From Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni splashing around in the waters of the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita to Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s romantic street tour in Roman Holiday the Eternal City has provided some of the cinema’s most unforgettable images.
According to Italian director Federico Fellini, “Rome is the most wonderful movie set in the world.” Now with the release of Angels & Demons, shot on location in Rome, a new industry has emerged from the ancient city — movie tourism.
Patrizia Prestipino, head of Rome’s provincial department of tourism told the New York Times that “a film like this could re-launch American tourism. For us it’s like free advertising.” And it’s marketing that seems to be working. Tour groups like the Angels & Demons Path of Illumination Tour, angelsanddemons.it, Sienna Reid’s Angels and Demons Tour, italyhotline.com, and the Rome Angels and Demons Half-Day Tour, viatour.com, have been enjoying brisk business with packages that range from $75 per person to $550 for a personal excursion.
If you’re not a tour group kind of person you can arrange your own expedition of Rome’s Angels and Demons locations and other cinematic sites with a good map from your hotel’s concierge.
(Take note that several of the places mentioned in the book are not geographically accurate. It’s best to do some internet research before hitting the streets.) Here are some good starting points:
Castel Sant’Angelo
Built between 135 and 139 by the Roman Emperor Hadrian Castel Sant’ Angelo not only figures in the climax of Angels & Demons, but also has a spectacular panoramic view of Rome. The castle can also be seen in Roman Holiday’s barge scene.
Santa Maria della Vittoria
Santa Maria Della Vittoria is the setting for Angels &?Demons’ most gruesome and exciting scene — the “fire” killing — but in reality is the home to the beautiful Bernini sculpture of the ecstasy of St. Theresa.
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Located at the center of Piazza Navona the ornate The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (“Fountain of the Four Rivers”) is one of Bernini’s most famous works and the backdrop for the film’s “water” assassination.
Other Rome movie must-sees include:
Mouth of Truth
The Mouth of Truth located in the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. The carved, grinning stone face which purportedly bites off the hands of liars most famously appeared in Roman Holiday but can also be seen in Only You starring Robert Downey Jr.
Trevi Fountain
At almost 26 metres high the Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fount in Rome and the inspiration for the 1954 hit song and movie Three Coins in the Fountain. Every day tourists throw almost 3,300 euros into the fountain — legend says that visitors who toss a coin into the fountain are guaranteed a return to Rome—money that is donated to charity.
Movie lovers will find much to see in Rome and many memories to take home. As Audrey Hepburn said in Roman Holiday, “I will cherish my visit here in memory for as long as I live.”
While sitting atop the Castel Saint Angelo in Rome waiting to interview Angels & Demons star Ewan McGregor, I had a panoramic view of the city and the beautiful chaos that makes life in the Eternal City tick.
The traffic is crazy and there are people everywhere. It’s an intense place, even more so, I imagined, if you were shooting a big budget Hollywood picture that takes place in some of the city’s busiest spots.
“The funny thing is I didn’t shoot any of it in Rome,” McGregor said when asked. “I shot in this place called Caserta. There’s a palace in Caserta that I thought it sounded really romantic, so I arranged for my wife to come over and spend a weekend with me, but it’s a dump, a horrible place. I’m sorry but it’s just a suburb of Naples that’s exploded around this old palace. It’s really nasty. Not a good place.
“Apart from that I did most of my stuff in L.A. because my character is mainly inside the Vatican and of course, the Vatican didn’t want us to shoot inside their buildings so they built the Sistine Chapel on the Sony soundstages in L.A. They also built the exterior of St. Peter’s Square, this huge, huge set, in the parking lot of Hollywood Park Racetrack in south L.A. That was cool. I saw it from an airplane. I was landing at LAX and I looked down and thought, ‘God, that’s a big set… look at that.’ Then I realized it was ours.”
Despite never having stepped foot in an actual church during the shoot, McGregor convincingly pulls off the roll of Camerlengo Patrick McKenna, a priest who acts as the pope’s right hand man in the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel.
“We had a priest from New Jersey who came over and was our religious advisor for any of the technical things,” McGregor said, “the ceremonies and the ritual stuff. But he also gave us a kind of idea of what would be going on behind the scenes during those ceremonies and humanized it for us.
“It looks so precise from the congregation’s point of view but in actual fact behind the table there is a guy with matches trying to light the incense. He put that into it for me which was great.”
The training paid off, he says, at least superficially.
“I didn’t get to understand the meaning of all the ceremonies; why everything is in a certain order, but I did learn enough to look like I knew what I was doing, hopefully.”
Ron Howard, the flame-haired actor turned director of The Da Vinci Code, wasn’t surprised by the success of his adaptation of the best selling Dan Brown suspense novel.
“The idea at the centre of The Da Vinci Code was so provocative and such a hot button issue it really lived at the centre of popular culture for almost two years,” he said this week in Rome before the premiere of Angels & Demons, the follow-up to the record-breaking Da Vinci Code.
