The New World

Some of the Native Americans that participated in this film objected to the title. It's not a new world to them. Their culture has been around for some 10,000 years here. They have lived in ecological harmony with this land for a long time and lead a lifestyle of grounded simplicity and joy in the natural world. To native, indigenous societies it is certainly our world, based on raping the planet for riches, that is the newer one. The old one was working just fine for thousands of years, how is this new one working for us? Global warming and its resulting hurricanes, heat waves, landslides of ravaged hills, $3. gas.... not to mention a world of people cut off from their connection to nature and their god-given instincts and intuition.

Before I launch into a review of this exquisite film, I must disclose my deep affection for Terrence Malick and his 1978 film Days of Heaven. I saw Days Of Heaven in the theater, back when I used to go to the movies a lot. I had returned from a three month car trip through this country earlier that year and watching his film filled me with so much longing for the American landscape that I packed up my car, saw the film again three days later and then took off the following day for another long car trip West.

The setting for Days of Heaven was Texas, in my view, not nearly the most beautiful part of this country, but Malick has an absolutely unparalleled genius for bringing out the peace and majesty of nature. There is no one who can put nature onto film like Terrence Malick and I would hate to think of this world, old or new, without him in it. Ansel Adams captures some beautiful forms in little black and white pics that enhanced our appreciation of what's out there, but Malick understands the color, the movement, the scope. I can't even use the word capture for Malick, he presents, he embodies, he translates something that is one of the hardest things in the world to duplicate on film... the absolute awe-inspiring feeling of being entranced and encompassed by nature.

I really regret not seeing The New World on the big screen and will look for it in art theaters, though the DVD is definitely worthwhile because there is a long section on the making of this film. Malick, who was strangely absent from the documentary feature must have spent the last eight years from Thin Red Line looking for financing for this project because it sure doesn't look like they spared much expense. Jamestown, the entire settlement, was completely re-created for the film, Native Americans were brought in to act and consult. Every attempt was made to be completely authentic; using a few journals from the time.

The story is basically a love story, about John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas. The latter is played almost silently, but strongly, by fourteen year old Q'orianka Kilcher and she does a good job of conveying a girl completely in touch with herself and the world around her, even after she is removed from her tribe to be, in effect, a hostage of the English. She is well treated and eventually marries, even has a son, and goes to England to be feted by royalty, but never loses her center or her love. For most of the story she loves John Smith, even though he returns to England without her and has her told that he is dead.

She later discovers he is still alive and with that her love for him re-blossoms. She is honest with her husband and, unlike most men, he acts in a very loving and selfless way. He re-unites the pair to see where it goes. She realizes, when she re-connects with Smith, that what she has with Rolf is actually truer and she returns to loving him. He was very wise to let her follow her nature and allow her to love freely. He realized that love can't be forced. Maybe living close to the land, with Pocahontas, taught him that.

Days of Heaven also featured a love triangle and a woman who loves two men interwoven into such an incredible natural landscape that you really don't even need a story or plot. I remember in Days of Heaven about twenty minutes into the film I was saying "Wow... a plot too!" It was like an extra bonus. I would have been more than happy spending two hours just watching how Malick films water or wheat.

It's sad to me that this film, while receiving lots of critical acclaim, went unnoticed by viewers and the Academy. In my mind this film does everything a film is supposed to do. It's stunning, enchanting and engrossing even on just a visual level. It educates our minds about important events that changed the course of history. It speaks to us about love and its difficult choices, its pain and confusion and longing, its deep and unchanging nature that has no pretense to rhyme or reason. It shows clashes of cultures and ideas and their resolution. And this film also does something that very few films can do, it viscerally engages our deepest spirits and brings us a sense of what nature can do to our souls when given half a chance.

I remember on a lot of my young travels watching the tourists who would pull up to the Grand Canyon or some other magnificent natural wonder and say, basically, wow, that's amazing, what's next? They weren't really living and breathing it, they were watching it, like TV. Take the kids, let's visit some museums, some mountains, write a few postcards and there's your vacation. There are tourists, and then there are travelers. Malick is for the travelers, the learners, the experiencers. That's why the film didn't draw crowds, most people are tourists and will miss what Malick is really about, will miss what the world God gave us is all about.

