Taking It Home: Capitalism: A Love Story

("Taking It Home" is an alternative review style in which I share my thoughts on a movie's themes and how they may relate to my life, while focusing less on the acting, writing, technical aspects, or even plot of the film. It's a collection of the ideas I took home, "because the movie experience shouldn't end in the theater".)

 

 A method even less effective at inspiring change than Michael Moore's films...

Next time I get the opportunity to ask Michael Moore a question, I hope it will be part of an actual conversation instead of a Q & A where he has the microphone and I'm buried in the audience. That way he won't be able to sneak out of answering my challenge so easily. Yes, in a fit of frustration following a recent screening of Capitalism: A Love Story, I worked up the nerve to ask American's most notorious documentarian how he made a 126-minute film about money and capitalism without so much as mentioning personal financial responsibility. More on that later - including a video of Moore "answering" my question.

I have a tortured history with Moore, alternately considering him a genius, even a role model, before inevitably changing my mind and viewing his work as purely propagandic, sensational, and even counterproductive. Incidentally, I'm surprised that I have yet to discuss his films in any detail on Getafilm, I suppose a result of Sicko arriving a month or so before I started writing here (though you can see I came down pretty hard on it come Oscar time anyway). 

In any event, somewhere between Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 I realized Moore was  abandoning true documentary filmmaking - what I conservatively prefer to view as non-fiction storytelling - for something resembling schizophrenic scrapbooking. His arguments (never mind that documentarians shouldn't really make any) are an amalgamation of liberal talking points and moral sermonizing, but the resulting films are so disjointed they inhibit any in-depth thought or discussion about the issues at hand. He doesn't quite dilute the messages in his films so much as he drowns them out with his own voice, sometimes figuratively but always literally. Thanks to Michael Moore, a Michael Moore film is never allowed to speak for itself.

So what to think of Capitalism: A Love Story, which Moore claims is a culmination of all of his films since Roger & Me? Three things: 1.) this is not only one of Moore's longest films, but also his most deliberately emotional one; 2.) possibly by design but probably by accident, Capitalism: A Love Story ends up making a much stronger case for universal health care than Sicko did; and 3.) Moore is ultimately still more interested in inciting audiences than inspiring them, which is a tragedy considering the global reach and box-office success of his films.

Short Cuts: "Haooo - Hup!" (Drill Captain Command)

A Few Good Men (1992). Directed by Rob Reiner; written by Aaron Sorkin; starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Bacon, J.T. Walsh, Kiefer Sutherland, Christopher Guest, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Noah Wyle.

REVIEW: The Spy Who Loved Me

[Note: this is part of collaborative Bond appreciation series between me, Alexander Coleman, Christian Divine, Craig Kennedy, and Miranda Wilding (surprise, Miranda! But you've already done it...). Also make sure to check out entries in the Licensed to Blog: James Bond Blog-a-thon, hosted by the tireless Piper at Lazy Eye Theatre.]

Nobody does it better than Roger Moore...

Featuring arguably the best pre-title sequence of all the Bond movies, Lewis Gilbert's The Spy Who Loved Me manages to maintain a breakneck pace of action, intrigue, romance and even comedy throughout its 125-minute running time. Though I have an unhealthy admiration for Live and Let Die, it's difficult to make a case against The Spy Who Loved Me being not only Roger Moore's finest installment in the series, but one of the top five Bond movies ever.

Depending on how you look at it, that either makes Ian Fleming a hack or a genius, because aside from two characters (Bond and Jaws), The Spy Who Loved Me took only the title from Fleming's tenth novel. The entire story, in fact, was the work of screenwriters Richard Maibaum and Christopher Wood (who circuitously ended up actual novelizing the movie after its box-office success). Although Fleming was hardly involved, however, we can see upon closer examination that Maibaum and Wood simply added to the dense Bond framework Fleming already had in place. (Although it's interesting to consider that The Spy Who Loved Me takes so much from You Only Live Twice, which also took almost nothing from Fleming's novel. How could these two movies both be "original" but both be the same?)

