Today, amongst other things, a look at two movies… one terrific film that most people won’t have a chance to see and one clunker that most people won’t have a chance to avoid…

First, XXX.  Were it that the film was remotely as evocative as its title…

XXX is, simply, a large, loud mediocrity.   It’s a great idea.  Vin Diesel can deliver the goods… even though the editing of the film – or lack thereof – endangers even Vin’s seemingly unflappable machismo.  Samuel L. Jackson continues to be one of Hollywood’s most powerful secret weapons.   And the locations are fantastic.

So what went wrong?

1. Rob Cohen Can’t Direct – Can I say it any plainer?  Rob Cohen is a mid-range television director who also happens to be one of the greatest schmoozers Hollywood has ever known.  Most people don’t realize that the 53-year-old Cohen was producing films at the age of 25 and has worked nearly non-stop ever since.  But as a director, he has little style and terrible storytelling instincts.  He can get you through the story points, though he never seems to be offering his vision but rather offering the vision of others that audiences responded to… on steroids.  Ironically, A Small Circle of Friends and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story are easily his most watchable movies.  That might be the real Rob Cohen there.  But somehow, he got on the “big movie” track and has consistently delivered some of the worst films imaginable.  Dragonheart, Daylight and The Skulls, as a trio, has to be some kind of non-Troma record for directing futility. 

In XXX, Cohen’s greatest sin, besides an atrociously self-indulgent lack of editing, is going too far over the top.  He’s like a string player who’s lost feeling in his fingertips.  I’m not going to give spoilers here, but in the opening sequence, Cohen & Co. offer a clever set-up for a different kind of spy.  But he forgets (?) that the key element that defines the old kind of spy is music.  It’s not complicated, but it is the difference between a clever joke that works and one that the audience has to work to decode.  Cohen is too busy getting to the loud music that will permeate most of the film.

Later, there is a great, unique, ingenious training sequence.  And the production just isn’t good enough. 

And then there are the big set pieces.  Now, I believe in the suspension of disbelief.  You don’t have to go farther back than Eight Legged Freaks to know that about me.  I’m really willing to take the ride.  But as wild as Bond has gotten, there is always a small shred of reality behind every action sequence.  Cohen seems to feel that this in unnecessary in his “new” kind of action movie.  WRONG!!!  No matter how broad any form of drama is, it is the connection to some sort of reality that brings people close. 

Nevermind that the non-English speaking supporting cast delivers virtually nothing in this movie or that Cohen wastes the very sexy Asia Argento by giving her even less to do in XXX than Halle Berry had, in pretty much the same role, in Swordfish.  Nevermind that the guy with the gadgets – right out of Bond – is not nearly funny or smart enough or that some of the toys are not just unbelievable, but are also presented inconsistently.  Nevermind that the movie never pushes Diesel’s character to show any of the range that defined the best of Bond or that the CG effects tend to overwhelm the original premise… that Xander Cage is a physical specimen capable of doing special things within the human realm.

In the hands of a Dick Donner or Phillip Noyce or Martin Campbell or Roland Ememrich or even Bay, this concept would have been a true world-beater… it would have been the movie that all of us in the media have been hyping sight-unseen for months.  Forget Cameron or Spielberg or Zemeckis or the Wachowskis… even Stephen Somers or Dom Sena could outdo do this!

I wish I could say otherwise, but there is nothing wrong with ZZ… oops…. XXX that doesn’t come back to the director.  Many members of the audience will excuse many of these things.  The film will open to more than $50 million and is a lock to get to at least $130 million, which will make the film profitable while still earning money at the worldwide box office. 

But still… XXX is the greatest big-movie disappointment for me since A.I.  I wanted to love it.  Cohen got away with The Fast & The Furious, but I was praying that he would really get it together with XXX.  Alas…

SPEAKING OF NOYCE:  Who is Hollywood’s most underrated big-movie director when he’s not working with Bob Evans?  Well, if it’s not Phillip Noyce, he’s pretty high on that list.  (He made Sliver and The Saint with Evans… yeah…) 

Noyce broke out in America with Dead Calm, which also broke Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane.   Patriot Games, Clear & Present Danger and The Bone Collector were all deserving hits that didn’t get the acclaim of other films as successful. 

So what’s a successful commercial director to do when his next big film – The Sum of All Fears – loses its star (Harrison Ford) and he loses interest?  Well, in this case, the director makes two smaller, most personal films.  I haven’t seen Rabbit Proof Fence, but I hear really nice things about this true Aussie tale of the young aboriginal girls trying to find their way home.

But I have seen The Quiet American.  And I can assure you that it is a true delight. 

I love Neil Jordan’s melodramatic adaptation of The End of the Affair, but before that, you have to go back to 1959’s Our Man in Havana and before that, you have to go to 1949’s The Third Man to find a great adaptation of a Graham Greene novel.  In fact, I was reading a British site the other day that noted that Greene himself despised the 1958 version of The Quiet American.  I think he would be quite proud of what Noyce and a top-of-their-game band of collaborators delivered in this film.  

This is another wonderful throwback to the early 70s era of filmmaking, much like Gus Van Sant’s Finding Forrester, Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich, the Weitz Bros.’ About A Boy and Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity. 

When Noyce conceptualized his movie, he took the title of The Quiet American to heart.  This is a beautifully quiet movie, until the moments where loudness is demanded.  But a simple reading of the film might be too simple.  There are wonderful brush strokes by Noyce and his D.P., Christopher Doyle, who team up to blend their strokes the way the best do… by making them so seamless that they don’t call attention to themselves. 

It’s not just the easy clever stuff, like dressing Michael Caine’s Thomas Fowler in muted browns and shades of blue and having his home made up of muted blues, while the “quiet” American, played by Brendan Fraser, wears loud, eye-catching outfits.  It’s not just the magnificent use of color throughout the film.  And it’s not just the care with which Doyle shoots Caine, allowing the character to age before our eyes in this story of around a month or two.

People have raved about violent sequences in Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down.  And the “bullet-time” shoot out in Swordfish drew almost as much positive attention as Halle Berry’s topless scene.  (“I’m leading the way… (sniff, sniff)… for other black women who want to show their boobs but have been… (sniff!)… kept in their bikini tops for too long!”) 

A bombing sequence in The Quiet American is as good as any scene of its kind that I have ever seen on screen.   As with much of Noyce and Doyle’s work here, it is deceptively simple.  But it is quite brilliant.  It reflects another sequence in a smart, surprising way.  The editing, by John Scott, an Aussie who also did Sexy Beast, which makes him pretty competitive on degree-of-skill with the hottest editor working in Australia today, Jill Babock, is inspired.  This is the kind of cutting that takes my breath away.  And the images, in which Doyle is changing speeds and kinds of camera movement and using digital effects are real and raw and scary and beautiful.  And watching over all of this is Noyce, who brings all of his action movie skills to the table without ever pushing too far.

There is more to this film… and less.  In so many ways, this film embodies the glorious simplicity of the past.  And yet, those little stokes...

Noyce does what Graham Greene adapters rarely do… he captures Greene’s sense of fate and coincidence.  It never feels forced.  It never feels like a movie.  It feels like a story that happens like life happens.   Yet, the weighty metaphor involved with a movie in a pre-American invasion Vietnam is profound.  But the touch is light as a feather.

Michael Caine is excellent as a man who relaxes in the face of tension… until the heat gets turned up in ways he never sees coming.  Brendan Fraser gives his quietest – and perhaps best – performance as the too-dumb-and-earnest-to-be-ugly American.  And the supporting cast is spot on.

I’m going to stop now… I don’t want to oversell.  I really like The Quiet American the way I liked The Bourne Identity… quality filmmaking, a good solid story and terrific performances.  What more could you ask?  Well, a good release date for the film, which is in Miramax scheduling limbo right now, would be an excellent start.

LIKE BEATING MIKE:  Slate’s Daniel Gross goes after Michael Eisner in a piece titled, “Louse in the Mouse House.”   Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing and disagreeing… and it starts in the same place as usual… with a story that is looking to make a point instead of offering complete reporting.  I have learned over the years not to hold reporters accountable for headlines.  They are often more explosive than the story that follows.  But when Gross writes that Eisner “survives against all odds, all explanation, and all common sense,” I think it’s safe to assume that the headline is an understatement to this writer.

Many commentators like to hide behind the idea that the facts in our commentaries are true.  But we can’t avoid the truth, which is that when we take a position; we use the facts that work for us, even if we never tell a pure lie. 

It’s nothing new to write that Michael Eisner has hoisted himself on his own petard by not building a strong, independent team beneath him in order to keep Disney as healthy as it might be.  I would say that Gross simplifies the situation too much, not really presenting the advantages that strong lieutenants might or might not bring.   But that points up the central issue I have with this story…

Eisner is not just another CEO in the Fortune 500.  Eisner is in the entertainment business, where success lives just around the corner.  Gross disdainfully compares Eisner to Louis B. Mayer… but that is the fair comparison… despite a massive change in the industry over the decades.  The Go.com debacle was horrible.  But it would be hard to find an entertainment CEO who didn’t get their nose rubbed in the web’s backside.  But outside of that, it’s a basically a three-pronged company (Film, Television & Theme Parks) that relies on trends, advertising revenue, gas prices and a whole lot of plain dumb luck. 

Have we forgotten that ABC was on a hot streak just two years ago or that CBS was in the toilet just three years ago?   Has anyone noticed that while Sony looks like the market share king of 2002, that it was Universal in 2001 and – ta dah! – Disney in 2000?  And who has the answer to the slump at the Disney theme parks?  No one I know.  Yes, Disney’s California Adventure made the huge mistake of assuming that Orange County residents would respond to the new park the way that Los Angelinos have taken to Universal’s City Walk.  And they haven’t found the draw that will get Angelinos to drive the hour to Anaheim either.  Okay.  On the flip side, Eisner’s single-mindedness has made Disney the first serious entertainment player, beyond single channel successes like MTV and CNN, in China. 

