Blogcritics Author: James Frazier

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Letters from Iwo Jima

James Frazier — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:34:59 EST

Years ago, I would visit my great-great uncle in Mississippi. He would share dozens of stories about his service as an infantryman in the Philippines during World War II. On one occasion, he went into the bedroom and came back with a box full of photos and war medals. But none of the contents belonged to him; they were the possessions of slain Japanese soldiers that he claimed as war prizes.Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima does what few other American films have done by telling the story exclusively from the point of view of an old enemy, specifically the men my uncle fought over 60 years ago. It’s a companion piece to Eastwood’s excellent Flags of Our Fathers, which covered the 1945 fight for Iwo Jima from the American side. The battle may be the same, but the shift in both screenwriter and perspective makes for two entirely different, yet complementary, viewing experiences. The narrative follows two protagonists, one real and one fictional, throughout the bloody battle for the small, strategically important piece of rock. The dignified General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) leads the Japanese defense of the island, a task with no chance for victory. The Imperial Navy has been all but destroyed, with supplies and reinforcements impossible once the Americans attack. Though defeat is certain, Kuribayashi dutifully sets to fortifying the island, digging an elaborate series of caves and tunnels designed to slay as many Americans as possible.Amongst the soldiers defending the island is Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), a baker with a baby he has never seen back home and zero natural talent for combat. While Kuribayashi watches the battle develop through field glasses and reports, Sagio witnesses the terrifying ordeal from the front.Despite the extraordinary amount of acclaim and awards heaped on Eastwood over the past few years, he is nowhere near a great director, but a skilled, utilitarian one. Consistently, his films are only as good as the material he works with, no better, no worse. The hype surrounding Letters from Iwo Jima reminds me of the fuss over Eastwood’s 2004 Best Picture winner Million Dollar Baby, a solid film that received attention and awards severely disproportionate to what it actually deserved.Letters From Iwo Jima tries very hard to be a relevant war film, with mixed results. The Japanese characters fall into several easy to identify archetypes; the dignified and pragmatic commanders, the dutiful but terrified soldiers, and the wild-eyed, fanatical officers. It’s not that these characters lack interesting features, but by the end of the first half-hour, we’re left with few surprises, even concerning their individual fates.Particularly questionable is a scene where Eastwood and screenwriter Iris Yamashita suggest a degree of moral equivalency between the Japanese and the Americans. Students of World War II must take issue with this, as the Japanese of the time followed an honor code that forbade surrender yet allowed for actions such as raping Chinese women with bayonets. Make no mistake, they were oftentimes the Nazis' equal when it came to cruelty. It is unquestionable that war crimes occurred on the American side, just as they do in any army during virtually any war. But the comparison to the Japanese is irresponsible, utter nonsense.While largely ineffective as an insightful look at human nature, the film has great merit as an historical piece. Despite an unnecessarily hazy chronology (the film makes events that took days or months appear to be much shorter), the look at the inner workings of this strange army is quite fascinating. These men were the product of a culture that attached paramount importance not on life, but on death. In one indelible scene, an entire squad blows themselves to pieces with grenades rather than face defeat. It never seems to occur to most of them that it would be a greater service to their loved ones back home to go out fighting rather than committing suicide, while even mentioning surrender is an executable offense. At other points, junior officers brazenly disobey orders to retreat, launching futile attacks into overwhelming American fire because they don’t see their commanders as aggressive enough. Where the Americans in Flags of Our Fathers were devastated at every life lost, the Japanese in this film are literally ordered to embrace their bloody, vain ends, whether they like it or not.It’s this aspect of the film that earns my slight recommendation. Flags of Our Fathers is the vastly superior piece both as entertainment and as an indictment of how war shreds entire generations to pieces, but Letters from Iwo Jima provides an effective counterpoint to it, the spirit of forced collectivism versus that of individualism. After all, those men in my uncle’s photos had stories, too, and they should be told by someone, however flawed they may be.

