..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..RJ Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Miracle At St Anna
plus reviews of The Lucky Ones, Eagle Eye, Nights In Rodanthe, Choke and Trouble The Water
Plus Quick Hits On This Week's DVDs

..MCN Critics Roundup ..MCN Review Vault

Miracle At St Anna [Four stars]
U.S.; Spike Lee (Disney)

Miracle at St. Anna, Spike Lee’s new World War II picture about the fantastic/tragic adventures of four black Buffalo Soldiers in a small Tuscan village behind Nazi lines, is a wonderful picture. It’s exactly the kind of large-scale, personal, deeply ambitious American movie we don’t see enough these days: humanistic, literate, a story with epic breadth, historic scope, and a wealth of fascinating and engaging characters, all of it excellently acted and beautifully shot.

The movie, adapted by James McBride from his 2004 novel, has a rich, dense novelistic feel, combining the blood and guts force of a full-throttle war saga with the exquisite fancies and grace of a South American magic realist tale by writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes or Mario Vargas Llosa. Scenarist McBride preserves much of what’s best about his book -- though the movie slips a bit in its penultimate courtroom scene (the novel ties things up better). And Lee films it with loving craft and real authority and dedication. He’s working at the top of his game here, as he also was in Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and Four Little Girls. The movie deserves much, much better than it‘s gotten from many critics so far.
    
Perhaps some writers are just too affected by Lee’s public discourse. Maybe they‘re tending to criticize the director for playing critic himself: for mouthing off too much when he took Clint Eastwood to task for neglecting black soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. But, whatever Spike Lee says, Miracle at St. Anna shouldn’t be evaluated as a conscious putdown or an answer to Eastwood’s two great movies or to Steven Spielberg‘s Saving Private Ryan -- which happen to be among my favorite WWII films. White and black soldiers, in fact, were segregated during World War II, something which provides one of the major themes of Lee’s movie here. We should trust the tale more than the teller in this case. To pit these movies against each other is a waste of time and breath. Let’s just be glad we have them all.
     
St. Anna does however try to revise the image of African-American soldiers in World War II -- and that’s one of its strengths. The movie takes place in 1944, toward the end of the Good War, when the soldiers of the Army’s Negro 92nd Division were on the march in Italy, commanded by white officers, but segregated from the rest of the white troops. Four riflemen -- pensive 2nd Staff Sgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), slick and cynical Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), watchful, careful Corporal Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) and huge, hulking but gentle Pvt. 1st Class Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) -- get separated from their unit in an attack, and their rescue is botched when their hot-tempered racist white commander, Capt. Nokes (Walton Goggins), refuses to believe they actually penetrated enemy lines.
    
Soon, all four reach the village of St. Anna di Stazzema; while on the journey, Train has rescued from an explosion a mysterious little boy named Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi). Angelo, a magical child who becomes strongly attached to Sam, is that iconic innocent we’ve seen in many another continental war or anti-war movie -- in Forbidden Games, in Paisa, in Ivan’s Childhood and The Night of the Shooting Stars -- and here he‘s subject to visions and fancies, as well as witness to some horrific recent events gradually revealed.

Meanwhile, Stamps and Cummings (whose cheerful sinning and foul mouth stand in marked contrast to his civilian occupation of preacher man) are smitten and competing for a beauteous young villager named Renata (the stunning Valentine Cervi), while Puerto Rican outsider Negron remains the group’s observer, drinking everything in.
    
It is Negron whose memories trigger the story. We first see him in the opening scene in 1983, as an old man in his 60s, a teller at a bank suddenly pulling his old WWII Luger on a customer, Rodolfo (Sergio Albelli) and shooting him dead. A weasely New York Daily News reporter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wheedles info out of a wised-up, generous cop, Detective Ricci (frequent Lee collaborator John Turturro), and discovers that Negron has a precious Italian sculptured head in his possession. In the flashback, we see the head again: the prized possession of Train, who may have rescued it after another battle.
      
But the flashback is less about the unusual treasure Negron still has, than the priceless treasure he lost -- the companionship of his mismatched little cadre of Army buddies and the brief paradise of tolerance they all found in the village -- from the townspeople (including Omero Antonutti of the Taviani Brothers films as an oddly likeable old Fascist), an endangered colorful group surrounded by the Nazi army and also by a band of deadly partisans led by the elusive and dangerous Peppi Great Butterfly Grotta (Pierfranceso Favino) and also including, ominously, Rodolfo.

