Do the Right Thing

Written and directed by Spike Lee. Starring Danny Aiello (Salvatore ‘Sal’ Fragione), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Spike Lee (Mookie).

Bottom line: With Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee is able to start a conversation about race in America, pointedly and brilliantly.

4/4

In Do the Right Thing, we watch an urban New York neighborhood during a heat-wave. Racial tensions smolder before erupting into violence. It is one of those movies that’s difficult to summarize; there are numerous characters whose plot lines intertwine but the core of the movie looks at the larger issue of racism. We have the Italian American, Sal (Aiello), who has owned the neighborhood pizza shop for twenty-five years. On one wall, he has a “Wall of Fame” which features photos of Italian-Americans. He refuses to put up any African or African-American photos. His son is a racist. We have the patron, a militant black power character, who vows to boycott Sal’s until there are Africans represented on the wall. Meanwhile, we have the brutal, white police officers. We have the Chinese owners of a local grocery store. We have the Hispanic community. We have Radio Raheem (Nunn) who blares Public Enemy on his boombox.

Spike Lee is able to present the complexity of this issue, and this film-world, with coherence and harmony. This is what makes Do the Right Thing so good. The important part about this movie is that there is no one completely at fault. It may not sound like much, I mean, we have antiheroes all the time, right? Here though, the purpose is to spark a dialog about race in America. The movie closes with two quotes. The first is a warning from Martin Luther King Jr. about the dangers of violence. I thought, “Alright, I get it. All of the destruction in the movie could’ve been avoided by choosing peace.” Then comes a statement by Malcom X saying that while he doesn’t condone violence, violence might be necessary in self-defense and he does condone self-defense. Even in conclusion this movie presents more than one perspective.  

In Do the Right Thing, the message is as ambiguous as the film’s title. What is the “right thing?” Of course, we all want to do that but how do we know what it is? Even if we do know the right thing, it’s a lot easier said than done.

Aside from a story perspective, Spike Lee fully uses the medium of film. It is a very hot summer day so he shows three old men sitting in lawn chairs partially covered by an umbrella. They sit in front of a fire-engine red brick wall. The color in and of itself makes the audience feel the warmth of that summer day. It reminded me of a Rothko painting.

In other situations, Lee uses a wide-angle lens pushed close up to the actors who speak directly into the camera. It is an uncomfortable angle to watch and listen to someone scream at you. That’s the point. Our proximity to the characters removes any chance we have of escaping the situation. It’s as if the film is telling us that we have to address these issues.

I just finished listening to an audio version of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. It is about tackling the resistance that is preventing you from doing what you truly dream. At one point, he explains that in writing this book, his own demons of resistance fought him. He said to himself, “I am a fiction writer. Shouldn’t I, instead of writing a nonfiction book like this, cloak the same message in metaphor? I could write a story about a soldier’s trials and tribulations as he undertakes a mission.” Do the Right Thing is like The War of Art in the sense that it is not a message hidden in a film, it a direct message in and of itself. Spike Lee uses jump cuts help develop this idea.

A jump cut is where the camera moves slightly between two shots. It moves in such a way that you can tell there was a cut. I have a bunch of jump cuts in my review videos, if you want to see an example.  Up until around the 1960’s, cut jumps were considered more a mistake than anything. They are jarring and make you aware of the camera so it breaks some level of immersion. So, by using a couple jump cuts, Lee is able to address the audience and the audience’s interaction with the film. That is, we aren’t going to get too caught up in the plot that we lose sight of the fact that this is a movie with a message. Do the Right Thing is a cinematic representation of a speech or an editorial; it not only tells you but it shows you.

I’ve mentioned this before, I’m sure, but I’ll say it again. A good movie might tell you, a bad movie will probably tell you again, but a great movie will show you. Do the Right Thing is a great movie that I highly recommend. I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to see it.