“Angels & Demons is a popular novel,” the director says, although he acknowledges that it isn’t as notorious as the other book. “What I’m finding, however, is if you like The Da Vinci Code you’re going to really like Angels & Demons. I feel like it could be a thrilling and exciting experience for audiences in of itself; separating itself from The Da Vinci Code movie or the novel.”
The new film, starring Tom Hanks in a reprise of his Da Vinci role as symbologist Robert Langdon, sees the Harvard professor work to solve a murder, unravel the mystery of an ancient secret brotherhood called the Illuminati and prevent a terrorist act against the Vatican.
The mix of intrigue and religious may sound familiar to Da Vinci Code fans but Howard maintains Angels & Demons is a different beast. “If I felt like it was a cookie cutter situation and I was being asked to repeat myself then it wouldn’t interest me,” he said, “but I just didn’t want to miss this next Robert Langdon adventure.
“I like the uniqueness of these Dan Brown stories. Sure they use the murder mystery genre, but in a way that is so fresh that these films stand on their own as something brand new.”
Something that certainly is new in Angels & Demons is the setting. Shot on location in Rome, the movie is a love letter to the Eternal City.
“For scheduling reasons we had to shoot in June,” Howard says.
“Everyone in Italy kept saying that we couldn’t have chosen a worse month but I’m very glad in a way it was so hectic and intense because it energized everything.”
• Angels & Demons opens across Canada next Friday.
Quentin Tarantino has said the sign of a good film is that it makes you want to go home, eat some pie and talk about it.
With that in mind, our Popcorn Panel features film buffs feuding in this space each week.
This week’s panel
– Craig Courtice, a short filmmaker who isn’t very tall
– Christa Oancia, mom of five, religion teacher and amateur movie critic
– Richard Crouse, host of Rogers Television’s Reel to Real, Canada’s longest-running movie review show and the author of The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen (ECWPress, 2003). His Web site is www.richardcrouse.ca This week’s pie Shepherd’s
This week’s subject: The Nativity Story
Craig: Whatever you might think of The Passion of the Christ, it was the work of an auteur. Director Catherine Hardwicke is a talented filmmaker, but she lacks the leverage and the ego of Mel Gibson, and as a result I’m not sure The Nativity Story is her vision. For one, there is nothing of the realism she made her name with in Thirteen. Part of the reason the birth of Christ still fascinates us today is the overwhelming odds Mary and Joseph overcame. Certainly, in their journey to Bethlehem, they must have forged an incredible bond, yet there are few scenes that give us a sense of their relationship. Instead, we are subjected to a history lesson featuring King Herod, Zechariah and Elizabeth in the first act and requisite scenes with shepherds and wise men in the third.
Christa: I don’t think Mel Gibson is a good comparison because The Passion was truly his vision. Hardwicke was hired to direct someone else’s vision. It appears that the team behind The Nativity relied primarily on the very limited two Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus. There was a strong effort to show the evolution of Mary and Joseph’s relationship from one of obligation to one of deep mutual caring and respect. I think Hardwicke did a great job making this story more realistic than most. This account is usually so romanticized that we rarely think beyond the basic details of that holy night. I didn’t go to the movie with the same expectations as I did with The Passion, probably because I didn’t expect the same quality from someone who doesn’t completely live and breathe this story in their life.
Richard: Perhaps Hardwicke doesn’t live and breathe this story, but she is a filmmaker charged with creating a compelling and interesting movie, and I think she let her audience down. Her last two films, Thirteen and The Lords of Dogtown, were edgy examinations of teenage life that dealt with young people in crisis. The Nativity Story covers the same ground, but this time her young protagonists, Mary and Joseph, have larger issues than acne or a spotty report card.
Craig: I think we can all agree The Nativity Story won’t go down in history as a cinematic masterpiece with the likes of The Ten Commandments or The Passion. But just the fact this movie got made seems like a minor miracle. Although 77% of Americans identified themselves as Christian in 2001, Jesus-friendly titles aren’t exactly flooding the multiplexes. Are most Christians just not interested in watching movies about their religion or is Hollywood not willing to back up these films? Let’s not forget, that for all of The Passion’s success, Gibson financed the project himself.
Christa: It won’t hit page one of the paper that Hollywood is not exactly pro-Christian. A quick glance at the top all-time movies shows that Star Wars, Shrek, E.T. and Finding Nemo are the home runs in theatres, yet Hollywood keeps showing its love of R-rated releases. Not sure if it’s about artistic dreams, shock value, Oscar envy or all of the above. Lately, the business side is figuring out that family-friendly, and yes, even Christian movies (thanks Mel) can be moneymakers. I think it’s not really about whether Christians are interested in watching family-friendly movies as much as it is about the lack of interest of filmmakers in making them. Mel has helped raise the bar with artistic merit, quality and morality all in one — what a concept! It’s not a guarantee, however, and the Christian audience will still expect high quality for their movie dollar.
