Magic Mike (2012) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn
By Alan Bacchus

The plotting takes us through the familiar route to fame and fortune in the seedy entertainment business, situating itself somewhere between Boogie Nights and 54. Channing Tatum plays Mike, an entrepreneur and hot shot in Tampa Bay, Florida, who tiles roofs, runs a car detailing business and aspires to be a creator of premium furniture. But his best talent is dancing, as he leads a team of male strippers in a very popular nightclub. Before we even see Tatum flash his wares we see him meet Adam, a young man with no career prospects, on his roofing job site. Mike takes him under his wing, and through Adam's virgin eyes we see the world of the strip club. Eventually, Adam finds himself on stage learning the ropes of stripping.

Tatum’s presence and charisma are so strong that he overwhelms everyone else, specifically Alex Pettyfer as Adam. Adam's side plot as a green newbie who finds himself on the dark side of the business engaging in drug use and gangster activities falls into the background. Even the romantic plotting of Adam’s sister, Joanna (Munn), who harbours a contrived fraternal overprotection of Adam, is undercooked.

Soderbergh directs the film with his typical understated and relaxed style. It results in a unique situational realism. Soderbergh’s tone is undermined by Reid Carolyn’s script, which turns melodramatic much too suddenly in a number of places. It forces Soderbergh to reluctantly turn a corner when he wanted to go in the other direction. Matthew McConaughey’s character, seen largely as a fun and affable boob, turns inexplicably sinister for one scene, and Adam’s betrayal and Mike’s subsequent bailout feel like they're from another film Soderbergh forgot to make.

But it’s the half-dozen or so tremendously exciting choreographed dance scenes that anchor the film. The sequences showcase the talents that launched Tatum in the film Step It Up in 2006. The raunchy bass-pumping music laid over the reaction shots of screaming girls deifies Mike as a near godlike embodiment of masculine allure. It's an attention Tatum accepts with a strong sense of humility as well - a unique quality in a movie star.

And really that’s all anyone wanted or expected from the film.

That said, it brings up a consistent frustration with Soderbergh, at one time one of the most exciting American filmmakers. It now seems like he's coasting on substandard and forgettable material. Will we ever see a film like Traffic or Sex, Lies, and Videotape again?

***

Haywire (2012) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton

By Alan Bacchus

The inspiration for this picture is well known. Steven Soderbergh, who upon watching an MMA fight with Gina Carano, developed a spy thriller action vehicle around her as an ass-kicking international super spy. It’s an admirable experiment for the man known for a career of varied cinematic experiments, such as casting a real-life porn star in a film about a call girl. The end result of this film, like The Girlfriend Experiment and others, is a mixed bag, but certainly not a full tilt action film to compete with James Bond or the Bourne films. Instead it's a measuredly paced, quiet and ultimately underwhelming thriller.

Ms. Carano is a surprisingly striking figure, a classic Mediterrean beauty with a nice body. But unlike Angelina Jolie in Salt, Carano is physically impressive enough to whoop some ass. However, I don't think the two qualities - beauty and strength - are mutually exclusive. Carano's acting skills have been unfairly trounced in many fan reviews. She has very little to say, smartly playing the quiet, understated assassin-type.

The plotting, as is typical with Soderbergh, is loopy by design, starting in the middle during which we find Mallory Kane (Carano) in upstate New York on the run from some government heavies, including Channing Tatum, who gets beaten down pretty good in a diner. This jumpstarts the film. From there Kane sort of kidnaps an awestruck teenager to whom she confesses her secrets. Along the way Soderbergh flashes back to the events which led her to New York, including a covert ops job from a private militia firm who hired her to free a kidnapped agent in Barcelona. This leads her to Dublin, where she’s set up to be a fall guy (girl) for the previous job. After being doublecrossed in Dublin, Kane seeks to turn the tables by tracking down her enemies and freeing herself from the bullseye on her back.

All of this is shot with a consciously minimalist style. Crisp colour-coded cinematography looks like Soderbergh’s recent work in Contagion, and the bouncing David Holmes soundtrack reminds us of the Oceans films. Despite the complex plotting, the pacing is slow, which results in an awkward viewing experience.

Sadly, Soderbergh doesn’t execute his fight scenes either. The set pieces are clear and defined, and they arrive very suddenly. There’s a disconnect between the realism of the direction between these fights, which feel like cinematic choreographed fight scenes. Soderbergh admirably shoots his scenes with as little cutting as possible, but as a consequence there’s a stagey, overly rehearsed feel to the movement. The fights do feel violent, specifically with the incorporation of Carano’s MMA moves, but everything seems to be set up around them and we’re taken too far out of the film. That said, Soderbergh does intergrate a fun old Asian cinema trick, changing the camera frame rate to ever so slightly speed up the film, and also cutting out a frame or two to make some of the kicks and punches seem harder.

