Movie Review: 8 Mile

8 Mile (2002) 

Directed by Curtis Hanson 

Written by Scott Silver

Starring Eminem, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, Kim Basinger

Release Date November 8th, 2002 

Published November 7th, 2002 

Once, Detroit was the center of the automotive boom. Flush with jobs the area was a boomtown until a sea change in the 60's when riots and recession began to reshape the city. By the 1980’s, the automotive boom was over. General Motors, amongst other car companies, began closing plants and laying off workers. The economic strife led many, mostly white people to move away from Detroit. The racial divide which has always been unspoken became more pronounced as one city street became a geographical dividing line between black and white. 

That street was 8 Mile, and it was on this street lined with run down buildings that a community of underground musicians began to rise, particularly a rap scene that was on the verge of changing the music scene. The movie 8 Mile dramatizes the underground Detroit rap scene, focusing on the white kid who would shock everyone by becoming it's breakout star. 8 Mile is not technically a biography of rapper Eminem, but the story of Eminem's 8 Mile character closely parallels the real life of the Real Slim Shady.

Eminem stars as Jimmy Smith Jr., known to his friends as Rabbit. As we join the story Rabbit is about to take the stage for a verbal war. Rappers get on stage dissing each other to the delight of the crowd, who ever delivers the stronger rap, wins. The battle of the MC's is presided over by Rabbit's close friend Future, effectively embodied by Mekhi Phifer. Future has had to beg and plead with Rabbit to jump on stage and show the skills that he and the crew known as the 313, for the Detroit area code, have seen. It is the skill we in the audience know he has, because he's Eminem. 

In the film however a frightened Rabbit first pukes his guts out backstage then get on stage and freezes, walking off stage without a word. Whether it was the hostile all black crowd, or his opponent Popa Doc's savage raps, we aren't sure. However, to see the man who in real life is known for his fast and fearless style run off stage without a word is an intriguing introduction the semi autobiographical story. 

Rabbit can be forgiven his lack of focus on stage as off stage he has real problems. He and his girlfriend have broken up after she revealed she is pregnant. Rabbit just lost his job delivering pizza's and now works at an automotive parts plant, a job no one wants. Worst of all Rabbit must go back to his mother’s trailer where his alcoholic mother is living with her equally alcoholic boyfriend, who is merely 2 years older than Rabbit himself. 

Future has big plans for himself and Rabbit, he wants to record a demo but most of all he holds out hope that someone important will hear Rabbit onstage and offer to produce them. Unfortunately, Future has been talking like this for years while another friend, a hustler named Wink (Eugene Bird) is actually making some things happen at a local radio station, though his tactics may be less than ethical. Wink also represents the 313's rivals, a group that includes Popa Doc (Anthony Mack) and rapper Xzibit as the group’s leader Hassan. 

With battles at home and on the streets, Rabbit turns to his friends for shelter then meets a girl that could be his oasis from all the trouble. Brittany Murphy plays Em's love interest, Alex, a wannabe model with a connection to Wink who she says is helping her get a modeling contract. The relationship develops quickly with Rabbit jumping in quickly even while Alex's motives are obviously unseemly. Alex's ulterior motives, as apparent as they are to the audience, give depth to the character that is necessary to leaven Murphy's bubbly exterior. When Alex's duplicitousness is shown to Rabbit the scene is very effective and gives her presence throughout the remainder of the film a kick. From there, the story is a very conventional overcoming the odds story that will obviously culminate with Rabbit onstage. 

The main question everyone wants answered is, can Eminem act? The answer is an honest 'I don't know.' Yes he does have an effective presence but the fact that he is playing a version of himself makes the comfort he shows in front of the camera a little too easy. Rabbit never transcends Eminem to become a separate entity. You can't separate Eminem from the character, a quality necessary when judging the performance. 

The thrust of the film comes from the stage. The rap battles are as exciting as any boxing match, with words landing like body blows and the audience cheering like the hordes at the roman coliseum every time a sword lands a blow. It is in these scenes that Em truly shines, showing his remarkable self-deprecating wit and savage wordplay. Nevertheless, once again, this does blur the line between character and actor.