For most, this world is one of offices and cell phones with little spots of beauty and nature thrown in to keep it from being unbearable. How unbearable would life be if we all realized how shallow and detached our lives really are? God gave us so much. And we stupidly decided we could do better. Never satisfied, we grasp always for more and better and newer. Did the British see the world anew when they met the natives? Not really, progress marches on and much of what has been brought is indeed better, making life on this planet more comfortable, predictable and safe... but, at what cost?

To me, the new world is indeed the world seen anew. When we wake up in the morning and see the world a bit differently than we did before, it is an achievement. When we keep our minds and spirits young and fresh and open, full of love and wonder; that is the new world. Watching this film refreshes our world-view if we let it.

Rumor Has It

I like the fact that this film advances and draws on popular culture while remaining thoroughly original. If you read my blog, you'll see how often I bemoan the way the RIAA has appropriated our popular music, a deep part of our culture, and essentially, held it hostage by charging exorbitant rates to use past hit songs in films, mash-ups and other art forms. This film talks about The Graduate, and incorporates lines and plot points without running afoul of our excessive copyright protections much as Nora Ephron used Bewitched, the TV series, in her eponymous film. The convention worked better in this film because it brought in the real world more successfully.

Whereas Ephron's film felt farcical, this romantic comedy was handled better. I hate to compare Nicole Kidman unfavorably to Jennifer Aniston but the latter brings heart to her parts. Costner, portraying the real life Benjamin Braddock, is playing the same role I've seen him play in the last twenty films and Shirley MacLaine has also atrophied, though at least she didn't try to play seductive, she remains stuck in her Steel Magnolias mode. Some Charity Valentine would have been much better here, but maybe Rob Reiner stuck her in Bittertown. Too bad Anne Bancroft's dead. The Graduate, though it made Dustin Hoffman's career, was all Anne.

I mean, really, she plays an alcoholic who seduces the son of her husband's partner, literally luring him into a room and cornering him stark naked, then telling her daughter that he raped her. Charming... yet she makes us love her anyway. It's not easy to make a story like that work. So, anyway, this film also brings in the aspect of uptight suburban, rich Pasadena and the urban legend that surrounds this tale and its writer, Charles Webb.

Since there's no commentary track, I don't know if Charles Webb grew up in Pasadena, or wrote The Graduate based on a real story told to him by a prep school friend. Maybe that's some of the mystery that makes this film fun. I liked the contrast between these mothers and granddaughters who freely intergenerate and the hausfrau gossips that speculate from the sidelines. OK, I made up "intergenerate" but isn't it a great term to describe those who don't confine their dating and sexual pleasure to those who are the same age?

I'm all for it. The three great loves of my life are all 6-8 years older than me. When I was younger, I had almost no interest in men in their twenties and preferred older guys. As long as they're in good shape, I still prefer men who have interesting life experience to draw on. But now I see all sorts of things in younger guys that I really didn't appreciate before such as openness, enthusiasm, access to emotion, integrity and sexuality etc. They're not so beaten down and pussy-whipped, they don't carry all the bitterness and baggage. They're freer and more idealistic and creative.

So I liked this romp through the many configurations of younger/older and fun/serious relationships. I guess the message we're supposed to get is that sexual experimentation and exploration is great but "building a life together" requires more. Hell yeah, it requires the rock guys, not rock like rock and roll, but the rock, the guy who you can have kids with and depend on. OK but just remember, that's how Mrs. Robinson ended up in her sorry state... by marrying the rock. Not the rocker, the rock.

So, let's look forward to Rumor Has It Two when we see Jen twenty years later hitting on her son's friends...

Munich

This is the story of a group of Israeli men who were given the mission of executing those responsible for killing eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Although Golda Meir publicly ordered the execution, the mission was essentially covert. The events of the hostage-taking and subsequent killings in Munich are covered through flashbacks that I found distracting, especially since Avner, the guy having them, wasn't even there at the original crime. The story arc would have been better had Spielberg kept a tighter chronology. I also thought a lot of the violence was gratuitous. The film seemed too consciously paced for the typical young male ADHD theater goer.

At times it just seemed to go mindlessly from one bungled bombing to the next. It's hard to believe they couldn't find one skilled bomb-maker in Israel. One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the way it addresses some of the larger moral issues concerning justification for war and killing. Some of the group have a hard time with what they are doing, on a moral level. Capital punishment is not used in Israel, so these executions violated their own laws. These men were not captured, for trial, they were killed, with bombs, to get press and terrorize the terrorists.

