Movie Review: Precious

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire *** ½
Directed By: Lee Daniels.

Written By: Geoffrey Fletcher based on the novel by Sapphire.

Starring: Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Mo'Nique (Mary), Paula Patton (Ms. Rain), Mariah Carey (Mrs. Weiss), Sherri Shepherd (Cornrows), Lenny Kravitz (Nurse John), Stephanie Andujar (Rita), Chyna Layne (Rhonda), Amina Robinson (Jermaine), Xosha Roquemore (Joann), Angelic Zambrana (Consuelo), Aunt Dot (Tootsie), Nealla Gordon (Mrs. Lichtenstein).

Why are there so few realistic movies about African Americans made today? Why are the best African American directors – Carl Franklin, Boaz Yakin, John Singleton and even recently Spike Lee – stuck making genre films? Why are major African American stars – Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman – given so few chances to play real black people on screen? In recent years, the films of Tyler Perry have proven that there is an audience out there for films dealing with real problems facing the African American community, even if those films are just basically big screen sitcoms. American now has their first African American President, and yet it seems that Hollywood, which prides itself on being more progressive than the rest of America, doesn’t seem to want to make movies about real black people.

That alone makes Lee Daniel’s Precious somewhat of a rarity and a cause for celebration in this movie landscape. It is a powerful film, so much so that it attracted some big name support, in the form of Perry himself as well as Oprah, who added their names as executive producers after the films premiere at Sundance to ensure that the film, which director Lee Daniels thought would end up going straight to DVD, would be seen by as wide of an audience as possible. Given the numerous awards the film has already won, not to mention the awards it will win, and it’s strong box office in limited release, proves that yes, audiences do want to see movies like this.

The movie stars newcomer Gabourey Sidibe in a powerful performance as Clarice Precious Jones, an overweight 16 year old girl, still in Junior High, and pregnant with her second child, fathered by her own father, who has never been around much unless it was to rape Precious. Her mother Mary (Mo’Nique) knew what was going on, but let it happen. Not only that, she blames Precious for what happened. She is both verbally and physically abusive towards Precious. She never leaves their apartment, unless it’s to play her “numbers”, and treats Precious pretty much like her own personal slave. Precious goes to school, but doesn’t really participate or do anything. She can barely read or write, and early in the movie, the Principal Mrs. Lichtenstein, pretty much the only white person we see in the movie, informs her that this school isn’t doing her any good, and suggests an alternative school – Reach One, Teach One. Precious goes, and finds the school more to her like. Mary thinks it is all just a waste of time, and tells Precious to get down to the Welfare office to get some money. But Precious goes to the school anyway, and slowly, but surely, starts to come out of her shell.

One of the things I found refreshing about Precious was that white people play almost no role in Precious’ coming of age or dawning of enlightment. How many movies have we seen about a selfless, white teacher who goes to the inner city and inspires the poor black kids? Too many by my count. But in Precious, she meets one strong woman after another. The teacher, Mrs. Rain (Paula Patton), is not only a confident black woman, but also a lesbian, who reaches out and connects with her students, probably because she relates to them. The other girls in the class – mostly black, but some Hispanics as well – are also strong and confident, and are not letting their lot in life keep them down. Even Mariah Carey delivers a strong performance as a social worker. Normally Carey comes across as an extremely fake Barbie doll type, but here with a lack of makeup, she has a more world weary appearance. She’ll help Precious, but only if she helps herself first. Lenny Kravitz delivers a similarly strong performance as a Nurse at the hospital where Precious goes to give birth. Gone is the cocky swagger we normally associate with Kravitz, and in its place is a realistic portrayal of a man who simply wants to help.

But this is a double edged sword in its own way as well. As much as I appreciated these portrayals, it struck me as somewhat unrealistic. Everywhere Precious turns, she finds people willing to help, as if her only problem was being born into an abusive family. There seems to be no portrayal of a mindless, heartless bureaucracy that makes it harder for poor people of any color to get a leg up on life. And yet, the movie places the blame for Precious’ lot in life purely on that bureaucracy as Precious complains about the teachers who just let her sit there and not learn anything for all those years. Doesn’t Precious bare at least some of the responsibility? Shouldn’t she have done something all those years?

But these are minor flaws, in a movie that for the most part is powerful and emotional. Some will complain that director Lee Daniels goes overboard with the stylistic flourishes he peppers throughout the movies. The scenes in Precious and Mary’s apartment movie seems dirty and grimy – as if it were shot through a layer of filth. This is contrasted to the lighter tone of the classroom, and the almost clinical and sterile environments of the hospital and the social worker’s offices, which are drab and barren. But Daniels flourishes work in this movie, as if shot in a more straight forward style, Precious could have easily looked like a TV movie of the week – something we would see on the Lifetime or Women’s network. But Daniels movie doesn’t look like that at all. After his horrendous directorial debut, Shadowboxer, he seems to have learned how to make a movie, and he does a great job.

But the movie really is an actor’s showcase for Sidibe and Mo’Nique. Newcomer Sidibe is brilliant in her first major role, letting us slowly get a look inside of Precious. She is a beautiful girl, hiding underneath her overweight appearance. One of the most interesting things about the movie is how honest she is in her voiceover, depicting her years of abuse and suffering and yet how she also holds back. When she looks into the mirror, it is not her she sees in the reflection, but rather a skinny, pretty, blonde white girl. She never mentions this, but the implication is crystal clear – how much easier her life would be if she looked like that, rather than herself. Sidibe is quiet throughout much of the opening scenes of the movie, only come to life in her fantasy sequences, but as the movie progresses, she abandons those fantasies, for her own harsh reality. For the first time, she is taking responsibility for herself. It is a remarkable debut performance – and it should net her an Oscar nomination.

Mo’Nique already has the supporting actress sewn up for her performance her, and she deserves it. In her first scene, she lets off a series of profanity that would make a gangster in a Scorsese film blush. She is a force of nature here – an abusive, foul mouthed monster of a woman. In her final, tearful scene in the social workers office, she is more subdued, yet she does a remarkable thing. In that scene, she turns the monster from the rest of the movie into a real person. She lets her guard down, and for the first time is honest. We do not feel sympathy for her in this scene, but for the first time we understand her. It is a daring, brilliant performance from an actress that I never suspected had this sort of depth.

Precious is almost assured to be on the year’s big Oscar contenders. In a way, it is much like Slumdog Millionaire, yet I don’t think that Precious is anywhere near as much of a fairy tale than that movie is. The movie ends on an inspiring note, but not one that is really all that happy when you stop and think about it. Precious’ life has improved dramatically over the course of the movie, but that doesn’t mean things are going to get any easier for her.

Movie Review: The Blind Side

The Blind Side ***
Directed By: John Lee Hancock.

Written By: John Lee Hancock based on the book by Michael Lewis.

Starring: Sandra Bullock (Leigh Anne Touhy), Tim McGraw (Sean Tuohy), Quinton Aaron (Michael Oher), Jae Head (S.J. Tuohy), Lily Collins (Collins Tuohy), Ray McKinnon (Coach Cotton), Kim Dickens (Mrs. Boswell), Adriane Lenox (Denise Oher), Kathy Bates (Miss Sue).

I have no idea how true to reality The Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher, who went from being pretty much homeless in high school to be a first round pick of the Baltimore Ravens last year and becoming an instant millionaire. And to be honest, I don’t much care. Movies have to work unto themselves, and shouldn’t take too much effort to be true. And The Blind Side works remarkably well as a movie. It is an inspiring sports movie without being so sickly sweet that it rots your teeth.

Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) lives in Memphis, but he doesn’t really have a home. His mother is crack head, and he has been in and out of foster care for most of his life. When the movie opens, he is staying with a friend, but that doesn’t last long. He gets into a private Christian school, but just sits there in class and doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say much of anything to anyone really. One day, Leigh Ann Touhy (Sandra Bullock) and her family are driving home when they come across Michael. He is cold and alone, so she invites him to stay at their place for the night. They night turns into two, and then more, and soon they come to see Michael as part of their family.

Michael is a gentle giant of a man. At around 6’4 and well over 200 pounds, he is huge, which makes people think he will good at football. He brings his grades up enough to qualify for the sport, but when he gets on the field, he doesn’t like to hit people. But his protective instincts are phenomenal. In the movie, all it takes to turn Michael from a marshmallow into a star Left Tackle is for Leigh Ann to tell him to think of the football as his family, with the quarterback being her. He is to protect him from any harm, just like he would protect her.

In many ways, The Blind Side is a classic sports movie story, about the underdog made good. It takes a kid with no real advantages in life, and turns him into a star athlete overnight. All he needed was for someone to believe in him. The movie has come under fire in some circles, because it is yet another story of a poor black kid who plays a supporting role in his own story, while the white star of the movie – in this case Sandra Bullock – is given the lead. And while to a certain extent this is true, I can’t help but think that in this case at least, this was the right choice.

Oher, the character not necessarily the person, is in a lot of ways an enigma throughout much of the movie. He is quiet in the extreme, barely mumbling a few words together for pretty much the first two thirds of the movie. He lets his action speak louder than his words ever could, in scenes like when he protects the Touhy’s youngest son when they get into a traffic accident, or on Thanksgiving when the entire Touhy family goes to eat dinner in front of not one but two TVs showing a football game, and he quietly goes into the dining room by himself at first – until Leigh Ann drags the rest of the family in there with him. By focusing on the brash, outspoken Leigh Ann for much of the movie, writer/director John Lee Hancock finds a way to tell Oher’s story in a way that will not alienate audiences. In doing so, he gives Bullock what just may be the role of her career so far.

Bullock so often disguises her talent in the lackluster romantic comedies she makes. That she is better at these movies than pretty much any other actress in the world right now is really beside the point. In The Blind Side, she doesn’t play a character that far removed from those romantic comedy roles. She is good looking, charming, driven, sassy and fun. No matter what movie she is in, you know she will almost always get her way. Here, her talents are put to good use, as she plays *gasp* a Republican and Christian woman, not to mention a member of the NRA, and isn’t painted as a heartless villain, but rather a good woman who takes Michael in, because it is the right thing to do. We like her pretty much immediately. Michael needs someone like Leigh Ann to bring him out of his shell, and that she does. Quinton Aaron is quite good as Michael, making him lovable and sweet, without pouring it on too heavy, and making us feel the sickly sweetness of the story too much.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag. Tim McGraw is fine as Bullock’s supportive husband, who seems to have learned from all their years together not to fight her, but to just smile and roll with the punches. She’s going to get her way anyway, so why fight it? The other Tuohy kids, Collins, played by Lily Collins and SJ, played by Jae Head, are underwritten, and in the case of SJ, seems rather cartoonish. Kathy Bates as the tutor Miss Sue, that the Tuohy’s hire to help Michael get his grades up, is really not given anything to do.

The Blind Side is what it is – an inspiring sports movies – with all the good and bad clichés that go along with that. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but then again it doesn’t have to. It does what it does well, and the result is a highly enjoyable little movie.

Movie Review: The Sun

The Sun *** ½
Directed By: Aleksandr Sokurov.
Written By: Yuri Arabov.
Starring: Issei Ogata (Hirohito), Robert Dawson (General Douglas MacArthur), Kaori Momoi (Empress Kojun).

The Sun completes Aleksandr Sokurov’s trilogy about men of power. I haven’t seen the first two – Moloch about Hitler or Telets about Lenin, but The Sun about Japanese Emperor Hirohito is an amazing movie. In the waning days of the War in the Pacific, Hirohito is staying in his isolated palace. Two atomic bombs have been dropped on his country. He has sent his family away fearing that the palace maybe hit. His only company is a couple of loyal servants. At breakfast one morning they run through his schedule. He’s got a meeting with the military, then he has a couple of hours to do his marine biology research, then lunch, then a nap then a period for quiet reflection. “And if the Americans show up here today, will we keep the schedule of change it?” he asks. He’s told that as long as there is one Japanese man still alive, the Americans will never set foot here. Hirohito wonders aloud if he’s going to be the last Japanese man alive. He’s told it’s inappropriate to talk like that. As Emperor, he is a direct descendant of the Sun God and as such, he is not a man at all. But why? He has a body like any other man. Again, that’s an inappropriate thing to say.

Eventually, the Americans do show up. General McArthur wants to meet with Hirohito. The two talk and they are pleasant enough to each other. But when the topic turns to the war, things get a little testy. Hirohito observes that two atomic bombs have been dropped on his country. McArthur replies that that wasn’t his call. But the fact that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor is just as bad. Hirohito replies that that wasn’t his call either. McArthur questions him about his relationship to Hitler. Hirohito replies that he never met him and the alliance was one made for purely strategic gains, not because he necessarily believed in what Hitler stood for. These two men of seemingly endless power are really nothing more than pawns in other people’s games.

The movie presents Hirohito is a strange way. He’s innocent, almost childlike. He reminds people of Charlie Chaplin. He is not a power hungry madman, like Hitler or Mussolini, but rather a man who feels rather burdened by his position. His generals tell him that their men are still fierce fighters and for them retreat is not an option. Hirohito knows that if he doesn’t do something, then many more of his people are going to die. When he learns that part of the agreement of surrender will be to renounce his status as a deity, his response is almost one of relief more than anger.

Sokrurov’s movie is full of long, unbroken shots and impressive sound design. Gus Van Sant has said that Sokurov’s work is a major influence on his recent efforts like Gerry, Elephant and Last Days. The link is undeniable. But whereas Van Sant focuses his aim at death in modern day America – death by a friend, death by a stranger and death by oneself – Sokurov’s looks at men of the past with power. I am going to try and track down Moloch and Telets, which like The Sun never received proper distribution in North America, to see what his vision of those men are. Here, he’s more sympathetic than I expected him to be. He doesn’t view Hirohito as a monster, or even a bad man, just an innocent caught in a game he never really wanted to play. And that is daring in its own right.