Pitch Black

Directed by David Twohy. Written by Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat and David Twohy. Starring Radha Mitchell (Carolyn Fry), Cole Hauser (Willaim J. Johns), Vin Diesel (Richard B. Riddick), Keith David (Abu ‘Imam’ al-Walid).

Bottom line: I don’t understand how this awful, painful movie started a franchise.

1/4

The movie opens with a tour of a transport spaceship. Almost all of the passengers are in cryogenic-like sleep pods. Yadda yadda yadda the ship crashes on some desert planet. When the however-many-suns-this-planet-has set, swarms of vicious, flying, aliens come out from the subterranean depths to hunt in the...pitch-black night. One of the [many] things that disappointed me about Pitch Black was the design of the alien. Initially, I was excited. I thought we weren’t actually going to get to see the aliens; it is called “pitch black” after all. Unfortunately, we see the little hammerhead things early and often. It’s too bad we see them too because, even though this movie is from 2000, the CGI has not aged well. 

I’m used to seeing “criminal” protagonists who turn out to be misunderstood or noble rebels especially when the protagonist is Vin Diesel. Has he ever been a bad guy? Well, in Pitch Black, he is a super criminal/murderer who is being transported to some prison colony-planet. Over time, as these protagonists do, they bond with their fellow travelers. Diesel has a tendency to do this in his other roles, namely, The Fast and The Furious, where he is the kindhearted hijacker, Dom. In Pitch Black, it seems like he is going to be that type of character; he saves this character who does something stupid and that character who puts himself in danger. At almost the end of the movie, all of a sudden, he drops the act to become a villain...only to turn around to do the right thing. If they were trying to make him an antihero, they weren’t successful nor were they successful at making him the anything more than a generic action figure.

Vin Diesel makes me laugh because he is so serious about his roles. I’ve mentioned that about Tom Cruise in my previous reviews. I appreciate it when an actor is determined to do a ludicrous scene with the utmost dedication. In Pitch Black, for example, Riddick’s hands are handcuffed behind his back around a steel beam. He looks up to see a break in the beam. I can imagine his thought process: “if only I could flip up somehow and slip the cuffs thr- oh, better idea, I’ll just dislocate my shoulders and slip them through the space.”

  

Overall, I really disliked almost everything about this movie. I already talked about Riddick but I wasn’t any fan of any of the other cookie cutter characters. There’s the token love interest, the punk kid (who I’ll discuss in a bit), Riddick’s white male rival, weasel-like male character (who looks oddly like Quentin Tarantino), the expendable (less attractive) female character, and the token minority character and his two kids. I did have some fun picking out which characters would die (and in what order). I’d recommend you try it if you find yourself strapped to a chair and forced to watch this movie.

Other than the poor graphics, the film tried (and failed) to experiment with colors and camera work. One of the suns is blue so everything is, you know, blue and there are a number of spinning shots at odd angles. None of this carried any sort of emotion. If anything, I was a little bored of seeing a group of blue people walk through a blue desert. If a movie is going to have a strange shot, give me a reason why. Is it supposed to represent someone’s state of mind? When I think about Pitch Black, it’s like it was actually two short movies directed by two different people, but they ran out of budget so they glued them together. 

Mind yourself for spoilers at this next bit. The shaved-head punk kid is named Jack. At one point, as the tired crew is making their way through the dark desert, Riddick says, “[we can’t make it now] especially with the girl bleeding.” But the love interest isn’t shot- Oh snap, Jack is a girl! From this point on, whimpering replaces any rebellious response from Jack. The big gender plot twist (if I can call it that) also has one of the most bizarre references to menstruation I’ve ever heard. The group is arguing about whether or not to continue or go back to a safe location. Riddick’s male rival says, “I say we mush on. Why don’t you butch up,” (talking to the love interest), “stick a cork in this kid and let’s go.” On that note...

I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about Pitch Black. I don’t recommend you ever see it this stupid, generic, disappointing, waste of time. Ever.