Another creative twist was showing how immorality and violence take a toll on the human being. Avner's wife is seven months pregnant when they approach him and he loves her. At the end, while he is making love to her, you see all the worst flashbacks of killing the athletes. Even as he makes love to the woman he loves, a woman he has missed for months as he was away on his mission of death, he thinks only of violence. How many men think of work as they have sex with their wives? His life had become about killing, justified or no, and it was a part of him, irrevocably.

Then there's the "meet the new boss same as the old boss" aspect. You can go on killing the bad guys forever, and even worse guys will take their place. One of the agents had this response to offer, "Should I stop clipping my fingernails because they will grow back?" So, there are a lot of opportunities to ask moral questions about what is happening in the Middle East and elsewhere. How much violence do we need already? Does endless retribution serve any purpose? When does it end? Every side has it's justifications. The Palestinians want a homeland, and are sick of being mistreated. Their tactics are meant to show their desperation. It's a bit astounding to me that a Jewish director would be so even handed in his treatment of this issue. It's an extremely difficult line to walk, especially in such a public way.

If these Israelis have trouble justifying killing those who plot against innocent athletes, how the hell do we justify killing thousands of Iraqis and Americans for oil? What are we doing to promote peace in the Middle East? I commend Spielberg for smelling blood in the water and being a part of the Hollywood and musician uprising against Bush, which I think accurately describes this film. That guy is gonna stink so bad by '08 that wise to wait Hillary will have smooth sailing.

Did this film deserve a nod for best picture? No, there were far better films made last year. Spielberg feels that whenever he uses his obscene power as the world's most famous film director to shed light on a social issue he deserves an Oscar. We have never seen a director, in all film history, with the power to bring viewers into a theater like he has. He is truly the first rock star director, a phenom. I recently started watching Terrence Mallick's The New World and it's been an interesting contrast because, while both are great directors, their approach is so different.

With every shot of Mallick's, you see art, you see the artist, you see a man who wants to put beauty up there for people, you see a man who wants to paint the natural world in an awe inspiring way. You see the restraint, the eye, the artistry. When you watch a Terrence Mallick film, you see the highest form of what a director can achieve as a visual artist. Spielberg is a disseminator, a populist, a panderer. In his films you see the conscious manipulation of emotion, the pacing for heart-racing, the story, the charm. In his mind he's a storyteller surrounded by kids at the campfire.

So, whether you think Munich was one of the five best pics of '05 depends partly on what you want out of film. For me, I don't look to film to be my thrill ride. If I want to get my heart racing, I don't do it sitting in a dark theater. I want film to be beautiful, I want it to bring me in and capture my emotion and soul and take me to some new knowledge and feeling. On the other hand, as I said, it's not easy to take the unwashed masses and try to teach them a little something. He definitely had to chop a few million off his back end to do it, not to mention all the dough he had to spend to promote himself into the race. But Spielberg already has the dough and fame, he wants to be considered a great director, which to me, means artist, even though he's not.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Golf? You want to tell me golf is the greatest game ever played? Why, because Francis Oumet rose from lowly caddy to businessman on the strength of his game? If that's the criterion I guess I'd have to offer the very obvious fact that far more men, and even women, have moved from poverty to prominence in basketball than golf. Even football, violent as it is, as least offers the chance to move up and earn money. For basketball, it moves fast, can be played almost anywhere, offers ten guys the chance to play at once, demands stamina, strength and grace. All this makes it great for spectators and participants alike. It can easily be played indoors, making it year round and all-weather. It requires strategy, quick thinking and an ability to read people and their bodies.

Tennis also offers a lot of these same qualities, which is why I love to play it. Like golf, it offers the chance to hang out with three friends and get some exercise outdoors. Golf, not to mention baseball, is too slow and non-athletic to even be considered a sport. And BTW, the reason Bonds, Sousa and McGwire are breaking long-held batting records is not because of the steroids. That's just what helps them build up more muscle by letting them inflame less from workouts. What's really making the difference are drugs that aid their reaction times. The reason I know this is because I dated someone who helped develop the drugs. They're not used by many, and are known about by even fewer.

Since golf isn't even arguably the greatest game ever played, except by wealthy men looking for the longest possible time away from their wives, what's the deal on the title? Are they saying this particular round of golf, the last in the eighteenth US Open, was the greatest game ever played? Well it may have been the greatest game of golf ever played, at least for American players, because it completely energized the game over here. It was a huge upset for the Brits, who dominated the game, particularly since the title went to an unknown player. Francis Oumet, and his ten year old caddy, did have enormous celebrity after the game. Tiger Woods, black, a phenom since age 5, has certainly had a big effect on the game.

As to the greatest game ever played in terms of whipping up US emotion, that would have to go to the last game of hockey in the 1980 Olympics where the US, a team of college players took the gold over the Soviet Union. In fact, this "miracle on ice", immortalized in the film Miracle, was voted the greatest sporting event of the 20th century by many in 1999. If you're looking for the greatest game in terms of upsets, that would have to be 1969 the year the amazing Mets won the World Series.

If you're looking for an event that radically changed a sport, I would have to point to "the thwack heard round the world" when Nancy Kerrigan took a whack from Tonya Harding's thugs. As has been said, every skater out there today ought to be bowing in Tanya Harding's direction five times a day because whereas before, Olympic champs could barely make a living, now, just about any skater with a name can earn millions. Billie Jean King turned tennis around for women in terms of what they could earn. Certainly her game with Bobby Riggs garnered almost as much attention as the 1913 US Open, which did attract some 25,000 people to the course.

Now I'm not saying this was a bad movie or anything. It's well worth buying on DVD because it's uplifting, inspiring, historical, socially aware and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features. One of them is by Bill Paxton, of Apollo 13 fame, who directed and took an interesting approach highlighting the tactical features of the game as well as making a lot of visually interesting shot choices.

Shopgirl

Steve Martin adapted this screenplay from the novella he wrote in 2000. During the height of the bubble he must have noticed the class differences in LA going full throttle. So he brought to the fore themes he had let lie since LA Story. That ensemble clearly showed us how Martin sees the world, his outsider eye always brings such delightful perspective whenever he presents it, from The Jerk on. I've been a fan of Steve Martin since King Tut, the zany dance meant to spoof the millions of spectators lined up to see the gold of the boy king.

Here he shows the contrast between rich and poor LA. We go back and forth from Ray's aquatic, modern mansion to the austere Silver Lake apartment of Mirabelle (Clare Danes), a young average girl with 40K in student loans and, for some reason, a job selling gloves at Saks (doesn't a college degree get you more than that?). Martin plays a wealthy older man who is attracted to her and they begin to date. The plot is pretty simple, he likes the sex but she starts to get needy and he realizes she doesn't have much else to offer, so breaks up.

She cries but moves on, grows from the experience and by the time all that happens, the younger, more appropriate, I guess, guy (Jason Shwartzman) has a little more maturity and takes her off into the sunset. Ray finds a nice gynecologist his own age and everyone lives happily ever after. I guess we're supposed to see two dynamics at work here, the class differences as well as the age difference, and how they play out.

In anther film that just came out on DVD, which I didn't review but maybe now will if I find a lot to say on this issue, is Prime, where the gorgeous Uma Thurman plays the older woman to a 23-year-old guy. She tells him at the end that she will give him the biggest gift of all by letting him go find someone his own age... she doesn't need his sperm to have a baby that bad, thanks. At least in Prime there's a little twist on on the stereotype, Martin's is pretty true to form. The older guy seems pretty dead emotionally. It's hard to see what he really wants in a relationship. Though he's somewhat enchanted by Mirabelle he doesn't know how to relate to her on an emotional level and since she's clinically depressed, she doesn't have much to offer him in that department to help him understand his emotions and help him grow.

I feel sorry for Ray. He's got lots of money and security but no real passion, no real compassion and doesn't seem to have much going on spiritually. Mirabelle excuses all that because she's poor and young, she probably sees her prospects mostly in terms of marriage. Since she needs help in almost every way, someone who at least offers money, offers a lot. Money can buy a lot, not everything, but a lot. Someone older and wiser would find a lot lacking in Ray. Even if we assume he's pretty good on a mental level, we've still got emotional, physical & spiritual to deal with.

Lots of women, particularly young women do see men in terms of money and security. Guys know this, especially guys with money, and they need to know they are loved for themselves. It's hard to know this when the lady has no dough of her own. Yeah, Ray can see she really cares for him, but would she care so much if he were poor? Maybe not, after all, she blew off the artistic Jeremy until she sees him in a snazzy white suit, and doesn't give him a second look till Ray dumps her and it starts to look like Jeremy might do OK as a provider.

What it gets to for Ray is that all he can get from her is physical, he doesn't see her as a source for anything else. So, at the end, Mirabelle has seen another slice of life, courtesy of Ray, and is a little more worldly and sophisticated but still has a long way to go. I wish her well but don't pity her the way I pity Ray. This guy is well into his fifties, if not 60's and, really, should be a lot further along. I don't get the sense he's ever shown real commitment or known real love. That's what gets me. When I see people waste their lives, that's the stuff that really saddens me.

We are so much more than our intellects, our mental achievements, no matter how much power and money they give us. But, because they give us so much, they can be distracting, alluring, deceptive and addictive. The world, not to mention, Palo Alto is full of guys, and even some women, who are what Antoine St. Exupery calls mushrooms, big heads without much underneath. Their emotional, physical and spiritual sides are like deformed little appendages that never grew, just lying there. But unlike with limbs, most people never see these handicaps, unless you look close up. I have and it's sad.

There are a lot of sad, empty men out there looking for glove salesgirls, and confidantes and intimacy but never really finding it because there's always some deal around the bend. So, Steve's personal comment is on the loneliness and emptiness not only in the lives of young, poor salesgirls but wealthy, powerful men... and everyone in between.

The Family Stone

More like the family stoned. Most of the all-star cast portrays a liberal northeastern family contrasted against Sarah Jessica Parker's overly uptight, conservative, or maybe just asinine. potential in-law to be. Luke Wilson plays the affable mandatory stoner. After his stint in the even weirder Royal Tenenbaums, he may corner the market on quirky family dramedies. In this one he sleeps with the aforementioned prig, or at least passes the duchy, and, well, she does loosen up a bit. Of course you can see the happy ending coming a mile away.

The liberal, but just as rigid, judgmental clan learns not to be prejudiced against the clueless yuppies of the world because, hey, sometimes they show some sensitivity and throw you off completely. And the blind ambition tour realizes there's more to life than career, she realizes she's a mere cog in the corporate machine and marries her new fun dealer. The original date also needs some loosening up via the sister and by the end, everyone's happy. Anyway, there are even more issues than this. What with a cast of seven principals above title, there's a lot of dialogue, a lot of issues... including the meandering nature of the plot, if there is one.

Maybe it's just a warm heartfelt exploration in family dynamics, or at least that's what they probably had to tell Diane Keaton to get her involved. She certainly wasn't thinking clearly when the hair colorist came around, that's for sure. I preferred her in her last major role in 2003, with Jack Nicholson, in Something's Gotta Give, where she was at least vibrant & healthy & had some actual interests, other than matriarchy. As for the rest of the cast, Clare Danes is far better in Shopgirl. Rachel McAdams was better in Red Eye and Parker, you got it, her sex was much better in the city.

This is the place in the review where I normally veer off into my personal views on some social issue and use the film to support and reflect my views. Unceasingly unwilling to let my readers settle for mere plot summations and erudite twaddle on film history or something, I offer full out propaganda and incitement. So, my choices are (1) a discussion of liberal vs. conservative values (no need to wonder where I'll come down on this one), (2) the difficulty of fitting into a different social group, especially someone else's family (3) the complexity of interpersonal relationships, or... (4) the results of my recent personality tests.

So, one thing they said was that while I was unlikely to become the president of a company I would very likely become president of the revolting faction the company. Therefore, I will avoid going off on item #1 above. It also said that because I have really high intuition about people, I often think others see into me, when, in reality, they don't. Since people so rarely see anything hidden (or even unhidden) in me, much less my film reviews let me just trot this out for you (and watch how I, as usual, bring this back to the film at hand). Prejudice is bad.

Whether you're a liberal or an unthinking, unchanging, stick with the status quo cause I'm rich or scared, conservative, we should keep an open mind because, as we see in the syrupy epilogue to this film, you just never know your friends from your enemies and which will make you grow more. To wit, by the next Christmas Mom is but a memory, two babies are added, and the new people making the kids happy have both been brought in by the uptight conservative asshole and even she has found redemption in the form of a stiff joint and flexible guy.

So, as they say in the movies, this only happens in the movies. In real life people stay in their own little worlds where things are safe and predictable and everything labeled different ends up on the scrap heap. But, if you're in a Christmas-y mood in May, check this one out cause it moves well and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features.