Note: I saw this movie three years ago, when for some reason it played for a week here in Toronto. I wrote the review at the time, never expecting it to see the light of day, as at that point I was simply writing for myself, not to post online. But now for some reason, the film has secured a limited American release, so I decided to run this review. Because it has been so long since I saw the film, all I did was clean up the grammer a little bit and posted it. I never did track down the other two films by the why, but this review reminded me to try again.

Oscar Update: The Documentary Shortlist

So this week, the Academy announced the 15 documentaries shortlisted for the five nomination slots in the category announced in January. As always, a considerable amount of controversy has ensued, not so much over what was included, as to what wasn’t included. Before we get into that, here are the 15 shortlisted films:

· The Beaches of Agnes
· Burma VJ
· The Cove
· Every Little Step
· Facing Ali
· Food, Inc.
· Garbage Dreams
· Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
· The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
· Mugabe and the White African
· Sergio
· Soundtrack for a Revolution
· Under Our Skin
· Valentino The Last Emperor
· Which Way Home

So, you have probably noticed some major absences. We all knew that Michael Jackson’s This Is It did not meet the release requirement, which meant the year’s highest grossing doc was not going to make it. I’m not about the eligibility of Disney’s Earth, which is the second highest grosser of the year, but it isn’t on the list either. Neither of these is all that shocking though.

The biggest shock has to be Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story not making the cut. True, it is Moore’s weakest documentary in more than a decade, and did not quite penetrate popular culture like his last three films did, but you had to figure that his reputation alone would get him in. Not so apparently.

My favorite doc of the year so far, James Toback's Tyson, also did not get shortlisted. In part, this is probably because Toback is a feature film director normally, and they don't like him invading his turf, and probably also in part because Mike Tyson has become so overexposed this year. Still, this was an honest look at a fascinating man, no matter what your opinion on him is.

Other major titles not included are Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Collapse, The September Issue, We Live in Public, It Might Get Loud, Crude, Afghan Star, No Impact Man, More Than a Game, Outrage, Enlighten Up, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love and The Yes Men Fix the World. Some of these are shocking, some of them aren’t, and some were probably eligible last year, and didn’t get selected, or perhaps could be eligible next year, given the strangeness of the rules here. I have long since given up trying to figure out what was eligible and what wasn’t.

2009 has not exactly been a banner year for documentary films, and I have to admit that I have slacked off a little bit in terms of watching some of the titles released. Of course, it doesn’t help that many titles were never really released in my area.

At this point, I have seen but two of the fifteen titles shortlisted – The Cove and Food, Inc. Out of the other 13, there are only two I could have seen in commercial runs this year – Every Little Step and Valentino: The Last Emperor (both now available on DVD where I will try and catch them this weekend). I really did try to see The Most Dangerous Man in America when it played in September at the Toronto Film Festival, but it sold out remarkably quickly for a documentary. Hopefully it gets a release date soon. And Facing Ali apparently has a DVD release date of December 29th, so I’ll catch that title then.

Still though, that’s only 6 of 15 that I even had or have a chance at seeing by the time the award is given out. True The Beaches of Agnes, Burma VJ and Under Our Skin did true theatrical releases, but as far as I know I didn’t get a chance to see them in Toronto, and no DVD release date is set for any of them either, as far as I know.

All told, only 7 of the 15 documentaries have box office returns listed on box office mojo. Apparently Which Way Home qualified in January, The Most Dangerous Man in America in June, Garbage Dreams in July, Mugabe and the White Africa, Living in Emergency and Soundtrack for a Revolution in August and Facing Ali and Sergio don’t even release when they qualified for the award. But none of these films have any sort of box office return listed. Whether any of these 8 films will have an actual theatrical run remains doubtful, but if any of them get an actual nomination, it could easily happen.

But therein lies the problem I have always had with this category. I do not fault the films or the filmmakers themselves – for all I know these really are the best 15 docs of the year. And after all, they are playing by the rules set forth by the Academy. They are the ones that are really to blame.

Of those 8 films that have not reported any box office receipts, and do not have theatrical release dates upcoming as of yet, can we really call any of them “theatrical” documentaries? Or are they just made for TV and DVD documentaries that played some lonely theater in LA for a week with as little fanfare and advertising as possible? Say what you want about the 17 films I listed as being overlooked, but all of them were genuine theatrical documentaries released to audiences in 2009 and all that entailed.

But whatever. The Academy makes their choices for this category, and doesn’t really care that by doing so, they are making the documentary category even more marginalized then it already is. If even people who love documentaries do not have a chance to see all the nominees by the time of the ceremony, do they really expect anyone to care?

Anyway, enough with the politics of the list, and let’s get into the films themselves. I have ranked them in the order that I think they are most likely to be nominated.

1. The Cove – Undeniably the most talked about of all the shortlisted titles, this doc has stunned audiences everywhere it goes with its story of illegal dolphin slaughter in Japan. The film is exciting and important, and brilliantly well made. This is most likely your winner.
2. Food, Inc. – The highest grossing documentary on the list by far, they may feel the need to add it in considering that they left off everything more popular than it. A fine doc, and one that inspired discussion, although if you know anything about the topic going in, this doesn’t provide anything new.
3. Every Little Step – Quite popular when it was released earlier this year, as it follows a group of dancers as they audition for a Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, and explores the history of the show. It could be too “lightweight” for Oscar, but people do seem to love it.
4. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers – A popular title at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, the film details the inside story of what Ellsberg did when he smuggled out classified documents and gave them to the New York Times, exposing the Vietnam war and other nasty secrets, that ended up helping to bring down Nixon. Will certainly find a friendly reception among Hollywood Liberals, a theatrical release would help, but if the film is as good as I hear, it will get in.
5. Burma VJ – A popular festival title, and a modest box office success, Burma VJ is made up of footage smuggled out of the country about the 2007 protest by Buddhist monks against the government. I suspect that this one will be among the nominees.
6. The Beaches of Agnes – An autobiographical documentary by legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda about her life. This has been a huge critical favorite – I expect it to pick up some critics awards – but could be hampered by the fact that she is not exactly a huge name in America.
7. Valentino: The Last Emperor – A popular documentary when it was released earlier this year, this movie looks at the life of legendary fashion designer Valentino. I wonder though if it’s going to be too lightweight for the Academy to fully embrace.
8. Garbage Dreams – The movie is apparently a look at the lives of Egyptian trash collectors, and the impact globalization has had on them. The film has some fans, but it will need to get more if it’s to get in ahead of some of the more high profile titles.
9. Soundtrack for a Revolution – This movie tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement through the music of the era that helped to inspire it, and how it grew out of slave songs and music in the black churches. This is one that I am actually very interested in, but I wonder if the Academy will be. It doesn’t really sound like their cup of tea, but Liberal guilt could move it up.
10. Which Way Home – This movie tells the story of child migrant workers from South America who try to make their way to the USA by themselves in order to support or reconnect with their families. Undeniably important subject matter, it will need to tug a lot of heartstrings to move up past some of the bigger titles.
11. Under Our Skin – This one is undeniably helped by the fact that it has an actual theatrical release behind it, and in a year where health care has been talked about constantly, this story of lyme disease, and the problems in the medical establishment of addressing it, could strike a nerve. Still though, I highly doubt it.
12. Sergio – A look at the life of UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Sergio Vieria de Mello, and the explosion that injured him in Baghdad and the ensuing rescue operation. I hate to sound crass, but the Academy seems to over Iraq docs right now, and even if this one is more wide reaching, I doubt it will get in.
13. Mugabe and the White African – The story of a white African farmer in Zimbabwe who took the President Robert Mugabe to court and tried to prove he was racist and defend his land against takeover. The Academy has embraced stories of whites helping blacks in Africa before – but not really in this category. The buzz is awfully quiet on this film right now.
14. Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders – An undeniably important subject, as the film follows four doctors in war torn areas like the Congo and Liberia as they try and give medical services to the people in the area. Still, no one is talking about the film, and it hasn’t garnered the film festival praise other titles have.
15. Facing Ali – The documentary is made up of interviews with 10 of Muhammad Ali’s opponents in the ring including George Chuvalo, Joe Frazier and George Foreman. I’m sure it will be entertaining, but I think with When We Were Kings winning this award (even if it was more than a decade ago now), this will have kind of a been there, done that feel to it.

So that’s the way I see it right now. Of course, given the lack of mass reviews for many of these films, and of course the fact that I have not had a chance to see many of them, I could easily be wrong.

Movie Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ****
Directed By: Werner Herzog.
Written By: William Finkelstein
Starring: Nicolas Cage (Terence McDonagh), Val Kilmer (Stevie Pruit), Eva Mendes (Frankie Donnenfeld), Xzibit (Big Fate), Brad Dourif (Ned Schoenholtz), Tom Bower (Pat McDonough), Jennifer Coolidge (Genevieve), Fairuza Balk (Heidi), Michael Shannon (Mundt), Shawn Hatosy (Armand Benoit), Shea Whigham (Justin), Denzel Whitaker (Daryl), Irma P. Hall (Binnie Rogers), Vondie Curtis-Hall (James Brasser)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans is the most demented, delirious black comedy in recent memory. It is the type of film that I think many are going to hate, but that will attract a loyal, cult fan base. I knew that when Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage teamed up, the result would be over the top, but I never expected just how far over the top they would go. This film is some of crazed masterwork in excess.

Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a Lieutenant with the New Orleans police department who gets promoted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, because he risked his life to save a prisoner who was abandoned in his cell when the storm hit. In the process, McDonagh injured his back severely, and now takes Vicodan to dull the pain. And cocaine. And pretty much every other drug he can get his hands on. He is far from choosy. His “girlfriend” is Frankie (Eva Mendes), a prostitute, and at times Terence uses his badge to scare her clients into forking over even more money or drugs. He is also not above pulling over a couple of college kids he thinks are holding, threatening them with arrest, then stealing their drugs, and fucking the pretty girl while her boyfriend watches. Forget moral crisis – that happened months ago. Terence is now just in freefall.

A case lands on his desk. An entire family of African immigrants have been slaughtered in their home. Everyone knows that local drug kingpin Big Fate (Xzibit) is behind the crime – he killed the father because he tried to move in on his turf and the rest of the family because they were there – but there is no evidence to link him to the crime. But Terence has more pressing problems. His gambling debts to his bookie (Brad Dourif) have become so high that he cannot get any more credit, and one of Frankie’s Johns that Terence shook down has mob connections, and they have know come looking for revenge. None of this even mentions that Terence is so far gone on drugs that he has begun to hallucinate. During a stakeout at one point he asks “What the fuck are these iguanas doing on my coffee table?”, and when he is informed there are no iguanas, he hits one in the head just to ensure that it really is there. Later, in the aftermath of a gang style shooting he tells someone to “Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing”, and sure enough, we do see the man soul’s break dancing away even as his boy lies in a pool of blood on the floor.

The movie follows Terence during the course of the investigation into the murder of the immigrant family, but is really more about his freefall than anything else. The movie is said to be a remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 masterwork Bad Lieutenant, which gave Harvey Keitel the best role of his career. That film was a dark drama about a drug addicted cop also in freefall. But other than the most basic of story similarities, the films could not possibly be more different.

What makes the film as great as it is Nicholas Cage’s brilliant, over the top performance. Cage has always been one of the most fearless actors on the planet, and his penchant for going over the top has led to some of his very best, and his very worst, performances. In Bad Lieutenant, Cage dives headlong into his role, and comes up with one of his most memorable performances ever. In nearly every frame of the movie, Cage carries the film on his back with his demented ravings. A highlight is his repeated visits to an old age home, where he yells at an old woman and her personal support worker, trying to get them to reveal information he needs for his investigation. These scenes represent Cage at his manic best. Yet, no matter how far over the top Cage goes, his character remains believable, and even somewhat grounded. Cage may fly into theatrics repeatedly in the performance, but he never goes too far. There is not another actor on the planet that could have played this role as well as Cage does.

Werner Herzog is one of the mad geniuses of the cinema, who for the most part has mainly focuses his energies on documentary films in the last decade. His Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World are two of his most brilliant efforts to date. Until he teamed up with Cage here, he was never able to find an actor with the same insane drive and brilliance as his favorite actor Klaus Kinski. The two collaborated several times, including the masterpieces Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo, and after Kinski’s death, Herzog made the wonderful documentary My Best Fiend about their love/hate relationship. Kinski was the only actor alive who could keep up with Herzog’s insanity (or perhaps, it was the other way around). But in Cage, Herzog has found a similarly fearless partner to make a movie with. Because of this, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans is one of the great achievements in both Herzog and Cage’s careers. This is a great one.

Weekly Top Tens: The Best Musicals Ever

I admit that I am not as up on my movie musicals as I probably should be. For a very long time, I didn’t like musicals at all, and tended to avoid them at all costs. In the past few years, I have softened, and started to enjoy them more and more, but as you can see from my list of my 10 favorite movie musicals ever, I still do tend to have a darker side to my musical love. So while musical lovers will probably reject many of my choices, these are my 10 favorite musicals – consequences be damned.

10. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
Hansel (Mitchell) is living in East Berlin and is miserable, until he falls in love with an American army officer and the two decide to get married. The problem of course is that Hansel and the army guy are both men, so Hansel gets his mother, Hedwig’s, passport and goes to a doctor to get a sex change. The doctor botches the operation, leaving him with a useless inch of floppy flesh between his legs. Hedwig makes it America anyway, but his husband leaves him, and he starts his own band that he calls Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He befriends a Christian teenager (Michael Pitt), and once again falls in love, but is once again jilted, as Pitt leaves and becomes a huge star, having stolen Hedwig’s songs. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a completely different kind of movie musical. It is original and daring all the way through, with memorable rock songs, and a great lead performance by Mitchell. A one of a kind movie.

9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton, 2007)
Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant stage play comes to film under the guidance of Burton, who takes the play and makes it his own. No one is going to mistake either Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter – who have the lead roles of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett – as great singers, but the completely inhabit their characters. Depp’s Todd is more crazy than I have seen in previous versions, and Bonham Carter actually makes Mrs. Lovett much more sympathetic than I thought possible. Ably supported by Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener and especially young Ed Sanders in the key role of Toby, Burton’s film is a near perfect fusion of his own unique vision with Sondheim’s. I do wish that he had not cut quite so much out – Anthony and Johanna need to be seen as crazed as Sweeney in their love and The Ballad of Sweeney Todd is the best song in the musical – but overall, this is one of the few musicals I like to watch again and again.

8. Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrman, 2001)
Without this film, it is doubtful that musicals would have come back the way they have in the last decade. But Luhrman’s film deserves a spot on this list not because it revived a dead genre, but because it did so with so much originality and creativity. The movie is basically a mixture of pop songs, used in new and different ways – everyone from Nirvana to Madonna gets their songs used. The story is a classic musical melodrama about a prostitute dying and the writer who loves her. Luhrman’s flash editing and rapid pacing has never looked better on screen, and the costume design and art direction are top notch. Personally, I have never been able to get into the movie on DVD, but in the theater, this was a magical experience.

7. Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, 1952)
For some, the ultimate musical. And I do I love it a lot, and have seen it many times. Gene Kelly has never been better than he was here, and his iconic dance number to the title song is one of the most joyous moments in movie history. I love Debbie Reynolds as the innocent ingénue with a killer voice, and Donald O’Connor proves that he is just as good as Kelly. Jean Hagen almost steals the movie as the silent movie star with the most annoying voice on the planet. There is so much to love about this movie. If it only ranks seventh on my list it’s for one simple reason. Every time I watch the movie the huge Broadway number in the middle of the movie grinds everything to a complete halt, as it goes on WAY too long and has nothing to do with the story. Yet, this is still pure movie magic.

6. The Band Wagon (Vincente Minelli, 1953)
For some, it is impossible to imagine Fred Astaire without Ginger Rogers (don’t worry, they’re coming up later), but if nothing else, then The Band Wagon proves that Astaire was great no matter what. Astaire plays an aging star of the stage and screen, who career is on a down slope. He signs up for his comeback role on Broadway, a supposedly light comedy, that the director then turns into a dark, pretentious version of the Faust legend, and hires a young, beautiful ballerina (Cyd Charisse) to be in the show. The movie is, like all of the MGM musicals, a meaningless piffle in terms of story, but under the direction of Vincente Minelli, the film absolutely soars with wonderful music and dance numbers. Astaire is at his charming best, and Charisse has never looked more beautiful. A wonderful film that never gets old.

5. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
Jacques Demy’s tribute to the classic Hollywood musicals is actually better than pretty much all of them. Yet, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is not quite as light and frothy as the musicals of yesteryear. Genevieve (Catherine Denueve) sells umbrellas with her mother in Cherbourg. She is in love with an auto mechanic named Guy, but just as their love blossoms, he is drafted and has to go fight in the Algerian war, leaving Genevieve alone and pregnant. She feels abandoned, as he does not write often. Distraught, she marries a wealthy Parisian man and leaves town. When he returns, he is depressed that Genevieve is gone, and ends up marrying someone else. Fate brings them together five years later, although the reunion is bittersweet. Now that the movie has been restored to its rich, colorful originality, we can again marvel at Demy’s brilliant musical, which while taking the form of a classic Hollywood musical, infuses it with a little more realism to go along with all the melodrama.

4. Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)
If Demy infused The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with slightly more realism than normal for a musical, than Lars von Trier did him one better in Dancer in the Dark. In the movie, Bjork plays a single, immigrant mother living in America, and working in a factory to support herself and her son. She is slowly going blind, and knows that her son will also inherit this blindness, so she is saving up to get him an operation that will prevent it. She is almost painfully shy, and only truly comes to life in her fantasy world, where she is a star of the musical she loves so much. The dramatic scenes in the film are shot in Von Trier’s Dogme rules, but the musical numbers are lush and colorful – straight out of a classic Hollywood musical, except with Bjork’s memorable, strange songs providing the score. As Bjork goes singing to her demise at the end of the film, you realize that you have seen one of the most original musicals in cinema history.

3. Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936)
I could have just have easily picked the Astaire/Rogers pairing of Top Hat for this list, but I settled on Swing Time instead as the perfect musical to represent their brilliant collaboration. The story is of course meaningless. Astaire is a gambler and a dancer, who has to prove to his future father in law he has good intentions for his daughter by raising $25,000. So he and his partner jet off to New York, where he meets and immediately falls in love with Rogers, forgetting about the girl back home. The movie is all about the music and the dance numbers, and the film has a lot of them. The jaunty “Pick Yourself Up”, the romantic “The Way You Look Tonight”, the amusing “A Fine Romance”, the great “Bojangles of Harlem”, which is accompanied by Astaire brilliant tribute to African American tap dancing, marred only by the fact that he is wearing blackface during the number. But the two greatest dance numbers, perhaps in the history of film, occur to “Waltz in Springtime: and “Never Gonna Dance”. If dance movies today contained dances even half as good as these, then they would be masterworks. Swing Time is, for me, the ultimate Astaire/Rogers movie.

