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Every Dog Has His Day

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The Dog

By Christie Robb

Hollywood is captivated by bank robbers: John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Patty Hearst, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid…

And John Wojtowicz, aka the Dog.

Not familiar? He’s the inspiration for the 1975 Al Pacino movie Dog Day Afternoon.

The Gateway Film Center is showing the latest of three documentaries on Wojtowicz, The Dog, starting Friday, August 22nd—the 42nd anniversary of the day Wojtowicz robbed a Chase Manhattan bank in order to finance his partner’s sex change operation.

The documentary offers the perspective of the progressively ailing Wojtowicz as well as those of his “wives” (both female and male), mother, eye witnesses, hostages, reporters, and gay rights activists. Directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren position Wojtowicz in the context of the burgeoning gay liberation movement, reminding the viewer how eye-opening this event was to many of the television viewers and local bystanders who watched the robbery and subsequent hostage negotiation unfold live. The Stonewall Riots had only happened three years previously.

Wojtowicz gave a good performance during the robbery—threating to beat up police for calling him a faggot, visiting with his adoring mother, having pizza delivered to the bank, throwing thousands of dollars out of the door, and French kissing a man at the bank threshold while still holding hostages. Wojtowicz was primed for theatricality; he went to a screening of The Godfather to psych himself up for the robbery.

And Wojtowicz, gives a good performance here. He describes himself both as a “romantic” and a “pervert” and narrates events leading up to the robbery and his life in its aftermath with a jovial demeanor that often jars with his subject matter. Several times I had to blink and process what just happened. (Is he narrating a butcher knife suicide attempt while smiling and wearing a puffer coat? Did he just offer a blowjob to a walrus?)

Berg and Keraudren leave it up to the audience to form their own conclusions about Wojtowicz. Romantic, willing to face prison to make his partner’s dream come true, as he maintains? Controlling, chauvinistic, sex addict, as interviews with his partners make it seem? A man clinging to his 15 minutes of fame? An ex-con with limited options, making a buck off the crime that prevents him from following his preferred career path in finance?

His story is indeed captivating and probably worth giving him another 15 minutes of fame.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

For Your Queue

Tom Hardy 2-fer For Your Queue

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This week offers several excellent options for your queue, but the best among them is Locke. So let’s all get geeked for the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road  by taking in a couple of flicks from one of this generation’s most explosive, most talented actors, Tom Hardy.

A masterpiece of utter simplicity, Locke tags along on a solo road trip, the film’s entirety showcasing just one actor (the incomparable Hardy), alone in a car, handling three different crises on his mobile while driving toward his destiny. It may sound dull, and it certainly can be challenging, but it may just restore your faith in independent filmmaking.

While you’re queuing up, look for the film that best encapsulates the ferocious talent that is Tom Hardy, Bronson. Director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) chose a path of blatant, often absurd theatricality to tell the tale of Britain’s most violent, most expensive inmate. In Hardy’s bruised and bloodied hands, Bronson can be terrifying and endearing inside the same moment. Hardy finds a way to explore the character’s single minded violence, pinpointing the rare moments of true ugliness. The rest is just a guy beating his chest against his own limitations. But when this guy beats his chest, it’s usually with the bloodied stump of what was once a security guard or four.

Outtakes

Sharks & Baseball? It must be August.

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Peanut butter & jelly. Chips and salsa. Sharks and baseball. Some things just go together. Yep, it’s the second week of August,and that means two things: the Little League World Series and Shark Week. It’s our favorite time of Cable TV year, and we’re celebrating with some equally Cable-ready flicks of a similar flavor.

Super Shark (2011)

Eventually, the best of the worst mutant animal films leap not from the big screen, but from SciFi network, and few things leap as well as a Super Shark! John Schneider tarnishes his reputation (yep, it’s that bad) in a film that pits a flying, hopping shark against a tank with legs. It kicks the shark. That’s worth seeing.

The Sandlot (1993)

“You’re killin’ me, Smalls!”