While not a fully satisfying film, it’s another stop in Soderbergh’s fascnating career - never content to deliver what's expected and an admirable attempt to tell a familiar story in an unconventional form.

Haywire is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Alliance Films in Canada.

Traffic (2000) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Michael Douglas, Benecio Del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Luis Guzman, Erika Christensen, Topher Grace, Steven Bauer

****

By Alan Bacchus

Looking back on my favourite independent films of the late ‘90s/early 2000s, some survive well and others don’t (like Magnolia - ew). Despite many imitators, Traffic has lost none of its power since 2000. It’s a film about ideas, as fresh, innovative, thrilling and emotionally satisfying now as it was then.

At this time there was a whole lot of high-profile studio dreck making big noise. But it was mostly hot air – lots of tepid Hollywood product from big names like Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, What Lies Beneath), Ridley Scott (Gladiator), Gus Van Sant (Finding Forrester), Robert Redford (Legend of Baggar Vance), Ron Howard (The Grinch Whole Stole Christmas) and other 'forgettable' studio product.

It was an astonishing year for Steven Soderbergh, who had two critical hits that year, including Erin Brochovich. He was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director for both and won for Traffic.

Based on the British TV mini-series, Traffik (1989), Soderbergh’s opus captures the broad scope of the drug trafficking network in America, specifically the cartels in Mexico selling their wares in the United States. Arguably, much of the heavy lifting on this story was done by Simon Moore, who wrote the British series. Screenwriter Stephen Gaghan’s challenge was to transport it to America, bring it down to two-and-a-half hours and make it cinematic.

It’s a simple starting point to tell this broad story – three separate threads that converge with each other in the third act. There’s Benecio del Toro’s character, Javier Rodriguez, a soft-spoken Mexican cop, who, despite using dirty tactics, has a moral conviction at heart that will emerge throughout the picture. He’s our point of view into the Mexican cartel war, in this case the Obregon/Juarez cocaine kings, whose battle incites the action in the film.

There’s also the point of view of the DEA, including officers Montel Gordon (Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Guzman), affable undercover partners leading the case against the American distributor of the Obregon drugs, Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer), who, following the arrest of a low-level pawn, uses him as an informant against Ayala.

And lastly there’s the government angle with Robert Wakefield (Douglas) as the Presidential-appointed drug czar, who, while navigating his way through the drug politics of the border, is also dealing with his daughter's own drug addiction.

While one of its more famous imitators, Crash, used the same gimmicky device but with a block head treatment of its sociopolitical issues, looking back Traffic feels as credible, honest and thought-provoking intellectually as it did 12 years ago. This is due to Steven Soderbergh's precise control of his tone. Many of his key turning points could have been embellished, but at all times we can feel the restraint on the reigns whenever the film threatens to spill over into melodrama.

Soderbergh continues his fascinating creative collaboration with composer Cliff Martinez, his go-to man for his serious films. Using quiet ambient tones, both synthesized and organic, a quiet intensity brews, keeping the drama to a whisper.

And despite the truncated screen time we come to love Soderbergh’s heroes, specifically the DEA agents whom we discover are in over their heads against the powerful, unstoppable force and deep pockets of the clandestine drug cartels. It’s the same with the rogue underachiever, Javier Rodriguez, who, after witnessing the horrors of the drug war at ground zero, engineers a remarkable and heroic stance against the hand that fed him.

Of the three storylines Michael Douglas’s feels the most on the nose, specifically the dramatic irony of his daughter’s addiction competing against his responsibility as drug policeman for the country as a whole. That said, it's one of Douglas's best late-career performances. And the only other false note to reference is Dennis Quaid’s obvious turn as the shady lawyer scheming against Ayala’s pregnant wife.

But these are minor blips in an otherwise perfect movie. It’s an 'important' film recognizable as a product of its time – just as All the President’s Men and its distilled conspiratory style was a product of its time.

Traffic is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. But as a note to readers, Soderbergh’s carefully crafted colour-coded cinematography doesn’t quite hold up on Blu-ray. It takes much fiddling with your contrast/brightness settings so as not to blow out the hot spots in most of the scenes.

Contagion (2011)) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard

***

By Alan Bacchus

Contagion is a film to enjoy in the moment and forget once it's finished. While it portends to be a film about 'ideas', the only thing to savour is its technical acuity, which makes it effectively nothing more than an action film.

The central idea here is the relation of the spread of a deadly SARS-like or H1N1 virus to the unruly panic of our human response. It starts well, hopping around the world showing how Gwenyth Paltrow spread the virus from Hong Kong to Chicago to Tokyo and other places around the world. When people start dying, CDC (Center for Disease Control) officials, FEMA and other organizations start tracking the virus and formulating a cure.