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: The Queen

James Frazier — Wed, 6 Dec 2006 05:23:06 EST

"Sleeping in the streets and pulling out their hair for someone they never knew. And they think we're mad!" Prince Philip (James Cromwell) vents to his wife, Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren). Diana, Princess of Wales, has just died in a car wreck, and the British people are reacting as if their leader and messiah had kicked the bucket.But Diana’s death isn’t the subject of The Queen, nor is it primarily about Elizabeth. Instead of a biography, we have a delicate, thoughtful study of the way the world’s most famous royal family has been forced to change by a rapidly "modernizing" world. The family has lived in splendor that makes even a proud capitalist like myself wince, but their lives are far from easy, with a moral responsibility that would crush a god, but must be borne by a mere mortal.Even as we know that the British monarchy doesn’t yield anywhere near the power that a typical Western head of state does, I was surprised to see how in many ways they are at the virtual mercy of their subjects. The demise of Diana shakes the public to its core, but Elizabeth insists on treating the death like it would any other outside of the family; by doing and saying nothing.Cold as it may seem at a glance, Elizabeth is following tradition, a set of rules strictly followed for hundreds of years before she was born. Nonetheless, the public, fueled by the notoriously vicious British press, demands concessions such as putting a flag half-mast over Buckingham Palace and a royal funeral, all for a woman who was no longer part of that family.The Queen devotes time to the governmental aspect of the Diana crisis, with newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) working overtime to tread the thin line between an angry populace and the queen. His advisors lean leftward away from the monarchy, and even his wife (Helen McCroy) stops just short of directly disrespecting Elizabeth, an unthinkable act for her more conservative husband. Blair has no desire to see the monarchy damaged, but finds himself willing to pressure the queen to acquiesce to the national mood.Throughout the film, one question kept popping into mind; how can the British citizens respect the monarchy yet demand it bend to satisfy their desires? Aren’t traditions and reserve two of the qualities that have endeared people to this fabulously privileged family? What worth does the monarchy have if they, like all other politicians in a democracy, have to dance to the tune of every idiot with a TV set?These questions alarm Elizabeth, who contemplates them with a silent horror spelled out in her eyes. The film claims these few days represented the most potent threat to the monarchy in Elizabeth’s lifetime, with 1 in 4 polled Britons advocating the abolition of the institution. Even Blair remarks in amazement that after 45 years of dutifully fulfilling her role as sovereign, opinion turns on her over the death of a woman who was no longer a royal, had embarrassed the family to no end, and that Elizabeth likely despised.The unfamiliar and the disinterested should beware as little to no background information on the family is given, and no attempt to please those who find the subject boring is made. Somewhat perplexing is the near complete lack of focus on the personal grief of Diana’s children, which could have slowed down the pace, but feels conspicuous with its absence. I went with a friend, no intellectual slouch, and he dozed off after about 15 minutes.I, however, found the pace to be brisk and the narrative fascinating. We know that the monarchy doesn’t fall, but director Stephen Frears deftly enables a degree of suspense and curiosity to exist through the excellent performances, particularly Helen Mirren’s, which has already generated significant Oscar buzz. I’m by no stretch an expert on the real Elizabeth, but if this film is indicative of her true character and will, then long live the queen.3.5 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review:The Black Dahlia

James Frazier — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 08:25:34 EDT