Richard: The success of The Passion should have paved the way for a tsunami of Christian themed films at the theatres, because the only thing Hollywood really understands is success. If a documentary about penguins can make a lot of money then why not make a kids’ series about the little furry birds? But I think studio heads realized The Passion’s success was a fluke. It was a great marketing strategy coupled with enough controversy to get people who hadn’t gone to the movies in years interested to see what all the fuss was about. It is hard to capture that kind of lightning in a bottle twice, which is why we haven’t seen a cavalcade of Christian films in mainstream theatres.
________________________________________ In Soviet Russia, Yakov Smirnoff would’ve killed for this publicity
National Post
Friday, November 10, 2006
Quentin Tarantino has said the sign of a good film is that it makes you want to go home, eat some pie and talk about it. With that in mind, our Popcorn Panel features film buffs feuding in this space each week.
THIS WEEK’S PANEL
– Basem Boshra, associate editor of Weekend Post
– Craig Courtice, a short filmmaker who isn’t very tall
– Richard Crouse, host of Rogers Television’s Reel to Real, Canada’s longest-running movie review show, and the author of The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen (ECW Press, 2003). His Web site is www.richardcrouse.ca
THIS WEEK’S PIE Chiburekki (a deep-fried dough cake from Borat’s homeland)
THIS WEEK’S SUBJECT Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
BASEM: As a guy who used to download clips of the British version of Da Ali G Show long before it made its way to the colonies, I’d like to think my Borat bona fides are unimpeachable, and I couldn’t have been more excited about his big-screen debut. That anticipation was stoked even further by the rapturous reviews that preceded its release. But while the film made me laugh so hard at times that I hope the theatre staff steam-cleaned my seat after I left, I couldn’t help feeling a bit let down by all the hype (which I allowed myself to be sucked into). Borat: Superfluously Long Title that Stopped Being Funny After I Read It the First Time is, in essence, some good-to-great Borat sketches strung together by a flimsy excuse for a plot. Then it dawned on me: The people penning those glowing notices must not have been all that familiar with Borat’s small-screen oeuvre, the best of which, I’d argue, is stronger than anything in this movie. (If it sounds like I’m down on Borat, I’m not; it’s hilarious, if a tad overlong, even at 84 minutes. It just served as another reminder to keep my expectations measured even in the face of such cheerleading reviews.)
CRAIG: In a nice bit of programming, Showcase had a Da Ali G Show marathon on last weekend, and I caught four or five episodes after watching Borat. Hard to fault Sacha Baron Cohen for going after the big bucks and exposure this film will bring him, but you’re right, Basem, the material fits the TV format better. But I’m more interested in the hype machine that accompanied this baby. Kudos to the producers for a witty PR campaign: having Cohen appear as Borat, inviting George Bush to a screening — this was like old-time hucksterism, and obviously the movie-going public loved it. But I have to admit I’m ashamed (again) of the pack mentality of entertainment journalists. In the Canadian media, just last week, we had stories comparing Borat to Archie Bunker (Maclean’s) and Andy Kaufman (Toronto Star). I’m sure some hack somewhere pulled out the post-9/11 angle. It’s a shame Yakov Smirnoff, Borat’s comedic predecessor (sample joke: “In Soviet Russia, if a male athlete loses, he becomes a female athlete”), didn’t get the same kind of PR in the ’80s. He might have made it beyond guest starring on Night Court.
RICHARD: Hey Craig, you forgot to mention The Wild and Crazy Guys from vintage Saturday Night Live. Their accents and attitudes toward women predated Borat by a few decades. The Borat family tree branches off to include guerilla comics who specialize in accosting unsuspecting civilians — Allen Funt is Borat’s great granddaddy, Tom Green the red-haired stepchild, while the fish-out-of-water routine, the ethnic humour, mockumentary style and total immersion in the character owes thanks to The Beverly Hillbillies, Redd Foxx, Christopher Guest and Andy Kaufman respectively. So the character of Borat isn’t a completely new thing. What is new is the way the film was promoted. Having Borat arrive at a red-carpet event in a rustic wagon pulled by peasant women was a stroke of genius. The stunt at the White House and Borat’s offer to sell his grandchild to Madonna were as gut-busting as anything (except maybe the nude wrestling) in the movie and put to shame more conventional attempts at movie hucksterism. When you have risked the wrath of the White House, having a junket at the Four Seasons seems a little tame. What may have seemed like a series of frat-boy hijinks was actually a carefully orchestrated campaign. In terms of the future of the character the campaign may have worked too well — the popularity of the movie and the public awareness of the character has destroyed any chance that Borat will return in his present form. He’d have to go to Mars and pull pranks on unsuspecting aliens because everyone on Earth knows who he is.
