Recently in Film Category

Summer seems to be a good time to catch up on videos and cable movies. Here a bunch I recently watched, with very short reviews

"You Kill Me" A John Dahl movie with Ben Kingsley and Tea Leoni. I enjoyed this, definitely worth watching, Kingsley is a  hit man whose alcoholism gets in the way of his job, so he joins AA. Leoni is the woman with boudariy problems that he enters a relationship with. THe joke here is the way the AA language and experience colors Kingsley's being a killer and returning to doing his job well.

"Lust, Caution" Ang Lee's R-rated epic set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation would like to Casablanca or Notorious, but although gorgeous, it is BORING despite a few explicit sex scenes which might make you think you should rent this but I can't recommend it.

"Eastern Promises" Cronnenberg continues be one of the most interesting filmmakers over the course of his long and varied career. Great performance by Viggo Mortensen, interesting script. In the end there is something that makes only very good and not great. Not sure what that is but  I almost feel this should be the pilot for a BBC TV series. Still I recommend this (although there are some brutal scenes not for the squeamish -- ths is not for Kids and not a chick flick -- although viggo could be a draw.

"The Darjeeling Limited" Wes Andersen's film, starring Owen Wilson, Jason Scwartzman and Adrian Body is practically unwatchable and I can't say that I liked the short Chevalier Hotel any better.

Tom Rothman, the chairman of Fox Filmed Enterainment, has been introducing movies on their cable channel since last year but I've only discovered this recently.

Let me start by saying two things: First, is it not enough to receive millions for running a successful movie studio, do you have to take the job away of a host -- someone like yours truly, or some other film reporter/arts journalists/ nerd. And second: this may be all the more galling since I know and life Tom, having gone to law school with him.

Now that I've spent my bile -- let me say that watching Tom Rothman alternates between finding him stiff and sort of fake in his delivery and being interested in what he has to say. Because let's face it, he knows a things or two about movies, making them, and particularly to the extent he talks candidly about it, how certain movies got made from the studio point of view (which he does, here and there).

On the whole, although I would prefer to see someone else doing it (i.e. me), I have to say that I'll tune in again, from time to time, to here what Tom Rothman has to say.....

Then go to a showing of "Sex in the City." I went with my wife last night, and despite being a Tuesday evening, the theater was filled, filled with women in groups of five or more, so much so that the estrogen was palpable.

As for the movie, to fans of the show it delivered what they were looking for, plenty of the girls, lots of over the top fashion and dress and shoe fetish -- not a whole lot of story or character development (certainly none for the men).

To say the movie was long -well, let me put in another way, the movie was akin to waiting for your wife to get ready to leave the house, in fact, the movie was pretty much structured that way as well, with plenty of attention to each dressing ritual, each holiday, each event.

Here's the thing: most of the women in the room will see it again, tell their friends who haven't seen it to do so, and see and buy the video.

There is an article in today's New York Times where M. Night tries to repair some of the damage done surrounding "Lady in the Lake," his last movie which performed abysmally. 

He goes on about his maverick qualities and how he hasn't sold out - blah, blah blah.

Part of what M. Night fails to say (and perhaps fails to recognize ), is the reason that the collective schadenfreude of Hollywood has grown as his last projects performed poorly,  is that he fails to acknowledge that studio and development executives have any talent, purpose or can add anything to his work.

    Let me analogize: as a print journalist , I work with editors and although some of them I grumble about, others have improved and do improve what I write, that goes for editors making suggestions for new subjects to write about, to asking questions about what I've written that force me to reassess or clarify my thinking and my writing, to line editing and the work of copy editors.

    The notion that Studio execs, producers and development execs -- professionals who have read thousands of scripts and have watched and studied thousands of movies and have some experience with what has worked and what doesn't -- can add value and improve his work or at least serve as a sounding board -- is not something that M. Night acknowledges. Night thinks it is all him, him, him. And his poor showings recently at the box office are, appropriately, to be blamed on him.

    I remember when "The Sixth Sense" was a spec script, No one, including its producer Barry Mendel, knew if the film would work. They gave M. Night a chance. He needs to realize that, in fact, he doesn't work alone.

