Budd Schulberg (1914-2009)

Screenwriter Schulberg has passed away at the age of 95. His most recognized work was penning "On the Waterfront", Elia Kazan's alleged self defense for his HUAAC actions, which went on to win eight Academy Awards including one for Schulberg.
The movie has become legendary for all the right reasons, the acting is brilliant, the direction is stunning, the realist cinematography and every other technical aspects were also perfect.
But at the center of it all is Schulberg's majestic screenplay, one that has become extremely quoted, yet remains utterly simple.
Schulberg didn't work that much or made anything as memorable as "On the Waterfront" again.
But just because of this movie he will have a place in film history for ever. He was a contender.

The Burning Plain *1/2

Director: Guillermo Arriaga
Cast: Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger
Jennifer Lawrence, José María Yazpik, Joaquim de Almeida
John Corbett, Robin Tunney, J.D. Pardo, Tessa Ia, Brett Cullen

First it was the story about connections between three people in the same city, then three people in the same country, later three stories in the same planet...what could Guillermo Arriaga ("Amores Perros", "21 Grams" and "Babel") possibly write about next?
He didn't go for people in different planets, that would've been the "obvious" road, instead he proves his masterful skills by interconnecting three parallel stories that occur in different timelines...and how can that not be brilliant he wondered.
First we have Sylvia (Theron) a restaurant manager in Oregon who fills her empty life with emptier sex (with John Corbett's character among others) .
South of the border, and twelve years before there's Gina (Basinger) a discontented housewife having an affair with a married man (Almeida).
While her daughter Mariana (Larence) falls in love with her lover's son (Pardo). There's a couple of deathly accidents here and there, cross country travelling from a girl (Ia) looking for her mother and the sort of Biblical metaphors Arriaga has gotten used to from his previous works.
The one thing that's nowhere to be found is a soul.
Every little thing in the movie feels like a gimmick, like something designed to stir up emotions and muster some drama.
Most of the acting feels grandiose and serious, but turns out to be rather mediocre. Theron who has decided that not smiling makes her a good dramatic actress, spends the movie showing her breasts and confuses lack of interest with inner demons and yearning.
Lawrence is straight out of a "Dawson's Creek" episode and Basinger, while more interesting than anyone else in the cast, fails to inject her character with motivation.
Of course most of this is owed to Arriaga's inneficient direction and even worse screenplay where reductive psychology rules ("fire is purifying" says one of the characters who killed someone and then self burns to ease the guilt).
Arriaga tries his best to achieve a forced catharsys (that the movie ends with quick edits summing up why the writer thought he could pull off a Michael Cunningham is painful and sad) but in his film debut in emperor's clothes he seems to have forgotten that even if a film uses fractured storytelling and the characters speak English it can still turn out to be an old fashioned telenovela.

Just Random...

I just woke up from a dream in which Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu presented an Honorary Academy Award to Judi Dench...

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen *

Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox
Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

What is the difference between Michael Bay and an 8 year-old? An 8 year-old doesn't need 200 million dollars to create chaos. Cymbal roll.
In the sequel to the highly successful 2007 film, Bay squeezes every CGI and crazy pyrotechnic effect he can get out of his budget, completely forgetting about things such as plot and character and delivers the remains of a film clouded by smoke and loud sound effects.
In between action sequences, change of locales and unnecessary scenes we can put together the pieces of a plot in which the Autobots and Decepticons are at war once again.
This time the Decepticons are after a centuries' old device which will help them destroy Earth and perpetuate their existence.
The Autobots who have made an alliance with humans are trying to stop them. Meanwhile Sam (LaBeouf) is trying to lead a normal life and moves to college where he tries to keep a long distance relationship with his girlfriend Mikaela (Fox).
While in the last film Bay at least tried to deliver something that resembled coherence, this sequel is all about going big.
Therefore the robots get new parts, the battles are longer and the running time expands to a gargantuan and horrible two and a half hours that culminate in Egypt.
And Michael Bay is certainly no David Lean, so he fills each minute of film with pure junk. Pointing out why the film is so bad may not be as worthy as wondering how does Bay get away with stuff like this?
There's racist robots (twin Chevrolets Mudflap and Skids), John Turturro's ass in a jock and a little Decepticon humping Fox's leg.
All things which have come to be associated with teenage male audiences for whom sexual fantasies equal slow motion explosions, war and Playboy centerfolds.
But haven't these things become associated with them because of people like Bay? His movies have, shockingly, become some of the highest grossing films in history and his target audience is that of young males.
But who came first, them or Bay? That question is as enigmatic and troublesome as all the plot holes, cursing and gross robot actions in the movie.
Then there's the whole issue of how much pleasure Bay seems to get out of destroying historical landmarks, even if it's fake. This time the Egyptian pyramids get the crap beaten out of them, which makes what happened in the Iraq museum during the invasion less of a mystery.
Bay has decided his audience enjoys history being destroyed, having a disdain for authority and education as something "cool" and filling up emptiness with shots of Megan Fox's breasts bouncing in slow motion.
If this isn't enough to make you sick, the thought that you actually saw this movie will.
A Decepticon refers to Fox as " hot but not so bright" and that's about the only authentic thing you will get out of this movie.

Come Join the Party!

What do you think of Madonna's new single "Celebration"?

Anyone Else Wondered?

What was the role of the clown in "The Blue Angel" and if so, did it remind anyone of the Emcee from "Cabaret"? Only they're both polar opposites of each other.

While Watching "I Love You, Man"...

...I was delighted to see a Hollywood film that actually put some interest into friendship and wondered when did movies become so love-centered? (summed up beautifully when Jaime Pressly's character asks one of her friends "why does everything have to revolve around you?", to which she anwers "because I'm single!").
In this one the typical rom-com plot is tampered with when the guy (Rudd) already has the girl (Jones) but needs the friend to be his best man.
Enter Segel and all sorts of testosterone driven insanity and sensibility a la Judd Apatow.
The screenplay by director John Hamburg and Larry Levin pokes at both men and women and raises some fascinating ideas (the first half hour is laugh out loud funny!) but then the movie misses its aim and becomes so damn formulaic.
You know, just because you change the characters' genders doesn't mean you can get away with playing by the same rules plot wise (reason why I'm one of the only living people who seriously disliked "Brokeback Mountain").
Even if Segel and Rudd have awesome chemistry (unlike Rudd's with Jones...although that could've been on purpose) the last part of the film falls flat on its face declaring the only universal truth Hollywood has learned about men and women after a century of filmmaking: that we might indeed be from different planets.