Redacted

Director: Brian De Palma
Writer: Brian De Palma
Released: 2007
Cast: Izzy Diaz, Rob Devaney, Daniel Stewart Sherman, Patrick Carroll, Kel O'Neill

STEVE says: More than one reviewer has called Redacted a return to form for De Palma. And that's funny, 'cause I didn't see any Hitchcock ripoffs in it at all.

It's just another in a seemingly endless stream of movies presented as documentaries or lost footage or home movies (and let me be the one to say it: That gimmick has run its course), and it didn't need to be. It switches back and forth between a young soldier's chronicle of the war on his camcorder, and a French documentary about the troops, for no particular reason, apart from allowing us access with the French that the soldier wouldn't have. But even this conceit doesn't work in the scene where documentary footage is shot from inside a car that the crew do not have access to - and we know this because exterior shots of the car show no crew in the back seat. Sloppy, Brian. Real sloppy.

Some day someone's going to make a good movie about this war. Redacted isn't that movie.

1.5/5

Birthday Boy

Director: Sejong Park
Writer: Sejong Park
Release: 2004
Cast: Joshua Ahn

Southern Comfort

Director: Walter Hill
Writers: Michael Kan, Walter Hill, David Giler
Released: 1981
Cast: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, TK Carter, Lewis Smith, Les Lannom, Peter Coyote

NIKKI says: And again I am horrified at the thought there are movies like this out there, in existence for more than 20 years, that I have overlooked, passed by, or not ever even heard of.

I wasn't hugely into this one. I was intrigued by the story -- National Guardsmen head onto a remote bayou for a training exercise and end up hunted by locals -- but something made me think it would be more like a River Kwai-type story than this crazy haunted-woods scenario. And then as it began, I was less than impressed with Peter Coyote assuming the commander role and yelling at his charges. All the standard war-movie stuff came out -- the ball-busters versus the rulebook followers, cheeky gun-toters versus straight soldiers. Here we go, I thought...

And then Peter Coyote gets shot in the head! And it all begins, and it's just sensational. It's tense, realistic, suspenseful, and while those characetrs are all rather standard, they're not exactly cookie-cutter and each was believable and sympathetic in his own way.

I really enjoyed the subtle horrors in this one, the cat-and-mouse goings on, and the film's structure, with tension building and building then exploding at the end. It was just a well made film, with some amazing performances. I haven't been that into Keith Carradine for ages. And Powers Boothe wasn't even really a bad guy, but just had me frightened all the way through. This powder-keg thing he had going on...

Anyway, loved it. Want more like it.

4/5

STEVE says: Never having been the biggest Walter Hill fan, I didn't expect much from this one. The tagline, "Not since Deliverance..." promised nothing much more than a rip-off of another movie I really wasn't the biggest fan of in the first place.

Well. Once again I walk away red-faced. And it wasn't just a matter of exceeding my low expectations, either. Southern Comfort was good. Better even than I remember Deliverance being, but now I want to go back and have another look at that one.

And while I'm at it, maybe I'm wrong about The Warriors, too.

Nah.

"Caaaaan Yooouuu Diiiiig Iiiiit?"

4/5

Dead of Night, dir. Bob Clark (1974)

STEVE says: Oh. My. GOD!

I only found out this movie existed a couple weeks ago, and I am stunned - stunned! - that it's not more well-known because it is one of the best Zombie movies I've ever seen.

Before he gave us the Porky's series, Bob Clark was a hell of a horror filmmaker. I'd seen Black Christmas and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, and - though vastly different in theme and tone - thought they were both great. But neither of these even hints at how good Clark was, or could have been had he continued with horror instead of going for teen exploitation.

Dead of Night sees Andy killed in Vietnam in the opening scene. Back at home, his family receives the news but his mother is unwilling to accept it. So much so that she literally wills Andy back to life. When he returns home, however, he's withdrawn and antisocial, spending most of his time in his room, on a rocking chair, staring out the window. It's on the list of Creepiest Things I've Ever Seen. Instead of eating flesh like Romero's Zombies, Andy needs injections of blood to keep him from rotting - which might make you want to call it a vampire movie, but since Andy's not affected by daylight or crosses or garlic - at least it's never brought up - vampirism can be ruled safely out. Besides, who would equate the trauma of the Vietnam war to vampirism? Doesn't work. Zombism, now that's something else. Andy has been to hell and back in a very literal sense, and his family don't know how to deal with him. That's how I like my metaphor served, my friends.

4/5

Conspiracy, dir. Adam Marcus (2008)

NIKKI says:
It's been so long since we've watched a Val Kilmer movie. When I saw this cover, it was the last thing I expected to see him in -- the big gun, the fire in the background. That cover looks more like a Van Damme pic, or, at the very least, Vin Diesel.

But covers can be deceiving. This is not a shoot 'em up, but the story of a decorated veteran searching for his friend. It has its share of violence and blood, but it's really about a man solving a mystery, forging on through the barriers in New Lago that want him out of town and far away from the secrets of the small imitation-Western town.

Val, really, made the film enjoyable. Were Vin Diesel or Van Damme in the lead, it may not have been so successful, because apart from the humanness of the main character, little about the film was truly memorable. The bad guys were just too over the top, and the fact that the town was decked out to look like the OK Corral added a heavy-handedness to the whole thing about good and evil and right and wrong and black coats and white coats. That aspect of it bordered on the absurd, and I don't think that's what the movie was going for.

"This cowboy hat is all the protection a man should ever need," says Gary Cole as he walks onto a construction site. Right.

Cole and his cronies were way over the top, too. Just beating Val senseless whenever they could. I don't know of anywhere in the world where the authorities have that sort of power, or bloodlust, even. It could have been authentic, but here we had battles in public, Cole never once trying to hide his disdain for Kilmer, and then they shoot him (or do they?) and you think: Who in this town is NOT going know who did that?

So, the movie had its issues. But it was interesting enough, and Val was good to watch as the stealthy vet with one leg who gets his own back at every turn. The ultimate message? War is bad? America is run by evil megalomaniacs who will go to outrageous lengths to ensure their wells of cash keep flowing? Tell us something we don't know.

2.5/5

STEVE says:
Nikki is spot-on when she compares this to a Van Damme flick. It had the same kind of over-the-top violence and leftist agenda that his films tend to have. Throw Val Kilmer into the mix, and I can't help thinking that maybe this movie knew it was going down that road and might have been something of a satire. But probably not, huh?

Y'know what else it reminded me of? An episode of The Incredible Hulk. Not any specific episode, just Hulk in general. That show (most shows that follow the Les Miserables template, actually) followed the same basic premise for most of it's five-year run: David Banner stumbles into a new town in search of a cure, befriends a waitress, ends up on the wrong side of the law, generally overseen by a corrupt sheriff who happens to be the waitress' abusive father, brother or husband, and Hulks out halfway through, only to get bested by the sheriff and his men, run away, recover, and come back to Hulk out again in the end, saving the waitress and kicking the sheriff's ass.

Conspiracy followed that formula to a T. It was uncanny, really. Kilmer stumbles into New Lago in search of his friend, befriends a shop owner, ends up on the wrong side of the law, overseen by a corrupt businessman who happens to be the shop owner's abusive boyfriend, and Hulks out halfway through, only to get bested by the businessman and his men, run away, recover, and come back to Hulk out again in the end, saving the shop owner and kicking the businessman's ass.

This is so cool - these things write themselves! Check it out:

Van Damme stumbles into town in search of some loot, befriends Rosanna Arquette, ends up on the wrong side of the law, overseen by a corrupt sheriff who happens to be Rosanna Arquette's sometime lover, and Hulks out halfway through, only to get bested by the sheriff and his men, run away, recover, and come back to Hulk out again in the end, saving Rosanna Arquette and kicking the sheriff's ass.

It's like Mad-Libs! Try it at home, it's fun!

2.5/5

Outpost, dir. Steve Barker (2007)

NIKKI says: We only got because it was rumoured to contain zombies. The Australian DVD cover art makes it look like a war film, so I'd love to know what renters are thinking when the Nazi soldiers start coming back to life...

We weren't expecting too much, so were pleasantly surprised when it turned into a suspenseful, really scary movie. The pacing, the imagery, every beat right on target -- this was a classy experience.

A group of mercenaries head into a war-torn area of Eastern Europe to investigate a long-forgotten WWII bunker. In it, they find well-preserved bodies stacked knee-high, one of which is still breathing. The "breather" is catatonic and doesn't appear to need urgent medical attention, so they take turns watching him while they go about their investigating. The guy sits there, with his head on his chest for much of the film, and is pretty much the scariest thing I've seen since the natives in Welcome to the Jungle.

So, eventually the mercenaries discover that this is a Nazi bunker where SS bigwigs experimented with troops to create unstoppable killing machines -- soldiers who couldn't die. Not all went as the Nazis planned, it now appears -- they may just still be out there. The mercenaries, then, must come up with a way to stop the undead Nazi soldiers in order to escape the bunker.

The breather ends up playing a much more important role here and becomes pretty much the most horrendously scary horror hero you're ever likely to see. Never speaks a word, either.
The rest of the zombies are evil, too, and do some pretty awful things to complete their mission.

I loved this one. Just a freaky, scary good time.

3.5/5

STEVE says: I'll say it now and stand by it in the future: There's nothing cooler than Nazi Zombies.

It's a sub-genre that's not often visited - and hasn't been, in any significant way, since Ken Weiderhorn's Shockwaves in 1977, so the mere existence of Outpost came as something of a surprise. That it was actually good was a bonus. Using Einstein's Unified Field Theory to bring Nazi soldiers back to life as unstoppable Zombie killing machines was a stroke of pure genius, making Outpost a high-water mark for the Nazi Zombie ouvre.

This one's definitely going in our collection.

3.5/5

Charlie Wilson's War, dir. Mike Nichols (2007)

NIKKI says:
Perhaps it's Aaron Sorkin's position in life to make complicated political language accessible to everyone? I thought this movie, based around Charlie Wilson's winning financial aid to assist Afghanistan in beating the invading Russians would go right over my head.

Instead, thanks to Sorkin's excellent technique of having characters talk politics as though they were discussing what's for lunch meant that few beats were missed on my side of the couch, and I managed to stay on top of events right the way through.

I'm glad, too, because this was a genuinely engaging piece of history. This and Under Fire have taught me more about politics in the early 1980s than any class at school. We see so many films and shows on the big wars -- Korean, Vietnam, even the Gulf. But we see so little about these other countries that struggle or have struggled to live freely.

Charlie Wilson's part in the Afghanistan/Russia issue was primarily to raise large amounts of cash to arm the Afghanis against the Russian attacks. He was inspired after seeing the poor manner in which the Afghanis were living in refugee camps and makeshift desert hospitals. It was something to see, this man used to strippers and wine and the best suites and cars suddenly in the middle of this poor country, talking to children without limbs, and families battling to stay alive.

Wilson remains stoic throughout his money-raising campaign, and uses his personality and gift of the gab to talk his way into getting what he wants -- something he never questions he'll be able to do. Tom Hanks is just excellent here. I'm going to have no trouble recommending this when it comes out on DVD here in a few months. Just a great drama, that sits, for me, alongside Lions for Lambs as the year's must-watch political films.

4/5

STEVE says:
The poster for this one did nothing for me. Not the biggest Hanks fan, ditto Julia Roberts. Philip Seymour Hoffman was interesting when only myself and four of my friends knew who he was, ("This is our concern, Dude") but now that he's Oscar-Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, the shine is off. Bringing all three of them together for a movie called "Charlie Wilson's War" did nothing to raise my interest.

The I saw that it was a Mike Nichols film.

Hello...?

Written by Aaron Sorkin.

Hmm.

Okay, now you've got me interested.

I'm not one to pass up a Nichols film. He's right up there with Coppola, Scorsese and Woody Allen as one of the all-time American greats. And Sorkin... It took me a while to reconcile my mixed feelings for A Few Good Men (Brilliant Movie vs. Tom Cruise Sucks), but I eventually came to appreciate it based on the Whole instead of the Parts, and I believe that The West Wing will go down in history as one of the greatest shows ever to grace the airwaves.

Suddenly Charlie Wilson's War had a lot to live up to.

And it did. I enjoyed seeing Hanks play someone counter to his normal "nice guy" image, and was silently pleased when he used the word "fuck". Hoffman was typically Hoffman, but that's not a bad thing. And Sorkin's script and Nichols' direction kept me interested and wanting more all the way through.

And Julia Roberts... well, anyone could have played that part, to be honest, but I didn't roll my eyes every time she showed up, so that's gotta count for something.

3.5/5

A Mighty Heart, dir. Michael Winterbottom (2007)

NIKKI says:
I knew little about Daniel Pearl and his wife before this film. Their story is tragic, and the events leading to the eventual revelation that Daniel had been murdered by a Pakistani terrorist group are truly harrowing.

I have a measure of understanding as far as Mariane Pearl's desire not to feel "terrorized" following the event, but I don't know if I'd have that kind of strength.