This morning's newspapers are writing about the success of the "SEX IN THE CITY" movie. The newspapers and studios are SHOCKED, SHOCKED SHOCKED that women over 30 are going in droves to the movies.
This hasn't happened since....Well, since THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA starring the over 30 Meryl Streep, or THE FIRST WIVES CLUB, with Bette Midler, Goldie Hahn and Diane Keaton, or WHAT WOMEN WANT with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson.
    Which is to say that actually of course women over 30 can drive a movie to be a hit -- BUT THE STUDIOS WILL NOT MAKE MORE MOVIES FOR THIS AUDIENCE, because the reall question is HOW OFTEN WILL WOMEN MAKE A MOVIE A HIT? In the World War II era, movie audiences were heavily female, and the Screwball comedies or noirish thrillers which we all admire today got made because women could be counted on to go to the movies in the afternoon, mid-week, or on the weekends with their dates or husbands. Now getting these women to the theaters is an EVENT -- and although the studios will put projects into development to attract this demographic they will do so sparingly -- They are still chasing "The four quadrants" men, women, teens of both genders, etc...

RECOUNT, the HBO movie based on the Florida recount in the 2000 Bush vs Gore election is great movie making. Jay Roach has done an incredible job.
Every aspect of the film -- the casting, the visual details, the performances are all memorable.

    The fact that we know the outcome yet the movie puts you on the edge of your seat is tribute to how good it is. Kevin Spacey gives his best performance in years as Ron Klain the democratic operative; and there is (yet another) amazing performance from Tom Wilkinson as James Baker.

RECOUNT does a great job of humanizing Baker, and providing a compelling portrait of a man that I have long thought ill of --- chief among them his reported comments about Jewish voters.

But all the performances are great including Laura Dern's loopy but credible performance as Katherine Harris.

Kudos to Danny Strong for the script and Jay Roach  for  making a  great, great film.

If, as the bard wrote, "All the world's a stage," then let me direct you to a current production that, though seeming of another time, and another era, and based on a film more than 40 years old, offers enduring truths that seem particularly relevant to current events.

"Judgment At Nuremberg" Abby Mann's courtroom drama about the post-World War II trial of Nazi-era German Judges is having its Southern California stage premiere this Friday, June 17 at the International City Theater in Long Beach.

If you have never watched the film, or have not seen it in many years, you should head down to Long Beach or at the very least to your local movie rental store. As Abby Mann said, when we met recently at his Los Angeles home, "unfortunately, the play is very timely." - which says as much about "Judgment at Nuremberg" as it does about Abby Mann.

Mann was born in 1927, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and was raised in east Pittsburgh in a tough predominantly Catholic working class neighborhood surrounded by steel workers and their children who were also destined for the steel factories.

Beginning in the late 1940s and throughout the next decade, Mann wrote dramas for such anthology TV series such as "Studio One," "Robert Montgomery Presents"," Cameo Theater," "Goodyear Playhouse Theater," "Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents," "Matinee Theater" and "Playhouse 90."

"Judgment at Nuremberg" first appeared on Playhouse 90, directed by George Roy Hill (best known today as the director of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting") and launched Mann's Hollywood career. The 1961 film version directed by Stanley Kramer, received 11 Oscar nominations and won Oscars for Mann (screenplay) and Maximillian Schell as the defense attorney, and featured star turns by Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland..

Since "Judgment," Mann has continued over more than four decades to write movies, films for television, mini-series and television series that have defied conventional wisdom and spoken out for those whom the larger political forces would seek to ignore. Among his works, "A Child Is Waiting" (1963) discussed the treatment of mentally challenged children and the 1973 TV movie, "The Marcus-Nelson murders" revealed how a young black man was coerced into confessing to a rape-murder he did not commit. Based on a true story, the real defendant was released after the program aired. But the program became famous for still another reason - it launched a series based on the lead detective, named Kojak.

Mann has never shirked controversy, penning, "The Atlanta Murders" which explored the trial of Wayne Williams; "King" (which Mann directed), which examined the possibility of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King; "Murderers among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story"; "Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser story," as well as the films "Report to the Comissioner," and "Love and War" about Holocaust survivor Jack Eisner. But perhaps one of the most controversial of Mann's work was "Indictment: The McMartin Case" (which he wrote with his wife Myra) for HBO - about an Orange County couple charged with child abuse -- and the lack of evidence against them. On the first day of the film's production, Mann's home was burned to the ground. A case of arson that, to this day, remains unsolved.

Mann continues to be engaged by difficult issues. Currently he is working with the ex-Governor of Illinois George Ryan on a book and screenplay about his decision to close death row and abandon the death penalty in his State.

Still of all his screenplays, the one that remains evergreen is "Judgment." Mann has been surprised at how much more intense certain scenes seem on the stage than they did in the film. He commends the Long Beach production directed by Shashin Desai and all of the actors, particularly the actress who plays Jewish Holocaust survivor Irene Hoffman Wallner "better than Judy Garland."

