Cast & Credits: Hilary Swank (Amelia Earhart), Richard Gere (George Putnam), Ewan McGregor (Gene Vidal), Christopher Eccleston (Fred Noonan), Cherry Jones (Eleanor Roosevelt), Mia Wasikowska (Elinor Smith),William Cuddy (Gore Vidal). Screenplay by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan based on source materials from the books East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings. Directed by Mira Nair.
Amelia, much to my dismay, falls into that category I refer to as the “one-note performance movie.” If such a term exists in Websters, I am sure the definition is much different from the negative one I define.
The “one-note performance movie” could be 1) the type of film where it literally is all about the lead actor/actress in the leading role and nothing else matters, be it the plot, the screenplay, or any of the other supporting characters. I also define it as 2) a movie so bad, the actor/actress knows it, yet they make the best of their leading role giving a stand-out performance of their own.
I have seen less than a handful of “one-note performance movies” this year and that is not a good thing. If the Razzies ever came up with such a category for the first time next year, I would add Dakota Fanning from Push, Sienna Miller from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and Seth Rogan from Observe and Report. Add Hillary Swank’s performance as “Aviatrix” Amelia Earhart to the list of competitors of which there can be only one winner for a Razzie Award in the “one-note performance” category and I predict Swank would win by a landslide. At least that’s who I’d vote for.
Swank is no doubt a dead ringer for the real Amelia Earhart in terms of appearance so much so I find it eerie. We even see her freckles, which is something “the vagabond of the skies” didn’t want captured in pictures and newsreel footage of her. Her publicist and eventual husband George Putman (Richard Gere) agreed.
I am amazed sometimes at how actors are made to look exactly like the actual people to the point you could almost be fooled into thinking you are watching the real thing. Val Kilmer looked exactly like singer Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991). The same went for Denzel Washington in his role as controversial African American leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s 1992 film.
The Doors and Malcolm X offered substance. Amelia offers up everything but. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan who base their script on the biographical books, East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings, along with director Mira Nair know the notes. They capture Earhart’s private life with Putnam, her brief affair with TWA founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) and her relationship with his young son, Gore Vidal (the kid doesn’t like his name).
In between these dramatic moments is the black and white newsreel footage showing the real Earhart’s successes and sometimes failures as well as her publicity stunts promoting various products and being an inspiration to women everywhere.
Swank provides a few memorable scenes. I especially liked the moment where she takes First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Cherry Jones) on a flight. If the incident actually happened, Earhart allowed her to take the plane’s controls without anyone aboard knowing it. I also liked the moment where Earhart showed her vulnerable side and didn’t like how she looked. In a scene that could almost hint that perhaps Earhart was a closet lesbian, she tells Gene Vidal how she admires the young, elegantly dressed women sitting at a restaurant commenting on their nice legs, versus her own boyish-like appearance.
There is even a surprise revelation or two. We learn, for example, that her navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) is an alcoholic, which is something I did not know, if true. It’s obvious the filmmakers attempted to stay faithful to the biographical material right down to the model of the ill-fated plane Earhart and Noonan flew in, the Lockheed L-10 Electra. They just don’t know how to put any of this to music. The film and Swank’s character are so emotionally distant, it’s like spending almost 40 years with someone you’ve fallen in love with and by the time they have unexpectedly passed on, you are unable to shed any tears because you haven’t really gotten to “know” them.
A movie like this should make us hope Earhart will reach that lone island before fuel runs out on her much publicized flight around the world July 2, 1937, despite the eventual tragic outcome. Instead of making me shed any emotion for the character, all I saw from the film’s final few moments was just another scripted scene that was part of her life.
A big screen adaptation about Amelia Earhart should not only have the word “epic” written all over it but “Oscar” worthy as well. On one level, Amelia could be considered an art house film that you’d find playing in theaters that show only independent movies. Amelia should have been the kind of film critics would have not only embraced but small crowds as well; enough to still give it a chance at Oscar nominations.
It is instead the equivalent of a forgettable 111-minute TV movie of the week with aerial cinematography that is far from any of the exciting flying shots done in Top Gun (1986) or The Right Stuff (1983). Gabriel Yared’s musical score is nothing more than a pale imitation of the memorable slow moving, inspirational, sometimes sad ballads John Barry churned out for a number of the James Bond movies, Frances (1982) and Chaplin (1991) to name a few.
Even more annoying is how I often had a hard time hearing what the characters were saying. I know I am getting old but I’ll blame the theater’s sound system where the technicians know nothing about making the dialogue stand out and drowning out all the other unnecessary noise going on in the background before I assume I’m having hearing problems.
