New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 9/17/13

Marc Forster’s summer hit WORLD WAR Z heads the crop of Blu ray and DVD releases this week, available in a 2-disc Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy package or a single disc DVD. The film, which as the front cover art displays, features Brad Pitt single-handedly saving the world from a global outbreak of zombies. After months of hype leading up to its theatrical release, the film was pretty disappointing (read my review from last June), but maybe it will have more of an impact on the small screen. Special Features: a couple of featurettes (“Origins” and “Looking to Science”), and a four part “Making of” documentary that explores in detail how such money shots as the masses of zombies scaling the tall fortress walls in Israel were pulled off.

Another film to which I gave a lukewarm review, Sofia Coppola’s THE BLING RING, also comes out today on both Blu ray and DVD. Coppola’s satirical true crime film, her fifth as director, is based on the story of a group of fame-obsessed teens who broke into the Los Angeles houses of celebrities such as Paris Hilton (who has a brief cameo), and stole millions of dollars worth of clothing, jewelry, cash, and swag. It’s interesting for about a third of it, but there’s not much substantial takeaway as you can read in my review: “THE BLING RING: As Superficial And Empty-Headed As The Girls It Depicts” (6/21/13). For folks that find it more fascinating than I, there are a few substantial Special Features including the almost 23 minute featurette “Making THE BLING RING: On Set with Sofia, the Cast and Crew,” the almost 24 minute “Behind the real ‘Bling Ring’,” and the over 10 minute “Scene of the Crime with Paris Hilton.”

A film I missed in its brief theatrical run (not even sure if it came to my area), Henry Alex Rubin’s 2012 thriller DISCONNECT is out this week in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. A sold ensemble including Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Andrea Riseborough, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist, and Alexander Skarsgård star in what IMDb tells me is about “searching for human connections in today's wired world.” Special Features: Commentary with Direct Rubin, an almost 30-minute documentary “Making the Connections: Behind the Scenes of DISCONNECT,” a 4-minute featurette “Recording Session of “On the Nature of Daylight,” and the theatrical trailer.

Steven Soderberg’s terrific HBO telefilm from earlier this year, BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his young lover Scott Thorson, is out today in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The glitzy biopic (well, not really a biopic as it only covers a few years of Liberace’s life), which was rejected by every major movie studio because it was “too gay,” has been nominated for 15 Emmy Awards, including nominations for Douglas and Damon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes home a bunch of them this coming Sunday night. There’s only one Special Feature, a 13 minute “Making of” featurette, but it’s an entertaining mix of interview snippets, archival footage of the real Liberace, and insights into how the costume and set designers were able to so convincingly pull off all the lavish surroundings of late ‘70s Las Vegas.

Also releasing today is Zal Batmanglij’s THE EAST, starring Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård (man, he gets around!), and Ellen Page as eco-terrorists. It’s a pretty decent thriller that’s at least worth a rental. A few other new films out today: Kyle Killen’s psychological thriller SCENIC ROUTE, Morgan O'Neill’s Australian surfing drama DRIFT, and Uwe Boll's thriller SUDDENLY, starring Ray Liotta, Dominic Purcell, and Michael Paré. That last title, a remake of Lewis Allen’s 1954 film noir thriller of the same name, is actually dumb fun, which is something, considering it’s, you know, a Uwe Boll production.

On the older film new to Blu ray front there’s a nice handful of horror and classic monster movies such as George A. Romero’s 1985 zombie classic DAY OF THE DEAD (Collector’s Edition), the 1931 Bela Lugosi classic DRACULA, Hammer Film’s 1966 Christopher Lee classic DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS, the 1935 Boris Karloff classic THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic THE WOLF MAN. I also can’t leave out the TREMORS Attack Pack which contains all 4 TREMORS movies (there were 4 of them?). Now, that’s a lot of scary classics that are now all Blu rayed-up!


TV season sets releasing today: Nashville: The Complete First Season, Leverage: The Fifth Season, The Mentalist: The Complete Fifth Season, Grimm: Season Two, Arrow: The Complete First Season, Bates Motel: Season One, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - The 13th Season, and Golgo 13: Complete Collection.

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The Competent But Uncompelling ELYSIUM, This Week's Sci-Fi Summer Flick

Now playing at nearly every multiplex in America:

ELYSIUM (Dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2013)

Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to his 2009 Oscar-nominated DISTRICT 9, a late addition to this summer’s sci-fi spectacular sweepstakes, is #1 at the box office right now. It’s also received better reviews than the likewise themed OBLIVION, and AFTER EARTH (that last one wasn’t too hard), but it still felt all too routine to me. 

Set in the dystopian future (is there ever any other kind of future in the movies?) of 2154, in which Earth has become a third world planet, with the rich people having relocated to the luxurious orbital habitat of the title. “Elysium” looks like the bicycle-wheel shaped space station in 2001: A SPACE ODDYSEY, except that it contains a lush green utopia in which violins are always playing, while well dressed people lounge around sipping wine all day.

Sporting a shaved head, and careful not to flash his blinding grin too often, Matt Damon stars as an earth-dwelling ex-con who has dreamed of going to Elysium since he was a kid played by Maxwell Perry Cotton. Damon pines for Alice Braga as a nurse with a daughter (Emma Tremblay) dying of leukemia. Braga wants to take Tremblay to the luxurious city in the sky, because every mansion there is equipped with Med Pods, magic medicine machines identical to the auto-surgery machines in PROMETHEUS, that can cure any disease.

After getting radiation poisoning from an accident at his factory job, and learning he will die in 5 days if not treated, Damon makes a deal with a shaggy smuggler (Brazilian actor Wagner Moura), that involves stealing valuable info from the mind of evil Elysium CEO (a suitably chilling William Fichtner).

The real villain of this bloated action exercise is Sharlto Copley, who was the hero in DISTRICT 9, but here is an over-the-top mercenary agent, working for a ruthless Jodie Foster as the power-hungry Secretary of Defense.

Running around in a role that doesn’t require a lot of acting, Damon puts in a workmanlike performance (much of it outfitted in a heavy robotic exoskeleton), but the energetically ragged Moura steals the show as the smuggler/revolutionary “Spider.” If only the movie had the passion and edge to equal Moura’s.

In noisy MAD MAX-style fight-scenes and chases, the sun-splashed CGI is convincing, but the story that’s supposed to immerse us into all this spectacle is sorely lacking. Nothing that Damon, Moura, and Braga face when they get to Elysium amounts to much, and Sharlto’s yelling of his simplistic and clichéd dialogue kept getting on my nerves.

Foster’s odd accent that made me think she may have studied Carrie Fisher’s weird half British, half American accent in STAR WARS (still not calling it A NEW HOPE! Never!), and her character’s arc is really underdeveloped.

That’s another element that makes it seem like Blomkamp should’ve written another draft of the screenplay before going into production. The political perspective is nowhere as polished as in DISTRICT 9, and the over-formulaic feel of the narrative is hard to shake.

Still, in Moura’s performance, the fast frantic pacing (it certainly isn’t boring), and the effective imagery, there may be enough pluses to make it worth matinee admission.

ELYSIUM is a competent, but uncompelling popcorn picture, but in these Dog Days of summer, it may be one of your best bets at the multiplex.

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Hey, I Finally Saw…ROUNDERS

Now, when I’ve added to this feature in the past it was usually because I caught up with a classic, like the original TRUE GRIT or ERASERHEAD. But this time out, I’m just catching up with a movie that I’d been meaning to see since it came out fifteen years ago, I just never got around to it.

So now, mainly because I noticed that it’s just about to expire on Netflix Instant, I finally watched John Dahl’s 1998 poker-driven crime drama ROUNDERS.

But hold on, maybe it’s more than just a movie I missed - the A.V. Club’s Scott Tobias wrote an entry for it in their New Cult Canon series back in 2008.



Tobias argues convincingly that ROUNDERS is an extremely influential film that “lit the fuse on a multi-billion-dollar industry.” He points to the plethora of online poker sites that have endless usernames and/or avatars referencing the film as proof of its huge popularity among players.

For my first time watching it though, it felt less like an iconic celebration of the underworld of high-stakes gambling, and more like a slightly better than average late ‘90s crime drama that effectively maximizes on the then budding stardom of Matt Damon and Edward Norton. Both were fresh faced 20-somethings at the time, who had both gotten acclaim and in the case of Damon an Academy Award (shared with Ben Affleck for the GOOD WILL HUNTING screenplay).

In ROUNDERS, which is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a player who knows all the angles and earns his living at the poker table,” there’s a familiar dynamic at work as Damon is, in a role similar to his working class but brilliant minded character in GOOD WILL HUNTING, the good guy trying to go straight, and Norton is the bad influence who wants Damon to get back in the game.