Dirty Harry

Directed by Don Siegel. Written by Harry Julian Fink, Rita M. Fink, and Dean Riesner. Starring Clint Eastwood (Police Inspector Harry Callahan), Andrew Robinson (Charles ‘Scorpio Killer’ Davis), John Vernon (The Mayor).

Bottom line: Iconic movie that does a really good job of translating the Western Clint Eastwood to a modern urban setting.

3/4

Clint Eastwood is Police Inspector Harry Callahan. He is a San Francisco cop who wants justice by any means necessary. It’s summertime and a serial killer named Scorpio (Robinson) strikes. He demands one hundred thousand dollars or he will kill “a Catholic priest or a nigger.” While the cowardly mayor tries to raise the money, the police undertake a manhunt. Callahan and his partner capture the killer but almost at the cost of their lives. Unfortunately, by going outside of protocol and outside the law, the killer goes free. Callahan urges the police system to act saying, “He’ll kill again...he likes it.”

I’m sure I’m not the only one who associates Eastwood with the silent, stern, noble (probably a wandering cowboy) type character.  In Dirty Harry, the nomadic hero has changed setting from the West to modern urban jungle. His core character is pretty much the same though. Instead of literally wandering from town to town, Callahan exists in a state where he moves from one crime to the next; his wife died so he only has his job.

The major conflict in the film is the bureaucracy preventing Callahan from fighting crime. 

The mayor holds a meeting with the police to discuss a plan to address Scorpio. He calls in Callahan for a report. “What have you been doing,” asks the mayor. “I’ve been sitting on my ass for the past half hour waiting for you,” he responds with an annoyed smirk. Callahan is like Batman in The Dark Knight. He wants justice and isn’t afraid to step on everyone’s toes to get it.  In The Dark Knight, Batman sets up a massive surveillance system to catch the Joker. It infringes on everyone’s sense of privacy, sure, but in the responsible hands of Batman, it is a means to an end. It’s ok. Callahan functions in the same way; “When I see a woman running down an alley screaming, being chased by a naked man with a butcher knife and a hard on, I don’t need to guess [his intentions].” Just like in Dark Knight, crime is presented as black and white so it’s palatable for us as the audience for Harry to act in an arguably extreme way.

At one point, he steps on the gunshot wound of a kidnapper to get information; one might call it police brutality, but a young girl’s life is at stake. In this scene, Callahan and the kidnapper are alone in an empty football field. As Callahan is stepping on the gunshot wound, the kidnapper screams out in pain. The camera cuts over to a helicopter shot which flies off into the night. The nearly empty stadium and the kidnapper’s screams gradually fade to black. It is an interesting shot because it is uncomfortable. It is one of the only times where we actually might question Callahan’s methods. As the kidnapper is let go (because his rights were encroached) we are frustrated enough with the system that we side with Callahan.

Speaking of the young girl, she is fourteen years old, is kidnapped, and it’s implied that she’s raped. Later, we assume Harry’s point of view, who, from a nearby hillside watches her naked, dead body being lifted out of a hole. Whenever a naked woman appears in most movies, the shot takes on a voyeuristic tone. It’s like we’re sitting and saying, “Oh will you just look at that. It’s terrible. Just let me look long and hard at how horrible this is.” By this point in the movie, I suppose we’re supposed to have forgotten that she was fourteen.

I liked the set design in Dirty Harry. It had a fun, artificial, shooting gallery feel to it. It reminded me of an old western town’s main street.

This is an iconic movie, as I’m sure you’re aware. Dirty Harry marked an evolution in crime films being one of the first major “cop movies”. It’s exciting and the action is solid. The more, I think about it, yeah, this is a 70’s version of The Dark Knight just less flashy and with Clint Eastwood. I’d recommend it for a weekday evening or a Saturday night.

Friday

Directed by F. Gary Gray. Written by Ice Cube and DJ Pooh. Starring Ice Cube (Craig Jones), Chris Tucker (Smokey), Nia Long (Debbie), and Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister (Deebo).