So if The Spy Who Loved Me wasn't the first "original" Bond movie, it was likely the first one to have so many challenges in pre-production: longtime Bond producer Harry Saltzman's departure, difficulty in confirming a director (amusingly, even Steven Spielberg was approached), and a drawn out legal battle involving the script. About the only constants involved in this film were Roger Moore and producer Albert Broccoli, who had teamed up with Saltzman on the entire series to that point. Considering of all of this, it's no wonder the three years between The Spy Who Loved Me and its predecessor, The Man With The Golden Gun, was the longest period between any of the ten Bond films to that point. But aside from the unlikely success after a shaky production, there are several other reasons The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best in the entire series, and of them is the clip shown above.

As the film opens, a Russian submarine is electronically hijacked in the middle of the ocean. The Russian Major Anya Amasova (agent codename “Triple X”) is dispatched from the comfort of her bed, which she is sharing rather romantically with another Russian agent leaving on assignment to Austria. It is there, in a cozy lodge in the Alps, that we also find 007 in his favorite place: the arms of a beautiful woman. He receives his own dispatch from London (via a nifty wristwatch that churns out a message imprinted on punch label) and immediately changes into his ski suit. “But James, I need you,” coos the young woman. “So does England,” replies Bond as Marvin Hamlisch’s campy adaptation of the legendary Bond theme begins. Eluding the black-suited skiers and killing Triple X’s lover with his modified ski pole rifle, Bond skis off the face of the cliff into breathtaking silence until…whoosh, relief in the form of a parachute boastfully constructed as a giant Union Jack flag.

As Bond safely descends, he’s cupped in the silhouetted hands of the title sequence as a lovely piano intro begins. Although Hamlisch wrote “Nobody Does It Better” (and received an Oscar nomination for Best Song in the process), it was Carly Simon’s rendition that, three decades later, still sounds as beautiful as it must have in the theater upon the movie’s release in the summer of 1977. It must be considered one of the top three Bond songs, rivaling only Shirley Bassey’s stunning “Goldfinger” and Paul McCartney’s psychedelic “Live and Let Die”.

The greatness of The Spy Who Loved Me extends far beyond this simple title sequence, however. Not only are the stunts and action among the best of the Bond canon, but the characters are among the most memorable. As played by Barbara Bach (who would go on to become Ringo Starr’s wife) Major Amasova/Triple X is a Bond girl with brains, sex appeal, courage and conviction. She’s loyal to her country and, eventually, to her country’s partnership with Britain (in the form of the handsome Bond, of course). Not only is Triple X one of the most impressively well-rounded women in the Bond series, but she’s one of the few with whom Bond actually establishes a legitimate romantic relationship (the flirting in the scene where Triple X is maneuvering the van around the grasp of Jaws in the Egyptian desert is right out of a romantic comedy). When apart from Triple X, Bond simply reverts back to his indiscriminate sexual predation. “When one is in Egypt, one should delve deeply into its treasures,” he says as he ogles his Egyptian informant’s mistress.


If Triple X provides Bond’s pleasure (his wife having been killed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), shipping tycoon Karl Stromberg (Curd Jürgens) provides his pain, mostly in the form of Jaws (Richard Kiel), the mute giant of a henchman whose last visit to the dentist had to have been painful. Jaws sports gleaming metal teeth and brandishes them in order to chew through steel chains and wood planks - when he’s not taking a bite out of people’s necks, of course. Kiel plays the lumbering Jaws as a bit of a goof, always brushing off his baby blue suit jacket after being foiled by Bond (because Jaws was such an iconic character as I was watching the Bond movies growing up, it didn’t hit me until he recently that Kiel also plays Adam Sandler’s giant former boss in Happy Gilmore). I almost wish Jaws would have been in more than just two movies from the series, but he’s a bit of tiresome villain as well, never letting up and never trying anything new aside from just punching through walls.

As the megalomaniac out to destroy the world (there’s one in every Bond movie, isn’t there?), Stromberg is a bit of a more interesting villain (and the first to make any impression after Bond crippled Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever). Stromberg remains tucked away in Atlantis, the futuristic underwater base from which he plans to launch the warheads from the hijacked submarines, thereby destroying New York and Moscow and paving the way for a new kind of civilization. Amusingly, Stromberg laments the “decadence” of humanity as he sits in his opulent throne room listening to Mozart and Bach while stuffing his face and sending people into his shark tank via a trap-door elevator. Bond’s eventual showdown with Stromberg is frankly bland (and is preceded by an overdrawn three army battle), but the destruction of Atlantis in the open sea is truly a sight to behold.