Damon, whose voice-over narration is overly prominent, has good reasons for turning his back on the lifestyle – he lost his entire life savings of $30,000 to a ridiculously accented Russian gangster played by a very hammy John Malkovich, and he promised he wouldn’t go near a card game again to his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol), who he is now in law school with.

Still, you know that he won’t be able to resist the lure of the game. Otherwise they’d be no movie, right? The basic premise boils down to the slimy Norton, who is actually nicknamed “Worm,” being heavily in debt, and his old partner Damon dusting off his mad poker skills to help his friend. This makes for some great gaming scenes, particularly one with the duo trying to hoodwink a room full of hard ass New Jersey State Troopers.

The second hour of ROUNDERS which begins with the nagging Mol leaving Damon to his gambling devices, is consumed by these tense gaming scenarios yet despite its predictable plotting, it still pulled me in.

I wasn’t interested as much in Damon’s predicament of choosing the proper father figure - Martin Landau as a muddled but wise professor and John Turturro as a somewhat beat down old-time rounder have hazy scenes in which they somewhat compete for the part, I think - than I was into the bad friend who manipulates his good friend basics this film nails.

Fanke Janssen is on the sidelines as a possible new love interest for Damon, but the movie doesn't seem too interested in that. The poker-powered bromance is what gets the spotlight.

In retrospect, the film foreshadows the relationship between Norton and Brad Pitt in FIGHT CLUB, which would be on Norton’s roster after his turn in AMERICAN HISTORY X (the era was busy for the actor). But if you’ve seen FIGHT CLUB you know what that relationship turned out to be.

ROUNDERS’ had a palpable impact on waves of impressionable poker players, many of who are no longer lulling about casinos or sleazy backrooms, but now playing high or low stake games comfortably at home in thousands of rooms online. For all you cyber-gamers out there, here are some of the better rooms available if you want to try your hand at some virtual Texas Hold’em, so you can sample the game yourself that provides the bookend scenes in which Damon goes up against Malkovich.

It may overly glorify the rush that makes a talented player like Damon’s character unable to quit the game, but it captures that pure excitement (Damon even regrettably tells Mol that he felt alive for the first time in 9 months when he sat back down at the table) so well that ROUNDERS may be the ultimate double edged sword of gambling movies.

ROUNDERS, which I’m glad I finally saw, is available for one more day on Netflix Instant (it expires at the end of February 1st).

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Hard To Get On Board With Bourne Without Bourne

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in Raleigh and the Triangle area:

THE BOURNE LEGACY (Dir. Tony Gilroy, 2012)

In retrospect, maybe it was a mistake for me to re-watch all of the Bourne movies recently in preparation for the new one.

To have those three fine fast-paced films so fresh in my brain, hurt more than helped for me to buy into a fourth film featuring neither star Matt Damon, nor director Paul Greengrass.

Especially when the connective tissue is that THE BOURNE LEGACY takes place during the events of the previous film, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM (2007), with return appearances by David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, and Joan Allen, all wrapped up in the vast conspiracy that’s a lot more confusing this time around.

“Jason Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg,” says series newcomer Edward Norton, as the corrupt CIA bigwig in charge of, well, everything, to enforce the continuity, but it rings hollow as it was a line said in the last movie.

It’s the justification that co-writer and director Tony Gilroy, who was the screen-writer of the other Bournes, and his brother Dan, give us to expand the series’ narrative, that the network of entangled secret government programs has various agents in the field, and here’s another one who is in confused conflict with his superiors. And his adventures are just as exciting so let's put up the Bourne banner for him too!

Jeremy Renner, racking up his third franchise after MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and THE AVENGERS, is that other agent, who has been genetically enhanced by a regimen of little green and blue pills prescribed by a top-security scientist played by Rachel Weisz, who also doesn’t know the full scope of what’s going on.

Count me with her - despite the fact that this is by far the talkiest Bourne, a lot of the exposition about the clusterf*** of evil operations just goes in one ear and out the other, as it’s obvious the film is more about its fight scenes and ginormous motorcycle chase climax through the streets of Manila, Philippines than its perplexing plot mechanics.

The stoic Renner, who is just as indestructible as his predecessor, has some impressive moves - one unbroken shot of him running/climbing up the side of a house, jumping through a window and shooting somebody might be the physical highlight of the movie.

Trouble is the film is too drawn out - it takes a while to get going as it cuts back and forth between Renner training in the arctic, and the well-groomed evil old men in the corridors of power trying to get a handle on what Bourne brought down on them. Then when some momentum is built, the film stalls then starts again, then stalls…

Renner and Weisz on the run does amount to a few thrills, the slick stylish look of the film (provided by master cinematographer Robert Elswit) is attractive, and the fiercely focused performance by Norton as the stop-at-nothing antagonist certainly has its merits, but Bourne without Bourne just doesn’t cut it.

This errant adaptation of the first of Eric Van Lustbader's continuation of the late Robert Ludlum's Bourne novels doesn't have enough action to satisfy action fans, and the project never quite gels plot-wise.

THE BOURNE LEGACY isn’t a boring or bad movie, it’s just not inspired enough to get it up to par with the rest of the series.

Although Damon and Greengrass wanted to make another Bourne, maybe they should be glad they got out when they did. The Gilroy brothers - a third brother, John Gilroy, edited the film - seem to be tapped out on this material.

After watching all four films in the last week, I know I am.

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THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU (Dir. George Nolfi, 2011)

As the youngest Congressman ever elected to the House of Representatives, Matt Damon can win over crowds just by flashing his blinding grin as this film’s opening montage of his senate campaign attests. But his bid for office is derailed when photos of an old college prank surface, and he ends up losing even in his home county.

Nevertheless Damon while preparing to deliver his concession still has reason to flash that grin as he has a “meet cute” with Emily Blunt funnily enough in a restroom at the Waldorf Astoria.

Blunt just happened to hiding from security in the men’s room stall because she crashed a wedding in case you are wondering.

They flirt then kiss, but don’t exchange names or phone numbers so when Damon is whisked away by his campaign manager (Michael Kelly), and Blunt is spotted by hotel security, fate seems to separate them.

Or that’s what “they” want Damon to think. Who are “they”, you ask? Why they’re the ones behind the scenes manipulating circumstances to influence human history.

They are men who wear classic suits and sport fedoras who will make you think of Mad Men especially since John Slattery is one of them.

When another member of the “intervention team” (as Slattery calls it), played by Anthony Mackie fails to divert Damon off his course to a meeting, things go askew.

Damon runs into Blunt on a bus and this time gets her digits, but then walks into an office of his frozen-in-time co-workers being scanned (or something) by, yep, the Adjustment Bureau.

In a huge shiny warehouse setting, Damon is told by Slattery and Mackie that he will be reset – that is, his mind will be erased if he tells anybody about them, and more importantly he can never be with Blunt.

Slattery burns the card with her phone number on it right in front of Damon to hammer home the point.

3 years pass and Damon is back on the campaign trail and lo and behold he sees Blunt on the street on the same bus route. The spark is still there as they chitchat while Slattery and crew surround them.

The film then becomes a series of elaborate chase scenes with brief exposition breaks. The men of the Bureau can use any door as a portal to a different place – but, only if they are wearing their fedoras. That and other nonsensical rules of the team tracking Damon are never satisfyingly explained, and the supposed plan they follow appears to be ultimately flexible.

Yet there is some fun to be had here. Damon and Blunt’s performances are top notch and at times it’s a treat to watch them run around through a well shot New York City.

Slattery and second half stealing Terrence Stamp bring gravitas to the convoluted material which is loosely based on a Phillip K. Dick short story from 1954.

The directorial debut of screenwriter George Nolfi (BOURNE ULTIMATUM, OCEAN'S 12, THE SENTINEL), THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU simply isn’t inventive enough to be a memorable mind bender a la INCEPTION. In other words you're not left with anything really to discuss or think about afterwards.

It strives to be a modern surreal take on a classic Hitchcockian thriller, but it’s more on the VANILLA SKY-side.

Stamp tells Damon that he never actually had free will – he only had the illusion of free will. Well, in this film, the illusion of intelligent entertainment is all we get.

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TRUE GRIT: Another Instant Classic From The Coen Brothers

TRUE GRIT 

(Dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen, 2010)






Since they stumbled in the early Aughts with a couple of sub par offerings (INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, THE LADYKILLERS), Joel and Ethan Coen have been on a grand roll. The Oscar winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the comedy hit BURN AFTER READING, and last year's critically acclaimed A SERIOUS MAN were all excellent additions to their canon, but their newest film, TRUE GRIT, may be the best of the batch.