"Judgment at Nuremberg" asks questions such as: Is it right for the victors to sit in judgment of the vanquished? What are individuals in general and government employees in specific to do when their government passes laws that appear to break with the very legal conventions they were sworn to uphold. What is the individual's responsibility?

Mann recalled that the genesis of "Judgment at Nuremberg" occurred at a party in New York City where he met an attorney named Abe Pomerantz, who was a government attorney at Nuremberg (Pomerantz went on to become a legendarily successful securities class action attorney). Mann confessed that he didn't know much about the trials. Pomerantz said that they were having trouble getting judges of any stature to hear the cases. Mann had no idea of the extent of the trials in Nuremberg, or even that there were trials of doctors, judges and businessmen. But he was curious. Pomerantz suggested he meet with with Telford Taylor, who had served as assistant counsel to lead Prosecutor Robert Jackson during the initial Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leadership and then succeeded him after Jackson resigned the position in 1946.

"Taylor was a very unusual guy," Mann recalled. "He had a lot of presence. He was one of those guys who were the first ones into the concentration camps and that stayed with him."

It bothered Taylor that, after a certain point, the United States no longer wanted to pursue the trials because they needed Germany on their side in the Cold War. Mann recalled that Taylor got him interested when he said, "I don't know whether this is too austere, but there was a trial of Judges [Taylor was referring to The Justice Trial, as it was called, US. v. Alsotter]. It was fascinating, American judges sitting in judgment of German judges." Mann became so compelled that he left a $1000-a-week job to write the screenplay on a $500 advance."

What makes "Judgment" so powerful to this day is the complexity of the characters. No one is without flaws and shifting loyalties. Presiding Judge Dan Haywood, played in the movie by Spencer Tracy is a widower from Maine, a judge who was at the top of no one's list. He is the model of probity but he is subject to various pressures and influences: Will he listen to the American politican and his fellow Judge's suggestion that in light of the cold war he should go easy on the Germans? Will he confine himself to the narrow question of whether the judges were just following the laws as the Nazis had written them? Does he accept the contention of his household staff and of a beautiful General's widow that the average German did not really know what was going on?

By the same token we come to wonder: Is the prosecutor too obsessed, too influenced by what he witnessed liberating the death camps? Is the defense attorney just doing his job, preying on the witnesses' weakness? Is the defendant Jannings a good man, trying his best to stay loyal to his country as it was caught up in an evil scheme, or did he commit evil himself?

In the film version, Burt Lancaster played "Janning," a German Judge who appears to be of the highest intellect and integrity, who refuses to be lumped with the "party hacks" and who at court finally rises to make a statement that he was "worse than any of them because he knew what they were and went along with them."

But it is the power of Mann's drama that even Janning is unwilling to accept full responsibility. After being sentenced, he asks to meet with Haywood in his cell. Then Haywood tells Jannings "what you said in the courtroom -it needed to be said." Jannings hopes the Judge understands that Jannings had no idea that that Nazi's actions were leading to the death chambers.

Haywood responds, in one of the most famous and chilling lines:
"Herr Janning. It came to that the first time you sentenced to death a man you knew to be innocent."

"A country is not a rock, or a mask," Mann told me, "it's what it stands for."

In "Judgment," he explained, "Patriotism is the antagonist."

A subject still with us: The recent votes of France and the Netherlands against the EU constitution clearly show that Nationalism is still a potent force.

Although it would be wrong to compare any current government to that of the Nazis, by focusing on "the Justice trial," Mann does make us wonder what we would (or do) trade off or remain silent about in exchange for our freedom and our lives of comfort and security.

One can not view "Judgment at Nuremberg" and not think about Guantanomo Bay, Abu Gharid and the Patriot Act and consider the accomodations we make in our post-Sept. 11 world as we juggle our security concerns and military objectives with civil liberties.

"When you think of thousands of people in jail, without being able to see an attorney," Mann said, "without seeing the evidence against them, that's not the American way....The question is: How far it can go?"

"Judgment" also made me think about the recent revelation that Mark Felt, a retired deputy director of the FBI, was "Deep Throat," Woodward and Bernstein's secret source for their Watergate investigation. To me, this was a very vivid reminder that individuals can act in ways that have historic impact in the defense of their country - even those in the administration charged with enforcing the law. At the same, Felt reminds us that history is made by mortals fueled by motives high and low - and that a free press remains one of the most powerful checks on a government abusing its power.