The quick pace and ticking clock urgency, as well as a lot of scientific terms and techno-speak, create a sense of realism for this intense thriller. Unfortunately, once the metaphor to the spread of panic and fear at the human level clicks in, the sense of realism is lost. Soderbergh never devolves to the level of ham-fisted moral ironies of say Edward Zwick's The Siege or even a number of Stephen King stories, but it's still a familiar and obvious lesson. Ordinary citizens so quickly reverting to looting and other primal, uncivilized survival 'instincts' is simply not believable and rings as false.

The globetrotting set-up playing out the drama is teasing, but the broad scope eventually undermines the human drama, as we don't spend enough time with anybody to truly care about them on an emotional level. Soderbergh would have done better if he just stuck with the procedural aspects of the virus containment. And curiously, the usually watchable Matt Damon is the weakest link with a dull performance that is falsely understated. It's as if Soderbergh didn't want to commit to shooting a character film, thus leaving us hopelessly in between two different films – or it needed to be three hours long to fully realize his intended film.

Looking back, the best moments in the film are the fabulous montage sequences driven by the pulsing electronic score by the underused and underappreciated Cliff Martinez (Traffic). In fact, this would likely be abysmal and unwatchable if not for Martinez. Of course, this demonstrates Steven Soderbergh's directorial inspiration to present this film with an insignificant aesthetic shift away from the regular paint-by-numbers dreck.

The technical precision is truly magnificent. His cinematography, once again shot by himself under his pseudonym, Peter Andrews, is crisp and clinical. The bold placement of saturated colours results in them popping out of the frame as startling as the best 3D imagery. And once again, the music of Cliff Martinez complements the visual design with such electro-magnificence it singlehandedly keeps us going through the overly ambitious, under-executed socio-political allegories.

You might not travel the globe at the same speed as Contagion, but wherever you are, you can still watch movies online with LOVEFiLM: your go-to site for the best and latest releases to watch online

Ocean’s Eleven (1960) dir. Lewis Milestone
Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Cesar Romero, Richard Conte, Henry Silva, Akim Tamiroff, Joey Bishop, Angie Dickinson, Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, George Raft, Hoot Gibson, Buddy Lester, Red Norvo

****

By Greg Klymkiw

Right from the beginning of Ocean’s Eleven you know you’re in for a treat! The stunning opening credit sequence designed by master stylist Saul Bass (Psycho), the supremely cool Nelson Riddle score and one legendary star’s name after another all signal a picture that just can’t fail.

And it doesn’t!

This legendary heist caper featuring the immortal Las Vegas “Rat Pack” (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop) is probably my favourite caper picture ever. It’s not the best heist picture ever made – that honour would go to Jules Dassin’s Rififi – but Ocean’s Eleven is the coolest.

It’s cooler than cool.

Remade in 2001 by Steven Soderbergh (and followed by two sequels), one could even argue that the more recent picture is technically better made. I’d not argue that at all, but in spite of this, Soderbergh’s George Clooney-Brad Pitt, et al extravaganza of contemporary star power has nothing memorable about it – nothing at all. You watch it and once it’s over, it passes through your system like so much junk food waste matter.

Lewis Milestone’s original rendering, as wonky, occasionally clunky and definitely dated as it is sticks to your memory banks, not unlike a good wad of honey mixed with walnuts, buckwheat and poppy seeds flung to the ceiling by mad Ukrainians during their Eastern Rite Christmas celebrations. Bits of the glop may drop off from time to time, but unless you chisel away at it like some obsessive unskilled labourer at a construction site, those delectable globs are there forever.

And that’s pretty much what the 1960 Ocean’s Eleven is – a delectable glop of honey mixed with walnuts, buckwheat and poppy seeds! It's sweet, tasty and sticks to your insides.

Detailing the adventures of some aimless old army buddies in post-war America, the picture takes us right into their seemingly insane plan to pull off the biggest heist imaginable – hitting five Las Vegas casinos (The Flamingo, The Sands, The Desert Inn, The Riviera, The Sahara) all at once on New Year’s Eve. Not only does it take a first rate crew, but a good stake and tons of planning. Most of all, the operations require the same precision used in battleground manoeuvres.

This, of course, is where high-roller Danny Ocean (Sinatra) comes in. During wartime, Danny was a crack squad leader of an Airborne Division. He fearlessly led his boys into the fray many times and always got them through unharmed. He’s a genius at military manoeuvres and always on the lookout for the welfare of his buddies. And now Danny wants them to make up for lost time. Post-war America has ignored them and it's time for some payback. As Danny declares, “Why waste all those cute little tricks the army taught us just because it’s a little peaceful now?” Given that his plan is to rip the casinos off as if they were in battle with the Germans and that he’ll be fearlessly leading the way is enough for lowlife moneyman Spyros Acebos (Akim Tamiroff munching scenery with the voracity of several off-the-wagon members of Weight Watchers let loose in a buffet) to stake them.

The fun of the movie is, of course, the WORLD of the movie and not necessarily the heist itself. This is the mistake Soderbergh made with his remake. He trotted out all his stars and proficiently laid out the groundwork and execution of a suspenseful heist. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing to do. The picture worked very well on that level and certainly grossed oodles of money (including the two lousy through-the-roof sequels). What the remake didn’t do (and perhaps couldn’t achieve, due to the fact that Vegas NOW is NOT the Vegas it once was) is create compelling enough backdrops for the movie to be more than an ephemeral hit. When Soderbergh’s picture is long forgotten, I do believe Milestone’s will survive.

For example, the first time we see George Clooney’s Danny in the Soderbergh film, he’s in the hoosegow and frankly it’s just not as much fun to see your hero in prison garb as the first time we see our hero in Milestone’s picture. Our first taste of Sinatra as Danny is utterly, irrepressibly, unbelievably, jaw-droppingly cool – or, like I noted before, cooler than cool. In a swank pad, we’re introduced to Danny and his pal Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) getting massages from a couple of bodacious beauties.

I’m taking Sinatra, Lawford and two blondes over George Clooney in prison duds anytime – hands down!

To quote Cagney in Strawberry Blonde, “That’s just the kind of hairpin I am.” Great line, by the way. That’s the other thing Soderbergh’s remake doesn’t have. Can anyone remember a single line of memorable dialogue from the 2001 Ocean’s Eleven? If you can, you’re lying. Or worse, you don't know what a great line is.

Milestone’s 1960 version of this heist tale is bursting at the seams with first-rate dialogue. Some of it is scripted, much of it was ad-libbed by the Rat Pack. When I first saw the movie as a kid, most of my friends and I peppered our speech in the schoolyard with nuggets from the movie. (And in case you lob the old “that was then” argument at me, my own 10-year-old daughter who recently saw the movie is spouting these same lines. Everything old CAN become new again.) One of the more deliciously “offensive” (yet utterly memorable and eminently quotable) lines in the 60s version is when Peter Lawford offers the following to someone who doubts how airtight the heist plan is. Using the ultimate, swinging, cool cat reasoning, Lawford casually remarks: “You can take my word for it. You know I only lie to girls.” Oh, and ladies reading this review are advised that substitution of the word “boys” for “girls” is a sure-fire winner for all occasions. Sammy Davis Jr. also gets a zinger that could be used by ladies in a contemporary context – it’s a hilarious moment when one of the guys doesn’t know how to explain his absence during the heist to his wife and Sammy responds: “Tell her you love her. That’ll hold her for a couple of weeks.”

The other thing Soderbergh’s film doesn’t have is the resonance of the historical cusp Milestone’s version is set on. Situated at the tail end of the post-war ennui AND baby boom and just before the turbulence of the post-JFK assassination, Ocean’s Eleven resonates with the times in ways filmmakers could only dream about in the pre-9/11 world. Even post-9/11, the Soderbergh sequels don't bother with any political contexts.

The biggest differences, though, are storytelling elements of an earlier age seldom being exploited in contemporary cinema – especially sentiment.

When Henry Silva as one of the team-assemblers comes to visit the sad-sack Richard Conte, he’s faced with a divorced dad, just out of stir, who needs to come up with a whack of dough to keep his son in a swanky private military school. It’s about the only “face” he’s got left with his kid. While Conte's character would prefer to walk the straight and narrow, he asks Silva if his cut of the heist will be enough to keep his kid in school. Silva replies that the cut will be enough for Conte to BUY his son a school.

With this particular subplot, there are two sequences so sentimental, yet deeply and almost profoundly moving that Soderbergh, for all HIS contemporary cooler-than-cool styling, would never be able to achieve. Milestone very sensitively directs a visit between father and son at school that continues to move me to tears every time I see it. Sometimes I start bawling like some old grandmother when I simply THINK about the scene. The major tear-squirter occurs when Conte visits his doctor and senses the worst. He asks, “Tell it to me straight, Doc – is it the Big Casino?” And indeed, it is. Conte has very little time to live, as he’s afflicted with lung cancer. He knows well what he needs to do.

This is, frankly, why the movie has all the earmarks of a classic. The characters all have so much to lose and this is what resonates so overwhelmingly. These are things I’ve never forgotten over the years and it’s narrative details like these that contribute to a picture’s staying power. One of the Eleven, for example, works as an emcee in a cheap nightclub where his wife also works as a stripper. Day in and day out, he has to lasciviously introduce her to all the slavering men in the club and even witness slime-bags making passes at her like, “Hey honeyface, I’d like to take you home and spread you all over my waffle.”

The fates of all these war veterans have far more resonance than any of the characters in Soderbergh’s remake.