The disaster at Disney is more likely to come as a result of Eisner’s sudden death than Eisner’s ongoing leadership.  And if I were on the Disney board, that would be the central focus of my efforts re: Eisner.  No offense to the division heads in Mouseville, but if you can hire Bob Pittman to head up the parks division… go for it.  Give Susan Lyne a little time.  And find someone who isn’t recycled to lead the way in the movie department.

And riddle me this… is you get rid of Eisner, exactly who are you going to hire? 

AD WATCH:  Much as I love the good people at Fox Home Entertainment (not that they send me DVDs or anything), the damned animated ads on Rotten Tomatoes are driving me out of my damned mind!!!!  First Kung Pow: Enter The Fist and now Super Troopers.  I don’t want to cost my fellow webbies any advertising dollars, but while the idea is good, it is insanely invasive… and I am on a cable modem with a fast computer… I can only imagine how painful these ads are for 56kers.

AD WATCH 2:  The pure sex ads for Blue Crush have begun.  I suspect they will work.  They are not a true representation of the movie.  But I suspect they will work.

SIGNS:  2300 words and I haven’t even touched on Signs… again.  There are good letters and much to discuss… tomorrow…

READER OF THE DAY:  Mary Mary writes about my agreeing link to Richard Roeper:  “This is a pretty strange position from someone who has in the past spoken out pretty strongly against the outing of gays in Hollywood.  For all the talk of rape being a crime of violence, for the victim it becomes a part of their sexual history.  And in every other area, the media shy away from reporting on someone's sexual life if it has no bearing on their public life.  To me having been the victim of a rape would qualify.

I'm sure that if I knew which of the women I know and meet had been raped, it would enhance my appreciation for the frequency of rape and the randomness of victimization.  But couldn't the same thing be said about knowing who is gay and who isn't?

In my younger days, I had a bit more sympathy for the publishing names helping the cause bit.  But now I'm getting married.  Would I be willing to face the questions about the crime from people who knew me?  Probably. Would I be willing to put him through the same?  I don't know.  And the effectiveness of rape evidence collection goes down by the hour.

Should we be moving towards naming of victim?  Yes.  But it will take a lot more volunteers before that would be acceptable.  If there is an argument for outing gays now, outing rape victims would be the equivalent of having done that in 1983.

My solution - put a check box on the police report - "Although this is not in anyway binding on the media, do you request that your name be withheld/used in public reporting of this matter?"  I think quite a few women would say yes.  Let's see where that takes us.”

DAVID RESPONDS:  I don't see the two issues as analogous at all.  Being gay is a personal issue, which has no direct effect on others.  Shielding rape victims but exposing alleged perpetrators, who still must be considered innocent until proven guilty, is a prioritization of one side of a criminal legal case over another.  If rape victims are shielded, so should alleged rapists... until conviction.  I have no problem with shielding victims of any crime until the case goes to court.  Then, the accuser and the accused must be equal in the eyes of the law and, in my opinion, in the eyes of the press.

SON OF NONE writes:  “I don't see why Tobey shouldn't take $12 million if he can get it. Sure, he's not worth that and has not proven that he's marketable at all, especially in a straight drama where he'll be the star but if a studio is gonna throw that at him, it's their problem not his. If you were applying for a new job, and you negotiated them up to $120,000, you wouldn't say, "how about $50,000 with a big bonus if I do well" would you? The kinds of movies he has chosen to do in the past and probably will continue to choose are not box office locks, and if the studios are willing to pay him up front, take the money. If Kevin Costner can still get $15 million after all his failures and Leo can still get $20 million without 1 post-Ttanic hit, why shouldn't Tobey's quote stay up there for years to come. he has a guaranteed blockbuster every two years to boost his stature.”

DAVID RESPONDS:  Think long term… perception is reality.  If Tobey Maguire’s price puts an arty movie into the $50 million price range and that film doesn’t go big, people will buzz badly, even if the film ends up breaking even or making money.  Maguire will make tens of millions in the next few years, no matter what he does.  With that locked in, I say that he should make sure that he is a winner every time… and most likely, a change of methodology wouldn’t end up costing him.

NO GQ MARRIOT writes:  “The fourth quarter of the year looks to be one of the best seasons for "gotta see" movies since that time in 1999, when Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, The Straight Story, and countless other high-quality movies seemed to be coming out week after week.

All in all, this hasn't been a bad year for movies.  While some of the summer crop of films were disappointing, many turned out to be better than they ought to have been (like Undercover Brother and, to a lesser extent, Spider Man).  I didn't feel the consistent pain of being a mark, as I had so many times in the last two summers in particular.  So with a good fall season up ahead, this could well be a very, very good year.  I can't remember the last time I actually had to work hard to eliminate films from a ten best list, but this could be the time!”

E ME:  Could a critic keep you away from XXX?  And what would you do if you ran Disney?