If the trailers led you to believe The Black Dahlia is an edgy and bleak mystery, they lied. A murder mystery does casually wonder about the plot in the way a cockroach crawls about a pile of garbage, but the film has a different topic altogether; director Brian De Palma’s massive ego.It would be difficult to pin the blame of this mess on anyone other than De Palma. Like most of his films, an even remotely coherent story takes a back seat to "masterful" tracking shots and his largely derivative sense of style. As the film progresses, I kept thinking about De Palma patting himself on the back and saying to himself, "Wow, Steven and George and Francis are really gonna dig this!"Like the recently released Hollywoodland, the filmmakers make the mistake of placing emphasis on a fictional detective story instead of the featured real-life death. In Hollywoodland, this turned a potential great film into a merely good one. In The Black Dahlia, it leads to a mess as ugly and hard to look at as the mutilated corpse of its central victim.Set in early 1950’s Los Angeles, we follow Officer Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) as he moves listlessly from one crime scene to the next, trying to solve the gruesome torture and murder of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), a would be actress who was so promiscuous they consider the whole U.S. military a suspect. Her murder was real, but it might as well have been imaginary, as the film lacks anything that vaguely resembles insight or purpose.Attempting to describe the plot in greater detail would be an exercise in masochism that I haven’t been up for since my last philosophy course. It would imply it was around for some reason other than to justify its own existence. Elementary film rules such as consistency, structure, pacing, economy of characters, and even 2nd grade logic are ignored or disregarded altogether. Characters zip in and out of sight seemingly at random, conversations about bit players are mumbled so quickly that the screenwriter would have trouble following along. At the end, we get not one but two Deus Ex Machina monologues that might have shed light on things if they had any serious connection to the previous 100 minutes of story.The cast looks way out of their element, modern stars having to slip into the skins of archetypes vastly unsuitable for them. Hartnett resembles the guy who sold me my shoes at the mall more than he does a hard boiled police detective. As Hartnett’s partner, Aaron Eckhart proves the tough guy role isn’t for everyone, and if he is a champion boxer, so am I. Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank manage not to completely embarrass themselves as the love interest, but neither seems to be there for any reason other than they are recognizable. The only cast member who comes out ahead is Kirshner, whose ultra brief scenes made for an awesome trailer (check out her even better role in TV’s 24).De Palma has never been a great filmmaker. He has had some bright spots such as Carrie, Scarface (criminally overrated, pun intended), The Untouchables, and Casualties of War, but has made some serious clunkers, such as Snake Eyes or Femme Fatale. But at least his bad films usually had a few memorable moments and atmosphere, with the camerawork occasionally impressing instead of distracting. Not here; The Black Dahlia is a whole lot of gory nonsense, and easily one of the worst films of the year.0.5 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: Clerks II

James Frazier — Wed, 2 Aug 2006 16:19:46 EDT

"Sometimes I fell like the world has left us behind," says Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), a lifelong conveinence store employee. His suspicions are valid; at 32, Randal and Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) have never made a serious attempt at advancing in society, preferring to jockey a register and bad-mouth customers all day. When a rival from high school who has become a dot-com millionaire enters their work place simply to gloat, something appears to snap.Writer-director Kevin Smith’s Clerks II takes a look at the same slackers we met over a decade ago, when "I’m just taking my time after high school" was an excuse that was already running out of steam. Dante and Randal are now working at a fast food chain after their beloved Qwik Stop store burned down. Dante’s time as a minimum-wage stooge appears to be coming to an end, as his controlling fiancée Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach, coincidentally Smith’s wife) has ordered him from New Jersey to Florida, much to Randal’s horror. The film mostly chronicles Dante’s final day at work, sullenly flipping burgers and serving the occasional customer with Randal. Added to the crew is Elias (Trevor Fehrman), a remarkably awkward teen pervert, and Becky (Rosario Dawson), the gorgeous boss who just happens to be Dante’s true love, amongst other things. And of course, the drug dealing Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) continue to harass the customers and sell drugs, despite being fresh out of rehab themselves.While the original Clerks was a series of interesting conversations hung on a plot that functioned simply as a clothesline, Clerks II places an emphasis on story that may be disappointing to those expecting more of the same. Smith has something to say this time, and he uses his first true sequel as a vehicle for that message. At first he initially appears to be arguing that progress is the natural way of a happy life, but the message turns out to be just the opposite. The way Smith sees it, if Dante and Randal want to spend their lives as slackers doing a monkey’s job, why not?The stance reflects Smith’s own career. After Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he declared his View Askew series finished, and tried to move on with Jersey Girl, which had the box office impact of a roll of wet toilet paper. Clerks II represents not just a return to what Smith knows best, but a defense of that return. That the film was originally titled The Passion of the Clerks, a title that seems very appropriate once you see the film.Gone are the easy-going black and white no-budget sensibilities of the original, in are the much less effective color and the big budget of proven profitability. There exist surprisingly few references to the original, which shows great self-restraint when considering previous View Askewniverse films. That same discipline dries up in other areas, as the film grinds to a halt at times so the characters can ride go-karts and dance to Michael Jackson.Fans of Smith’s typically nihilistic slacker style dialogue will find much to love, though many will notice some subtle differences. Amidst long-winded arguments over Transformers, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, there exists a hostility towards the world that goes further than mere bitterness. Before, his characters may have been angry, even mean-spirited, but here the high level of vitriol often overwhelms the humor. One conversation concerning the illicit use of a donkey reportedly caused Good Morning America critic Joel Siegel to angrily storm out of a critic’s screening. Good thing he didn’t stick around to watch the sequence concerning Dante’s going away party, which gets so repulsive Siegel might have had a heart attack.It’s hard to recommend Clerks II. Previous experience with Smith’s films are virtually a prerequisite for enjoyment. The vulgarity excludes even more viewers, as does the fact that it never approaches Smith’s best work. But the smart-ass remarks and shamelessly geeky fanboy dialogue works for those who would enjoy it. If you have much doubt, the odds that you’ll like it are only slightly higher than the likelihood of Dante and Randal getting real jobs.The film’s two lead characters ultimately earn the film a recommendation. Inevitably, we all know these people. They are the type of guys who shrug off suggestions of education or advancement with a pledge that one day they’ll be millionaires, even though their plans to do so are nonexistent at worst, vague at best. The victory of Dante and Randal comes not through monetary success, but honestly coming to terms with who they are and what they actually enjoy doing, the same of which might could be said for Smith. If only all the real Dantes and Randals of the world could do the same.Rating:

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: Superman Returns

James Frazier — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:34:43 EDT

Superman floating above the earth. Superman saving a falling airliner. Superman gently holding Lois Lane and giving an aerial tour of Metropolis. Superman taking a bullet in the eye and not blinking. Yes, we’ve all seen the trailer. In fact, I just watched a newer version -- all 157 minutes of it. To be less sarcastic, Superman Returns is full of scenes that tingle the imagination and play well in split-second flashes, but have virtually nonexistent consistency between them. If I were to read that the trailer was written first and the screenplay written expressly around it, I wouldn’t be surprised. The film quickly rushes through every sequence, as if director Bryan Singer was afraid that he may not have time to pack in another ad-friendly moment. Superman Returns might be the first film made that could be classified as a big advertisement for itself. Or the sequel.Superman has to be one of the most difficult comic characters to write. With godlike near-invulnerability, he can solve problems that would baffle Batman or Spider-Man in mere seconds. Watching him fight the average villain would be like watching Michael Jordan shoot hoops with a senior citizen. Yet, take away his powers, and he loses what makes him special. See the dilemma?Of course, great Superman stories have been done. Superman II was typically considered the greatest superhero film until Spider-Man 2 swung along, and comics such as Kingdom Come and Superman: Peace on Earth showed a godlike being struggling to do all he could to make the world right. But in Superman Returns, we never see a serious inner conflict, or hardly even a physical one. The film just doles out one falling object after another for Superman to dive in front of.The plot, if you must know: Superman (Brandon Routh) returns to earth after a five year absence in space, where he presumably played some great counting games to avoid madness. He returns to Metropolis as Clark Kent at the same time he rescues that falling airliner, which luckily arouses suspicion in no one, despite his six word alibi. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has been royally pissed at Superman since he took off, understandably so since he sired a child with her before he left (since Superman is an alien, does that make Lois guilty of bestiality?). She wrote a capsule-description friendly article titled ‘Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman’ which won a Pulitzer, no easy task considering her personality has all the flavor of a vegan diet. Superman and Lois have a few blasé discussions that have roughly the same dramatic tension as when I complain that my Netflix have arrived a day late.Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) also throws himself into the super-mix, with an Evil Scheme so stupid that the microwave-acid trip-plot in Batman Begins seems quite reasonable. Luthor got out of prison after a five year sentence, which suggests to me that Saddam should request a trial in the U.S. Luthor acquires a few Kryptonian crystals from Superman’s icy vacation house and decides that he will use them to destroy half of the earth in order to create a new landmass. Sure, billions will be killed, but the survivors will pay him a lot of money for the land, even though jagged shards of black ice are usually unsuitable for trendy nightclubs or food production.Superman doesn’t so much battle Luthor as he meddles in his plans. Most of the film goes by before Superman gets around to Luthor, roughly the amount of time it would take the FBI to snare him. They share perhaps four minutes of screen time, during which Superman walks up to Luthor and allows himself to be stabbed with kyptonite. Did this make sense during any of the numerous production phases of the film? Of all the ways Superman could be exposed to kryptonite, the writers decided that simply allowing his archenemy to hit him with it at point blank range would be the most effective. In Dark Night Returns, arguably the most well thought of comic ever written, Batman defeats Superman by shooting him with a cannon, a kryptonite arrow, and jolting him with the electricity supply of an entire city. If Superman Returns was canonical to the comics, then Batman only needs to begin mouthing off to Superman and keeping that kryptonite arrow in his pocket.There exist precious few action sequences, which are visually spectacular but not very exciting. Superman doesn’t do anything that we haven’t seen during the comic film bonanza of the past few years. The filmmakers mistook the wholesomeness of the character for blandness, and subscribe to the Batman Begins school of lighting, which erroneously believes that dim is a synonym for gritty. Throughout the film, I couldn’t help but recall Spider-Man 2 and United 93, two infinitely better cinematic experiences. Comparing Superman to Spider-Man, Superman can’t match up as an interesting character; while Superman takes me-time in space and tends to look at humanity with a glint that could be condescending, Spider-Man makes tremendous personal sacrifices in order to put his abilities to good use. United 93 tells the true story of the doomed 9/11 flight where ordinary plane passengers fought their hijackers, likely saving a lot of lives in the process. One film is fantastical, the other factual, but mention the word hero to me, and I’d think of either of those films long before I would Superman Returns. Does the world need Superman? My answer is a resounding ‘no’.