It’s a complex story, and the characters and events keep accumulating. But Lee and his longtime editor Barry Alexander Brown organize and present the tale beautifully, moving easily from one group to the other, from the black American Buffalo Soldiers, to their white officers (some bigoted, some not), to the Italian villagers, to the partisans, and to the German Army. Each group speaks in their own language to each other (with subtitles), and it’s all done so smoothly and expertly that we’re never set adrift or left restless. (At least, I wasn’t.)    
    
Speaking in three languages, and in many emotional keys, the whole cast rises to the occasion at every point. And the four main characters fill their parts with warlike savvy, ciggie-puffing weariness, and a tense wariness that suggests soldiers stretched to the limit, full of pride (for their professionalism) and buried resentment (at their mistreatment). As Stamps, Luke projects a simmering anger. Ealy’s Bishop Cummings is an irreverent stud and a consummate hypocrite, Negron has soldierly stature, while Miller, in the most memorable part, makes us believe in Big Sam, a character who might have drowned in clichés: the tender behemoth whom little Angelo, innocent witness to the horrors f war, calls his chocolate giant.
    
Cinematographer Matthew Libatique seems as good a match for Lee’s assured, eclectic visual style as Ernest Dickerson used to be; Miracle at St. Anna has a burnished look that suggests both the American movies that were Lee’s first love and the foreign films he caught up with later. The German sections of St Anna remind you a bit of the recent Stalingrad and The Downfall, while the Italian sections remind you of the great Italian social realist tradition, of the movies of the Tavianis, Vittorio De Sica and Ermanno Olmi. Miracle at St. Anna may have a few corny or rushed moments (especially at the end) but they’re easily forgiven. Overall, I loved this movie. It’s masterfully directed, wonderfully written and acted, and a film to be proud of -- one that stares unblinkingly into the face of war and finds its human side: a magical tale that speaks with angels and makes a neglected chapter of history come alive and sing.



The Lucky Ones (Three stars)
U. S.; Neil Burger (Lionsgate)

From the writer-director of the elegant period mystery film The Illusionist, comes one of the better contemporary road movies I‘ve seen recently. The cast is super: Rachel McAdams (as small town bombshell Colee), Tim Robbins (as disturbed middle-American Cheever) and Michael Pena (as take-charge TK) play three soldiers, who’ve completed their Iraq tours and are thrown together in New York during a blackout that temporarily halts plane travel. Pooling forces, they take a car to St. Louis, where some bad family surprises await Cheever, and eventually Las Vegas, where something similar awaits Colee). Together, they all begin to face the reality of their situation and of their country‘s.

It may seem potentially soggy, but I bought most of it. It’s well written, not preachy and extremely well acted -- and though we expect excellence in these kinds of roles from Robbins and Pena, McAdams springs a surprise. She‘s always good, but here, as a likeable prole who‘s bringing back a guitar to her boyfriend‘s family, she moves us in ways I didn‘t expect. All of them, especially McAdams, are top-notch.

Eagle Eye (Two and a half stars)
U.S.; D. J. Caruso (Paramount)

Eagle Eye -- a hell-for-cyberspace thriller with Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan as a wrong couple bedeviled by cell-phones and pursued by super cops -- is just too damned fast for its own good. Directed by D. J. Caruso, it’s full of wild chases, blistering fights and spectacular explosions, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t exciting. This movie pumps up an almost non-stop wave of excitement and that’s part of its problem.

As our companions on its wild ride, Eagle Eye gives us Jerry Shaw, slacker twin brother of an over-achieving U. S. Defense guy who supposedly died in a car crash and Michelle Monaghan as Rachel Holloman, divorced mom of adorable little Sam (Cameron Boyce), who’s set to play trumpet on The Star Spangled Banner  at the next State of the Union address. Both these average, likable, but very movie-sexy people are suddenly plunged into a mad chase to Washington D. C., with a mysterious female phone-voice giving them instructions on where to go and what to do -- after framing Jerry as a terrorist and telling Rachel that Sam will be killed unless she goes along. On their tail: Southern-fried Fugitive-style FBI agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton) and saucy New York Air Force lady Zoe Perez (Rosario Dawson).