Instead of being an independent success, Amelia will probably go down as an expensive, if not embarrassing flop for Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film reportedly cost $100 million to make and failed to hit the top ten box office hits opening weekend grossing just a paltry $4 million. If it had been good enough to attract the critics and exhibited Oscar potential, that might have given the film some better financial success.
So much has been discussed in the seventy plus years since her mysterious disappearance on whether or not Amelia Earhart actually survived. The aircraft she flew in was reportedly never found. There is speculation maybe she and Noonan were taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers and tortured or that she was a spy working for the United States government and that her final trip around the world was just a cover. The most interesting one I saw discussed on a National Geographic episode was that she actually returned to the states but under a different identity altogether. None of that is discussed or proposed here which would have probably made the storyline more interesting. What we get is just how her fate played out that day.
When movies are based on biographical books or any book whether it be fiction or non fiction, I have always heard they are better than the films. Amelia Earhart’s life story deserves a better adaptation than the one released. The only thing Amelia does is make me want to read those two books about her life on which this film is based.
Cast & Credits: Katie Featherston (Katie), Micah Sloat (Micah), Mark Fredrichs (The Psychic). Written and directed by Oren Peli.
Paranormal Activity is the kind of disturbingly effective horror movie I wished The Haunting In Connecticut (2009) whose storyline was supposedly based on true events, had been. I have long since been convinced that the best horror films are those made on a low budget that include John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and his shopping mall, perhaps I should say "chomping mall" follow-up, Dawn of the Dead (1978). Although I didn’t care much for Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), I still can’t shake the final image of Leatherface running amok with the chainsaw on the dirt road and still wonder whether that corpse of Grandpa the twisted family kept in a wheelchair really was sucking blood from the female victim they terrorized.
Now I am starting to be convinced that the best horror movies are those that AREN’T supposedly based on true accounts but we are lead to think they were thanks to the cleverness of the filmmakers. Let’s be honest. The Haunting In Connecticut’s only selling point was the movie poster that showed the young kid barfing out what ghost hunters call ectoplasm. What they see as ectoplasm, I see vomit. I think that’s the only reason the filmmakers chose to adapt that particular story because of that one incident that may or may not have occurred just to shock audiences.
If Paranormal Activity has any flaw, it is the way it’s being compared to the independent success of The Blair Witch Project (1999), which also boasted a supposed true life premise about three filmmakers who mysteriously disappeared while shooting a documentary in the forests of Burkittsville, Maryland. The only remains found was the videotape documenting their terror. The story wasn’t true but the clever mass marketed advertising campaign worked and what cost filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez $60,000 to make, the film went on to gross $140 million at the box office.
By comparison, Paranormal Activity was made for less than $15,000 and its slow building box office success is based on positive word of mouth from those who saw the director/screenwriter Oren Peli’s work at midnight screenings over the past month. The film’s expansion into more movie theaters now is the result of distributor Paramount Pictures “Demand it” campaign on the movie’s website.
Like The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield (2008) or even the 2002 documentary, 9/11, shot by French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet that captured what went on inside the World Trade Center's twin towers as firefighters responded on Sept. 11, 2001, Paranormal Activity is about as close to “horror reality television” as you can get save for what’s captured by the news networks.
There are no opening or end credits or music, save for the opening card that says the filmmakers would like to thank Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat and the San Diego police department for providing the footage.
Everything is shot on a hand held camera as we are introduced to Katie and Micah who are being terrorized by an unseen presence in their home. Micah decides to chronicle their entire dilemma on film that lasts between Sept. and Oct. 2006, leaving the camera on in their bedroom while they sleep at night to record any unusual disturbances.
In the morning, Micah analyzes the previous night’s footage on computer. Some nights, nothing happens, while on others…well.
We learn how Katie as a young girl was terrorized by a presence of sorts that seems to follow her wherever she resides. Her worst fears are realized when a psychic (Mark Fredrichs) tells the couple the presence in their home is not a ghost but a demon that for whatever reason wants Katie. Despite Micah’s skepticism, the psychic warns him to take the matter seriously. Such are famous or infamous last words for any non believer.
This is more than just your average ghost story where things go bump in the night, loud menacing foot steps are heard, bite marks that can’t be explained, and the couple’s picture frame unexpectedly falls from the wall showing cracks on Micah’s face.
“Why is my face cracked and not yours,” Micah asks Katie.
What makes Paranormal Activity work is the way the film plays on our fears when we seem to be at the most vulnerable, which is during sleep and how we never know what might be lurking in the dark hallways. Even as I am typing this review at 3 a.m. in the morning in a dark house with only my computer on, my little Yorkie dog, Mickey, is barking and growling at the black lounge chair in the living room as though someone is sitting in it when I know there is no one there. Although now that I think about it, my grandfather did sit in that chair when he came over and he passed away a few weeks ago.
Anyone watching Paranormal Activity, most likely skeptics, will be quick to say the way they made the blanket move to make us think something was getting into bed with the couple at 2 a.m. was the work of some clever invisible string. Or the scene where Katie gets grabbed by her legs and is dragged out of the room one night was the work of using trick photography and computer software.
Seeing the couple asleep at night as the time fast forwards to certain moments, however, I couldn’t tell if what was happening was the work of visual effects artists or if the film itself or the home this couple lives in is actually “haunted.” That’s what makes this movie so unsettling.
I am not going to reveal the final shot. I know some will get a kick out of it and laugh just for the fun of being scared. Others may jump not expecting what they see coming next. What I will say is I can’t stop replaying what happens in those final few minutes in my head whenever I think about it. Think of the most horrific image you’ve seen in your lifetime. If such a scene still bothers you to this day, that’s the kind of scene I am talking about here.
Cast & Credits: Written and directed by Michael Moore.
When it comes to the subjects Michael Moore addresses and attacks, a warning should be attached to the film or maybe a sign at the front doors of the theater entrance that says "View at your own risk," or "Don't come if you aren't going to view my movie with an open mind."
OK. I'll listen to what Moore has to say but that doesn't mean I am going to accept what he says as fact. At their best, Moore's previous controversial documentaries like Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) and Sicko (2007) stirred up anger.
The vast inaccuracies of Fahrenheit 9/11 disgusted me to the point I saw it as a comedy mocking former President Bush. By comparison, I was infuriated with how terror suspects got better health care while incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay and volunteers working at Ground Zero denied health coverage in Sicko. At their worst, these one-sided documentaries are nothing more than entertainment.
Love him or hate him, I find it hard to ignore some of Moore's accusations in all his films. If I were actually serious about pursuing journalism, I'd investigate his claims myself to see if they are really based on fact.
It comes as no surprise that in Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore lays the blame on the country's financial crisis from the collapsing housing market and mass layoffs to corporate greed on Republicans doorsteps beginning with former President Reagan in 1980 on up to Bush, Jr.
The film's most powerful moments are when Moore personally interviews families about to lose their home through foreclosure. In the opening moments, Moore asks if we want to remember America for having smart cats that know how to flush the toilets or if we want to remember America as the country where law enforcement agents in seven vehicles drive up to a resident's foreclosed home and the family waits for them to break the door down to serve their eviction papers?
We learn of companies, such as Wal-Mart, that take out insurance policies on sick employees and stand to make money, if that particular worker dies, while the grieving family gets nothing.
"No one should benefit when someone dies," says a daughter who lost her mother unexpectedly.
The scariest revelation comes when we learn overworked and underpaid airline pilots make barely enough to buy groceries. Some resort to using food stamps. Their salaries are less than what a person makes at McDonalds, we're told.
Having just flown back and forth to Chicago on Southwest Airlines, how comfortable would you be as a paying passenger that, if true, the pilots actually make only $20,000 a year or less? Would you feel safe in the air?
When Moore isn't busy delivering tragic accounts of struggling families and laid off employees attempting to make ends meet, he is busy keeping up his persona donning his signature blue jeans, sneakers, and baseball cap making the rounds to places like GM headquarters, asking to see the president of the company, only to be turned away by security. The same thing happens when he arrives at the front doors of various corporations on Wall Street with an empty money bag in his hands telling security he is there to collect the money they took from the people.
Not surprisingly, when Moore stands outside the New York Stock Exchange asking stockbrokers as they are leaving work what derivatives are or if any of them have any financial advice, one says, "Yeah, don't make any more movies."
What's missing from Capitalism: A Love Story is the emotion that stirred me up watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko. Much of what's discussed in Capitalism: A Love Story is nothing new. We've seen and heard all the horror stories about foreclosures and mass layoffs on the news over the past year.
Moore's solution to the problem is going the socialism route as we learn how President Roosevelt had outlined a second Bill of Rights shortly before he died in 1945 that would have entitled everyone nationalized health care. To Moore, America would have been a perfect world; one where no one will be faced with foreclosure, where everyone will always have a job and never worry about where their next paycheck will come from.
There is no denying something has to be done about the way banks have screwed over consumers, as shown in Capitalism: A Love Story.
I am all for a revolution and in some cases, we're starting to see how Americans are rebelling against the government by saying no to nationalized health care at Town Hall meetings. I am just not as convinced, as Moore is, that doing away with capitalism and moving the country towards socialism is a good thing.