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: Rope

James Frazier — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:30:11 EDT

Thousands of films have featured evil and murder as their subjects, but no filmmakers can master the topics the way Alfred Hitchcock could. Where other directors make movies about bogeymen who slash people to ribbons for revenge or bloodlust or money, Hitchcock took delight in portraying evil not as the nightmarish visions of the slasher, but as good-looking young men who could easily blend into the crowd. Real evil more often comes with a friendly smile and a handshake than it does with a knife. Take Brandon Shaw (John Dall), the murderer in Rope. Brandon kills not because of anger or for profit, but for the artistry of it; the thought of killing an inferior being and getting away with it scot-free is too intriguing to pass up. To him, murder isn't just an unparalleled adrenaline rush, but an art form. Minutes after strangling David Kently and hiding the corpse in a large wooden chest in his living room, he has a dinner party where the guests include David's parents and fiancee. Even better, hors d'oeuvres will be served on the temporary grave. His joy and satisfaction are palatable — "The perfect crime," he says to his partner, "with no mistakes". He is wrong. His first mistake was to include Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger), his roommate and homosexual lover, in the plan. Unlike Brandon, Phillip isn't a psychopath, and finds himself instantly smitten with guilt over the crime. Brandon likely foresaw this, but with an ego as big as his, was unable to comprehend performing the perfect crime and then having no one to boast about it with.His second mistake was to invite Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart, perfect as always), their old teacher, to the dinner party. Brandon couldn't resist, as Rupert's discussions about Nietzsche's's superman philosophy provided the moral justification to Brandon that spurred him to commit the murder in the first place. And, while fooling the rest of the dinner guests may be easy, Rupert's constant suspicion and inquisitiveness provide a real challenge, the finishing touch to this masterpiece of crime. Surely even if Rupert discovered the truth, he'd understand, right? The key to understanding the film lies as much within Rupert as it does the murderers. The smarmy intellectual type, Rupert casually endorses legal murder as a privilege of the elite, though Brandon remarks that Rupert could never actually go through with it. How many of us have fantasized about the semantics of pulling off a murder, or casually remarked that while we were deserving of certain privileges, others aren’t? Rupert's reaction to the truth seems to be suggesting that Hitchcock wants us to hold the mirror up to ourselves.The film takes place almost in real time, entirely within Brandon and Phillip's apartment, with a mere nine takes. Hitchcock directs with awe-inspiring confidence and skill, allowing the tension to stretch and push the audience to the edge, before smoothly pulling back for a calm which ensures the next call will be even closer.Unlike most contemporary thrillers, Rope relies on dialogue and a slow, almost torturous burn to generate suspense. The audience already knows the details of the crime, but will the murderers be discovered, and if so, how will everyone react? Rope's plot revolves not around What Will Happen, but What Will Happen Afterwards, in many ways a superior point of view to base the movie around. After all, once big events that occur in our lives are done and over with, we have to live with the consequences, don't we? Hitchcock understands that, but unfortunately for Brandon and Phillip, they don't. My rating: 5 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: Mission Impossible III

James Frazier — Sat, 6 May 2006 03:44:11 EDT

Super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is shackled to a chair. Battered, bruised, and desperate, he looks at his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) seated across from him. Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), their captor, points a gun at Julia's head. "I'm going to count to ten. If you don't tell me where the Rabbit's Foot is, I'm going to kill her," he says. Ethan tries to smooth-talk Davian, who won't hear any of it. Ethan's confidence quickly turns to frantic pleading as Davian's count approaches ten.Mission: Impossible III opens with this taut scene, an unexpected moment of complete vulnerability for the hero. For a minute, I'm hopeful that the film will be a gritty, intense, wildly entertaining blockbuster with a post-modern action hero. What comes next proves to get the 'entertaining' part right, but leaves out everything else.Oh sure, the film has its fair share of violent and spectacular scenes. Ethan's spy team finds itself spinning from a German steam and sparks factory to the Vatican to Langley, never bothering to explain why things are happening where they are, other than that the locations look cool. A threadbare plot exists concerning a super-weapon and an arms dealer, as well as the kind of inter-agency back stabbing that 24 does much better. (Then again, 24 does everything better and is a TV show, so the comparison may not be fair.) Speaking of TV shows, Tom Cruise picked J.J. Abrams, creator of Alias and Lost, to direct Mission: Impossible III. He may be a first-time director, but his skills may be a moot point, as the film clearly belongs to Cruise. I'm reminded of how Stanley Kubrick supposedly referred to himself as hired help for Kirk Douglas when talking about Spartacus. Cruise features in virtually every scene, the camera never forgetting to frame him in macho, heroic close-ups. He looks good, despite age creeping in, though the formula gets tiresome quickly. I'd like to see more of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's gruff, sadistic villain, but unfortunately his screen time doesn't surpass 20 minutes.In Roger Ebert's review, Ebert makes a great case against the MacGuffin used by the film, a super-weapon called the Rabbit's Foot that never receives an explanation. I take a different point of view; the film's Macguffin isn't the Rabbit's Foot, but Julia, Ethan's wife. The film quickly establishes Julia as a hopelessly cute but bland love interest, her primary purpose being to smile when safe and sob fearfully when threatened. Why not expand on their relationship? When they marry, Julia believes Ethan to be a traffic executive, which says little for both of them. She doesn't pay enough attention to her husband, and he has no problem concealing crucial details of his life from his wife, details that eventually get her kidnapped and tortured. Instead of portraying their relationship as childishly affectionate, why not be provocative and seriously explore the pitfalls of Ethan's double life? In a brief scene, Ethan's partners insist that normal relationships are impossible for men such as them, and briefly discuss how it affects their edgy existence. I'd gladly trade a $30 million action sequence for a couple more scenes like that discussion.

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: The Sentinel

James Frazier — Thu, 4 May 2006 03:06:05 EDT

How does one explain Michael Douglas' success playing leading men in thrillers? Cocksure and sleazy with a permanent smirk plastered across his surgically altered face, he makes an odd choice for a hero. Nonetheless, he works, and works very well. Douglas has a peculiar way of capturing our sympathy by transmitting that despite his flaws, a decent guy lurks underneath, or at least one who wants to do the right thing.There may have been a better choice than Douglas for The Sentinel, but surely not by much. He plays Pete Garrison, a Secret Service agent who took a bullet for Ronald Reagan. Despite his heroism, he never progressed beyond ordinary field agent. This doesn't seem to bother Garrison much, as it affords him plenty of time to bang Sarah (Kim Basinger), who happens to be the First Lady. Perfect Michael Douglas hero; cocksure, sleazy, smirky, decent guy nonetheless. To Douglas' and the director's credit, his age barely seems ridiculous, which can't be said of Harrison Ford these days.After running through some stock character introductions, including Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria (a good running joke springs from her impossibly beautiful looks) as Secret Service investigators, the plot kicks into gear, with Garrison being framed for plotting to assassinate the President. He makes an easy target for a frame-up, as he needs to prove his innocence, but doesn't want to confess to nailing the boss' wife, either.Director Clark Johnson, who also helmed SWAT (2003), knows how to put together an efficient thriller, and makes the material work, albeit with as little personality as possible. Plot details whiz by like bullets, with superfluous details such as explanations and character development landing on the cutting room floor. The lack of detail can be off-putting at times, but it makes perverse sense; everyone in the audience has already seen a hundred thrillers like this one, so why not acknowledge that and skip to the stuff we paid to see?Consider Garrison's escape from custody. Although a large force of agents pursues him, the film skips the usual obligatory scenes where he ducks in and out of alleys and outwits government goons. Instead, we see his pursuit of the bad guys, and even when chased, it is by the Sutherland character, who he does not so much outwit and defeat as he does convince. The terrorists themselves are given no motives whatsoever, other than they are foreigners who must dislike the President. At first I scoffed, but later realized the wisdom of the omission; to a Secret Service agent, the terrorist's motives would be of no consequence, only that they want to kill the President matters.Still, the lack of enthusiasm towards its own material also places an early cap on the film's impact. What should be a thrilling finish instead comes across as fun but emotionally vacant, the film gliding off of the screen like a roller coaster that comes to a halt. Like that roller coaster, you get what you pay for. The Sentinel is fluffy, precise, refreshingly non-pretentious entertainment. It knows what it needs to do, does exactly that, and could care less about anything else.I started this review by talking about the film's star, and I'll finish it by discussing the supporting actor. Kiefer Sutherland gained fame in the '80s with roles in pop flicks such as The Lost Boys and Stand by Me. He never landed a truly great role, and his career faltered throughout the '90s. Nearly five years ago, he scored the role of a lifetime as the hero on the phenomenal TV series 24. His performance on the show effortlessly ranges from intense, brutal, sympathetic, and even heartbreaking. If I were able to give one line of advice to the filmmakers, it would be this: Michael Douglas is cool, but he's no Kiefer Sutherland.3 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

Movie Review: United 93

James Frazier — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:04:18 EDT

United 93 contains many haunting moments, but one comes of great surprise. At an air traffic command center, the staff stands about, confused over reports of a hijacking. A plane has disappeared from the grid, and they don't know what to make of it. Someone brings CNN up on the large viewing screen, they stand, baffled, at the image of a smoking hole in the north tower of the World Trade Center. Reliving the beginning of the attack, only armed with the knowledge we have now, is shattering in a very unexpected way. British director Paul Greengrass has put together a look at 9/11 with a narrow focus, but with searing strength and focus that puts the viewer in the center of the action in a way not seen since Saving Private Ryan's D-Day assault sequence. We already know the terrible outcome, but watch with curiosity and suspense, secretly hoping that perhaps history can change, if just for this one movie. Just because we know it won't doesn't make the final passenger assault any less gripping or heartbreaking.Shot in the British docu-drama style that severed the Greengrass-directed The Bourne Supremacy so well, the film never once feels like fiction, but an omnipresent insider's view of the action. The plot moves quickly but with great dread, scenes inside air command inter-cut with the doomed flight, where the four hijackers anxiously await their time to strike. On the ground, chaos runs rampant, with hundreds of people frantically trying to coordinate a response, ounces of clarity coming bundled with pounds of confusion. Many of the air control and military personnel are played not by actors, but by the real people, which some have said augments the authenticity. I instead offer the argument that the plane sequences seem so realistic, that Greengrass could have effortlessly pulled off the same effect using a cast entirely composed of actors. The film's accuracy stems from its incredible power, not the other way around. Much has been made about the film's lack of a political stance, but all films are political, whether or not they know it. The hijackers are shown as real people, true, but it seems childish to imagine that evil men don't form relationships, shave, or get nervous. The sympathy rests exclusively with the victims, who each receive as much screen time as they require, and no more. I struggled to hear names and hints of who each passenger was, but the only one I recognized for sure was Jeremy Glick, a judo expert who the film theorizes lead the charge. Most of the passenger dialogue involves planning the attack, or very painfully, final phone calls home. One shocking moment that has received little press (as of now) comes towards the end, where a German passenger tries to alert the hijackers to the rebellion before being restrained. I researched the incident, but could find nothing to support the event, except that a German man was in fact on the plane. Was Greengrass trying to portray Americans as the people who stand up and fight back against terror, while cowardly Europeans such as the Germans would rather negotiate and surrender? Probably not, but the argument could certainly be made. If the takeover of the plane is gruesome, the passenger's assault serves as a moment of bloody catharsis. It would be hard not to feel a small piece of joy as the hijackers panic, terrified that instead of becoming part of a holy missile to destroy the U.S. Capitol Building, they are going to be quite literally torn to pieces by furious passengers. I suspect that after the horrified screams of the passengers, the film's most talked about sound effect will be the sickening crunch of a fire extinguisher caving in a hijacker's skull.Endlessly talked about in the mainstream press, United 93 interestingly hasn't received as much buzz as it might amongst audiences. Many feel the film comes too soon after 9/11, while others are apprehensive about having to view the event through the eyes of the dead. Is United 93 too soon? United 93 not only isn't too soon, it hasn't arrived quickly enough. It succeeds at honoring the victims of 9/11 beyond the wildest expectation. Appropriately harrowing and terrifying, it instantly reaches a realm of importance that few films do. To avoid this genuinely relevant and amazing film out of fear would be a disservice to oneself and the memory of those portrayed within. Mark my words, there won't be a more meaningful work of art made for a long time to come.5 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.

