December 5, 2005

Street Fight is the best modern political documentary of this year or of any year since The War Room in 1993.

The Fog of War is great, but not "modern." The best of the recent political docs, Why We Fight and Gunner Palace, come up just short of this one, as Why We Fight is really best at reminding us of where we are by looking back to Eisenhower and working forward to Iraq, and Gunner Palace is the best on-the-ground Iraq doc, but is primarily a perspective doc, not an action doc. (Michael Tucker is an action documentarian and continues to fight forward, as does last year's Oscar winner, Zana Briski, who continues to both work for the children of the brothels and to explore more of the world.)

But what is singular about Street Fight is that it is directly connected to current politics, offers a look at a guy who is likely to be on the national consciousness for the next 40 years, speaks to race in politics in a way I have never seen before, and really tries - it seems to me - not to be either a puff piece or a smear piece. It lets you make up your mind about everyone… which is not to say that I didn't get a powerful whiff of villainy in the film.

Street Fight is the story of Cory Booker's campaign against the 16-year incumbent Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Sharpe James, a man whose name itself conjures images of Damon Runyon characters. If only his behavior did not seem to follow suit.

This is a handheld chase doc, nothing fancy in terms of production… except that filmmaker Marshall Curry gets remarkable access to this candidate and his campaign, to a degree that makes you wonder whether he cut out the evasive moments. You also wonder, a t times, whether this 32-year-old Stanford football stud has completely subsumed his sex life, which never turns up in the film, but the omission of which begs the question. But all of this is sidebar.

To watch a campaign of youth and hope fight City Hall and all the power that city Hall brings is fascinating and horrifying for believers that the one or two hurdles of a Frank Capra movie represent reality. Street Fight is a real life Spike Lee movie (that would be the best work of Spike's career) that would have to star Terrence Howard as Booker and an aged-up, dark-sided Sam Jackson as Sharpe James. Street Fight is a more complex version of Rocky where Rocky is an underdog, but not a schlub… he's taken very seriously by "the champ" from the start. Street Fight is like one small piece of Syriana or Traffic… can you believe what people think they can get away with… can you believe what people can get away with?

It is the rare documentary that commands - not demands - that you take action And even better, it gently offers the opportunity to make the effort and have an effect on the future in 2006. And you don't have to go any further than Newark.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE

It's a lovely film… for kids.

Ironically, there is very little legitimate religious symbolism in this film or really, in this story even though the lightness of this whole enterprise, compared to the Harry Potter Or Lord of the Rings series, makes it far more appropriate for the Christian fundamentalists that are being endlessly dragged into the discussion of this film. There is a resurrection that you see coming a flock of sheep away, but even that quickly explains itself into something more of a fairy tale moment than a religious one. Specifically, Jesus did not give his life so that another leader could come forward. This story is more like Teen Matrix than The Passion. Moreover, it is important to remember that Disney's reach out on this film reaches to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of children who are not Christian or active in religious families. So if it does surprising business (anything over $75 million in the first weekend and anything over $250 million domestic total), there may be more than one place to look.

The story is nice, but nothing all that compelling, though I do want to know what is next for this group. The computer graphics were, to my eye, pretty regressive when compared to the work in Rings or Harry Potter. Really, the CG work looked remarkably like Dinosaur, which was very advanced at the time.

People seem to love the little girl, Georgie Henley, but for me, she doesn't hold up to comparisons to former kid spitfires like Mara Wilson, Quinn Cummings, or God knows, Ms. Fanning. She's sweet and cute, but she doesn't own the screen. And her siblings own it even less. When you look at a series like Harry Potter, you realize just how brilliant the casting was… and even more so when compared to these nice, but not very compelling kids.

The great Tilda Swinton turns up in the film, all rage and short speeches. And again, it reminded me of old Disney… Mary Poppins, specifically. She looked dropped into the scene from some other place, surreally disconnected like Dick Van Dyke dancing with the penguins. Of course, I loved Dick Van Dyke dancing with the penguins But that technology is two generations old.

Andrew Adamson is a talented guy, but the film really suffers from his lack of skill/experience as a live action director. Scene after scene, there were moments where a little better handling of the camera would have made a significant improvement. The scene that most sticks out in my memory is a shot with Peter, The Boy King, and Aslan that jumped around from close-up to close-up to the rare two-shot that just never felt like anything but a post-production lion and a real life kid being put together in a frame.

It's funny… I think I liked Narnia better than the first Potter film - though I have liked III and IV more - but I also find less that is compelling or inventive about Narnia. It's good. It's fine. It just isn't a movie for me.

AEON FLUX

I actually quite liked about a third of Aeon Flux… the third without the dialogue. The ideas aren't bad and the imagery actually works much of the time. Karyn Kusama enjoyed aiming her camera between Ms, Theron's legs more than any male director would ever dare.

The "golden years" of Aeon Flux were the dialogue-free years. It was never an idea that supported much conversation that didn't sound either arch or just silly. Either you are into Frances McDormand in crazy hair and plexiglass podium/skirt or you don't. If you try to explain it, you are done.

The movie is kinky enough that its only real hope was a hard R and some really intense sex. That is the real concept. On the surface, everything is calm and fake. Underneath, intense, intense, intense… live intense, kill intense, sex intense, fight intense. Anything goes. Charlize fighting in a thong would, oddly, feel more honest than much of this film. If anything is for sure, Aeon Flux was never meant for kids. And most of this movie really is.

E-ME.