An adaptation of the 1968 novel by Charles Portis rather than a remake of the 1969 John Wayne film, TRUE GRIT is in many ways a traditional example of the Western genre. What makes it so much more is its handling of the manner of characters that appear naturalistic yet still exuberantly exaggerated - in a way that long-time followers of the Coens will appreciate royally.

The "Dude" himself, Jeff Bridges, plays U.S. Marshall Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn - an iconic role that is considered one of the most definitive of the Duke's. Bridges owns it here however with a drunken swagger and a grizzled gusto. The real protagonist of the story is the 14 year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who recruits Bridges to help her hunt down her father's murderer (Josh Brolin).

For such a young whippersnapper, Steinfeld has a stern delivery confirming her determination and her sometimes harsh words to Bridges have a sting to them that is more than equal to Kim Darby's readings in the 1969 version. See? It's hard not to compare this film to the original adaptation. They follow the same plot progressions and the spirit of Western homage is certainly present, but the Coens saw the piece as funnier with less Hollywood sentiment and they deliver a film that lives up to their vision gloriously.

Matt Damon, who was long overdue for a part in a Coens production, has a juicy gruff character of his own in Texas Ranger Le Bouef. Damon is at first just along for the ride with Bridges and Steinfeld, but his jaded face-offs with the Marshall and the foes they encounter along the way have a hilarious bite to them as the tension builds.

As a Western in the classic mold with a body count, I didn't expect TRUE GRIT to be as funny as it is - it's for sure one of the Coen's most laugh-filled films since THE BIG LEBOWSKI - just about every utterance of Bridge's is comic gold and his fellow cast mates (including crusty turns by a deranged Brolin and Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper funnily enough) hold their own humor-wise as well.

Then there's the magnificent cinematography by Coen Bros. collaborator Roger Deakins that fills the frame with striking shots of the blinding terrain in New Mexico and Texas as well as the extreme jolting actor close-ups that flicker with raw emotion. Another Coen Bros. co-hort Carter Burwell, who has been with them since BLOOD SIMPLE (1984), provides a score composed of gospel hymns and effectively spare piano accompaniment.

TRUE GRIT is an instant classic.

From the Coen Brothers' ace direction to the cast's top notch acting spouting out hilarious dialog line after line and then on to the wondrous look, feel, and heart of the film, I honestly can not think of a negative criticism of it. I can't wait to see it again. If I find anything to dislike about it then - I'll get back to you.


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INSIDE JOB: The Film Babble Blog Review

INSIDE JOB
(Dir. Charles Ferguson, 2010)




"I don't know what credit default swaps are. I'm old fashioned that way." - George Soros




That makes 2 of us. There are many things like that in this documentary that I was completely in the dark about going in, yet in a sober (and sobering) manner INSIDE JOB explains the financial meltdown of 2008 in a fairly graspable way.




Matt Damon calmly narrates the film, taking us through segments entitled "How We Got Here", "The Bubble", "The Crisis", "Accountability", and "Where We Are Now". It's a lot of complicated information to take in, but through interviews with key players such as the before mentioned financier George Soros, U.S. House Representative Barney Frank, former NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Economics professor Nouriel Roubini, economist Paul Volcker, and many others, the film does an impressive, if at times impenetrable, job of breaking it down.




Ferguson, whose previous film the Iraq war doc NO END IN SIGHT was just as exhaustive, has a real knack for assembling a powerful narrative out of a tangled web of sometimes extremely confusing criteria. We learn about corporate fat cats pocketing millions sometimes billions of dollars from corrupt loans.




We see power point presentation style graphics that help define CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), subprime lending, and all kind of mortage mayhem. We even get an interview with a former Wall Street "Madam" (Kristin Davis) who supplied investment bankers with prostitutes.




It's an excellent eye-opening documentary that thankfully uses a minimum of Michael Moore-ish methods like pop song punctuation.




Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" plays during the opening credit swoop through the Manhattan skyline, and Ace Frehley's "New York Groove" provides a backing beat to footage of excessive lifestyles, but such touches don't intrude at all on the thesis at hand.




INSIDE JOB is more informative than it is entertaining and its conclusion that criticizes President Obama for doing little to change the situation is depressing, but it's an incredibly well crafted and sharply focused work that got my mind reeling.