Okay, so young Scotty Smalls isn’t exactly a little league phenom, but when he moves to a new neighborhood, the local baseball star takes Scotty under his wing. Soon, he’s learning the game, enjoying plenty of teen adventures, and fearing the huge baseball-eating dog that lives behind their sandlot field. It feels like a summer version of A Christmas Story, but director/co-writer David M. Evans delivers a sweet, entertaining slice of nostalgia, especially for anyone who grew up playing sandlot sports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QDq-e1GbjE

Sharktopus (2010)

This is the one film on the countdown most likely to quench the thirst left by Sharknado. Roger Corman – the producer responsible for most of the films on SciFi, and quite possibly most of the worst films ever made – gave us this epic tale of a killing machine that’s half great white, half giant octopus. It’s enormous, unrealistic, and it brings an insatiable hunger for bad actors.

Sugar (2008)

Filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) offer an insightful tale about Dominicans chasing their dreams of playing Major League baseball and, in the process, deliver a quietly powerful take on immigration.

Open Water (2003)

Chris Kentis’s 2003 foray into terror is unerringly realistic and, therefore, deeply disturbing. It is easily the only excellent shark film since Jaws. From the true events that inspired it to one unreasonably recognizable married couple, from superbly accurate dialog to actual sharks, Open Water’s greatest strength is its unsettling authenticity. Writer, director, cinematographer and editor, Kentis clarifies his conception for this relentless film, and it is devastating.

The Bad News Bears (1976)

Buttermaker, Lupus, Tanner, Englepuke – aah, they’re all priceless. The least politically correct baseball film on this list, perhaps ever made, is a kids’ movie. It needs to go in a time capsule. Dozens of films from The Mighty Ducks to Hardball – plus two sequels and one reboot – have followed and failed because they can’t leave the redemption angle alone. What’s genius about this movie is that the level of redemption is not one spark grander than is absolutely necessary. And it manages to be the ultimate underdog kids’ baseball movie without ever being cute.

Fright Club

Fright Club Fridays: Frailty

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Frailty (2001)

“He can make me dig this stupid hole, but he can’t make me pray.”

Aah, adolescence. We all bristle against our dads’ sense of morality and discipline, right? Well, some have a tougher time of it than others.

Back in 1980, Bill “We’re toast! Game over!” Paxton directed the short music video Fish Heads. Triumph enough, you say? Correct. But in 2001 he took a stab at directing the quietly disturbing supernatural thriller Frailty, with equally excellent results.

Paxton stars as a widowed, bucolic country dad awakened one night by an angel – or a bright light shining off the angel on top of a trophy on his ramshackle bedroom bookcase. Whichever – he understands now that he and his sons have been called by God to kill demons.

Whatever its flaws – too languid a pace, too trite an image of idyllic country life, Powers Boothe – Frailty manages to subvert every horror film expectation by playing right into them. We’re led through the saga of the serial killer God’s Hand by a troubled young man (Matthew McConaughey), who, with eerie quiet and reflection, recounts his childhood with Paxton’s character as a father.

Dread mounts as Paxton drags out the ambiguity over whether this man is insane, and his therefore good-hearted but wrong-headed behavior profoundly damaging his boys. Or could he really be chosen, and his sons likewise marked by God?

Brent Hanley’s sly screenplay evokes such nostalgic familiarity – down to a Dukes of Hazzard reference – and Paxton’s direction makes you feel entirely comfortable in these common surroundings. Then the two of them upend everything – repeatedly – until it’s as if they’ve challenged your expectations, biases, and your own childhood to boot.

Paxton crafts a morbidly compelling tale free from irony, sarcasm, or judgment and full of darkly sympathetic characters. It’s a surprisingly strong feature directorial debut from a guy who once played a giant talking turd.

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Sharklessnado

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Into the Storm

by Hope Madden

You have to kind of feel for a film about tornados that comes out right now. How could they have known when they began the years long trek toward a final product that SciFi Channel would launch a flick about a tropical storm that rains great whites on actors who stopped being famous in the Nineties? And even if they did know, who could have predicted its insane success? Or a sequel?

So, no, poor Into the Storm just marched along unaware, casting grade B heroic types, developing a mediocre script, and spending some cash on special effects. For what?

To bore us to tears, that’s what.

What is essentially a rehashing of 1998’s Twister with a little Jackass side plot, Into the Storm follows a two-van storm chasing team out to document the eye of a tornado – just film right up inside that bad boy, kind of a Dorothy’s eye view. With them, we chase some crazy cloud patterns to a wholesome small town where the high school graduation ceremony is about to take place – RIGHT IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST!

But wait? Where’s Donny, the assistant principal’s troubled son? He snuck off to film an environmental video with the girl of his dreams at that old abandoned warehouse – RIGHT IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST!

When there are this many tornadoes, there are lots of bellies.

Director Steven Quale’s storm scenes do look great. It’s just his relentless attempts to find a reason to put his characters in harm’s way that get a bit tedious.

He hasn’t exactly drawn on a cast that elevates the material. You’ve got that kid from iCarly (Nathan Kress), the dead (and not walking) wife from Walking Dead (Sarah Wayne Callies), and a full sized Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage, heroic as ever), none of whom particularly impresses.

Matt Walsh does, though, and not in a good way. Here’s a guy with a lifetime of excellent comedic character work under his belt, but a dramatic character arc – even a painfully obvious one – is still pretty far out of his reach.

But Into the Storm is not about weakly written characters or underperforming actors. It’s about living life for today. It’s about trusting your kids and appreciating what you have. It’s about the resilience of the human spirit. It’s about sharkin’!

Oh,wait…

You know what? At least Sharknado wasn’t boring.

 

Verdict-1-5-Stars

 

 

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Frothy Summer Concoction

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The Hundred-Foot Journey

by Hope Madden

I did not have high hopes for this movie about a young Indian cook and his family, who open a restaurant 100 feet from a famous bastion of French cuisine.

Director Lasse Hallstrom’s output has primarily offered superficial romance, trite drama and cheesecloth since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. And the media blitz about producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg says “sledgehammer of sentimentality” to me. Plus, it’s made by Disney, who Slumdogged it up earlier this summer with the tastefully offensive Million Dollar Arm.

But there are two glimmers of hope.

Writer Steven Knight is not faultless, but when he’s on, he is brilliant. (Please see Eastern Promises, Dirty Pretty Things, Locke. Seriously, please see them.) So there’s that.

And any script can be made better when it falls into the hands of the incomparable Helen Mirren. You saw RED, right?

And basically, The Hundred-Foot Journey is an exact sum of its parts. The frothy concoction offers seductive visuals, feel-good cultural blending, trite drama, a script that sneaks in some subtle but bright jabs at France’s recent history of violent racism as well as the high octane competition of haute cuisine, and a gem of a performance by Mirren.

Watching young Hassan (Manish Dayal) struggle with his natural cooking instincts, the culture clash his life has become, and his romantic interest in a rival sous chef pales when compared to the boisterous, enchanting battle of wills between Mirren’s Madame Mallory and Hassan’s father (Om Puri). These two acting veterans are as flavorful and tempting as any of the dishes simmering onscreen, and the film weakens whenever the story pulls away from them.

Hassan’s romantic subplot fails to deliver any heat, and when the film follows him out of town, you can’t help but feel you’re biding your time until your next visit to Pop and M. Mallory.

It’s being called Slumdog Millionaire meets Ratatouille, which isn’t far from the mark. Adapted from Richard Morias’s charming summer read, the film is as sweet as it is harmless. For foodies and folks looking for the cinematic version of a poolside paperback, The Hundred-Foot Journey delivers. If you’re seeking something with a little artistic nutrition, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

Outtakes

Countdown: Summer of SciFi!

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The summer of 2014 crapped forth yet another Transformers movie, so it shoulders that shame. But otherwise, it hasn’t been such a crummy season, especially if you are fan of science fiction. The season began a little early, back in April, with Scarlett Johansson’s hypnotic alien abduction poem Under the Skin. But come the hot weather, Hollywood kicked into high gear with few disappointments. Here are the best of the season.

5. X Men: Days of Future Past

Matthew Vaughn’s 2011 re-envisioning of this franchise worked miracles, thanks to an inspired rewrite of history and an even better cast. It was worrisome when the next in this line fell back to Bryan Singer, whose spotty cinematic output in the last decade suggested he may not be the man for the job. But, he proved game for the challenge, bringing the best of one X Men world (Hugh Jackman, obviously) together with the best of the throwback generation (everyone, basically: Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and James McAvoy) for a time travel bit of wizardry, shape shifting and Seventies references. Hearing Fassbender quote James Brown is alone worth the price of admission.

