Cross-Dressing Air Pirate (#69: Stardust)

#69: Stardust

That's all you need to say, right? This movie features Robert DeNiro as the cross-dressing Captain of a crew of air pirates. Sold!

Adapted from a novel by Neil Gaiman - who I'd call the reigning king of modern fantasy if it weren't for George R.R. Martin and his pesky Game of Thrones* - Stardust is the type of fantasy film I would have loved as a kid. It tells a light story shadowed with enough sharp edges and dark wit to entertain a child viewer but to give him/her the sense of the larger and deeper mysteries of adulthood. (See also: Neverending Story; Labyrinth; Jim Henson's Storyteller series).

To describe the plot in too much detail would take too long, spoil the movie, and sound ridiculous. Long story short: In England, there's a town called Wall which sits on the edge of our world and the world of Stormhold. Stardust follows the ventures of the half-breed son of Wall and Stormhold, Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) (a/k/a the Irish guy who had an affair with Margaret on Boardwalk Empire), as he tries to find his mum in Stormhold, catch a fallen Star (Claire Danes, fine, but miscast), and evade the machinations of an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer, excellent). Oh, yes, did I mention that Robert DeNiro plays Captain Shakespeare, the cosmopolitan pilot of a dirigible-boat full of air pirates that assist Tristan in his quest? Even that brief summary sounds ridiculous.

And it is! In a way fantasy films should be. Whimsical, heroic, and, above all, deeply strange.

I don't want to oversell it. This isn't a classic. While Gaiman's world-building is effective and charming and the performances are by and large winning, the direction, art direction, and effects aren't quite up to snuff. It feels like a very good TV movie - solid and entertaining but just a step away from big screen greatness. But it entertains and I look forward to sharing it with the Li'l ReViewing Habits when they're old enough that Michelle Pfeiffer gutting cats to read their entrails won't scare the living daylights out of them. What else can one ask for in a modern fantasy film?

Oh, yes, that.

FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER

NEXT UP: ?????

*Gaiman's run at the helm of The Sandman for DC Comics is appropriately legendary. He is also the writer behind Coraline, Neverwhere, and much, much, more.

How the West Was Weird (#68: Dances With Wolves)

Dances With Wolves belongs in the same sub-category of our DVD collection as The Da Vinci Code: acquisitions of uncertain provenance. We have it; we just don't know how or why that happened.

All the same, I was actually looking forward to this one. So, when we were watching Oscar winners, I suggested it as one of the entries. That suggestion was nixed by Ms. ReViewing Habit. After Last of the Mohicans inspired me to rant and rave about movies with Native American characters, I campaigned hard for it. Again, she was having none of it. Heedless, I plunged ahead on my lonesome. 

I chose poorly.

#68: Dances With Wolves

I really, really wanted to like this movie. Sure, I remember seeing it years ago and thinking it was just okay. Time, however, has not been kind to Kevin Costner's Western epic - which has become synonymous with the Oscars' habit of over-awarding actors turned directors. That it beat out (arguably) Martin Scorcese's greatest film, GoodFellas, for Best Picture makes it even worse in the eyes of many film fans. But I was hopeful I would come out of the film with a contrarian take on why the Academy got it right. Sorry to disappoint.

The buffalo stampede is the only injection of life in an otherwise terminally boring film.

Dances With Wolves commits the cardinal sin of being boring. Its story of a Civil War soldier (Costner) on the outer edges of the frontier, alone, by choice, confronted with the harsh realities of nature and the uncertainty of natives that regard him with suspicion, shouldn't be boring. But it feels endless and pointless.

The shame is that there is a deeper, weirder movie here struggling to bubble to surface. The opening sequence, where Costner's character survives a battle with his leg intact only because the surgeon needs a cup of coffee before sawing it off, told in fuzzy POV, sets an off-kilter tone. That is quickly followed by an odd setpiece with a Major (Maury Chaykin), soaked to his gills, referring to Costner's Lieutenant as "Sir Knight" and speaking of "quests" before offing himself which is (dare I say it?) Apocalypse Now-like in its threatening ambiguity. Then there's Mary McDonnell's alternately fascinating and cringe-inducing performance as Stands With A Fist, a refugee of the white world and a character of uncertain mental stability. A half hour in, I'm excited about what this movie might have to say about the senselessness of war, about man and nature, about our yen to be somewhere new and to hold on to somewhere old.

But Costner's paint-by-numbers direction and strangely lifeless performance and narration quickly suck any ambiguity or nuance out of the proceedings. The movie is ultimately too old-fashioned, and the usually charismatic Costner too restrained, to be interesting or effective. Did I mention it was boring?

It's honestly the first of the films we gave up on before it was over. If I'm not hooked after 2 hours, what's the point of continuing? We have other DVDs to watch.