The film is really a recreation of FBI and Pakistani police pursuits, looking for Pearl's kidnappers, and looking to free him. This is suspenseful even though the outcome is well-known. It's horrifying to watch these men as their hopes build and fall at various moments throughout their search. And when Pearl's fate is revealed, it's testament to this film's storytelling that we are shocked, and that we do relive the insurmountable pain with Mariane.

So, it is harrowing, but it's a fascinating story of Westerners caught in this strange, "other" world of extremist violence.

3/5

STEVE says:
I'd like to take a moment and speak to everyone who ever employed the hand held camera technique: Stop It, Please.

I know the idea is to make it fell gritty and real, like You Are There, but unless you're making a documentary, most of the time your editing lets you down because, hey, real life does not cut to a close-up. It's distracting. Granted, it's worse in mockumentaries - like in The Office, when the scene continuously cuts back and forth over the shoulders of two people without ever revealing either cameraman. And how many cameras do you need to shoot a scene in a 6x8 office, anyway?

A Mighty Heart was an excellent movie, and I was glad it focused more on the investigation into Daniel Pearl's disappearance than the aftermath. But there were times that the hand held "documentary" feel would pull me out of the movie and back to reality. And that's not something you want to happen with such an engrossing story.

3.5/5

In the Valley of Elah, dir. Paul Haggis (2007)

NIKKI says:
Thanks God for Paul Haggis. Without him, we might not know racism is bad, or that war severely fucks with people. In his latest opus, Haggis blinds the viewer with stellar photography, rich performances, and the odd prophetic statement so that you just might not see that what he says with In the Valley of Elah is not as elegant and grand as you might first think.

It's the day after our viewing, and I'm finding myself offended by this film more than simply disappointed in it. It makes me think of Courage Under Fire and Platoon and other films that try hard to genuinely let us see the destruction of the psyche caused by wartime experiences. Instead, Haggis gives us posturing. Tommy Lee Jones has experienced war, you see, and so he's an authority, and a super detective. Everyone else is just lame or corrupt. But it takes the horrible death of his horrible son to make Tommy Lee see that perhaps America is in a time of crisis and so he turns that flag upside down, but, man, if he's served his country enough to chastise others in a "what do you know, you've never been to war"-type fashion, then surely atrocity has stared him in the face before? Why only now is he worried for his country?

This same stuff ruined Crash. Sandra Bullock has a go about the Hispanic man changing her locks, she freaks out when she passes a couple of black guys in the street, like people of different races are aliens or something. And boy will they get their comeuppance and be forced to see the light. Would you save a black girl from a burning car? What?!

Haggis just overstates his points so much. War is bad, war is deadly, was is evil, mistakes happen in war, kids get corrupted by war, people die in war, people are mean when put in evil situations. Shut up already and tell me something I don't know.

I think this movie went down hill for me when Charlize was getting taunted mid-interview by her fellow officers. That just wouldn't happen, and you just knew it was there to set up the horrors that happen later on to the interviewee at the hands of a war vet. Ready? Write this down: War fucks with people. I already saw Lawrence blow himself away in Full Metal Jacket -- again, tell me something new.

What's next for Paul Haggis? One for the ladies? Let me guess? It'll be called Rape, or In the Garden with a Naked Eve, and it'll be about slutty chicks with high IQs, that get raped and tortured just to show us that women can be sexual creatures without being called sluts. One will work at McDonalds, the other at Price Waterhouse, and the McDonalds chick will be raped by a minister or something equally ham-fisted.

Anyway...

2/5

Atonement, dir. Joe Wright (2007)

NIKKI says:
I wasn't sure what to expect with this movie as I had such a terrible time with the book a few years ago. My problem, from memory, had much to do with Ian McEwan's style, which I found quite dry and emotionless. I was also disappointed by the sort-of twist ending, something I feel has been done to death -- this happened, no wait, it was really this! -- and, therefore, felt more like an easy way out than an authentic conclusion, no matter how unquestionably sad the "real" ending is.

The movie was better. I was less bored, by any rate. Still, something didn't quite pull together for me. The story is compelling, and critics are right when they talk about how well it unfolds. But, we know the truth from the ery beginning, so it's not suspenseful, it's not a mystery, it's simply a waiting game to see the extent of the pain inflicted on these characters by one's misunderstanding of young romance between opposing classes.

That Briony takes so many years to realise her error and confront it is slightly unrealistic to me. She might be fanciful, but she's still human, and I would think she'd take steps to right her wrongs long before she eventually does. I also think, as with the book, the ending could have been different. I think the conclusion could have taken place in "real" time, with Briony at 18, rather than 70-odd. It could have been done.

Still, a good film, with some issues.

3/5

STEVE says:
Ricky Gervais is doing one of those "lateral thinking" puzzles with his friend Karl Pilkington. He says (and I'm paraphrasing, here), "A man walks into a pool of sharks, hungry, man-eating sharks, and comes out the other side, untouched. How?" Karl wracks his brain: "He's wearing armour?" "No." "He's crossing a bridge?" "No, in the pool with the sharks, soaking wet, comes out the other side." When Karl finally gives up, and asks Ricky what the answer is, Ricky's reply is, "I lied, there were no sharks."

That's how I felt about the end of this movie. If you're going to show me your story, and then tell me you just made that last bit up, but all the rest of it was true, couldn't you just leave the last bit out, maybe?

I was with this movie for the first 48 minutes. Intriguing, suspenseful, well-written and directed. But then we move onto the war scene that goes on and on for something like 25 minutes, only to find that the first 20 or so didn't matter so much. Great cinematography aside, when I have time to notice a Steadicam shot that runs for close to five minutes, my mind is clearly not being held by whatever the scene is meant to convey.

I'm giving it a 3/5, but that's mostly for the first 48 minutes and the promise of what could have been.

The Kingdom, dir. Peter Berg (2007)

STEVE says:
Here's why I liked The Kingdom: It didn't pretend to be a serious post 9/11 "issues" movie. I mean, maybe it wanted to be, but if that's the case, it failed miserably. Instead, it was a pretty good thriller with likable characters that kept me interested up to the end credits. No mean feat, let me tell you, 'cos I fuckin' hate Jamie Foxx.

Not hate. I just... I don't know; I don't get the appeal, maybe. He's Denzel-lite. And I don't much care for Denzel, either. But that's another post.

Meanwhile, let me tell you how great Jason Bateman is.

I was all set to not watch The Kingdom. The Jamie Foxx thing, the whole Middle East thing. Let me work it out for you mathematically.

Jamie Foxx + Lots of Shooting = Yawn

And don't even get me started on Jennifer Garner.

But then Nikki told me Bateman was in it... and that he had to improvise all his lines. Now you've got my attention.

Bateman's always been cool in my book, and this was a bit of a departure for him. I mean, when's the last time you saw him in an action movie, right? So that's a plus, but the improv thing... this I had to see. At the same time, I found it to be a huge distraction. Every time he opened his mouth, I was analyzing what he'd said, usually a quip of some kind, instead of listening to how it fit in with the rest of the dialog and the scene in general, and it really drew me out of the movie.

And then I find out it wasn't true.

Not that Bateman didn't improvise his lines: He did. But so did pretty much everyone else. In an interview with About.com, Jennifer Garner talks about improvising; Jamie Foxx sure as hell did some improvising. It's done all the time, playing fast and loose with the script, but here I was under the impression that it was only Bateman, and I was on the lookout for it.

It didn't ruin the movie for me, but it definitely made it a different experience.

3/5

NIKKI says:
I don't really know what to say about this one. I found myself not bored, which I guess is a good thing. I was happy enough with it once it was over, but down the track a bit, I don't think it was really that memorable. I think about a film like Babel, and much as I really didn't like that film, it tended to stay with me more than something like this. Only because, in hindsight, it was a bit like Die Hard Goes to War. Jamie Foxx was very much our hero, and it really was just a matter of time before he saved the day. Of course, no-one wins in war, so his success is questionable, but I do think we were meant to leave this film with something like relief, but it's hard to be satisfied when the war continues.

Like Steve, I really wanted to watch the film for Jason Bateman. But he wasn't all that memorable either. That could have something do with Peter Berg's whippy, CNN-style direction, that was so shaky and stuttery that the camera rarely stayed on an actor longer than half a second for them to really be enjoyable or memorable.

Let me take this opportunity, though, to say just how much Jennifer Garner is growing on me. I thought she was awful in Alias, and carried that into every one of her films I watched, notably Daredevil. But after really liking Catch and Release, enjoying her in Juno, and secretly bawling my head off during 14 Going on 30, (they played "Vienna" -- what was I supposed to do?), I have to admit my first impressions might have been off-track. One more good movie, one more good performance and she'll hit my Love List for sure.

2.5/5.