It’s obvious that the filmmakers -- including Caruso, four writers and executive producer Steven Spielberg (who inspired the whole thing) -- want something more than the usual superslick roller-coaster ride. They want to make us feel with the characters, and they also want to score a few socio-political points. The movie suggests that our political and military leaders sometimes act rashly and unwisely (hard to argue with that) and that we’re all caught in in a vast, possibly dangerous omnipresent cyber communications system that can invade our world on too many levels, and might wreak real technological havoc with our lives.

In Disturbia, Caruso and company were knocking off Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Here, he’s lifting from Hitch’s North by Northwest and also his 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much -- and throwing in a little of the ‘60s anti-tech nightmares Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe as well, along with a nod to Hal of 2001. But they should really borrow from Hitchcock’s and Kubrick’s sense of overall construction, too. Eagle Eye has one slam-bang scene after another, briefly interspersed with a little character stuff -- including a crane smashing though an FBI window, a French Connection knockoff car chase, an airport luggage conveyor belt ride and that final shoot-the-works State of the Union address.

Zip! Bang! Crash! Pow! It works for about an hour, but then I wanted a rest. Maybe this is what the public wants, but if so, they’re being bulldozed. Frankly, the movie, popular as it will probably be, would have been better with half the action scenes replaced by character stuff, comedy, drama, something on a human scale. Why waste actors this good by throwing them nonstop onto luggage belts and into cyber-battles and car wrecks -- especially when your theme is a complaint about the way humans get caught up and trapped by computers and machines?

Nights in Rodanthe (Two and a half stars)
U. S.; George C. Wolfe (Warner Bros)

Another somewhat hokey Nicholas Sparks novel about romance and good feelings turned into a plush but hokey movie. A gorgeous divorcee (Diane Lane) and a doctor with a guilty past (Richard Gere) find love in the midst of arguments, Dinah Washington and Brook Benton songs, hot nights and a hurricane -- in a beachside house, gussied up by production designer Patricia von Brandenstein, that’s to die for. I’d buy that house if I could, but unfortunately the film, despite its cast (including Viola Davis, Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni and one powerful scene from Scott Glenn), is no hurricane. Or even much of a hot night. It’s too rich to be good, too beautiful to be true. (Reverse Caveat. Despite everything, major fans of Lane and Gere won’t be disappointed here.)




Choke (Two and a half stars)
U. S.; Clark Gregg (Fox Searchlight)

Another punchy, irreverent Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk novel about male pathology, turned into another punchy, irreverent, movie. Sam Rockwell plays a sex addict who works in a colonial American theme park; Anjelica Huston is his dotty, institutionalized mother. Or is she? Unfortunately, this one lacks the style and punch of Fight Club. And despite that good cast (including Paz de la Huerta, Joel Grey and Gregg himself), it has a frowsy, forced feel. I didn’t like it much, though I respected its smarts and iconoclasm. And Rockwell makes a good satyr.

 

Trouble the Water (Three stars)
U.S.: Carl Deal, Tia Lessin (Zeitgeist)
    
It opened in some theatres a month or so ago in some areas, but I still feel I should get in a good word about Trouble the Water, director Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s documentary about New Orleans resident and rapper, Kim Roberts, and her husband -- who stayed in the city throughout Hurricane Katrina, shot some of the storm, its prelude and aftermath in powerfully grainy and slapdash images on their home video camera, and later hooked up with Deal and Lessin to continue the story. (By the way, I haven't yet seen -- and am greatly looking forward to -- Spike Lee's Emmy-winning Katrina documentary When the Levees Broke.)

The troubles after the storm provide the major part of Trouble the Water, which shows both the sound and fury of Katrina and then the often lamentably stupid and insensitive handling of the poorer people and survivors who got caught in this maelstrom, suffering the consequences of yet another of Bush’s seemingly endless string of fiascoes. (As I say this, most of us are even now being plunged into the newest Bush administration catastrophe: the Wall St. meltdown -- probably caused at least in part by deregulation loonies).
    
Trouble the Water shows us the personal effects of the Katrina disaster from the viewpoint of people who saw and experienced it first hand, but whose voices and testimony are often neglected or unheard. Here, in this fine compassionate film, they can’t be ignored.

MW on DVD
Picks of the Week

BOX SET

The Godfather -- The Coppola Restoration (Five discs) (Four stars)
U.S.; Francis Coppola, 1972-1974-1990 (Paramount).