Finally, "Judgment at Nuremberg" reminds us that our system of laws imposes an obligation to prosecute the criminals before us, an obligation to their victims and that justice must not be denied, because of either emotional or poltical reasons. Our system allows mitigation - but based on admission of guilt and expression of remorse or a justifiable defense (i.e. self-defense). This too is timely.

Nuremberg seems of another time. But it is not.

On June 30, 2005, The United States will hold hearings to deport John Demjanjuk for his war-time Nazi guard service at several concentration camps, including Sobibor, Flossenburg and Majdanek, Demjanjuk, who was also identified by Holocaust survivors as having served at the Treblinka extermination camp was denaturalized and stripped of his U.S. Citizenship (1981), ordered deported (1984), and extradited to stand trial in Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity (1986), the first person to be so charged since Adolf Eichmann in 1961. The Israel District court convicted him in 1988 and sentenced him to death (I wrote a now out-of print book about this trial). However, in 1993 the Israel Supreme, found that new evidence unearthed during the course of the appeal to Israel's Supreme Court, cast sufficient doubt as to his Treblinka service to acquit him and return him to the United States. U.S. Courts admonished the U.S. prosecutors and vacated the prior U.S. decisions. Despite this, the US Government was able to re-file their suit on the basis that Demjanjuk, who has never admitted to any wartime German collaboration, lied about his proven Nazi service and had the truth of his service been known he would never been allowed to enter this country or become an American citizen.

Demjanjuk is now 84. It is easy to say "he's an old man." Or to say "he has suffered enough," or that "we should move on," or that "what he did was so long ago, it's between him and his maker, and we should forgive." I have heard all those arguments, and you can find them all over the Web. I disagree.

I would argue that "Judgment at Nuremberg" has something to say on this issue, as well. It reminds us not to shirk out duty to remind those who commit the crimes and those who acquiesce to them of the evil of their acts, whether they know it or not, whether they acknowledge their part or not, in the name of the victims who can not speak, and for the sake of justice and the rule of law.

Forgiveness is not a magic wand - it does not relieve us of our legal obligations and moral duty. Rather forgiveness stands apart.

Even the late Pope John Paul II, whom Pope Benedict XVI has placed on the fast track to sainthood, and who visited Mehmet Ali Agca, his would-be-assassin in prison to forgive him, did not ask for the court to release him; nor was Agca allowed even a reprieve to attend the Pope's funeral. He continues to serve out his life sentence.

Much has been made of South Africa's commission for Truth and Reconciliation, as a way to "move beyond" a country's terrible history without trials.However the Commission has made clear that there can be no forgiveness, no mitigation, no reconciliation, without truth, without an admission of what one did.

"Were we deaf, dumb and blind?" Janning asks in "Judgment."

Abby Mann, in everything he writes, asks: "Are we even paying attention?"

Tom Teicholz is a film producer in Los Angeles. Everywhere else, he's an author and journalist who has written for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Interview and The Forward. His column appears every other week.

I did not watch the globes last night – Instead I was riveted by the first installment of “Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles” – If I were THE GAP I would get that T-shirt Lena Headley was wearing into the store window TODAY – I’m sure Trey Laird is signing up Lena Headey for some ads right now. (some of you may recall Ms. Headey from high minded films like Possession – I would add "the Brothers Grimm," but no one saw that – or more likely, as Queen Gorgo in "the 300."

            As for the Globes, although we all know that the Hollywood Foreign Press association is actually less than 100 journalists – I always bought into the big party idea – Actors from film and TV in the same room, getting looped on cocktails and saying things they might not say at other awards show – that is until that was seized upon by the forces of marketing – a forced/fake ploy ”Watch out – anything can happen!"

            But the reason for my soft spot for the Globes is that the night my daughter was born, the waiting area outside the delivery room featured a TV that was playing the Globes. There was a very disparate group assembled there (there’s a whole other story there, but I’ll save that for another time) but the Globes provided us with fodder for conversation – a common ground – to discuss and relate to. Everyone, including the nurses at the desk, embraced the show as a distraction, as a celebration at a time of celebration… and so the very notion of The Golden Globes brings a smile to my face.

            This year, however, I will miss my favorite part of the Globes – seeing how fast the fashion worn by the (female) winners makes into the window of ABS, the clothing store famous for knocking off – I mean creating fashions “inspired by…..”

 

BY THE WAY – WHY IS IT…. British and Australian actors and actresses have no trouble ditching their accents to play Americans (the afore-mentioned Ms. Headey, as well as Hugh Laurie, Rachel Griffiths, Frances O’Connor) but Americans….can only seem to adopt a British accent as an affectation (Madonna).