4. Edge of Tomorrow

Why didn’t anyone see this gem? Aliens meets Groundhog Day may seem like a weird pitch, but good Lord is it entertaining! Tom Cruise may irritate many, but he brings it to a role that requires a complete reimagining of character by the time the credits role. Beyond that, he throws some unexpected and much appreciated humor at us while he relives the same horrendous day again and again in the hopes of finding a way to defeat an invading army of aliens. He has the help of Emily Blunt, and he – and we – should be grateful. In what amounts to the Sigourney Weaver role, Blunt flat out amazes. She has never turned in a weak performance, but who saw action hero in her future?

3. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

It would have been hard to outdo 2011’s surprise hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but director Matt Reeves (Let Me In, Cloverfield) does just that. Though his sequel offers less intimacy and heartbreak, it takes the story of our quickly evolving simian cousins to an epic, even Shakespearean level. Remaining ever neutral in what amounts to a political thriller, Reeves never abandons the energy and imagery of a blockbuster, combining the two approaches to create an exceptionally entertaining whole.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy

Director James Gunn does Marvel fans right with one of the year’s most fun rides. Gunn nails the tone, the color, the imagery, and the sound of one Earthling dartin’ about space scavenging, smooching, and basically living the dream. The effortlessly likeable Chris Pratt leads a film, joined by ragtag misfits who collectively become the most enjoyable team of intergallactic scoundrels since Han Solo piloted the Falcon. This is the definition of a great summer movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIaEzXgqto

1. Snowpiercer

An immediate dystopian classic although badly under marketed, Snowpiercer went on to become the most buzzed about film of the summer, and with good reason. Visionary direction from Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Mother) gave the film a dizzyingly claustrophobic tension, while brazen casting victories (Oh my God, Tilda Swinton) and another solid lead turn from Chris Evans work together to create an enthralling allegory of the makers and the takers.

New In Theaters, Slider

Summer SciFi Hits Keep On Coming

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Guardians of the Galaxy

by Hope Madden

As a rule, August – like January – is the month studios sweep out their bin of movies that weren’t quite good enough to make the prime time cut. Usually we can expect little more than dregs until mid-autumn, when both holiday and awards season begins in earnest and studios once again proudly populate cinemas.

And yet, in what has been the summer of SciFi, James Gunn elevates our August with one of the most entertaining films of 2014, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

An uneasy bond connects five interstellar losers, each needing another to 1) avenge, 2) cash in, 3) survive, and 4) save the galaxy. It has to do with an orb, is all very cosmic bounty hunter-y, and includes a raccoon that sounds remarkably like 2011’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Right there – casting Bradley Cooper as the raccoon – Gunn zigs when you expect him to zag. Cooper excels as the very angry varmint, joining an entirely inspired cast.

Chris Pratt, who beefcaked up a bit for the gig, shoulders the leading role in his second relentlessly enjoyable film this year, after January’s joyous The Lego Movie, here playing the American intergalactic scavenger and adventurer, and lover of easy listening jams.

Pratt’s endearing combination of humility and confidence charms, and with a casual goofiness he elevates every line of the admittedly clever dialog, all of it brimming with crisp pop culture humor made funnier by the context (in that no one but Pratt’s Peter Quill could possibly get the earth references). He makes a hero of Kevin Bacon in his dramatic retelling of Footloose, which only gets funnier from Zoe Saldana’s callback in the final act.

Saldana joins WWE’s Dave Bautista and the voice of Vin Diesel (as a tree) to fill out Peter Quill’s band of misfits, and together the crew offers endless amounts of ruffian charm.

As important, all evil doers – from Lee Pace’s zealot Ronan to Benicio del Toro’s creepy Collector to Michael Rooker’s dangerous Yondu – are delightfully diabolical.

Gunn nicely articulates the galaxy and its characters, keeps the humor light, the action quick and the palette colorful.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

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Thumb Worthy

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Life Itself

by Hope Madden

Whether you loved him or hated him, Roger Ebert was a massive cultural influence – particularly if you happen to be a film critic.

Arguably the most influential movie reviewer of all time, Ebert was also a far more unique and fascinating character than casual readers/viewers might realize. Life Itself, Steve James’s revelatory new documentary, unveils the highly complicated personality behind all those opinions.

Life Itself nearly bursts with intimacy and detail, embracing Ebert’s bawdy youth and epic ego as openly as his medical treatments and serene end. The minutia of Ebert’s life is a surprising thrill to take in, though James feels no compulsion to pretty it up. He asks an old friend at one point whether, deep down, Ebert was really a nice guy.

Yes, he says. But not that nice.

The sparring with his reluctant TV partner Gene Siskel, often taken directly from TV outtakes, is utterly hilarious, but James mines it for more than laughs. We are reminded that Ebert was a populist film critic before there was such a thing, and while we relive some of the highlights of the Pulitzer Prize winner’s eloquence, we also revisit some of his more questionable assessments, (as when he gave Full Metal Jacket a thumbs down, but pointed that digit skyward for Benji the Hunted).

James notes, sometimes hilariously and with absolutely no sugar coat, that Siskel & Ebert’s program was often derided by fellow reviewers as not being film criticism at all – at which time Ebert routinely pointed to his Pulitzer. By taking film criticism to the public, the show had more influence on ticket buying, film production, and the changing paradigm of the medium of film criticism than anyone could have predicted.

James spends a great deal of time with Ebert and his wife Chaz in the hospital during the last couple stays before Ebert’s death, detailing the medical treatments and witnessing more of the drive that motivated this prolific writer his whole life. More importantly, through these visits, as well as emails and excerpts from Ebert’s autobiography, James makes clear that he is not laying his subject naked before us, but that Ebert himself is the willing object of our scrutiny through this film – an act that takes on much power when you consider what the man did for a living.

With James, we wind and careen through Ebert’s personal and professional life and legacy, but the film never loses focus. It touches all the bases, and in the end not only offers a moving image of a life abundantly and uncommonly lived, but honors Ebert’s most enduring, most identifiable, and most tenacious attribute: his voice.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

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It Doesn’t Go So Well

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And So It Goes

by Hope Madden

Michael Douglas turns 70 this year, and though, in younger years, he carved out some memorable characters, in his final lap he’s really found his niche. No longer dependent on the vain smolder of his unreasonably popular 90s output, the battle-tested pro has settled into a groove playing elderly scoundrels. And So It Goes offers him another opportunity, this time with Oren Little, widowed misanthrope.

Oren falls for lounge singing sweetheart Leah (Diane Keaton), but his abrasive personality and a mind-numbing series of contrivances stand in the way of true love.

Though Keaton simply recycles the same character she’s played with minor variations since 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give, the banter between these two vets is never less than charming.

But let me ask you something…when was the last time Rob Reiner made a good movie? Admittedly, he directed, bar none, cinema’s greatest mockumentary, as well as two of the best Stephen King adaptations on record. His whole Eighties catalog impresses and entertains.  A Few Good Men doesn’t suck outright.

After that, meh.

Even Douglas and all his geriatric charisma can’t overcome Reiner’s schmaltz or writer Mark Andrus’s insulting screenplay.

In 1997, Andrus wrote As Good As It Gets, a yarn about a curmudgeonly loner whose heart is warmed by a series of humanizing obstacles and the love of a good woman. In 2014 it’s the same story, different obstacles.

Conflict appears and conveniently disappears as soon as it’s served its purpose. One hollow plot device after another springs up to teach lessons and warm hearts, yet keep the two love birds apart. The lazy scripting is almost as offensive as the way the film casually embraces the stereotype that the elderly are racist. Reiner gives Andrus’s lines an eye rolling “oh those racist scamps” kind of spin that’s beneath the characters these actors are trying so valiantly to create.

The whole team is simply cashing in on the new market for old talent, films like Something’s Gotta Give and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel having proven that there is an audience for late life romances. The great thing about that revelation is that it allows talents like Keaton, Douglas and others the opportunity to lead films.

The unfortunate side effect – one felt in any proven cinematic market – is the soulless cash grab.

Like this movie.

Verdict-2-0-Stars