The great Sammy Davis Jr. plays a former minor league baseball player who has lost an eye and is now working as a garbage collector. When he’s told how brave he must have been in wartime, he responds with melancholy: “The real brave ones don’t come home.” This is followed by an amazing sequence where Sammy sings the title track of the movie – jamming and jiving to pick up the spirits of his fellow African-American colleagues sitting amidst the garbage trucks in a loading dock. It’s not only an opportunity to get one of the great entertainers of the 20th century to do his stuff on film, but render it in a manner that is credible and rooted in the narrative.

The movie addresses the issue of race during this time head-on, and it’s Sammy who gets a crack that must have had audiences of all colours reacting with knee-slapping laughter, but with even more resonance amongst African-Americans. At one point, the Rat Pack is smearing their faces with black shoe polish and Sammy refers to his natural ability to blend in when the power in the casino goes out. He has this great quip: “I knew this colour would come in handy someday.” An interesting side note to this is how Sammy was forced to stay in "Coloured-Only" hotels even though he was playing at swanky joints in Vegas at the time. During the shooting of the film, Sinatra himself put an end to this racism during the film's shooting. Segregation in Vegas came to an end because of this.

Sinatra wasn't called "The Chairman of the Board" for nothing.

One of my favourite moments with Sammy Davis Jr. is the scene where the whole teams is assembled and ready to knock off the Vegas casinos and he announces with equal parts melancholy and pride: “Us eleven cats up against this old city – we’re in overlay.”

Who can write great dialogue like this these days? I can count them on one hand. What actors can even render this dialogue today or, for that matter, even ad-lib it?

And just in case you think the entire movie and every piece of dialogue uttered by Frank, Dean and the rest of the Rat Pack is wildly out of whack and male-centric, the movie delivers some terrific performances from women who get their fair share of truly memorable moments and zingers. Female rat-packer Shirley MacLaine appears in a delicious cameo as a hooker. She rattles off a great line: "I'm so drunk I don't think I could lie down without holding on." Angie Dickinson – in her prime, no less – appears as Sinatra’s ex-wife. When Dean Martin gets a gander at her ravishing beauty, he quips, “You better stop getting prettier every day or you’ll turn into a monopoly.” Truer words were never spoken. Dickinson oozes screen presence in ways most contemporary female stars can only dream of. As for Dean's line, I sure wish contemporary characters could occasionally refer to gorgeous leading ladies that way. Angie Dickinson herself has quite a few zingers. When Frank laments their divorce and claims that all he wanted for them was a place to call home, Angie fires off the following: “We never had a home, we had a floating crap game.”

Ouch!

Of all the Rat Pack movies, Ocean’s Eleven is clearly the best. Sergeants 3, directed by John Sturges, was an okay semi-remake of Gunga Din, 4 for Texas was a moderately enjoyable western comedy directed by Robert Aldrich and Robin and the Seven Hoods was a relatively cool musical comedy in which Vegas stood in for Sherwood Forest and was directed by prime-cut old studio camera jockey Gordon Douglas.

I think Ocean’s Eleven works the best not only because it was the first, but the manner in which it was made was infused with the pure adrenalin of Vegas. All of the Rat-Packers were booked at the same time and playing shows at night, then partying all night and finally, shooting the movie all morning and early afternoon. These guys were primed and they were lucky to have a great old hand like Lewis (All Quiet On The Western Front) Milestone helming the proceedings. Seeing the movie in the real Las Vegas in 1960 with marquees touting the names of Harry James, Red Skelton, Danny Thomas, Louis Prima, Buddy Hackett and others must surely have been a charge while making the movie. Amazingly, it all spews out on celluloid.

I mean, My God! We even get a phenomenal scene with Dean Martin singing the great tune “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” with Red Norvo on vibes.

Even cooler is the ending. It’s not only a great surprise ending but is frankly, a shocker. As much as the film is entertainment, it’s so rooted in a reality beyond time and place, it’s rooted firmly in the world of Las Vegas – a world where the house ALWAYS wins!

Ocean’s Eleven is a movie that’s as much a part of “old” Hollywood while signalling the eventual “new” Hollywood of the next decade. The movie was clearly more than an ephemeral box office hit. It had influence and staying power. People often forget that this is what can make good movies great.

I’m more than happy to extol the greatness of Ocean's Eleven!

Ocean’s Eleven is available in a terrific Blu-ray transfer through Warner Home Entertainment that preserves the grain while reflecting the picture’s outstanding colour palette. The extra features include a great commentary from Frank Sinatra Jr. (and occasional patter from Angie Dickinson) and the added treats of a Tonight Show clip with Frank (guest hosting no less) and Angie (as his guest) and some decent little featurettes on the great Vegas hotels.