The main problem with 8 Mile isn't Eminem, it is director Curtis Hanson. Best known for being an actor’s director, Hanson has never been short on intelligent word play and he isn't in 8 Mile. What is lacking is style. Hanson's Detroit is a depressed bombed out city that looks more at home in the former Czechoslovakia than Michigan. Yes, economic hardship has taken its toll on the city over the years but Hanson's vision of Detroit is at times so bleak that it's distracting. We see that Rabbit has a lot to overcome with his mother, played by Kim Basinger, an ex-girlfriend and soon to be mother of his child played by Bridget Moynihan, and with his would-be career in Hip-Hop. Is it necessary that he also overcome his physical surroundings, which seem to swallow him at times in a depressive gray hue. 

The little light there is comes from Rabbit's interaction with his crew, Future, Cheddar Bob (Evan Jones), D.J Iz (De Angelo Wilson) and Sol George (Omar Benson Miller). The easy fun interaction between the friends provide the few light moments 8 Mile provides.

8 Mile isn't a bad film, it's just too conventional at times. It's as if Curtis Hanson simplified his style to make an easier environment for his first time star. The film needs a more risk-taking style and less genre safety. The film plays too straight, it needs maybe some handheld camera style, and more close-ups or deep focus shots. Something different from the point and shoot style of every other film.  I liked 8 Mile, especially the on stage verbal warfare, but there is something wholly unsatisfying about it. I recommend 8 Mile but it's not as good as many of us had hoped.

Movie Review: Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale (2002) 

Directed by Brian De Palma

Written by Brian DePalma

Starring Rebecca Romijn, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyle, Gregg Henry

Release Date November 6th, 2002 

Published November 5th, 2002

Whether you like Brian De Palma or not you have to respect a director who so often presses the boundaries of good taste, decency and filmmaking. So many of De Palma's films are unqualified classics simply for his willingness to push the envelope of filmmaking style and trashy storytelling. Films like Dressed To Kill and Raising Cain are such wildly fantastical slasher pictures that the viewer doesn't know whether to laugh or recoil in horror. Even when De Palma's risk-taking style fails (Snake Eyes), the failure is at least memorable.

Who can't remember that awesome 5-minute tracking shot at the opening of Snake Eyes with De Palma's voyeuristic floating camera following Nicholas Cage through an Atlantic City casino? Pure style. In Femme Fatale the De Palma's trademark stylishness is in place but much like Snake Eyes, it's a memorable failure.

The femme fatale of the title is Laure Ash played by supermodel Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Laure is a professional thief who, with the help of two nameless black guys, plots to steal a million dollars in diamonds. In typical De Palma style the diamond heist is a trashy, exciting plot as the diamonds in question are being worn by a model attending the Cannes Film Festival. In fact, the diamond and gold outfit is basically the only thing the model is wearing. 

This is no trouble for Laure who has already made contact with the model and is planning on seducing the diamonds right off the models body. In a scene only De Palma could write, Stamos seduces the woman and has sex with her in a bathroom stall, and then uses the model to help her double cross her collaborators and walk out with the diamonds herself. The less I tell you about the diamond plot the better.

From there Laure has to get out of the country before her partners find her which leads her into a mistaken identity plot where she is confused for a grieving widow and taken in by the girl’s parents. While in the care of her pseudo parents she happens across a plane ticket and passport belonging to her lookalike. Boarding the plane with her new identity, she meets an American businessman played by veteran character guy Peter Coyote.

Cut to seven years later, Laure has married Coyote whose character is returning to Paris as the new American Ambassador. As Laure attempts to fly under the radar to avoid her past, her low profile attracts the attention of the French tabloids. One of the papers hire a paparazzi photographer played by Antonio Banderas to capture a photo of the new Ambassador's wife. He of course gets the photo, which is not surprisingly seen by her former partners. This sets off a chain of events that have Laure posing as an abused wife to lure Antonio into a plot she has designed to bilk her husband out of ten million dollars. Whatever happened to the diamonds is anyone's guess.