That is, even if I still can't tell you exactly what a credit default swap is.

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GREEN ZONE: The Film Babble Blog Review

GREEN ZONE (Dir. Paul Greengrass, 2010)








Going in to this movie I knew precious little about it. I hadn't seen a trailer or even given the movie poster more than a passing glance. I only knew it was a Matt Damon/Paul Greengrass/war movie. 

But in the first five minutes I knew exactly where it was going to go. In those five minutes, Damon, as a US Chief Warrant Officer in 2003 war torn Iraq, pulls up with his crew to a location that Intel tells them houses Weapons of Mass Destruction. They find the rotting remains of a toilet factory instead. 

Damon goes back to his superiors and tells them that the WMDs weren't there (or any of the other locations they've been to) and the Intel is bad. They sternly tell him to stand down. From that description, do you see where this is going? 

Do you see shoot-outs, shady informers, sleazy politicians, and compromised journalists? 

Do you see a climax involving Damon, aggressively and a tad bit violently, confronting the sleazy politician (played by Greg Kinnear) over the government conspiracy spreading lies in a public place/photo op? 

That's what I call that "THE FUGITIVE ending" and it, like everything else in this less than thrilling thriller, you've seen before.

Many many times before. This is a standard issue liberal-minded political action drama that made me wish Damon and Greengrass had just made another BOURNE movie. In last year's THE INFORMANT! (one of last year's best films and a role he should've been nominated for IMHO) Damon really pulled off something different; a fully realized character that was almost unrecognizable.

In this and play it safe parts like INVICTUS, he's just plain old Matt Damon going through the motions. We never get any sense of who the character Damon is beyond his military conviction. There is no phone call from back home or any line that tells us who he is outside of this plot. 

The lack of such insights makes one really appreciate the newly Oscar Best Picture approved THE HURT LOCKER so much more. The compelling drive of that vital Iraq war film really reduces such a lackluster work as GREEN ZONE to the soulless shaky cam rubble it is. 

I could be wrong but I swear Matt Damon did not smile once in the entirity of that movie. That might sound like a minor quibble but when he flashes that sharp glaring grin it can be quite stinging. Since I didn't smile once either I can't really blame him. 

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INVICTUS: The Film Babble Blog Review

INVICTUS (Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2009)



Like a huge signpost that announces: "It's now officially Oscar season", a new Clint Eastwood directed movie has opened at this time almost every year this last decade.





Eastwood makes the kind of film that Academy voters love - event films with A-list actors about important issues; movies that make movie goers feel guilty if they try not to pay attention to them.





For they're noble works with an old school sentimentality, but ultimately they're to be admired more than enjoyed. Such is the case with INVICTUS, a historical sports drama centering on Nelson Mandela's rugby obsessed first term as President of South Africa.





Oddly, Morgan Freeman as Mandela is an almost too obvious piece of casting. It never quite works, it's like Dustin Hoffman playing Lenny Bruce - the images of both are too well known separately for them to blend into a natural personification.





We're always aware that it's Freeman doing his wizened Freeman thing; except for a tint of an accent, it's the same basic performance as a President that he did in DEEP IMPACT. Mandela faces an intimidating workload upon taking office in 1994, with long brewing racial tensions, poverty, and crime filling the streets. He comes to believes that a World Cup win by the Springboks, the country's rugby team, will unite the nation and lead them into a new era.





Mandela meets with the team Captain (a reserved and in a "respect your elders" mode Matt Damon) to fan the flames of inspiration. He shares a poem with Damon that helped him through years of inprisonment - "Invictus" written by William Earnest Henley. This, of course, is the film's title so I was a bit taken aback to find out that in reality Mandela actually gave the Captain a copy of a Theodore Roosevelt speech.





That's just one of many details many fact checkers will have problems with here. Eastwood undoubtedly subscribes to John Ford's infamous stance: "Print the legend" and that's an honorable tact to take but this strained un-involving film does little but to pile on the platitudes.





By the time we get to the big climatic game filled with all the sports movie clichés you can think of (slow motion, strained close-ups, crowd elation manipulation, etc.) it didn't matter to me whether or not the outcome will bring the country together or have any spiritual impact at all - my eyes were too glazed over to care.





Whatever the historical relevance, INVICTUS is an admirable exercise with pure intentions, fine performances, and seasoned craftmanship, but sadly a very dull film.





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