is for sure, they don't make tough men like this anymore, at least north of Texas. No credits, the camera peers out over a large, beautiful and yet desolate country and you hear Tommy Lee Jones talking about being a third-generation Texas sheriff. His voice, folksy and tired, this is Tommy Lee's second great Texas film this fall, the other being In the Valley of Elah, and he's finally toned down that Fugitive overacting that won him his Oscar. I love him, but he was starting to drift off into that Al Pacino land.
We see Tommy's deputy picking up a killer for some unknown crime and before we have our first Milk Dud this killer, played by the great Spanish actor, Javier Bardem, has killed the deputy and is onto his next killing spree. You might have heard about Bardem's Beatle/Monkee haircut, he looks like an Iberian John Denver, but it's his eyes that make him look crazy. I believe he is a man who could make you poop yourself from just looking at you. Best eyes on a killer since Hannibal Lector.
James Brolin's son, Josh, is fantastic here as a welder/everyman, who happens to come across a drug deal gone bad in the desert and takes the money that's left behind. He's basically a good man, but an opportunistic one and an exceptionally smart and capable fellow as well. The movie is overflowing with smart moves and old action pieces set on their ear and told in new ways. A man waits in a hotel room with a shotgun pointed at the door, he turns off his light so he can see the other man's shadow through the bottom crack of the door. But the other man takes off his boots so he won't make noise and unscrews the hallway lightbulb so the first man doesn't see the shadow anymore. Cat and Mouse, Mouse and Cat, the kind of thing people credit Hitchcock for. My only problem throughout the movie is why the killer doesn't use gloves, his fingerprints are EVERYWHERE.
But while all this builds to a wonderful crescendo, suddenly the Coens have to become the Coens again.
(Note--I like Coen Brother movies, but I only love two--Raising Arizona and O Brother Where Art Thou. Not because they are comedies, but because they hold me in their thrall despite their "watch me I'm a movie" idiosyncrasies. I hate being reminded by filmmakers that I am watching a movie and the Coens are very guilty of that. Another thing they do that annoys me is that while they have the tempo and style of American voices and mannerisms down, they appear to dislike these people and use them for derision. I hated Fargo for that. It was hard to root for anyone, because the Coens seemed to delight in mocking everybody. That kind of ironic detachment is great for a 5 minute skit on Saturday Night Live, but hard to keep up for an entire movie without making the audience question why you should care about these characters at all.)
Okay, so the crescendo is building and with 20 minutes left in the film, along comes Tommy Lee Jones as if he's driving in from another movie and something HUGE happens and we're left to be spectators from across the road, not sure what just happened. It took me 10 minutes to realize someone important died and then Tommy Lee starts talking to people we don't know, about other people we haven't seen and having dreams about nonsense and poof the credits roll. Another Sopranos-type ending.
Eastern Promises also ends in an abrupt Sopranos style and this was something I was afraid would happen. Some numbskull director thinks he has a bright idea and now other top directors who don't know how to end their stories take this cheap way out as well.
Very, very frustrating. I loved, loved this No Country movie, up until the last 20 minutes. I was ready to roll it up the flagpole as the Best of 2007, and I have 4 or 5 others that have been vying for that spot. But instead of it being a 5 Starrer it falls back to 4-1/2 Stars. And what really perturbs me is that I read several wonderful reviews of this movie, which got me excited about seeing it, but none of them mentioned this horrible ending.
Don't endings count anymore? Whenever I see these crippled endings I'm drawn back to one of the greatest endings of all time. Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant being packed into a crate and mysteriously packed into a huge U.S. Army warehouse, to supposedly help us win the war. Oh, I wish I could walk out of a theatre with chills like that again.


The Freditor

Across the Universe: One of the most beautiful films I've ever seen

***** (Out of 5)


I had to catch this one before it left the big screen. For the life of me, I can't understand any critic who downplayed this marvel. I don't know what the Beatles think (or would have thought) of this film, but as a fan I think it beautifully captures the thoughts and dreams behind the music.
Some scenes are more stirring than others, but the whole movie pulls you in from the very first scene and doesn't let go for 2:11. Even the final credits are eye candy.
Imagine a Jimi Hendrix-type guitarist playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps in a smoky bar. A gospel choir singing Let It Be after a young black boy gets shot in the Detroit riots. An artist torn by his waning love for a woman and missing his best friend who's fighting in Vietnam, pinning row after row of strawberries on a plain white wall, while the juice leaks down in long red streaks, perfect metaphors for the lives lost in the war.
Jude is a London dock worker, who comes to America looking for his long lost father. His biological father was an American soldier in WWII who impregnated Jude's mother and then shipped home. Jude, thinking he's a professor at Princeton, instead finds his father to be the janitor. While there Jude becomes fast friends with Max, a poor little rich boy who wants to leave school and find himself. Together they move to a rundown apartment in Manhattan with Max's sister Lucy, and then the movie really takes off.
I've seen a piss-poor movie in 1978 that tried to use Beatle music as a story-provider, it was with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees and called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. George Burns played Mr. Kite and sang the Benefit of Mr. Kite and you can imagine the hell that was. But here British comedian Eddie Izzard plays Mr. Kite in a psychedelic circus and it is part Monty Python cartoon, part Yellow Submarine music video and it mesmerizes. Bono plays Dr. Bob, who is kind of a Timothy Leary-type and sings I Am the Walrus, but it doesn't amaze you the way you'd think it would. He actually looks like Cheech Marin with his thick sideburns.
Julie Taymor directed this movie and I wish she'd play a hand in other directors' visual effects. The dance sequence in the bowling alley is better than most musicals I've seen. She directed the Broadway version of The Lion King and while I'm not interested in seeing my favorite cartoon re-imagined, she did win tons of accolades and awards for it. I can definitely see this movie being turned into a Broadway show. But it won't have the magical scope that this film has. It can't.
Even when I could predict how the next scene would play out it still left me with goosebumps. And the very final scene stirred up the tear ducts. I stood in line behind a man in his 60s who asked for a senior discount ticket. You gotta figure this man was a teenager when the Beatles came out. We were the only two in the theatre. If I didn't have to use the men's room so bad, I would have loved to stayed and ask him what he thought of it.

The Freditor