DVD Review: The Squid and the Whale

James Frazier — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 18:53:34 EDT

The Squid and the Whale begins with a family tennis match. Father and older son play on one team, mother and younger son on the other. The children are simply trying to enjoy themselves, but between the parents exists a tense competition, their litany of matrimonial problems shimmering underneath the surface. Both parents coach their kids to exploit the weaknesses of the other, drawing battle lines for an upcoming conflict that could explode into existence at any minute. Like all wars, the innocent victims will be the biggest losers. It comes as no surprise that writer/director Noah Baumbach experienced the devastating dissolution of his own parent's marriage. Throughout the film, he skillfully hits all the right notes of a messy divorce, especially those where the parents use their children against each other in the same way two warring nations would drop atomic weapons on each other's cities. Walt Berkman (Jesse Eisenberg) represents Baumbach at 17, growing up in Brooklyn in 1986. His divorcing parents are writers whose literary success only serves to provide more competition. He takes the side of his father Bernard (Jeff Daniels), a bombastic intellectual who takes palatable joy in his belief that anyone who doesn't read dozens of classic novels or see obscure French films is a total idiot. Bernard pressures his sons so much that Walt sputters out detailed literary critiques of books that he couldn't possibly enjoy or fully understand. When Walt wins the school talent show for song writing, he neglects to mention that Pink Floyd recorded the song first. Younger son Frank (Owen Kline) sides with his mother Joan (Laura Linney). Frank craftily takes revenge on his father by declaring his intent to become a tennis pro, much like the one Joan is dating. Nothing seems more horrifying to Bernard than a son who foregoes Charles Dickens and Franz Kafka for tennis, except maybe one that prefers the bold promiscuity of his mother to the emotional vacancy of his father. When the parents split, Bernard moves across town, and angrily insists that the boys refer to his house as "their" house. Walt and Frank are both stumbling into sexuality, but both parents are too busy with their own new lovers to pay much notice, being more interested in which child supports whom. Notice how Bernard deftly cultivates resentment in his son by casually mentioning that Joan had an affair, or how Joan can only mumble weak excuses in response. Baumbach recognizes how divorce can negatively affect the relationships of their children. Bernard tells Walt that he made a mistake in sticking with one woman, causing Walt to promptly terminate his own relationship with a sweet girl who treats him nicely. Even worse, Frank begins experimenting with sexuality in a way that might be unprintable in a major newspaper, except to say that expulsion from school wouldn't be unwarranted. Neither parent means to harm their children, but their selfishness ensures that they do, and badly. If this sounds like a depressing film, it is, but not in the way one would expect. It is often very funny, savagely satirizing the vacant superiority of many uber-intellectuals, as well as the na�ve conception that you can split a family to anyone's satisfaction. But after the credits roll, we're left with a lingering despair at the hopelessness of the situation, but can take solace in the knowledge that the boys will grow up, their parents will settle down, and life will move on.4.5 out of 5

James Frazier is a senior at the University of Northern Iowa. He aspires to be a film critic, though his better judgement wants him to be a lawyer. He may be the most obsessed 24 fan in the Midwest.