The Good German (2006) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire

**

It was a good try but ultimately Steven Soderbergh’s ode to 1940’s Hollywood is a failed experiment. With “The Good German” director Soderbergh has sought to recreate the look, mood, and story of 40’s wartime thrillers, like “Casablanca”, “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Third Man”. There are many rumours about the film being shot with old school cameras, lenses, film stock and lighting equipment. It’s a great concept, but untrue. Soderbergh did use older lenses but he shot the film in colour and corrected to B&W. Though the film looks great and could pass as a Michael Curtiz or John Huston film it fails to bring us sufficient intrigue, suspense and romance that these classic films are famous for.

It’s 1945, the war in Europe is over, Captain Jake Geismer has arrived in war torn Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference as a journalist. He is met by his military driver Patrick Tully, who on the side is a black marketeer with his own personal agenda. Tully’s girlfriend Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) is a prostitute and may be using Tully to obtain transfer papers (a la “Casablanca”) to get her out of East Berlin. BTW Cate Blanchett, as a prostitute, is too much of a stretch, but I let that slide. Things are quickly complicated when unknown assailants show up asking about Lena’s deceased husband, Emil Brandt. Lena also happens to be Jake’s old flame. Is it a coincidence Lena, Tully and Jake have encountered each other at the same time? No. A dead body shows up at the turn of the first act and Jake proceeds to unravel the mysteries in traditional Dashiel Hammitt gumshoe fashion.

The whole point of the film seems to be to recreate “Casablanca”. Lena and Jake had a wartime fling much like Isla and Rick. There are no sparks between Blanchett and Jake though. Jake gazes forlornly at Lena on many occasions but Lena never reciprocates. Beware of SPOILERS AHEAD. Emil Brandt, who may or may not be dead, is built up as a character of certain knowledge that could harm the powers at be, yet when he does show up it’s an anti-climax. His knowledge is already written down in his diaries, so there’s no real need for him in the film. Perhaps this plot line would work if we felt Lena was torn between Jake and Emil (a la “Casablanca”), but she never expresses true love for either of them.

Jake is never really in any jeopardy in the film as well. Clooney does take at least four Brando-esque beatings and manages to pick himself up again for more torment, but does he do it all out of love for Lena? Or is he just doing his job getting to the bottom of the mystery? We’re never quite sure of his ultimate agenda. The ending is a complete let down and when the credit starts to roll the only thing you can think of is why I just donated two hours of my time to this film.

I’ve said it before in my essay comparing the careers of Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh (CLICK HERE). Where Lee’s films show a progression of personal storytelling – some hits, some misses – Soderbergh just seems to be experimenting with novelty films or remakes of older films– “The Limey” (loosely inspired by “Point Blank”), “Traffic”, “Oceans 11”, “Solaris” and now “The Good German.” Does Steven Soderbergh have an original idea of his own? Though “Bubble” disappointed me it did show much promise that the man who made “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” is still in there somewhere. He’s a talented filmmaker and I have confidence he will pick himself up after thi misfire. His next film appears to be taking the torch from Clint Eastwood – two Che Guevara films, one set in 1956, the other in 1964. Another novelty? Please surprise us Steven.

Buy it here: The Good German

If you’re interested in the cinematography of the film click here. It’s the cinematography.com thread with a very good discussion of the film.

Here's the grossly misleading trailer:

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon etc etc

***

“Ocean’s 13” is actually pretty good and I’m surprised how much I enjoyed it. I liked the “Ocean’s 11”, though it didn’t seem as clever or funny as it thought it was. And “Ocean’s 12” was just so convoluted, I tuned out at the hour mark. But “Ocean’s 13” gets it right. Gone are any forced emotional attachments or love interests, this time round it's all about revenge – plain and simple.

Danny Ocean (Clooney) and the boys (I stopped counting to see if there’s actually 13 of them this time) have gathered together once again to do another score. This time the target is Willie Bank (Al Pacino) another casino magnate who recently doubled-crossed Ocean’s pal, Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) out of a deal with their new casino.

Willie Bank is a tough dude with lots of money, lots of casinos and lots of power. With the opening of this new casino the boys plot to scar Banks’ reputation for life, and take away $70m dollars of his money, not from the vault, but from the gambling tables right in front of the dealers’ and Banks’ eyes. Ocean and Rusty (Pitt) have the scam all laid out. Standing in their way though is a new security computer system which is so smart it can detect liars and cheaters from the monitored heat emissions from their bodies and the pupil dilations of their eyes. Part 1 of the plan is to disable the computer; Part 2 of the plan is to rig the gambling machines, dice and cards so everyone on the floor, including the regular public can win their games. Part 3 of the plan is to take Banks’ prized possession - a series of diamond necklaces awarded to each of his other casinos for excellence in service.

The plan of action is described to the audience in a five minute stretch of dialogue. The mechanics of the heist breezed past me with such speed I was worried, like in “Ocean’s 12”, that I didn’t absorb the information and would be totally lost for the rest of the film. On the contrary, as things started to unfold I realized I wasn’t supposed to retain all the info, and that everything would fall into place like a puzzle as the film moved along.

The result is a fine crafted – though preposterously implausible – ass-fuck for Willie Bank. Every possible escape that Bank might have out of his predicament is foreseen and accounted for by Ocean. Bank and his casino are putty in Ocean’s hands ready to be kneaded, shaped and manipulated.

Due to the amount of cast members most of the actors’ real talents are underused – like Don Cheadle, who’s underused in all of the films and Bernie Mac who is virtually gagless. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and once the film starts rolling, it gains enough speed that the film supersedes the celeb factor. Perhaps the best character is Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) who is recruited to help Ocean in his grand scheme. But Terry isn’t a complete ally either and he has perhaps the best in the film in the denouement. Gotta check it out.

The film finally gets the Rat Packness correct by making the film all about the heist. And I hate to say it, but the Rat Pack was a boys club. And this is why I think it’s the best of the three – no love story, no earnestness, no Julia Roberts. The characters even reference the Chairman of the Board himself who is given a small but key reference in the film. They all go out in style. Enjoy.

The Limey (1999) dir. Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Terrence Stamp, Luis Guzman, Peter Fonda

***

The subtitle for “The Limey” should be “An Ode to Terrence Stamp”. The film is so simple in story that its purpose is to showcase the underused talents of Mr. Stamp. In the business it’s called a vehicle and there have been many star vehicles created by director devotees ie. “Jackie Brown” (Pam Greer) and “Hard Eight” (Philip Baker Hall). All the films have in common an aged character actor in a film that serves to bring them back into the limelight.

“The Limey” is the story of the singularly named, Wilson, an ex-con recently released from prison. He’s on a mission to find the murderer of his daughter, Jenny. That’s about as much plot as the film gives as it’s largely a moody, reflective film from the viewpoint of Wilson. The film’s narrative structure is unique. It moves straight ahead like a traditional narrative with flashbacks to Jenny’s backstory. But within each scene the film frequently cuts forward and back to the previous and forthcoming scenes. It creates a fractured view and gives the impression of someone telling a story and frequently going back and forward to flesh out the details. There’s no narrative purpose to it, as it rarely changes the perspective of the viewer, instead it’s really just an indulgence of the director to create a disjointed feel to the film.

The film is all about Terrence Stamp, a leading man in the swinging 60’s age of British cinema and a contemporary of the likes of Alan Bates, Tom Courtney, and Albert Finney. In his later years, he became a character actor and appeared in largely forgettable films. And for most people under the age of 40 he was General Zod from “Superman II.” But Stamp has an unforgettable face and voice. Wilson is light on chatter and instead shows his teeth with a steely eyed stare and expressionless face. Each wrinkle, line, pot mark and crevice tells a thousand words. At any given moment Soderbergh will cut to a close-up of Stamp at the most random times to remind the audience of Wilson’s unwavering mission.

The film leads up to a confrontation between Wilson and the big shot record producer and part-time gangster played by Peter Fonda. Along the way, with the help of his old flame (Lelsey Ann Warren) he comes to grips with his failures as a father to Jenny. This only fuels his despair and need for revenge. Fonda and Stamp make good adversaries. Both play former tough guys long on experience and big talk but short on the physical attributes and the irony of their real-life cinematic backstories are incorporated in to the film as well.

Unfortunately Terrence hasn’t exactly received the career renaissance as, say, Philip Baker Hall has. Perhaps he’s too good to play those character-roles. He’s a leading man through and through. Have look at his first screen appearance, 1963’s “Billy Budd”, his piercing eyes stand out of the crowd even then. Enjoy.

Buy it here: The Limey

Here’s a great scene, with the equally formidable, Bill Duke:

Dropping the Gloves Part 1: Steven Soderbergh vs. Spike Lee

This essay is the first of, hopefully, a series of fun hypothetical tête-à-tête matchups of great filmmakers. With each essay I’ll choose two directors of similar quality of films and compare a number of their films. The intent is to stir up some commentary on both filmmakers and encourage readers to revisit their films.

In this corner… Spike Lee, a cultural figurehead in filmmaking from the late 80’s to today. Other than Sidney Poitier, no one has helped further the enhancement of African-American filmmakers than Spike. After series of success short films his auspicious feature film debut 1986’s “She’s Gotta Have It”, made for $175,000, instantly established Lee on Hollywood’s radar. His first breakout hit was “Do the Right Thing” in 1989, which stirred up much controversy for its depiction of racial tension in contemporary America. Spike has been outspoken and controversial on all matters of race on film ever since.