Bottomline: It wasn’t particularly funny but it feels like it captured a moment in 1995.

1/4

I remember, when I was six, a friend of mine (also age six) saw Friday. He loved it. He would reference it all the time and I never got any of it. It was so frustrating because I didn’t particularly want to see it but I wanted understand what he was referencing. It was like South Park. I never watched it when I was little but most of my schoolmates did. Every, what day was it, Thursday (the day after a new episode came out) I could expect to be left out of the first half of the lunchroom conversation. Anyway, by golly, it only took nearly twenty years but now I get the references to Friday. And let me tell you it was worth it. </sarcasm>

It is Friday in Oakland, CA. Craig (Ice Cube) recently lost his job. He is hanging out at home with his drug dealing, pothead friend, aptly named Smokey. The local drug dealer, Big Worm, gave Smokey two hundred dollars worth of weed to sell. Instead of selling it, Smokey, well smoked it. He gets Craig involved somehow and now they need to get money or they will be shot. That’s pretty much it, plot-wise. There are some other characters like the neighborhood bully, Deebo (Lister), but they aren’t anything really worth mentioning.

The humor in Friday varies in subject from crude fart jokes to jokes about obese people. At one point, Smokey tells the “hilarious” story about how he smoked weed with a couple Hispanic gangsters only to find out it was laced with cocaine. It feels like they tried to make the banter between Craig and Smokey a main source of humor but it doesn’t really work. When that delivery actually works, it’s great (consider the beginning of This is the End) but here the conversation feels awkward and forced.

Ice Cube’s acting can be described as a complex series of snarls. You have the one that says, “Sheesh, I’m frustrated” and another that says, “Man, what an inconvenience!” Chris Tucker plays Smokey as if he was preparing to be Ruby Rap in The Fifth Element; he jumps around and yells like he’s hyped on caffeine all while being smooth as butter (or so he thinks). I think because he reminded me of Ruby, he was the only thing that made this movie reasonably palatable (which is saying something because I usually don’t like goofy, silly characters).

Would I ever recommend this movie? No way. I’am glad I saw it just to cross it off the things to do before I die list. For those of you who are wondering, Next Friday (the sequel to Friday), is painfully awful. I couldn’t get further than fifteen or twenty minutes. Craig moves neighborhood because the neighborhood bully broke out of prison and is looking for Craig. They couldn’t even get Smokey in the movie (“he went to rehab”) so they invented a slew of cartoon characters I couldn’t care less about. Blah. Just thinking about it gives me headache.

An acquaintance of mine grew up in a rougher part of Philadelphia. One day, he explained to me why he likes those Tyler Perry comedies. They resonate with him having grown up in an African American household and neighborhood. I have a feeling that Friday serves the same purpose. I can only relate- well, I can’t relate to it. I am closer to Mapleton Drive than the world parodied by Friday. The only way I can really orient myself is through documentaries and serious films about life in the ghetto. For example, I remember seeing the crack-head character in Menace II Society and there is one in Friday named Ezal (Johnson). At one point, Craig and Smokey are the targets of a drive-by. In a movie like Menace II Society, such a thing would be tragic but, in Friday, it’s an inconvenience.

In my IT work, I’m often sitting with a client at his or her computer waiting for it to load. What do you do in those situations? Small talk. I will sometimes ask them how egregiously Hollywood warps his or her profession. Being into computers, my eyes roll every time I hear “hack the Gibson” or “enhance” or <insert any line from Live Free or Die Hard>. For another example, what show or movie most accurately depicts the field of medicine? Repeatedly, the answer I receive is Scrubs. Now, being a blonde, white, middle class male (and German to boot), I am struggling to come up with a phrasing that doesn’t come across as racist but Friday makes me wonder what one would say in terms of the cinematic representation of life in the ghetto. Is the reality closer to Menace II Society or Friday? Note that I am using these two films as different ends of the spectrum. I’m thinking that reality falls closer to Menace II Society but asking a question like this opens up a can of philosophical worms. In part, it comes down to a question of authenticity. What does it mean to represent life in general (not just in the ghetto) “correctly”? Is it even possible? Considering Menace II Society and Friday, what is the purpose of each of these representations? Does the purpose affect the representation? In other words, what are the implications of a film being a comedy versus a comment on society?  These are all interesting questions but I’ll save them for later. In the meantime, what do you think?