It’s not surprising that Stamos is the film’s biggest problem. As an actress, Stamos makes for sensational eye candy but she is completely overmatched as an actress. That is likely the reason why though she is the lead she has far less dialogue than her co-stars. She is never once believable as the badass manipulator that the character is supposed to be and she never projects the intellect a character like this would need to make it as far as she does.

De Palma is in rare form with his trashy take on classic Hitchcock. There is De Palma's legendary use of tracking shots and his unique use of amazing French architecture. The colors that saturated the France of Amelie are dimmed by rain covered streets in Femme Fatale but are nearly as vivid. De Palma is in love with his camera, floating it everywhere and using extensive close-ups to raise the tension of the film. If Stamos' performance weren't so chuckle-inducing, Femme Fatale could have been a style-over-substance cult classic. As it is, Femme Fatale is a missed opportunity for the director who lives for every opportunity, successful or otherwise.

Movie Review: The Truth About Charlie

The Truth About Charlie (2002) 

Directed by Jonathan Demme

Written by Jonathan Demme

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins, Ted Levine

Release Date October 25th, 2002 

Published October 24th, 2002 

There are many signs of a troubled production. Media rumors of on set strife. Inflated egos inflating budgets. And the ever present internet reviews of scripts and rough cuts, either intentionally leaked or stolen. Maybe the most quiet but telling portent of trouble is the shift of release dates. In most cases once completed a film is immediately put on the schedule. However if the studio releasing the film see’s something they don’t like, they delay the release and do what they can to hide and fix the problems.

Such was the case with The Truth About Charlie. A search of Upcomingmovies.com reveals a number of release dates and that the film was completed over a year ago. What is unclear after viewing the film is what was so bad about it that the studio so unceremoniously dumped it into release with so little fan fare. It’s not that bad.

Charlie stars Thandie Newton as a newlywed of three months who returns from a vacation, taken without her new hubby, to find her apartment and bank accounts empty. Her character, Regina, is informed that her husband Charlie has been killed while on a train ride to, well, no one is quite sure where he was going. Regina had thought Charlie was an art dealer but after the cops show her a number of different passports all belonging to the man she assumed was just her husband she is forced to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew. 

In the meantime she finds herself pursued by people from Charlie’s past who are searching for 6 million dollars Charlie stole from them. Regina, however, has no idea where it is. Throw into the mix an American named Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg) who just keeps popping up whenever she’s in trouble. Also throw in an American spy played by Tim Robbins as yet another character with questionable motives.

Based on the 1963 Grant-Hepburn movie Charade, The Truth About Charlie is a classic superfluous spy movie. A love story adventure where characters change sides at a moments notice and motivations change just as quick. Director Jonathan Demme’s sure-handed direction steadies what could have been a confusing and tiresome story. The film clicks along at a quick pace knowing that if it slows down too much, it’s paper thin story will unravel.

The only problem I could sense about the film is Mark Wahlberg as Joshua. Wahlberg seems to be sleepwalking through the role and never generates any palpable chemistry with co-star Thandie Newton. Newton on the other hand is sensational. Though Wahlberg gets top billing for box office purposes, this is clearly Newton’s movie. Give her a co-star who could project the charm and danger projected by Cary Grant in the original version and you might have quite a good film.

In the end unfortunately,`1 The Truth About Charlie is a thin but watchable Saturday night rental. The kind of film you can watch and immediately forget. See it for Newton who get’s more beautiful everytime she’s onscreen.

Movie Review Jackass The Movie

Jackass The Movie (2002) 

Directed by Jeff Tremaine

Written by Documentary 

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Ryan Dunn, Bam Margera

Release Date October 25th, 2002 

Published October 24th, 2002 

Whether you like it or whether you don’t, MTV’s Jackass is a huge hit. The offensively stupid TV show, and now feature film, have tapped an audience of retarded teenage boys who think lighting farts is the height of comedy. Comedy for those who think Pauly Shore compares favorably with Charlie Chaplin. Yet there is something that even a wannabe intellectual like myself can find entertaining. The fact that these brain dead morons in the audience will immediately run home and try stunts of their own and get severely injured is very entertaining to me. My hope is that they will suffer serious groin injuries so as to prevent their ever procreating.

Johnny Knoxville and his band of stunt monkeys have no real format for the feature film jackass, it’s merely an uncensored version of stunts they performed on the TV show. Stunts they couldn’t do on TV like, shooting fireworks out of their butts or tearing the pants off a fat guy without having to put a black box over the result. Oh and I doubt MTV would allow them to show one of the crew shoving a matchbox car up his rectum and then going for X-rays. It’s actually kind of funny to see the doctor's reaction to the X-ray but having to watch the insertion of the car is a little too much.

Do not be mistaken, someone will die attempting to do a Jackass stunt. But I urge you not to blame the movie. It is not the fault of this film if some idiot teenager tries some stupid stunt and kills himself, that is merely natural selection at work. In fact it should be pointed out that many of the stunts, save for the fireworks, are rather cost prohibitive to any not bankrolled by Paramount Pictures.

Lawsuits from parents upset about the film's influence over its audience are being written even before their children pull the stunts. Reactionary elements of our society such as the Parents Television Council are ready to pounce the second they perceive a Jackass related injury. Indeed the censorship arm of this country is swooping over this film like vultures waiting for the first teenager to die so they can claim their moral superiority and try to eliminate this film and anything else they deem to be dangerous and or offensive.

And that is why I highly recommend jackass: the movie, simply to piss off the PTC and their ilk. See this film as a symbolic way of telling the censors of this country to go f#*@ themselves.

I had to laugh as I awaited my showing of the film, as a woman complained that her son was going to see this film. As the manager explained to her that all precautions are being taken to prevent anyone underage from seeing the film, the woman explained that those precautions would not keep her 18 year old son from seeing the film and attempting the stunts and getting hurt. The apoplectic manager did the only thing a rational person could do at this point, handing the woman a complaint card that he would gladly send to corporate headquarters. I think that exchange is probably funnier than anything I saw in the movie, but that a movie could inspire such a conversation is exactly why I like and recommend jackass.

Movie Review Frida

Frida (2002) 

Directed by Julie Taymor

Written by Clancy Sigal, Gregory Nava

Starring Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush, Valeria Golino, Mia Maestro, Antonio Banderas

Release Date October 25th, 2002

Published November 2nd, 2002 

Less than two years ago, there were three Frida Kahlo film projects competing to get to the screen first. One of the films was to star Jennifer Lopez and, according to rumors, made it as far as costume and makeup tests. Another was to star Madonna and was rumored to have made it as far as location scouting. The one that finally was made stars Salma Hayek, is directed by Julie Taymor, and will go down as THE definitive telling of this brilliant artist's profound life.

In 1922 Mexico City, schoolgirl Frida Kahlo is joined with some male school friends in spying on visiting artist Diego Rivera as he paints a nude model in the school auditorium. It is the first time Rivera and Kahlo meet but certainly not the last. Before these two amazing artists finally come together, fate intervenes by way of a bus accident that almost kills Frida, but instead leaves her nearly crippled. After a year of painful operations, treatments, and endless days in bed, Frida is finally well enough to walk again and is ready to seek out Rivera to show him her art.

While she is desperate for Rivera's opinion, she cannot necessarily trust his positive assessment based on his well-known appetite for sleeping with beautiful young artists. Nevertheless, Rivera's honest love of her work begins a relationship that, though troubled, will last a long time.

Rivera, as played by a nearly unrecognizable Alfred Molina, is a proud Communist, politician and artist. Rivera is a passionate, talented artist with appetites as big as his talents are and Frida matches him all the way. However, no matter how much they respect and love each other Diego can't keep from cheating and, out of necessity for revenge, neither can Frida. Salma Hayek's performance is remarkable. Vibrant and intelligent she captures the essence of not only the legend of Kahlo but also her art. Hayek communicates from deep within herself from where the art that ended up on the canvas came. During the many years she was bedridden by her injuries, Kahlo lived inside her head, and her wild imagination, combined with her spirited life with Rivera, are what fueled her amazing works of art.

Director Julie Taymor (Titus) makes an awesome statement with this film, showing herself to be an artist to watch. Taymor--the renowned Broadway director--proves that she is also a film director we will be talking about for years to come. What is so astounding is that she takes a simple biopic and brings it to life with a wild imagination that Kahlo herself would have appreciated. The hardest part of making a film about an artist is how to show the work of art in progress. 

In Frida, Taymor chooses to go inside Kahlo's mind and allow the audience to see the painting as the artist imagined it. Through the use of some astonishing animation, the makeup and effects come to life and then melt on the canvas before our eyes. This is a truly imaginative and lovely idea, worked to near perfection.

I have always had a major pet peeve about films made in Mexico, which is that is that for some reason they always lack color. For the most part any film of Mexican or Spanish heritage seems to be washed out in a brown hue that makes everything look like it is covered in dirt. This film does not do that. Instead, it takes advantage of color, painting the screen with gorgeous color from the architecture to the costumes and, of course, to the paintings.

The film is not perfect. For one thing, I was disappointed that it was done in English instead of Spanish, a decision that seemingly was made entirely based on box office. For the purpose of artistic integrity, a film that centers around Mexican artists should be done in Spanish. It seems that Miramax, the film's producers and distributors, did not trust the audience to be intelligent enough to appreciate a film with subtitles, and accordingly, we get a film shot in Mexico City with street signs in the native language where the characters speak English.

That minor complaint aside, Frida is a remarkable film; truly beautiful and magnificent. Frida Kahlo's life was one that was well lived and well portrayed by Salma Hayek who deserves an Oscar nomination. Frida is one of the best films of 2002.

Movie Review The Grey Zone

The Grey Zone (2002) 

Directed by Tim Blake Nelson

Written by Tim Blake Nelson

Starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, Natasha Lyonne 

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 15th, 2002 

It's amazing, the amount of stories there are left to tell about World War 2. So many perspectives: Survivors, saviors, agressors and evildoers, each with their own story to tell.

No stories are as poignant as those of the survivors of the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List went inside the worst of the German concentration camps and now Tim Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone takes the point of view of a German camp in Poland. Although The Grey Zone isn't the masterpiece that Schindler's List was, it is a moving and shockingly visceral film experience.

Of the many untold stories of the Holocaust one of the most heartbreaking is that of Jewish people who, to prolong their own lives, worked for the German soldiers preparing other Jews to die in the gas chamber. The Grey Zone takes us inside one of these groups called Sonderkommandos, considered by the German army to be among the most coldly efficient. However no matter how well they do their job fooling other jews into thinking they are just taking a mass shower and not being gassed to death, the members of this group are aware that no one in their position has ever lasted longer than four months and time is nearly up.

Amongst this group of self preservationists are a group of familiar faces including David Arrquette and Daniel Benzali. Working with them from another camp is an industrious Polish Jew played by Steve Buscemi who trades strategic information with this group as they plan an uprising. Another subplot involves a group of women including Mira Sorvino and Natasha Lyonne, working in a German munitions plant and stealing gun powder to use as part of the uprising.

The film seems to be a shocking story of the planning of an uprise while doing anything to survive, but it takes a far more human turn when a young girl survives the gas chamber and the Sonderkommandos risk the uprising to save her.

The film is based on a book by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli called Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eye Witness Account. Dr. Nyiszli, a Jewish doctor who stayed alive by agreeing to work with the evil Dr. Josef Mengele performing horrific experiments on jewish children. Dr. Nyiszli was at Auschwitz and was under the direct supervision of a commander named Muhsfeldt (Harvey Keitel). Muhsfeldt attempted to use the doctor to spy on the Sonderkommandos, whom he suspects of plotting something, though he isn't certain what. The doctor doesn't agree to spy, but offers by Muhsfeldt to save his wife and daughter may have led him to give more information than he may have wanted.

The Grey Zone offers no judgement of the Sonderkommandos and indeed it is difficult to take them to task for what they did. I would venture to say that the results of their treachery were punishment enough. They did what they could to survive and the uprising they planned and executed, blowing up a pair of German crematoriums, saved lives. These men and woman weren't saints but they were human, far more human than their captors, no matter what they were responsible for.

Director Tim Blake Nelson makes it two excellent films in a row. His sophomore turn behind the camera, the slickly-produced modern take on Shakespeare's Othello called "O", was a poetic and strikingly sad movie. It is however not nearly as sad or hard hitting as The Grey Zone, which is as gritty and frightening as it is sad. Even an actor of David Arquette's calibur can't ruin this powerful and emotional film.

Movie Review: Auto Focus

Auto Focus (2002) 

Directed by Paul Schrader

Written by Michael Gerbosi 

Starring Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Maria Bello

Release Date October 18th, 2002 

Published October 19th, 2002 

As this website's self-proclaimed Oscar expert, I had proclaimed the Oscar race on when Red Dragon was released. However with that film's mixed critical response and quickly slowing box office, it's award chances evaporated quickly. Now, after seeing Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe's stunning performances in Auto Focus, I can once again start talking about Oscar.

Directed by Martin Scorsese's guy Paul Schrader, Auto Focus tells the story of the rise and fall of Bob Crane. For the unfamiliar, Crane was the star of the 60's sitcom "Hogan's Heroes." Crane got his start in radio hosting the number 1 morning show in LA when he was offered "Hogan's Heroes." He almost turned the role of Colonel Hogan down because of the show's controversial setting. However. after his wife Anne (Rita Wilson) read the script and told him she thought it was funny he took the role.

"Hogan's Heroes" was an immediate success, both a blessing and a curse for Bob and his family. Success means more money and security but it also means long days and less time for the family. It was during his run as Hogan that Bob Crane met the man who would change the course of his life. John Carpenter (not to be confused with the director of the same name), an engineer with the Sony corporation. One day as he was on set installing high end audio equipment in the trailer of Crane's co-star Richard Dawson, Crane and Carpenter struck up a conversation about their mutual love of photography and a new technology that Carpenter was peddling called the personal video camera. 

Spending time with Carpenter visiting strip clubs, where he actually preferred playing drums with the house band to watching the girls strip, Crane first began to stray from his seemingly normal life. At Carpenter's urging, Crane began using his celebrity to pick up women for the two of them, luring them to Carpenter's apartment where he videotaped them having sex, a practice that became a pattern and then an obsession.

The strange pseudo-friendship of Carpenter and Crane is the seed of the film, it's drama comes from the weird uncomfortable interaction between these two odd, lonely men. I say pseudo-friendship, because Carpenter as portrayed in the film isn't so much Crane's friend as he is a hanger on, a yes man. It was Carpenter who helped Crane to justify his self destructive behavior. Not that Carpenter was to blame for Crane destroying his two marriages or his twisted obsession's with videotaping his sexual exploits, rather, Carpenter was the devil on Crane's shoulder whispering in his ear telling him he was normal and healthy and there was nothing wrong with what they were doing. Carpenter was the classic enabler.

Greg Kinnear has certainly left "Talk Soup" in the rearview mirror and Auto Focus is very likely to bring him his second Oscar nomination, the first was for his supporting turn As Good As It Gets. Willem Dafoe as Carpenter is also likely to have a shot at Oscar gold. So far this year I have yet to have seen a more effective supporting performance.

Bob Crane Jr. consulted on Auto Focus, helping Director Paul Schrader and Kinnear understand his father's mannerisms and consulting with screenwriter Michael Gerbosi on events in his Dad's life. One thing Bob Crane Jr, or anyone for that matter, couldn't consult on was who killed his father. Though all available evidence points to Carpenter, who died in 1999, the police in Scottsdale, Arizona (where Crane was killed while sleeping in his hotel after a dinner theater performance) botched the case so badly that by the time Carpenter was finally investigated in 1997, evidence had been lost and prosecutors were forced to drop the case against him.

Bob Crane was one of those guys who had it all, charisma, wit, and looks. Unfortunately he lacked a moral center and his addiction to sex overcame him and likely lead to his death. Whether or not it was Carpenter who killed him remains an open question, the film does seem to posit the theory that he was the killer, though there is conjecture about the husband of one Crane's many conquests taking revenge on him. Whatever happened I guess it's fitting that the man's death should be as enigmatic as the man himself.