TOM'S OCTOBER MOVIE ROUNDUP

+SHOOTING WAR (200) – Time film critic Richard Schickel directed this documentary on how cameramen shot film during World War II. Hundreds of camera operators were unleashed in the middle of the fighting to bring whatever they could back and many died trying to do it. I was surprised at the amount of valuable footage that exists. My granfather fought in the Pacific and his brother the tail gunner was shot down over Europe. This movie gives a good record of what those young warriors witnessed. Thankfully, many of the cameramen are still with us and Schickel’s interviews are every bit as interesting as the footage itself. Produced by Steven Spielberg, this movie opens and is bridged by a bearded civil war looking Tom Hanks. Steven Ambrose also pops up with little facts ala History Channel. The movie needs neither Hanks nor Ambrose. They both tend to give the piece a TV feel when the movie is compelling for its honest simplicity alone.

+CRASH (2005) – Word of Paul Haggis script work on MILLION DOLLAR BABY must have gotten around Hollywood way before the release of the film, because CRASH was released just a few months after the Oscars. I thought his script for the first film was decent, but Eastwood’s smooth direction and cast plussed it up. The essence of Million Dollar Baby was getting you think different about the hot button issue of mercy killing. The hot button issue in CRASH is race and ethnicity and Haggis shows you how those elements enter the lives of many different kinds of people. He shows how white liberals deal with the fear of minorities, how vocally racist cops can be colorblind in moments of danger, how Muslims and Hispanics are viewed by everyone, and how professional blacks have to deal with their current world and the one they came from. The movie follows the same structure of two other L.A. films, SHORT CUTS and MAGNOLIA, where a bunch of characters live their lives intersecting with one another. And although I liked both of the aforementioned films, the device here actually weakens the material, because Haggis is trying something more ambitious than Altman or PT Anderson and the continual happenchance meetings between these few characters is jolting in a film that seems more like real life than the others. The biggest success of CRASH are the original and honest characters that don't make it into movies often enough. That helps make up for the conventionality of the resolution.

Z CHANNEL: A Magnificent Obesession (2004) – Zan Cassavettes, daughter of John and Gena and sister of Nick directs this compelling documentary about a popular L.A. pay channel that outperformed HBO and Showtime in the 70s and 80s. The real story isn’t the channel though, but its mad genius program selector, Jerry Harvey. Harvey practically invented the director’s cut by allowing noted directors to resurrect the versions the Studios hated. Uncut versions of Bertolucci’s 1900, Cimino’s HEVEAN’S GATE, and Visconti’s THE LEOPARD debuted on the Z CHANNEL. Quite probably, those versions wouldn’t exist today without Harvey. Harvey also helped make the career of young filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch by showing their films. Harvey’s showing of Paul Verhoeven’s European films led to the director making films in Hollywood. Eventually, the big players got tired of competing with little Z and used money muscle to outspend their little competitor in movie acquisition. Harvey met his own fate.

THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (2005) – Joan Allen stars as the abandoned wife trying to cope with hard liquor and the attentions of ex-ballplayer, Kevin Costner. Her four mostly grown daughters also pose their challenges along the way. It’s seeming like Costner is only good at playing jocks and ex jocks, but boy is he good at it. Allen is probably one of the better actresses of the day and this is the kind of role that should see her nominated. Costner has no shot at the same, but he holds his own in every scene with her. The film itself is lifted by the two leads, because otherwise the material isn’t terribly good.

TOMBSTONE (1993) – Our library evidently would rather compete with Blockbuster than Border’s because you have to pass through the sea of DVDs before getting to the books. I picked up Tombstone on the way to Hemingway not having seen it since its release. Kurt Russell stars as Wyatt Earp, but the money role is Doc Holliday played by Val Kilmer. Russell doesn’t make many classics, but he has a good feeling about scripts and he usually winds up in passably entertaining fare like this. Although the sets and costumes look fine, the movie doesn’t seem period real, but maybe that helped it outperform at the box office. It made $56 million which is about the same as Kevin Costner’s OPEN RANGE made in 2003. A lot of noticeable faces appear in this movie including a pre-stardom Billy Bob Thorton. At the time I remember many people telling me they loved this movie, although I didn’t really care for it all that much. A second viewing ten years hasn’t changed my opinion.

WINGSPAN (2001) – McCartney produced this documentary about his 1970s band I think because he wanted to remember Linda. It’s a family affair with his daughter doing the interviewing and Paul explaining the origins and dissolution of the band. There’s a lot of great tour video and Paul goes in depth on each album and how it came to be produced.

+THE MACHINST (2004) – All I knew was that Christian Bale was supposed to have lost a ton of weight for the role and that is evident when you see his shirtless body. I can’t imagine the experience was good for his health especially since he put it back on for Batman this summer. That said, The Machinst was a surprisingly great find. It’s a mystery for the audience because situations change and you have to discover with the character what is actually happening. It also has a few real touching moments that are all the more poignant by the end. Some might think it gimmicky, but I consider it clever.