BASEM Another critical reference point I’ve heard thrown around (which makes no sense to me) is Jackass. Granted, there’s one prolonged physical gag in Borat — those who have seen it will know the one I’m referring to — that’s as excruciating to sit through as anything Johnny Knoxville and his depraved cohorts have ever conjured up. But that’s where the similarities end. Cohen’s much-dissected brand of social satire — which he ingeniously wraps inside just enough wacky shtick to keep even the frattiest boys engaged — operates on a level the Jackasses couldn’t begin to fathom. (And I thought Number Two was one of the most cathartic and invigorating movie experiences of the year.) In any case, I think much of the (over?) analysis of Borat will soon be rendered moot. Unless Hollywood backs the Brink’s truck up to Cohen’s door — a definite possibility, given the film’s sensational box office — I can’t imagine he would ever want, or have any reason to, revisit Borat. B:CLOAFMBGNOK is about as far as you can take a character before self-parody sets in, and Cohen seems just too savvy to let that happen (he says hopefully).
CRAIG It’s funny you mention Jackass because in the notes I scratched down after watching Borat I wrote: “Expectations too big for what is basically small-screen experience; at least Jackass has some truly big-screen moments.” Which is to say that most Jackass watchers went in expecting video-shot stunts, but came out surprised, whereas most of the patrons who go to see Borat go without knowing it is a digital experience. Borat may top Jackass at the box office, but it will be in DVD sales that these expectations play themselves out. I would guess that those who watched Jackass in the theatre would be more likely to pay a second time to see it, whereas with Borat once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. You have to admit by the end of Borat the gags are as original as a Rick Mercer segment. Except for the nude wrestling, of course.
RICHARD Borat may be a boob-tube experience blown up for the big screen, but at least it’s a good one. Jackass: Number Two has its moments but mostly reeks of Ben-Gay and “Look at me!” desperation. Borat, on the other hand, provokes real laughs and perhaps — gasp! — even some real thought. The Jackass oeuvre only makes us chuckle because it is so stupidly brutal. While brutal can be funny, on the big screen I find the act of watching these movies as punishing as participating in one of Johnny Knoxville’s more sadistic stunts. At just 84 minutes, Borat does what good movies do; it doesn’t overstay its welcome and leaves the audience wanting more. With such a lean running time the jokes don’t have time to get stale and, while some of the gags may be from the Rick Mercer school of comedy, most aren’t. Mr. Mercer might attempt to see how much gas 17 cents will buy, but has he ever offered a dignitary cheese made with milk from his wife’s tit? I don’t think so. As for DVD sales, who knows, but I think the extras and outtakes on the Borat disc will be worth the 20 bucks.
NEXT WEEK’S PIE Dark chocolate macadamia nut wedge
Unpopped kernels: More on Borat flick
National Post
Basem: You know what. I officially think I’m Borat-ed out. (I knew that would happen, but not so soon.) So how about this news that Universal is shelling out US$42.5-million for the distribution rights to Cohen’s next project, a Bruno movie, featuring the third and, to my eyes, least interesting of his Da Ali G Show triumvirate. The one accusation you regularly hear levelled at Borat is that he’s a one-note character — although I prefer to think of sexism, racism and anti-Semitism as three separate notes, thank you very much — but he’s a complex comic creation next to Bruno, who’s an aggressively gay fashion reporter and … er, that’s about it, as far as I can tell. He has his moments, don’t get me wrong, but are there enough of them (say, 80 or so) to string together for a feature film? I hate to doubt Cohen, who’s certainly one of the most nimble comic minds in the business today, but I just don’t think so. Actually, what I’d love to see him do one day is revisit Ali G in a Borat-style mockumentary, if only to wash away the bad taste left by his atrocious Ali G Indahouse film, hands-down the lamest thing SBC’s been affiliated with (give or take a Madonna video.)
Craig: Maybe I’m just farther to the right on the Kinsey scale, but I look forward to a more in-depth, er, exploration of Bruno. There’s certainly enough homoeroticism in Borat, I figure why not just get it all out there. Besides, while every Bruno segment isn’t comedy gold, there is something much darker, and to my mind, more interesting in probing (there I go again) the not-so-hidden homophobia that runs rampant in North America. I’m thinking of the segment in which Bruno goes to a gun show and interviews an aficionado. The redneck-meets-rainbow shtick is just as savvy as Cohen’s other stuff, but it has something more — danger. It’s all fun-and-games when the gun guy goes off about his love of big calibres, but the punch line here is just that — when Bruno tells him he’s from Gay TV, Colt .45 threatens to knock his teeth out if he mentions the word “gay” one more time. My point is, Bruno’s a lot edgier than Borat or Ali G because of the less-accepted subject matter. It wouldn’t be as popular as Borat, but it could be better.
Richard: Edgy, schmedgy. I fear a Bruno movie would be more of the same. He’s funny enough, but I always thought his segments were the weakest on the television show. Having said that I don’t really want more Borat either. I agree with Basem. The more people quote him to me, the more people say “Nice!” in that Kazakhstani lilt the more I realize very soon I’m going to need a rest from it. I look forward to spending some time with Bruno, but not just yet. I need time. I’m not ready for another SBC essay into America’s heart of darkness whether it is from a gay perspective, a British-Jamaican b-boy standpoint or the point of view of SBC in a bear suit. Let’s allow him to take some time off, recharge and come up with a new idea, perhaps one that doesn’t see him doing another mock doc with a different character.
Quentin Tarantino has said the sign of a good film is that it makes you want to go home, eat some pie and talk about it. With that in mind, our Popcorn Panel features film buffs feuding in this space each week.
THIS WEEK’S PANEL:
– Craig Courtice, a short filmmaker who isn’t very tall
– Richard Crouse, host of Rogers Television’s Reel to Real, Canada’s longest-running movie review show, and the author of The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen (ECW Press, 2003). His Web site is www.richardcrouse.ca
– Jason Chow, a TV columnist for the Ottawa Citizen and axe man for pop rockers The Good Soldiers (www.myspace.com/thegoodsoldiers)
THIS WEEK’S PIE: Key Lime
THIS WEEK’S SUBJECT: Miami Vice
CRAIG: Vice is like a drug bust gone wrong. That’s not to say it’s not an interesting picture; all the parts are here, it’s just that they don’t add up. Literally, there is no way Michael Mann’s latest will make back its US$125-million budget at the box office. Sure, it opened in first place last weekend with just over US$25-million. But that’s about the same number Collateral, Mann’s previous effort, opened at during the summer of 2004. That movie ended up with just over US$100-million in ticket sales, but cost only US$65-million to make. Vice won’t even make it that high, and here’s why.
1) Collateral featured studio golden boy Tom Cruise playing against type as a villain. People wanted to see Scientology’s mouthpiece get killed, even if it was only his character. Vice stars Colin Farrell, who has never proved himself as a big draw. The most popular film he was in was Minority Report (US$132-million), in which he played second fiddle to Cruise.
2) Jamie Foxx is in both pictures, but while he played a cab driver with a heart of gold forced into action in Collateral, here he plays Ricardo Tubbs, a mean mutha vice cop who already got the girl.
3) Collateral was a high-concept movie with a Crash-like ending in which everything ties up neatly. Vice drops you immediately into the headspace of a south Florida undercover police officer, which means lots of adrenaline, but also lots of disorientation and tedium.
RICHARD: Wow, Craig, I’m guessing you were disappointed by the movie. I agree with you that the individual parts of Vice don’t seem to add up to much — the lead actors have little chemistry, the story is unoriginal, convoluted and borders on not making much sense — but the beauty of the movie is in the telling, not the story itself. Mann makes cool-looking movies. Unlike the television show, the movie is dark, grainy and jumpy. He has turned the Sunshine State’s emblematic city into a dark, menacing paradise where the good guys don’t always win and the bad guys don’t completely lose.
JASON: Dark and menacing, sure, but you can’t just categorically exclude sunshine and heat when you’re in Florida. The film is stylish, indeed, but Mann’s relentless intent on making a noirish antithesis to the TV series made the movie so one-dimensional that things got left by the wayside, like, as Craig said, character and story. To that list, I’d add location — the film could have been shot anywhere (e.g. Los Angeles). I expected an in-depth look at Miami-as-faux-paradise, but instead all I learned is that the town’s an hour’s speedboat ride away from Havana. Chico, Scarface is more Miami than Vice.
CRAIG: Like Alonzo, the informant played with harrowing elan by Deadwood’s John Hawkes, you two have been set up. I actually thought the picture was an excellent piece of art. I was just pointing out that it will be a bitter disappointment for fans expecting an easy blockbuster. The International Movie Database user rating, for example, is only 6.3 out of ten.
But on to a new topic. Scott Holleran of Boxofficemojo.com writes of Vice: “this dark, grainy picture needs subtitles to be understood. That’s not just because actress Gong Li (Crockett’s love interest) struggles with the English language in each scene, though that is a problem. As an Asian stereotype, she juts her head like a 16-year-old gangbanger flashing signs at the mall.” Normally, I’d just ignore this as the ramblings of some hack, but the criticism shows up in many reviews. News to the English-speaking press: Most people in the world don’t speak your language as their mother tongue. Is Mann trying to say something with this casting choice or was it a mistake?
RICHARD: Was casting a beautiful, talented actress in a major role a mistake? I don’t think so. Her performance oozes sensuality and the obvious age difference between Gong and Farrell makes their relationship even more interesting. Usually Hollywood tries to sell the idea that it’s perfectly normal for ancient, wrinkled men to date young women, but casting Gong turns that idea on its head, although she is far from ancient and wrinkled.
My issue is not with the casting, but with the underuse of other actors. Mann has assembled a great cast — Foxx, Ciaran Hinds, Justin Theroux, to name a few –and given them very little to do other than brood. Farrell shines, in an unshaven kind of way, because at least his character has some spunk. He gives a performance of mock seriousness that sometimes borders on camp, barking his tough-guy lines in a way that would knock the pastel off the original Crockett. Don Johnson’s Crockett was unhappy and angry, but in this movie seems to have turned his life around. Now he’s angry and unhappy.
JASON: The problem isn’t Gong; the problem is the premise of her character: A pseudo-femme fatale who is the child of a diplomatic translator from Angola who somehow is hooked up with a Castro look-alike drug mogul with whom she communicates in stilted English while reading the business sections of Spanish newspapers? I admit I made the same comments about subtitles after I left the theatre. I had to strain to hear some of the lines uttered by the ESL actors. That said, Mann deserves credit for attempting to cast a global village for his movie — not because I believe in affirmative action but because he’s breaking out of the regular Hollywood racial cliches. Crockett and Tubbs aren’t the only multi-ethnic working couple in play here; bad guys can be racially cool, too.
Unpopped kernels
National Post
Published: Friday, August 04, 2006
First Tom Arnold in McHale’s Navy now Miami Vice. The boys broach the best and worst of movie adaptations of TV shows and make the case for programs that haven’t been given the big-screen treatment. (Hint: Mr. T, we’re ready for your closeup)
Craig: It appears for better or worse that movie adaptations of TV show are here to stay. Compared to such winners as Bewitched, and the Tom Arnold-in-a-sea-captain’s-outfit McHale’s Navy, Miami Vice looks like a masterpiece. Are there any other adaptations you would make the case for that worked (Starsky & Hutch?)? More importantly what shows haven’t been done that you would like to see? My choice is The A Team — and pronto while Mr. T can still reprise his role as B.A. Baracus. In lieu of the deceased George Peppard I suggest another suave George for Colonel “Hannibal” Smith. “If you have a problem and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Clooney…” Cue the best theme song in TV history!
Richard: The leap from the small to big screen is usually quite painful, although when the people involved in the television show are left in the loop the results can be OK. I thought the South Park movie worked well and the recent sci-fi film Serenity was actually better than the show it was based on, Firefly. In both cases the guiding hands on the movies had also created and directed the television shows. The most prolific of the television based movies, the Star Trek series, really has only two winners out of the bunch — Wrath of Khan and First Contact, both of which were based on stories that originated on the small screen (Space Seed, and Best of Both Worlds). But for every Untouchables that works, there’s a S*W*A*T that sucks the life out of its source material. For every Fugitive, there’s a Dragnet — you get the idea. They are the ying and yang of television-to-film adaptations.
Craig wants to see The A-Team revived. I’m not so sure. I survived that one as a youth and I’m not sure I’m up to it again. I’d rather see Bosom Buddies, starring Eddie Izzard and the guy that played Angel in Rent. Or maybe WKRP with Paris Hilton as Jennifer Marlowe, Bart the Bear as Mr. Carlson and an IKEA swivel chair as Johnny Fever. Actually I’d rather see someone in Hollywood flick off the TV and come up with an original idea.
Chow: The studios are apparently working on a movie adaptation of Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff reprising his character, Michael Knight, and KITT, once again, as the rational talking car. According to IMDb.com, it’s slated for 2008 release, but keep in mind this project has been in the making for four years and no script has been agreed upon just yet, so sit tight, boys. As for past remakes, I thought the Brady Bunch was fantastic and Starsky & Hutch was pure turkey. My vote for a movie adaptation: Rockford Files. Starring, of course, George Clooney.
Quentin Tarantino has said the sign of a good film is that it makes you want to go home, eat some pie and talk about it. With that in mind, our Popcorn Panel features film buffs feuding in this space each week.
THIS WEEK’S PANEL
– Craig Courtice, a short filmmaker who isn’t very tall
– Richard Crouse, host of Rogers Television’s Reel to Real, Canada’s longest-running movie review show, and the author of The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen (ECW Press, 2003). His Web site is www.richardcrouse.ca
– J. Kelly Nestruck, National Post Arts & Life reporter
THIS WEEK’S PIE Whoopee
THIS WEEK’S SUBJECT The Black Dahlia
CRAIG I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment on the plot of The Black Dahlia because after the banana truck drove by during the first shootout, I spent the entire film trying to decipher the meaning of yellow. Now I don’t have ADD, so I’m guessing this was intentional on director Brain De Palma’s part. If you see this movie just for the art direction and cinematography, you won’t be disappointed. (Yellow means caution, by the way.) Of course, the film critics who panned Dahlia are almost all failed English majors, not sensualists. They might very well have a point about the story; the whodunit of this movie is more like a whatthef—? But the same is true of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which was universally praised for its sensuality and creepy tone. Then again, who amongst us wants to make love to a film critic?
RICHARD You’d be surprised. Where do you think all those little film-critic kids come from? I think it is possible to be a sensualist and film critic, but watching The Black Dahlia taxed both the corporal and analytical sides of my brain. Without a doubt the movie is stunning to look at, filled with beautiful crane shots and even more beautiful people, but De Palma forgot one thing — to get his actors to act. I don’t expect much from Josh Hartnett other to stand around and look good, but Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank are two performers who usually rise above their good looks and deliver the one-two punch of being gorgeous and talented. Here they both seem to be on autopilot. That’s the film critic side of my personality. My sensualist side admires De Palma’s aesthetic choices, but beauty without brains leaves me cold.