FINAL VERDICT: PITCH

NEXT UP: STARDUST

We Were There (#67: The Last of the Mohicans)

Growing up, didn't it seem like you always covered the same topics in history? Every year, you learned about Jamestown, the Mayflower, the first Thanksgiving, then you'd get to the American Revolution and (maybe) the War of 1812 and stop. The rest was left for high school, we guess, though we picked up most of it on our own (and that most of what we had learned was more folklore than history) from the History Channel or by watching too many movies. 

 

It's always seemed weird, then, that there are so few films about pre-Civil War America. Or, for that matter, pre-America America. Sure, we remember watching the Johnny Tremain Disney movie and way too many Daniel Boone VHS tapes as a kid. But with all the force-feeding of creation myths in schools, where is our cinematic propaganda? Where's the treacly George Washington biopic bathing his apocryphal cherry-tree chopping in a magic hour halo of light and a John Williams score?

 

In all seriousness, there's a rich vein of American (and Native American) history left unportrayed on film. Which is a shame.

 

#67: The Last of the Mohicans

 

 

Michael Mann did his part to fill the void with The Last of the Mohicans. Adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's classic (but slightly arduous for modern readers) Leatherstocking Tales, this is the story of Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) the adopted European son of Chingachgook (Russell Means), the titular last of the Mohican tribe. Hawkeye does his best to stay out of the turf battle between the British and French taking place in and around his upstate New York  trapping grounds (a little tete-a-tete later called the French and Indian War). But when Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe), the gutsy daughter of a British general, needs an escort to her father's camp, he volunteers. When the escort party ends up mostly slaughtered and Cora kidnapped by Magua (Wes Studi), the nefarious Huron allied with the French, he vows to find her. Guess how it ends?

 

Wildly romantic and lushly shot, Mohicans is filled with the grandeur and adventure that can only be mustered by classic Hollywood epics. It's quite a departure from the rest of Mann's oeuvre, which is mostly filled with chilly, slow burn crime thrillers with one word titles (Manhunt, Thief, Heat, Collateral). In researching this review (yes, we do research!), we discovered that the 1936 version is the first movie Mann can remember watching. Clearly a passion project for the director, the movie bursts with nostalgia: from the swelling score to the gorgeous landscape, everything feels like a film memory the first time you see it.

 

Needless to say, Day-Lewis is fantastic. His sardonic intensity and dangerous physicality are perfect for the enigmatic Hawkeye. Madeleine Stowe is an ideal Jane to his Tarzan: sharp and daring. Means and Studi make you wonder why Hollywood didn't crank out Native American epics every single year in the 90's, as they had two readymade stars executing in top form. 

 

We're not qualified enough to opine on whether the film's treatment of the lives and dynamics between the different groups (Natives, colonists, foreign military) is truly accurate. To that end, we're not sure the ending, with Means solemnly intoning about the loss of his way of life and all the characters' ways of life, is truly earned. But with that glorious view of unspoiled wilderness and manipulative underscoring, it sure feels like it.

 

FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER

 

NEXT UP: DANCES WITH WOLVES

We Can Smell It (#66: The Rock)

A wise person once said that there are two types of people in the world: Nicolas Cage fans and liars.

We qualify as both.

#66: The Rock

The Rock stands for everything we hate about modern Hollywood action: gleefully illogical plotting; one-note/full-volume characterization; melodramatic nationalism; shameless product placement; and frenetic close ups as far as the eye can see. Throw in a few more lens flares and you have a recipe for ReViewing Habit hater-ade.

 

But, goddamn it, The Rock works.

 

No, we don't believe for a single second that Ed Harris and David Morse could so easily swindle a rare deadly gas, arm rockets, and take over Alcatraz. (By the way, you should totally check out the Alcatraz tour if you're ever in San Francisco, it's really cool. Even without Nicolas Cage. Though adding Cage to the cages [groan!] would be a coupe de grace.)

 

No, I don't buy that the lowly FBI bomb detonator played by Cage (with the uber-ridiculous handle of Stanley Goodspeed) would be sent into such a dangerous mission with hardly any real field training.

 

Moreover, would the real Michael Biehn (Commander Anderson), were he in charge of such a mission, allow a liability like Goodspeed to come along? No way. Amiright, sexy '80's Michael Biehn?

 

Yes. Yes, you are.

On the other hand, we totally buy that an aging and likely entropied British spy (Sean Connery) would not only have the werewithal to break back into Alcatraz and kick Army dude ass after 30 years behind bars, but also ESCAPE his FBI entourage and steal (and namecheck!) a Humvee. Yes, a HUMVEE! HOW DOES HE EVEN KNOW WHAT A HUMVEE IS? HE WAS IN JAIL SINCE THE SIXTIES! HUMVEES WEREN'T A THING UNTIL THE 80'S! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!

 

That "what on earth is happening?" vibe - epitomized, of course, by a trademark gooftactular Cage perfomance - is what makes it all work. The Rock is so breathless in its craziness, you can't help but get caught up.

 

But maybe we're weak...we do have a soft spot for the Cage.

 

 

FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER

 

NEXT UP: THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS