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Week Of June 18, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri
June 20, 2007
Two Too True For You
I wish I could be more positive.
Two films, both very well intended, both loaded with talent in front of and behind the scenes ... and just not very good.
The first film is the unfortunate A Mighty Heart, which if taken in bite sized pieces is nearly perfect, but as a complete film it leaves you wishing there was more of one of the four or five story threads, any which on one might make a great movie.
It's a brutal experience for a critic and, I suspect, for a normal audience. Michael Winterbottom does probably his best work behind the camera, but he shows almost definitively that he is the Tony Scott of the indie universe ... story coherency just isn't his milieu.
Is it a love story? Yes. Is it a political thriller? Yes. Is it a police procedural? Yes. Is it a tale of the futility of hate? Yes. Is it a journalist's story? Yes.
It's all of those things. And it's none of those things.
When I was discussing the film with a friend, they said, "Well, maybe that's what really happened." And indeed, with a naturally flowing style of imagery and rough, anxious cutting, Winterbottom has given us one of the most accurate feature film representations of the Middle East ever. It feels like that. But it's not that film either. This is the ultimate clock film, which a beheading sure to arrive in the third act, as we all know going in. But there is no clock in the rhythm of A Mighty Heart. Time drags much the way it does when a parent is waiting up for their child to come home from a date that ran past curfew. But we know what's going to happen ... so the film needs to be more than that pained anticipation, no?
Angelina Jolie is brilliant and horrible in the lead role of Mariane Pearl. Jolie has always been able to act ... in a very movie star way. She is what she is and the camera cannot avoid the power of her personal energy. But here, she is playing a cold fish, even if we all know that she will eventually hop around on the emotional grill of her loss. And we can never forget - not for a blessed second - that we are watching Angelina Jolie. Her dark contacts mock us and demand attention in every frame. Her curly hair, natural enough on many women, feels like Angelina Jolie in a Barbra Streisand wig. And if a pregnant Angelina Jolie is as skinny as her pregnant Mariane Pearl, it is amazing that her child was born at more than 3 pounds ... God bless her one-of-a-kind physique.
Irfan Khan is spectacular in his role as the Captain trying to find Danny Pearl on behalf of his nation. The performance would fit right in with the top guns of The Departed or the shrewd Michael Lonsdale of The Day of the Jackal or the relentless Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life On The Street. Unfortunately, this is not the story of the pursuit of Danny Pearl's kidnappers, feverishly trying to find him before he is killed, which they kind of know is inevitable in spite of all rhetoric about expecting a traditional ransom demand.
Actors like Will Patton and Danny Futterman and Denis O'Hare acquit themselves well, but simply are not given enough to do to make the impact we expect from them.
I was feeling the frustration of the storytelling - while noting the skill Winterbottom was bringing to telling it - from the middle of the second act on. Someone less used to figuring out why they are shifting in their seat might well not realize that there was something wrong until after leaving the theater and trying to have a conversation about the film they just witnessed ... and finding that with all that reality and all those emotions and all that conflict, the film left them no more full than the 3 handfuls of popcorn that they swiped from their date's bag.
On the other hand ...
E Me.
Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri
Week Of June 12, 2006 - SIFF Mon / SIFF Wed / Fri
Week Of June 19, 2006 - Cinevegas Mon/Deliver Us Wed/Prada Fri
Week Of June 26, 2006 - Pirates Mon / Super Again Wed / Fri
Week Of July 5, 2006 - Wed
Week Of July 12, 2006 - M. Night Mon | You, Me & Wed | Monster House Fri
Week Of July 17, 2006 - 8 A Year Mon / Water Wed / Revamp Fri
Week Of July 24, 2006 - Comic-Con Mon / Gossip Wed / Fri
Week Of July 31, 2006 - Mel G Mon / Talladega Wed / Fri
Week Of August 7, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of August 14, 2006 - No Column Mon / Wed / Snakes Fri
Week Of August 21, 2006 - Snakey Mon / Anniversary Wed / Scoundrels Fri
Week Of August 28, 2006 - Mon Love / Berloff Wed / Fri
Week Of September 4, 2006 - Thur
Week Of September 11, 2006 - TIFF Mon / Bobby Wed / Fr
Week Of September 18, 2006 - Mon / TIFF 1 Wed / TIFF 2 Fri
Week Of September 25, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of October 2, 2006 - Atonement Mon / Wed / Indie Fri
Week Of October 9, 2006 - Flags Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of October 16, 2006 - Mon / Epagogix Wed
Week Of October 23, 2006 - TCIFF Mon / Wed / Catch A Fri
Week Of October 30, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of November 6, 2006 - Mon / Dead Girl Wed / Fri
Week Of November 13, 2006 - Bond Mon / Wed / TomKat Fri
Week Of November 20, 2006 - Mon / Thankful Wed
Week Of November 27, 2006 - Mon / Auteur Wed / Blood D Fri
Week Of December 4, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of December 11, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of December 18, 2006 - Mon / Wed / COM Fri
Week Of December 27, 2006 - Wed / Worst of 2006 Fri
Week Of Janiuary 3, 2007 - Best Of 2006 Wed
Week Of Janiuary 8, 2007 - Mon / COM Book Wed
Week Of January 17, 2007 - Little Red Writing Hood Wed
Week Of January 29, 2007 - Mon
Week Of February 5, 2007 -This Thing We Do Wk - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of February 12, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of February 26, 2007 - Rough Oscars Mon / Zodiac Wed / Doc & Foreign Fri
Week Of March 5, 2007 - Mon / Fri
March 14 / March 21/ March 28
Week Of April 4, 2007 - Wed / Grindhouse Fri
Week Of April 9, 2007 - Indie Distirbution Mon / Star Ranking Wed / Top 20 Fri
Week Of April 16, 2007 - Mon / Piaf Wed
Week Of April 23, 2007 - Mon / Tribeca Wed / Costner Fri
Week Of April 30, 2007 - Spider Mon
Week Of May 7, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 14, 2007 - 10 Thing Studios Don't Want Wed / Fri
Week Of May 21, 2007 - Mon / Pirates Fri
Week Of May 28, 2007 - Knocked Up Friday
Week Of June 4, 2007 - Hostel 2 Mon / Ocean's Wed / Seattle Fri
Week Of June 11, 2007 - Sopranos Mon