KELLY I don’t even know if I admire De Palma’s aesthetic choices here. The point-of-view shot when we met Swank’s family was jarring, and the gory bits were over-the-top, especially for a movie otherwise filmed like a fairy tale. Even the long crane shot from Elizabeth Short’s murder scene to the first shootout was a bit disappointing. If I can defend something about this incredibly bizarre movie it would be Hartnett’s performance. He gets dumped on a lot, but there’s a reason why directors like Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott and De Palma cast him in their flicks. Hartnett’s blank demeanour and beady little eyes were perfect for a character called Mr. Ice. He was the calm amidst a storm of scenery chomping, the anchor on this banana boat.
CRAIG I’m willing to admit I might have missed what was so bad about this film. How about you two? Is it possible you guys are in the dark about what this movie is saying about noir? Because like Mulholland Drive, I think Dahlia is working on a completely different level, referencing shots and even acting styles from the genre. Let’s not forget that one of De Palma’s most famous scenes, the baby-carriage-on-the-stairs scene from The Untouchables, was heavily inspired by Russian film pioneer Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
RICHARD De Palma has always borrowed heavily from other filmmakers, most notably Hitchcock, but usually with more success than is on display here. The baby-carriage-on-the-stairs scene is a classic, but I didn’t see anything in The Black Dahlia that matched the excitement or beauty of that scene. If he is trying to reference classic film noir in visual and acting style, I don’t see it. The film isn’t structured like a classic noir, which usually worked backwards from a murder, and the femmes in the classic noirs were more believably fatale than Swank and Johansson.
KELLY What’s the big deal about directors referencing other movies in their shots, anyway? If the result holds together like, say, The Big Lebowski, another noir homage full of inside jokes, then that’s great. But your first duty as director is to tell a coherent story in a compelling manner, not impress everyone with your winks to Raging Bull and Lady in the Lake. If you want to know why I liked being confused by Mulholland Drive, but not The Black Dahlia, Craig, you only have to look as far as the directors’ intentions. I bet dimes to doughnuts to Dahlia dames that De Palma was trying to make a movie that made sense — as James Ellroy’s novel does — not trying to emulate Lynch’s lush lunacy.
Unpopped kernels: Return to the print review?
National Post
Published: Friday, September 22, 2006
Craig: One of the reasons we started the Popcorn Panel was to have a different forum for film comment. The idea was that conversations about movies are often more revealing (and entertaining) than reviews. With Web sites such as RottenTomatoes and IMDb, often films are reduced to a raw number without a serious discussion of the merits. These ratings certainly serve a purpose, but too often distract from the message a film is trying to convey. My question to you two Web-savvy gents is that in this era of DVDs with making-of features and insta-pundits is it time to revisit the traditional print movie review? One thing I’d like to see is retractions by reviewers who might have had a chance to reflect on a movie after their deadline and realize they might have missed the mark. There is no shame in this, newspapers print clarifications every day, and I think it would humanize the reviewer. Maybe they had a headache, maybe they talked about the film at a dinner party and came to a different conclusion, the point is to encourage dialogue with the reader not polarize. For example, when I walked out of Caché earlier this year I was angry. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s exactly what director Michael Haneke wanted me to feel; just because the feeling you have is not the one you wanted to have or expected to have should not cloud your judgment as to the filmmaker’s success. Caché made me want to read more about it, to hear other opinions, to see if I might have missed something. In the end, I admit, I did.
Richard: We live in an era where everything is reduced to a soundbite, a headline or in the case of reviews, often just a star rating and that’s a shame. In the quest to be first with entertainment stories and reviews media outlets are too quick to print or air stories that haven’t been thought through properly. I’m not sure that the speed at which we consume information nowadays will allow for really thoughtful reviews. I would prefer to read reviews that were well thought through, not just first, but when five, six or seven movies are being released each week it is impossible to give each of them the time they deserve to write a meaningful review before you have to run off to see another one and then write another review. The days of long Pauline Kael style pieces are gone, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Kelly: If a critic does decide that he or she has made an egregious error in judgment in a review, I don’t see anything wrong with them revisiting the subject in a future column. But, you know, a daily newspaper is just a daily newspaper and a review is just a review. People who read critics should understand that what they are reading is a first attempt to grapple with a film, often under a tight deadline. For 95% of film fare that does that trick — I have yet to hear any convincing arguments on the merits of Little Man — but, as New Yorker critic Anthony Lane titled his book of reviews, nobody’s perfect. No one should expect the definitive assessment of a film to be written the week it is released, just as we don’t expect the full significance of a political event to become apparent for days, if not years, if not decades. We’re just the first draft of film history and it’s not really our job to second-guess ourselves all the time. That’s what blogs are for.
