Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

Vince Patton
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Brilliant Directors Showcase Talent in Frank Miller's Sin City

In Frank Miller’s Sin City, the dark trio of vignettes based on the adult comic strip, characters dash from one perilous moment to another. The characters and their exploits are as real and as outlandish as those in the 1990s classic Pulp Fiction. The similarities with that cultural phenomenon don’t end there. Sin City’s directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez have enlisted the services of Quentin Tarantino, a frequent collaborator with Rodriguez and the man who popularized non-linear storytelling, to direct one of the film’s most bizarre segments. In the most creative and extended use of exposition since Uma Thurman’s three minutes of hell in Kill Bill, Volume 2, the odd characters in these stories ponder their next act of revenge, their desperate attempts to escape impending doom, and their desire to save the lives of those they love most.

As the trilogy begins, Bruce Willis’s Hartigan, a worn detective nearing retirement, is hot on the trail of Rourk Jr. (Nick Stahl), a rich, young hoodlum who is the son of a corrupt senator. A sudden series of events drastically alters the course of Hartigan’s life as well as the lives of the hoodlum and the young woman he has abducted.

Frank Miller’s Sin City is one more in a long line of recent films to employ an elliptical time frame to tell its stories. In a lesser film this might be dismissed as an extraneous device, but here the method is used to good effect to introduce characters important to the backstory. The film moves us from Hartigan’s adventures to those of Marv (Mickey Rourke), a brute of a man who is smitten with a young prostitute. Marv wakes up to find the prostitute dead and soon discovers he’s been framed for her murder. In the longest and most compelling of the three vignettes, Marv sets out to avenge the woman’s death and battles black-hearted villains such as a silent, flesh-eating hit man portrayed by Elijah Wood.

Mickey Rourke delivers the film’s most convincing performance. His face filled with scars and cuts, Marv is strong yet vulnerable. His sadness consumes him. Although quite large, he walks the city streets with semi-hunched shoulders, looking for clues to his great love’s murder. Rourke’s larger here than in any film in recent history. Last seen as a slimy, weezily lawyer in last year’s lurid thriller, Man on Fire, Rourke towers over everyone else literally and figuratively. Although Marv’s story is ultimately a tale of revenge, there are small doses of humor as Marv encounters a variety of characters while tracking down one of his one true love’s killers. As in Pulp Fiction and some of Tarantino’s later films, humor is often incorporated at the least likely times---in the midst of executions and during critical battles.

As the second vignette begins, viewers see Clive Owen and Brittany Murphy, two of Hollywood’s brightest stars, embracing in a kitchen. Owen has portrayed a hero for most of his film career. From his early work in Croupier and Gosford Park to his performances in last year’s I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and King Arthur, Owen has possessed a level of confidence, charisma, and bravura that instantly engenders trust in those close to his characters and fear in those who oppose them. In this story Owen’s Dwight is doing what many heroes in comic strips do: rescue women in distress. This time the woman in distress is Shellie, who is rebuffing advances from Jackie Boy, a drunken, womanizing, and rogue cop portrayed by Benicio del Toro. Jackie Boy and a couple of pestering and snickering sidekicks pay a visit to Shellie. After rescuing Shellie by scaring off Jackie Boy and his cohorts, Dwight stumbles upon the men just as they begin to stir up trouble for Gail (Rosario Dawson) and her gang of prostitutes.

This middle vignette features one of the oddest scenes in movies this year, and it should come as no surprise that it was directed by Quentin Tarantino, who has built an impressive resume directing odd scenes in brilliant and conspicuous films. The scene reflects Tarantino’s fascination with the macabre and his unique talent for making audiences laugh and cringe at the same time. Tarantino’s work is only slightly memorable here, largely due to the caliber of acting and directing involved with the first and third acts. Although Tarantino doesn’t display vintage form here, he should take solace that this film owes much of its style and tone to his highly vaulted Pulp Fiction.

Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) appears in the latter half of the second vignette as Manute, a one-eyed super villain who kidnaps Gail and threatens to close down her prostitution ring and allow corrupt policemen and politicians to assume control of her territory. Duncan, whose large size and deep voice normally make him an oddity in films, fits right in with the rest of Miller’s characters. Duncan’s earlier work in the little-regarded Daredevil should have prepared him well for his stint in Frank Miller's Sin City because he blends in nicely here with the rest of the villains.

The third vignette develops around a character shown in an earlier story and uses that character’s trials and tribulations to draw the connection between nearly all of the characters in the film with surprising clarity. The material in this vignette relies on the comic strip’s richly drawn backstory. As more is revealed about the tortured souls of Sin City, viewers will understand why serialized storytelling is a sublime art form when left in the hands of ingenious plotters. While it never quite rises to the level of art, the inventively crafted Sin City sits near the top of an otherwise moribund year for films in 2005, and despite its adult subject matter, near the top rung in the ever-evolving world of films based on comic strips.

Grade: B+
Content: Intense violence, nudity, profanity

Soon on Video

Confused and Muddled Constantine Faulters

Fresh from completing The Matrix trilogy, Keanu Reeves returns to similar territory as a special detective in the supernatural thriller Constantine. Reeves displays his Matrix character’s traits and tics in his role as John Constantine, save for a constant cough from smoking that he’s told will bring him imminent death. Reeves, merely competent at best, is surrounded by talented actors such as Academy Award nominee Tilda Swinton (Orlando and The Deep End) as the Angel of Gabriel—an example of truly inspired casting; Rachel Weisz ( Chain Reaction and Runaway Jury), as a detective who enlists Constantine’s help in proving that her twin sister’s mysterious plunge from a hospital rooftop wasn’t a suicide; and Academy Award nominee Djimon Honsou (Amistad and In America) as an owner of a nightclub with special powers of his own. As in the latter Matrix films, Constantine relies more on its premise and intermittently impressive visual effects than almost anything else. Problems abound in this derivative and ultimately disappointing thriller that fails to capitalize on the talents of its fine supporting cast, drops entire plot points crucial to the development of a coherent story, and wanders aimlessly through a protracted ending. By the end of its nearly two hours of running time, Constantine does nothing to distinguish itself from the legions of science fiction and supernatural thrillers with theological and philosophical weighty premises whose creators own inability to articulate key concepts leave viewers with far more questions than answers.

Grade: C-
Content: Violence

Movie News

Robert DeNiro launched the TriBeCa Film Festival in New York City on April 19. The festival will end on May 1.

Terrence Howard (Dead Presidents and Ray) was the talk of the town at the Sundance Film Festival for his performance in Hustle & Flow. The African-American actor will next be seen in Crash, the new film from director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby).

Sydney Pollack (Three Days of the Condor, Tootsie, Out of Africa) became the first director allowed to film a motion picture in the United Nations building. His latest thriller The Interpreter, which stars Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, will feature scenes filmed in the UN building. The film opened to predominantly positive reviews on April 22. The UN denied use of the building to Alfred Hitchkock.

George Lucas reportedly consulted with Steven Spielberg during production of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. The PG-13-rated conclusion to the trilogy opens on May 19.

Lasse Halstrom (The Cider House Rules, Once Around, and Something to Talk About, is set to direct Hoax, which tells the story of Clifford Irving, who wrote a fake biography on Howard Hughes. Industry insiders report that Richard Gere is interested in the project.

Christian Bale (American Psycho and Empire of the Sun) inked a deal with Warner Bros. to star in three Batman films. Batman Begins, the first of the three, will open on June 17. Christopher Nolan (Memento and Insomnia) directed the $150-million-film.


About Vince Patton

Vince Patton is a freelance writer and editor. He regularly reviews films. He previously served as editor of Let's Go to the Movies for Older Youth and Let's Go to the Movies for Young Adults.

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New reviews and up-to-date news on movies will be posted approximately once a week.

Vince Patton

Vince Patton,
originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

Vince Patton

Vince Patton
Originally uploaded by mastergitterbug.

Movie Reviews and News from Vince Patton

Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous ... Flat and Unfunny

Sandra Bullock returns as Gracie Hart; a snorting tomboyish FBI agent, in this largely uninspired sequel to Miss Congeniality. The original, itself merely passable, was cornball fun that nearly satirized beauty pageants and their legions of fans while turning Gracie from a sad, lonely agent with a severly limited wardrobe to the beauty we all remember walking pefectly in sync to the Los Lobos and Tom Jones tunes "Mustang Sally" and "She's a Lady." With no pageant, no love interest for Sandra Bullock, and no Michael Caine to remind her of the finer points of personal styling this time around, the filmmakers unwisely focus our attention on a lame-brain plot involving a kidnapping and Hart's relationship with her over-aggressive bodyguard, listlessly portrayed by Regina King.

Preposterous plot points begin right from the opening scene. After being recognized by several people during a ho-hum bank robbery scene, Hart's superiors decide to reassign her to public relations, where she is relegated to representing the FBI at events throughout the country. When Cheryl Frazier, the winner of the Miss United States Pageant, and the emcee Stan Fields (William Shatner) are kidnapped, Hart's superiors think so highly of her new public relations skills that they send her, a crew of make-up artists and a personal stylist, and her bodyguard Sam Fuller to Las Vegas. The FBI brass instruct Hart to be the face of the bureau, while the local supervisor Collins (Treat Williams) manages the investigation.

Hart and her crew get closer and closer to solving the case while Collins and his team make one mistake after another. While in Las Vegas, Hart and her crew thwart several of Collins's attempts to send them back to New York, don disguises at a nursing home, engage in several punching matches at the airport, and take center stage at a drag show.

Miss Congeniality 2 has virtually nothing going for it. Lazily plotted, the film is never as funny or as clever as it should be. Marc Lawrence's script, which is chocked full of political correctness and strangely mean-spirited, is void of energy and direction. The actors lack chemistry; some even appear as though they're in another movie altogether. For all of its shortcomings, and there were plenty, the original had a certain charm and a saleable-enough concept that this lackluster sequel simply doesn't possess. Watching Michael Caine transform the stubborn Gracie Hart was one of the original's better plot points, but this sequel robs us by beginning its tale with a virtually transformed Gracie, who spends most of her time protecting herself from her own bodyguard. One remembers that there was a lot more to Gracie than fending off attacks from bodgyguards, but this script gives the character no additional dimensions and places her in one senseless situation after another.

The studio executives gambled on the genuinely likeable Sandra Bullock, the legendary Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen and William Shatner in wildly campy performances and won two summers ago. When they learned Michael Caine was a no-go on this production, they should have followed the age-old adage of "quitting while they were ahead."

Grade: D+

Content: Mild violence, a few sexual innuendos (PG 13)

Movie News and Notes

It's official. The rerelease of The Passion of the Christ tanked at the box office, earning only $223,789 on 957 screens or $234 per screen.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese (The Aviator) will team up again for The Departed. The crime story involves a mobster who goes undercover as a cop and a detective who infiltrates the mafia, with both men trying to flush out the other. The film also stars Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Anderson, and Ray Winstone.

David Fincher, the director of the imaginatively-shot thrillers Seven and The Panic Room, has been tapped for Benjamin Button, the story of a thirty-year-old woman who falls for a fity-year-old man who begins aging backwards. Eric Roth is set to write the screenplay.

Fresh off their effort in Collateral, Michael Mann and Tom Cruise will work together in The Few, in which Cruise is set to star as Billy Fiske, an American WWII pilot.

Critics are praising Millions, the new film from Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) about two brothers who find one million dollars.

Alexander Payne, writer and director of Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, is set to direct Nebraska, a dramedy about a father who thinks he has won the lottery and asks his son to drive him from Montana to Nebraska to claim his earnings. Bob Nelson will write the script.

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Posted on March 13, 2005

The Aviator, the new film based on the book of the same title about the life of Howard Hughes, offers an insightful portrait of the billionaire who literally gave new meaning to the word eccentric. The latest film presents the former TWA CEO as a dashing, daring young business tycoon who frustrated everyone from his most loyal associates to Hollywood moguls and the women who starred in their movies to powerful U.S. senators -- all while living out some of life's biggest dreams with unbridled passion.

The surprisingly film-worthy depiction of twenty-five years of Hughes's life is expertly crafted by legendary director Martin Scorsese. Hughes's early adulthood is ripe material for an actor talented and charismatic enough to recreate the presence, charm, and wit of the young business tycoon, and Scorsese clearly has his man in Leonardo DiCaprio. Several years ago the director and actor teamed together for somewhat mixed results in Gangs of New York, but their collaboration here is far more effective. At a brisk two hours and forty-five minutes, The Aviator is masterfully edited and nearly perfectly performed by everyone from DiCaprio to the host of supporting actors and larger-than-life stars on hand for cameos. DiCaprio bings the same effervescent engergy to his performance here as he did in the breezy, broad Catch Me If You Can. Like Frank Abangdale, DiCaprio's Howard Hughes is a young, smart, fast-talking lad equipped with a roving eye for beautiful women and an appropriately different line for each of them. But the similarities between DiCaprio's roles end there. Hughes's obsessive compulsive disorder, which the film intimates he developed from his childhood, provides DiCaprio with an additional range of emotions to portray, and he does so with great skill and attention to detail. His disorder is manifested in his distaste for rare meats, occasional spells of paranoia, and his habit of washing his hands again and again. Scenes showing these behaviors range from the most comic to the most tragic.

The Aviator opens with a scene of Hughes's mother whispering words to him and flashes back to the scene, reminding us first that Howard never forgot his mother's words and second of the obsessive compulsive disorder that would render him a recluse for a few periods early in his life and for significantly greater parts of his later life. Many of us remember seeng pictures of the lonely, eccentric Hughes near the end of his life with long fingernails and long hair. The image is a far cry from the young man presented here. The Aviator enlightens and entertains us with a presentation of a man who bucked the Hollywood studio system with a maddening perfectionism and a peculiar fascination with female breasts that left leading members of the Motion Picture Association at a loss for words on more than one occasion.

Much of the film chronicles Hughes's early forays into the movie industry with Hell's Angels; his competition with Juan Trippe, the former CEO of Pan American Airlines; his storied romance with Katherine Hepburn; his wild-eyed pursuit of the elusive Ava Gardner; his televised showdown with a U.S. senator intent on helping Trippe gain even more control over the skies; and the joyous triumph he experienced after flying an airplane at record speed.

In addition to the film's lavish set and costume designs, the cinematography by Dante Spinotti is sublime. The film's 1930s and 1940s Hollywood parties and mansions are as grand as anyone could possibly imagine. The grass has simply never greener in the movies, the houses never bigger, the new airplanes never shinier, and the women never more beautiful.

Two of today's leading ladies portray vitally important women in the life of Howard Hughes. Kate Beckinsale, who portrays Ava Gardner, is luminous here. Cate Blanchett is Katherine Hepburn, the first love of Hughes's life. Although Beckinsale is less well known than Blanchett, her performance is a bit stronger. Blanchett is showy, occasionally sounding like Hepburn and incorporating the late screen legend's gestures, but ultimately only giving us a mild imitation of the Hepburn we remember. On the other hand, Beckinsale is sexy and sure of herself. She embodies Gardner and carries herself with just enough confidence and swagger to make us believe Gardner had the strength to keep the desperately pursuant Hughes at bay.

Other memorable performances include two by veteran versatile actors Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. Baldwin is cool, menacing, and fat with greed and mischief as Juan Trippe, CEO of Pan American Airlines and Hughes's chief rival. Alda is mannered yet sly and calculating as the U.S. senator Trippe bribes to railroad Hughes into surrendering TWA's portion of the commercial airline business.

Throughout his acclaimed career, Martin Scorsese has produced and directed films with unmatched precision, perfection, and passion. As a director, Scorsese is never afraid to take risks, and here he and Leonardo DiCaprio have created a compelling portrait of a man whose precision, perfection, and passion allowed him to soar like an aviator. Hughes's flight to the top and his battle to remain somewhat close to it was as likely as it was unlikely. Although The Aviator provides us with a glimpse of the obsessive compulsive disorder that fills many of our memories about Howard Hughes, the film ultimately pays homage to Hughes by presenting us with exactly what we need to remember the billionaire's passion for being and creating the "wave of the future."

Grade: A-

Content: Slight profanity, brief nudity, sexual innuedos - PG 13


News and Notes

Christopher Nolan, who directed Memento and Insomnia, is at the helm of Batman Begins. The adaptation tells the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman after his parents are murdered. The film stars Christian Bale (American Psycho, Empire of the Sun, The Machinist, Shaft, and Little Women), Michael Caine, Liam Nesson, and Morgan Freeman.

Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis will make his directorial debut with Crash. The drama about racism and politics in LA will feature an all-star cast that includes Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, and Matt Dillon. The film is set to be released in June.

Terrance Malick, the enigmatic Harvard graduate whose Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line are so highly regarded that they're shown in film school classes, will return with The New World. Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, and Wes Studi will star. The film is set to be released in October because Native American Day falls during the month and because Malick's track record guarantees that his film will be among the early 2005 Oscar favorites.

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is set to direct the remake of King Kong, which will star Naomi Watts, Jack Black, and Adrian Brody.

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