In this corner… Steven Soderbergh, a renaissance filmmaker who’s a writer, director, producer, cinematographer and sometimes actor. He has a remarkable output of films, including directing 7 films in 5 years from 1998 to 2002. Steven was the youngest filmmaker to win a Palm D’Or in 1989 for “Sex, Lies & Videotape”. Steven is also famous for his lengthy sophomore slump after “Sex, Lies”, which saw him produce 3 unsuccessful films, before bouncing back with “Out of Sight.” Since then, he’s been a major player as a director and producer. His fruitful producing partnership with George Clooney has resulted in films such as “Good Night and Good Luck”, “Syriana”, “Far From Heaven”, and “A Scanner Darkly.”

Enough preamble, let’s get it on:

Round 1: Do The Right Thing(1989) vs. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
This is an interesting comparison. Both films were the breakout films for Lee’s and Soderbergh’s careers and both competed for the Palme D’Or in 1989 with “Sex, Lies” taking the prize. In hindsight, which film is better? “Do the Right Thing” has become a cultural landmark for black cinema and has influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. “Sex, Lies” though not as influential on the cultural radar, established Miramax’s reputation as a major Hollywood distributor. On a creative and filmmaking level, “Do the Right Thing” pushes the boundaries of filmmaking and creates the perfect mix of art and politics. Winner: Lee.

Round 2: Malcolm X(1992) vs. Traffic (2000)
“Malcolm X” is Spike Lee’s epic, a three-hour plus opus about the controversial black muslim leader. “Traffic,” also Soderbergh’s grandest film, is the Oscar-winning saga of drug trafficking in modern America. Spike’s film arrived with much baggage and controversy, but it was hailed by many most critics, including Roger Ebert as “one of the great screen biographies.” Some criticized it as overindulgent and cartoonish especially in the portrayal of its white characters. It’s virtually impossible to find a flaw in “Traffic.” It will likely stand the test of time (7 years) as an engrossing study of the effects of drugs from the politicians finding it to the kids on the street who buy it and use it. “Malcolm X,” though grand and majestic, perhaps suffers most in its nobility. “Traffic” seems to exist naturally and is more provocative. Winner: Soderbergh.

Round 3: Crooklyn (1994) vs. Out of Sight(1998)

Each of these films would represent the “lightest” and most audience friendly of each director’s body of work. “Crooklyn’s” one of Lee’s most personal films inspired by his own childhood in Brooklyn in the 70’s. It’s a refreshing colourful burst of life, about his beloved city most often portrayed for its seediness. It’s brimming with fresh visual ideas and wonderful characters and, sadly, is an underrated and lesser-known film. “Out of Sight”, Soderbergh’s “comeback” film, was based on an Elmore Leonard novel and is also colourful and fun. The affability of George Clooney and the sultriness of JLo make a great pairing, but the film lacks the originality of Lee’s film. It feels like a hodgepodge of “Pulp Fiction,” “Get Shorty” and other better crime films. Winner: Lee

Round 4: 25th Hour(2002) vs. The Limey(1999)
The “25th Hour” is one of Lee’s better and more recent films. It came out in 2002, to critical acclaim but it failed to excite voters at awards season. As a result it disappeared quickly from the map. It starts off as fun romp of a trio of college buddies on the town. The film changes emotional gears when it’s revealed that one of them is to be sent to prison the next day. “The Limey” is about a man, released from prison who seeks revenge for the murder of his daughter. “25th Hour” works best as a one-nighter-slice-of-life, but when it tries to “say something” it gets bogged down in dogmatic preaching. “The Limey” stays on target as a journey into a crime underworld and into the psyche of a man who will not stop until revenge is exacted. Winner: Soderbergh.

Round 5: Inside Man(2006) vs. Erin Brockovich(2000)

Wow, it’s tied. Let’s throw down two of their most popular and successful films. “Inside Man,” which made $88 million in the box office last year, and Spike’s most successful film – an unabashed heist film without an agenda. “Erin Brockovich” has a very clear agenda – the triumph of one insignificant single mother against big business in favour of the environment. “Brockovich” made $125 million at the box office and garnered 5 Oscar nominations, including Julia Roberts win for best actress. Despite the Oscar “Brockovich” exists soley as the Julia Roberts vehicle. “Inside Man” is succinct and compelling from start to finish. Winner: Spike

Steven Soderbergh 2 - Spike Lee 3

Perhaps a surprising winner, but Spike Lee deserves full acclaim. He’s also a talent waiting to burst out with a critical comeback and reestablish himself. His controversial remarks often make him out to be a bitter filmmaker, but filmmaking skills should be separated from his politics. Soderbergh, on the other hand, is often overpraised. Though slick and gorgeous, often his films lack the personal edge that separates Spike from the pack. Soderbergh is a technical filmmaker who more often than not seems to imitate rather than originate. A challenge to Mr. Soderbergh: I want to see your personal film, without the nostalgic wink to the audience.