One of the genuine American movie masterpieces: The Godfather trilogy, restored by its brilliant maker, Francis Coppola, along with his original DVD commentary. Sure, we’re still a little disappointed that Coppola didn’t try harder (and, for God’s sake, hire Robert Duvall, whatever his asking price) on The Godfather III. But these are the kinds of films we want to see from our best filmmakers, and the kinds of opportunities we want them to have. Not just business, but personal.

Includes: The Godfather (1972) Four stars. The Godfather Part II (1974) Four stars. The Godfather Part III (1990). Extras: Coppola commentary on all three films, additional scenes, 2001 DVD featurettes and one disc of new supplements.

 

NEW RELEASES

Sex and the City (Two discs) Three stars
U.S.; Michael Patrick King, 2008 (New Line)

Hit TV shows take on a life of their own, and that’s certainly true of Sex and the City. The single-girls-in-Manhattan sex-comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker and her three pals (Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon), is a show that, in six years on HBO (1998-2004), became a national TV fixture, a primo contemporary New York City fairytale and a fashionista’s paradise.

The series, which originated when creator-producer Darren Star, of Melrose Place, decided to adapt Candace Bushnell‘s autobiographical New York Observer columns about an unattached female’s urban fun-life -- belongs in a time-honored sexy movie tradition, the girls-on-a-spree film, though these pictures usually films feature two or three ladies on the loose instead of four (i.e. How to Marry a Millionaire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Three Little Girls in Blue, et. al.) But this show not only gave us ladies who talked about man-hunting and sex, but also showed them doing it -- besides shooting on location and using all kinds of snazzy details, new clothes and contemporary references to keep things funny and au courant.

Sex’s huge national audience followed tell-all writer Carrie Bradshaw (Parker), lusty good-time gal Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), prim and preppy Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and often-angry lawyer Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), though six years of career triumphs, epic fashion-shopping sprees and romantic adventures and misadventures. The movie Sex, narrated as usual by Carrie, uses the show‘s pattern of keeping everything up-to- date -- picking up the story four years after and carrying the quartet through three romantic crises, two split-ups, one aborted wedding, one Mexican holiday, one pregnancy, one messed-up sushi orgy, and the inevitable get-togethers, confabs, and reunions.

I liked it. The filmmakers and the actresses have taken these characters so far and done so much with them, that they’ve grown into a thoroughly pleasant routine, the blessed TV kick of familiarity. Also, Sex the movie scores points by balancing its bouts of sex (pretty steamy) and hilarity, with the drama and real anguish.

This Sex will not disappoint most of the TV show‘s fans -- thanks to a lot of effort from the producers, who include Parker and series creator Darren Star. Director-writer (and producer) Michael Patrick King is another Sex vet; he wrote many of the TV episodes, directed a few and obviously fills the bill. Most of the main actors/characters are here too, along with key crew, including costume designer Patricia Field, who probably deserves co-auteur ranking along with Star, King, Parker -- and, oh yeah, Candace Bushnell.

Extras: King commentary, interview with King and Parker, featurettes.

CLASSICS

The Bill Douglas Trilogy (Two discs) Four Stars
U.K.; Bill Douglas, 1972-74-78 (Facets)

You probably won‘t remember it, but along with The Godfather, another great movie trilogy started in 1972: Bill Douglas’s magnificent low-budget semi-autobiographical three-part tale of his impoverished youth in a small Scottish mining village, shot in lyrical black and white and featuring an extraordinary non-professional cast. Since the three parts are barely a hour long apiece, they can probably best be seen as one three hour drama -- and they should be see far more often.

As a British social realist, Douglas is on a par with the best of them: Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Stephen Frears and Humphrey Jennings. But he has something special. This is the darker, more penetrating side of the family mythos of a How Green Was My Valley. It’s real and stark and emotionally devastating. With Stephen Archibald as Jamie, who, as Douglas’ Antoine Doinel, grows with the part as we watch.

Includes: My Childhood (1972), Four stars. My Ain Folk (1974), Four stars. My Way Home (1978), Four stars. Extras: Documentary, booklet.

 

- Michael Wilmington
September 26, 2008

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09.19.08 - Appaloosa, Ghost Town, Igor, Lakeview Terrace and Hounddog
09.11.08 - Burn After Reading, Righteous Kill, The Women and Bangkok Dangerous
09.04.08 - I Served the King of England, Transsiberian and The Unknown Woman
08. 29.08 - Traitor, Hamlet 2, The Grocer's Son and Alexandra

 

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