The Great Escape

Directed by John Sturges. Written by Paul Brickhill (book), James Clavell, and W.R. Burnett. Starring Steve McQueen (Hilts 'The Cooler King'), James Garner (Hendley 'The Scrounger'), and Richard Attenborough (Bartlett 'Big X').

Bottom line: The story, acting, music and cinematography are spot on. I can't remember the last time I saw an almost three hour movie and thought, 'I wish there was more'.

4/4

The Great Escape opens to a Nazi caravan behind the bold, red, opening credits. A whistling, patriotic song provides music. It is brilliant way to set the tone the movie. An attitude of optimistic rebellion opposes the seriousness of the situation. We soon find out what the trucks hold; a shipment of British soldiers most of whom have escapes or attempted escape from POW camps throughout the German empire. In the words of the man in charge of the newly designed prison, all of the rotten eggs put into one basket, a basket that very closely watched.

One of the prisoners is an American named Hilts. He is one of the best escapees. Within the first twenty minutes of being in the camp, he devises a strategy for escape. He suspects and proves that there is a blind spot in the watchtowers’ view. However, in his test, he doesn't account for the sentries walking throughout the compound. He is captured and thrown in solitary confinement ("the cooler") for twenty days. Meanwhile, the British prisoners, led by the master escapist Big X (Attenborough), are planning a massive breakout. We are told that the mission of every captured officer is to disrupt and hinder the enemy as much as possible. What better way to accomplish this objective than to break out not two or three but two hundred and fifty men?

I could discuss about the plans that the prisoners concoct or about each of the wonderfully developed characters but I would be writing for quite a while. Despite the healthy length of 172 minutes, this movie kept me on the edge of my seat. Each of the escape attempts are thrilling and each of the characters are fascinating. It’s refreshing to have over a dozen characters feel human. Even the Nazi soldiers feel rightly human.

Often, there seems to be a need to demonize the Nazis just to make it perfectly clear that they are the enemy. In The Great Escape, the enemy becomes the camp itself. The camp is an obstacle must be defeated for the good of the Allied Powers (rather than for the destruction of the Axis). Instead of structuring it as “I have to break out of here to kill these Nazis,” the film is saying, “I have to get out of here to make them spend more time and money chasing after me and guarding me.”

I also enjoyed the set design. For the enclosed spaces, we watch from a cross-section of the room or tunnel. This way, we get a mild sensation of the enclosed space but it doesn't distract from the movie. It is unlike, if my memory serves me, the scene in Kill Bill where the protagonist is buried alive. The camera is almost inside the coffin. Now, don't get me wrong, the feelings of claustrophobia was the point but it would become a distracting if the majority of the film was structured that way.

I highly recommend The Great Escape. It is a fun and exciting movie that I look forward to seeing again. It has a bittersweet ending but never loses the bright optimism of the introduction.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Written by Judi Barrett, Ron Barrett, John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Erica Rivinoja. Starring Bill Hader (Flint Lockwood), Anna Faris (Sam Sparks), James Caan (Tim Lockwood), and Will Forte (Chester V).

Bottom line: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is the best children’s movie I’ve seen in a long time; I would highly recommend it to anyone and especially those with children.

3.5/4

I remember reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, or at least having it read to me, when I was little. I was apprehensive when the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs film came out. I thought the animation was too wiggly and I didn’t like the idea that they changed around the story. I didn’t even see it. Flash forward to last night, at her request, my fiance and I watched the recently released sequel. It was such a good decision.