National Post
Craig: The Post’s Vanessa Farquharson said of the 2004 film, which The Departed is based on: “Infernal Affairs may be the lamest-titled film to hit theatres this year, but will probably be the only one of its kind that doesn’t sell out with psychological melodrama and clichéd copspeak — if anything, it at least deserves bigger profits than the upcoming Hollywood remake.”
This remake business is always a bit tricky. On the one hand I remember being horrified at Bridget Fonda and Dermot McDumbass in Point of No Return, a truly awful remake of La Femme Nikita, one of my favourite films. But I liked what Cameron Crowe did with Vanilla Sky, a remake of Abre Los Ojos, which oddly also starred Penelope Cruz. Scorsese, of course, updated Cape Fear and paid homage to a number of classic Hollywood films in The Aviator. But this is the first time he’s tried his hand at remaking a film from another country and culture. Since I haven’t yet seen Infernal Affairs I can’t really comment, but I’d still like to hear your comments about whether this was a good idea. I suppose you could make the case that The Departed will get more people to watch the original, but isn’t this a bit backward? What is the recipe for good remakes? Is simply switching the setting from Hong Kong to Boston enough?
Tracey: What, no mention of director Leonard Nimoy’s stellar work turning Trois Hommes et un Couffin into Three Men and a Baby? It’s interesting that we focus on The Departed as a remake. I’m not suggesting it’s anything else, but I wonder how many people in the multiplex, cinema buffs aside, realize Scorsese’s flick is based on an apparently great Hong King thriller (I haven’t seen it either).
And even if they do know, does that affect the way they rate the movie? I came to The Departed having heard of Infernal Affairs and that’s about it. And I can’t say I’m any more interested in seeing it now, although I’m sure it’s no less deserving of praise. Perhaps if The Departed hadn’t been such a triumph, I’d be more inclined to rent its precursor. There’s obviously more to foreign-film remakes than location switching, although Scorsese’s decision to cast Boston in this case proved insightful. But how do you judge when the originals are seen so seldom here? And is there really any point in doing so anyway?
Ultimately, Scorsese has made a thrilling genre piece that stands on its own.
Richard: Remakes are a Hollywood tradition. Moviemakers have been recycling ideas and remaking movies for almost as long as they have been threading film through cameras. The Maltese Falcon’s story was a two-time hand-me-down before a third version made Bogart a star, proving that while most remakes aren’t successful — think The Omen, Mighty Joe Young or Psycho — they can occasionally triumph. I think Scorsese’s re-do of Infernal Affairs actually outdoes the original.
Elvis Presley lived by the maxim that it is better to give than to receive. He loved to give presents. Very expensive presents. Lowell Hays (Elvis’ favorite jeweler), remembers that the singer spent a fortune on other people. “Elvis,” he said, “would take rings right off his fingers and give them to people.” Mr. Hays owns a fine jewelry shop in Memphis and for the last ten years of Elvis’ life was the only man the rock legend would buy jewelry from. “Elvis had done business with other jewelers,” Lowell says, “but I don’t think he was very happy with them.”
Hays often traveled as part of Elvis’ entourage. On tour, he would bring a case stuffed with trinkets which Elvis would purchase and dole out to friends and fans. “Money was not an object with him. To Elvis money was to be spent for his enjoyment and he liked big jewelry pieces. Elvis bought considerable amounts of platinum rings, baguettes and colored stones like sapphires, rubies and diamonds—he loved colored diamonds.”
One night, while on the road Hays was sitting on the side of the stage taking in the show when Elvis requested to see the case. “I set the case up on this big black speaker and Elvis started taking jewelry out of the case and handing it people in the front row,” said Hays. “Elvis gave away two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of jewelry that night.” As Hays sat and watched Elvis hand out dozens of diamond rings and rubies he became upset. He told the singer that he felt he was taking advantage of his money and good nature. Elvis looked at him reassuringly and told him not to worry. “I’ll only have to sing five minutes longer tomorrow night to pay for that.”
The only thing Elvis loved more than giving away jewelry was occasionally treating himself to an expensive bauble. His most famous—and outrageous— piece was the TCB ring—an acronym for Elvis’ favorite saying, “Taking Care of Business.”
Elvis asked Hays to design a TCB ring to wear on-stage. He wanted an eye-catcher of a ring that could be seen from the third row. “I have never made anything, or even seen anything the equal of the TCB ring as it finally turned out,” said Hays. “It is still the number one best looking ring I have ever made.”
The Crown Jewel of the Presley Collection, it was encrusted with diamonds and rare stones, and took months to design. Hays won’t divulge how much the ring cost, but will allow that the price tag was astronomical. When the ring was ready Hays took it to show Elvis. Under the chandelier in the dining room at Graceland Hays opened the box and watched as Elvis’ eyes grew wide. “Man,” the singer said, “Sammy Davis Jr. is going to shit when he sees this.”
“Elvis didn’t get excited about too many things, but he just went crazy over the ring,” said Hays.
From Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni splashing around in the waters of the Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita to Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s romantic street tour in Roman Holiday the Eternal City has provided some of the cinema’s most unforgettable images.