BORN TO KILL (1947) – After Lawrence Tierney appeared in Reservoir Dogs, I read an interview he gave and he sounded like such a tough guy that I wanted to see one of his old movies. This wasn’t a bad choice. Here Tierney co-stars with Claire Trevor and is directed by Robert Wise. Not the typical noir movie because there is so much daylight, but Tierney is indeed one tough mother. This is a great one to show your daughter when warning of the dangers of chasing the bad boy. AllMovie.com seems to think it’s worth 4 stars, but I think they give it an extra star for being noir. The plot is basically some psycho that kills people for every little slight and a woman that is attracted to him because of it. There are some interesting character performances that may be worth an extra half star at most.

WALT: THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH (2001) – This documentary was produced and aired on ABC for Walt’s Centennial. Dick Van Dyke does a good job with narration and in many ways it’s the best video biography ever produced by the company that bears his name. My biggest disappointment is the way they handle Walt’s politics in general and especially HUAC. We see Walt telling the committee that he’s had some communist agitation in his unions and we hear Van Dyke tells us that Walt was politically naïve. Nuts, I say. Union Leader Herb Sorrel was indeed agitating and taking his orders from the party. Not long ago Hollywood could have pretended that it was a witch hunt and a lot of innocent people were branded communists, but the release of the Venona papers in the mid 1990s provides the evidence of who was on what Soviet payroll. If anyone was politically naïve, it was those idealists that were taking money from a totalitarian government every bit as vicious as the Nazis. So, besides the fact that the movie has to apologize for Walt's politics, the rest of it is alright.

FAHRENHEIT 911 (2004) – Bowling for Columbine may have been manipulative propaganda, but at least it was funny. I may have disagreed with his premise, but it’s always fun seeing even-keeled professionals be confronted by that wooly mammoth. The audacity of taking those shot up kids to K-Mart is at least interesting. And the cartoon in that film was ridiculous and yet made me laugh anyway. The problem with all of his films is that they lack a clean narrative. BOWLING couldn’t decide if it was anti-gun or just anti-American shock media. Here the FAHRENHEIT is the worst of all worlds. There are scant laughs and the focus shifts on a dime. It has the feeling that it was rushed into theatres as a device to defeat Bush rather than a device to entertain. It made over $100 million, and about 10x the amount of BOLWING, proving that Bush hatred will fuel the box office more so than Clinton love or Kerry love.

+FAHRENHYPE (2004) – Dick Morris helped write and Ron Silver provides the voice over in this very effective refutation of the Michael Moore movie. They pretty much go point by point showing Moore’s deceptions and outright lies. The phony pipeline and the Bush relationship with the Saudis is dealt with extensively. Maybe more effective is the soldier that lost his arms explaining that Moore never visited Walter Reed Medical Center and that his interview was actually with NBCs Brian Williams. Unlike the portrayal in the film, this soldier is not bitter about what happened to him. The Oregon state trooper tells us that he was shot for another documentary and Moore was no where near that one either. He’s not too happy with the conclusions either. The film also talks to soldiers and families that have real love for the military. This movie is better than other debunking films like Michael Moore Hates America and Celcius 41.11.

WIMBLEDON (2005) – Typically predictable piece with Kirsten Dunst graduating from Spidergirlfriend to adult enough to romance the somewhat older guy. Trish is usually requesting comedies and there are so few good ones that star anyone still living. This is more or less a slight comedy with serious parts like Pretty Woman. Paul Bettany is the aging British tennis star ready to retire when meeting Dunst revitalizes his career. If the movie has any model it’s NOTTING HILL from a few years ago. Somewhat obscure Brit gets involved with famous yank. Remember the kooky roommate from HILL? That character is re-written here as brother of our hero who has made a living betting against the brother. John Farveau is the agent trying to make a dime off the resurgent Bettany. Sam Neill drops the Australlian accent to be Dunst’s driving father. It was mindless alright, especially the gratuitous shots following the tennis ball like a video game. You always hope to be surprised by a winning film like LOVE ACTUALLY, but Wimbledon is a reminder that most movies disappoint.

BATMAN BEGINS (2005) –I haven’t cared much for the character of Batman since I outgrew the campy TV show around age 11. I found Tim Burton’s two movies to be nonsense. Christopher Nolan finally gets it right. One of the most important elements here is his background, something we get with Spiderman, Superman and all the other mans. These filmmakers understand that it’s easier to identify with a character when you see the journey that led them to modern day. The second big strength is the superb cast of supporting characters, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson and the never off-key Morgan Freeman. And Christian Bale is certainly good as our hero. How did he put on the weight so quickly after the MACHINIST? The weakest link is Katie Holmes that suffers even months after the publicity stunt with Cruise. She is professionally cute, but too young looking to be believable as the Gotham DA. This could be a good series if Nolan and the cast want to continue.