So are all of the filming locations on land, including Egypt, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, Scotland, England, Malta, and most memorably, the Bahamas, where get to enjoy the gadgets on the Lotus Esprit, simply one of the best Bond cars ever. Equipped with missiles, flash charge bombs, and oil and ink sprays, the Lotus is half car, half submarine (and, amazingly, now a reality). Flying off the dock at the end of a helicopter chase, Bond drops the Lotus into underwater mode, destroys the helicopter, evades scuba assassins, and, hilariously, drives out of the water and onto the beach in Sardinia, dropping a dead fish out the window as the flabbergasted beach goers stare in awe. It goes like this (but without the audio dubbing):

The proof is all right there in The Spy Who Loved Me, boasting among the best songs, best Bond girls, best cars, best villains, best comedy, best locations, and best action sequences in the entire Bond canon. What I have yet to mention, of course, is that it also features arguably the best Bond: Roger Moore. That's not a statement I can take very far, however. Each of the Bonds (even Lazenby) has his own unique charm, but something about Moore (his ability to save the world while looking like a news anchorman?) made his seven movies among my favorites.

The best Bond?

If that doesn't jive with you, read:

• Christian's insightful background on the Bond brand, including a special appreciation of Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights;
• Craig's fondness for the score and scenery of You Only Live Twice; (Day Two); (Three); (Four); (Five);
  
• Alexander's persuasive defense of Sean Connery in Goldfinger;
• Miranda's musings on the best Bond women, the best Bond villains, and the best Bond cars;
• The history of my Bond fandom and my disappointment in Quantum of Solace;
• A classic Bond pre-title sequence from Diamonds Are Forever;
• Alexander's thrashing of Quantum of Solace;
• Miranda's review of the original Casino Royale;
• Alexander's review of the 2006 version of Casino Royale;
• Miranda's review of Quantum of Solace;
• Miranda's review of The Living Daylights;
• Christian's take on the original Casino Royale;
  
• Miranda's review of Moonraker;
• Miranda's review of License to Kill;
• Christian's appreciation of the Bond theme song that never was;

REVIEW: Blindness (D)

Maybe two years ago, my brother was telling me about one of the best books he'd ever read. I'd never heard of "Blindness", the novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, but it sounded pretty amazing. Ironically, both of us were disappointed when we soon learned it was going to be adapted into a movie - he out of concern that it wouldn't do justice to the book, and me out of horror after discovering it would star Julianne Moore in the lead role. It takes maybe seven positive elements to get me to a movie starring her these days, and Blindness had five: Mark Ruffalo (Reservation Road), Alice Braga (Redbelt), Gael Garcia Bernal (Babel), Fernando Meirelles, and an exotic shooting location (Montevideo and São Paulo). Five is close enough, I figured - quite incorrectly.

Soon into this movie, I did indeed become overwhelmed with fear of going blind, mostly because I realized that if it got any worse I wouldn't be able to safely flee the theater. Easily one of the worst movies I've seen all year, Fernando Meirelles' Blindness can only be a total nightmare for fans of the book and a complete shock to everyone else. How could such an interesting concept go so horribly wrong?

The title isn't too creative, but it's about as descriptive as it needs to be. One by one, everyone in the world suddenly and mysteriously loses their eyesight. Called the "white sickness" (those who suffer from it only see constant white light), the condition causes a SARS-like panic among the public, and the first major group of victims (all of whom are nameless) is quarantined in an abandoned hospital, or dorm, or factory - whatever that was. An eye doctor (Ruffalo) is one of these early victims, and for reasons unexplained, his wife (Moore) is the one person in the world who is immune to the "infection".

The majority of the movie takes place in the three wards of this asylum, where we witness what amounts to a crazy social experiment reminiscent of "Lord of the Flies". All cultural norms gradually erode away as blind groups in the wards turn on each other in a desperate attempt to stay alive. It's a situation that just oozes potential for studies in leadership, morality, responsibility, and the degradation of human culture, but we're left seeing decaying limbs, human waste, and fat, naked bodies. In easily the most disturbing scene of the movie, an African-American male (an interesting casting note?) from the violent, ruling ward punches a woman to death while raping her. Any remnants of hope I had for mankind were completely dashed when this scene evoked laughs in the audience. This world is over.