Just like any sequel, the movie begins with a plot refreshment but it was short and sweet. It brought me up to speed and smoothly transitioned into the new movie. From a young age, Flint Lockwood has dreamed of becoming a world changing scientist/inventor like his hero, the CEO of Live Corp, Chester V. Flint eventually makes a device that changes water into food. The machine malfunctions causing the island on which Flint, his family and friends live to overflow with food. Flint destroys the device to prevent a global catastrophe. He and his friends decide to make a lab together to invent and change the world. Chester V (well, a hologram of Chester V) arrives to the food covered island and invites the islanders to live in San Franjose, CA. Flint is given a job at Live Corp, a science company whose flagship product is the Live Bar.

Live Corp, and Chester V, is a source of constant, funny jabs at Apple and Steve Jobs. The Live Corp logo, a light bulb, is everywhere in the sleek, white design of the company headquarters: the building is a giant light bulb and it has a fancy light bulb shaped water feature. The entry-level inventors work in a cube farm in the basement of the building, tirelessly inventing for the biannual induction ceremony where one inventor becomes an Inventronaut, the upper echelon of Live Corp employees who have proven their scientific prowess. Numerous “caffeine stations” provide free coffee while videos of Chester V speaking play at “Motivation Stations”. Meanwhile, back on the island, Flint’s invention wasn’t destroyed. It has continued to create food but the food has evolved to the point that the fruits and vegetables are now food-animal hybrids like Flamangos and Cucumbirds. I am a fan of puns and, if you have seen the trailer, this movie is full of them. Chester V orders Flint to shutdown the machine to save the world from the food-animals.

I mentioned, previously, that I thought the animation was a little too wiggly. After watching the movie, I can say that I was incorrect. The animation is colorful and energetic. The same thing can be said about the humor. It was light, pleasant, and consistent. One of my pet peeves about children’s movies relates to the poor attempts at humor. There are fart jokes, poop jokes, or the hitting in the groin jokes. They make me uncomfortable because I don’t think they are funny and I don’t think they should be such a source of humor. Then there are the jokes geared towards the parents because they go over the heads of the children. When I was little, this was a source of frustration. I was aware that there was a joke but I didn’t understand it. I wanted to get it but I couldn’t. I felt like the movie was banishing me to the children's’ table. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 doesn’t have many of these two types of jokes. It is an accessible movie. “Ah! There’s a leek in the boat,” yells Lockwood. The camera cuts over to a vegetable sitting in the boat which returns an equally startled yell. If a child didn’t know what a leek was the jokes would not be lost and it would give the parent/s the opportunity to explain the joke.

In terms of characters, they are all were pleasant. I loved the relationship between Sam and Flint the most. It is clear that they are a couple but the end goal isn’t to get married and live happily ever after but to make a laboratory and invent. They want to change the world together. Sam is a capable scientist who isn’t relegated to the position of damsel in distress.

I don’t know how I feel about attitude towards the food-animals. At one point, Sam says, “You can’t eat them, they are alive!” What are they supposed to eat!?  Sam’s objection, of course, is an common reason for becoming a vegetarian but now what are they going to do for food in general? If they shut off the machine, the food-animals will die, but it is stays on, the machine will keep making more. Does this mean people will just have to make sure the food they eat is home grown, or at least, not sentient? Perhaps this is can be interpreted as a statement about responsible food production practices. It isn’t a question the movie directly raises or address, it was just something that came to my mind. The main message of the movie is about friendship. Chester V tricks Flint into thinking that success is more important than friends or family. Will Flint realize what is going on before it is too late?

If I had children, I would have them watch this movie. The sense of humor is refreshing and the animation is bright and happy. The story and characters are playful and fun to watch. In fact, I would highly recommend Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 to anyone looking for a happy movie.