In between the disgusting imagery and bad acting throughout the majority of Blindness, we actually don't see much at all. Meirelles does his best to convince us that we're actually going blind, manipulatively using blurred focus, mixed-scene editing, washed-out lighting and, in one overlong scene, a completely black screen backed by exaggerated sound effects. None of this worked, of course, but that dark scene did satisfy my curiosity about whether the movie would be better if I simply closed my eyes (it wasn't). When the group anticlimactically reenters society, Meirelles switches gears, somehow downshifting from a terrible suspense thriller to a senseless horror flick with the comically animalistic human behavior seen in Dawn of the Dead and other recent zombie movies. We're even graced with a topless shower scene, one of many gratuitously "dramatic" moments Meirelles tosses in just to remind us that he's taking this seriously. Sound familiar? M. Night Shyamalan employed the same tactic to disastrous effect in The Happening, a movie which Meirelles should be thankful already firmly holds the title of worst movie of 2008.

[Agh, I've been sitting here for 15 minutes unsuccessfully trying to caption this PERFECT picture with a wicked description! Share yours in the comments...]

What's more surprising? That I made it through this entire movie, or that I still have hope for the future projects of Fernando Meirelles? It would take a lot more than one bad movie - even one as horrendous as Blindness - to cancel out the brilliance of City of God, and there was more than enough potential in The Constant Gardener and this year's overlooked City of Men to keep faith that Meirelles still has talent and artistic vision to spare. This was just a case of a filmmaker completely inhabiting his own picture, from the awkwardly-used cinematography to the carefully constructed deserted city, which in my opinion looked much more realistic in I Am Legend, Children of Men, and even a movie like Vanilla Sky. When every piece of trash and every burning car is perfectly placed in each scene, what is actually a real city location begins to look way too much like a set. Whatever - this is obviously the least among the problems found in Blindness. As it is, you'll be wasting the eyesight that you may still have in sitting through this movie. Your vision (and your hard-earned money) would be much better spent on this year's uplifting Blindsight.

Grade:
Writing - 5
Acting - 6
Production - 6
Emotional Impact - 4
Music - 5
Social Significance - 5

Total: 31/50= 62% = D

SNUBBED: Julianne Moore in "Freedomland"

I've been known to complain about a lot of Oscar snubs over the years, but there is one that still stings, still keeps me up at night, and still tempts me to boycott those stupid awards. That Julianne Moore didn't even receive a nomination for her performance in 2005's criminally underrated Freedomland is, to be quite frank, a travesty.

Although we all know she was stunningly stellar in such movies as The Ladies Man, Evolution, Laws of Attraction, The Forgotten, and Next, it's her turn in Freedomland that sends chills up your spine and tears down your face. I've provided evidence of one of the film's stronger moments above.

Observe her brilliance in acting like she's disoriented and panicked. Watch her navigate a sea of emotions as she fully inhabits the character of a psychotic mother. Take notes on her incredible ability to cry without actually crying.

Every great performance involves two actors, however, and Samuel L. Jackson gives an acting clinic here perhaps worthy of its own Oscar nomination. He's almost unrecognizable from his other roles here, shouting and repeatedly questioning someone while standing above them. Also, I know people with asthma, and I had to ask them if they could determine whether he was acting or not. I could not. His wheezing, huffing, groaning and puffing adds significantly to the gripping intensity of the scene.

Take this to the bank, folks: Freedomland is arguably one of the best films of the decade, and no Oscar snub discussion is complete without its mention.

Because the oversight is just so tragic, I think even more evidence may be needed to cement that claim: the first 1:17 of this long clip. I know it will be hard to tear your eyes away from the screen, but I've limited it to that so you don't become too emotionally overwhelmed.

Put my heart at rest. Put my heart at rest, AMPAS: honor Julianne Moore and Freedomland with a retroactive Academy Award...

[This post is one of many featured in Lazy Eye Theatre's Bizarro Blog-a-Thon, June 23-25. Don't bother checking out any of the other featured posts... ]