2. All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
Bob Fosse is an undeniable legend in musicals, but out of his three musical films (the other two being Sweet Charity and Cabaret), this is far and away his best. It’s his very own version of Fellini’s 8 ½, which means Rob Marshall musical version of Nine out later this year will have a lot to live up to. In the film Roy Scheider delivers his finest performance as a thinly veiled version of Fosse himself. Overworked as his Hollywood movie about a standup comedian is over budget and over schedule (mirroring Fosse’s work on Lenny), and preparing for his new Broadway show, Scheider chain smokes, takes lot of prescription drugs and sleeps with all of his female dancers. The three most important women in his life – his girlfriend, his ex-wife and daughter – try to bring him back from the brink, but it is too late. He has already started to imagine himself with the Angel of Death. From his hospital bed, he starts to relive his life, and when he realizes that death is imminent, he “directs” himself through the five stages of death – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance in a series of fantasy song and dance numbers, that get increasingly elaborate, right up to the show stopping finale that of course ends with his death. I think Fosse knew that he would never be able to top this film in terms of musicals, which is why his only other film after this was the dark, non-musical Star 80. This is quite simply a masterpiece.

1. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker, 1999)
The South Park movie mercilessly sends up not only Disney musicals like Beauty and the Beast, but also Broadway musicals like Les Miserables. The film is full of the most memorable songs imaginable. The 19 great songs include Uncle Fucka, Blame Canada, What Would Brian Botaino Do?, It’s Easy M’Kay and Up There plus many others. There is not one of these songs that I could not sing by heart right now. They are brilliant parodies, but also great songs in their own right. The movie is also one of the funniest and most intelligent comedies of recent years, picking apart movie related controversy with glee. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is the greatest of movie musicals because it is more than a musical. It is a profane masterpiece, that weaves in memorable songs to a movie that is utterly, and completely, brilliant.

Weekly Top Tens: The Best King of the Hill Episodes

I did lists for both The Simpsons and South Park, which are both pop culture phenomenons in their own way. And yet, I often feel like the most consistent prime time animated show in history was King of the Hill. It does not have as many classic episodes as either of those two other shows, and yet it does not have anywhere near as many bad episodes either, and right up until the end of its run last season, it was turning out quality programming. There are few shows in history with that type of consistency, and even fewer that looked at life in the South without mocking of self-aggrandizement. King of the Hill deserves to be mentioned along with those other great shows, so I made up a best list of the best episodes for this one as well.

10. Hank’s Bully (Season 10)
The 200th episode of the series was one of its best. In it, the Hills get new neighbors, including a 10 year old boy who likes to torment Hank by calling “Dusty Old Bones”, spilling his garbage and riding his bike across Hank’s beloved lawn. The kid’s parents are the New Age type, who adore their son’s “creative behavior” and says he is just trying to get Hank to like him. When Hank takes the kids bike to teach him a lesson, the police show up and threaten to arrest him. But Hank has a plan of his own. Meanwhile, Peggy and Dale enter a taxidermy contest using all the creatures that Dale kills in his extermination business, and Peggy’s creativity. This subplot is amusing, but is more a distraction for the great major thrust of the plot. King of the Hill was always at its best when it contrasted common sense, in this case Hank’s old fashioned parenting, with new ways that just don’t make much sense. This one is funny, but also quite truthful as well – which is why it’s one of the best episodes.

9. Reborn to Be Wild (Season 8)
Reborn to Be Wild is a great “Bobby” episode, as Hank forces his son to join a youth group at his local church, because he worries that Bobby is falling under a bad influence. The youth group is led by Pastor K, and the praise Jesus through Skateboarding, rock music and tattoos. They are constantly yelling “Praise Him!” every time they do anything. Hank likes that Bobby is taking an interest in religion, but dislikes the way this group treats Christianity as a fad. There is a fine line between being religious and taking things too far and getting a little kooky. This King of the Hill episode walks that line just about perfectly.

8. Talking Shop (Season 8)
In this episode, Bobby is finally able to start taking electives at school, making Hank excited at the possibility of Bobby taking auto shop. Bobby lies and tells Hank that he is taking shop, when in fact; he takes “peer counseling”. As the only boy in the class, Bobby has a face that was born to listen, although he is warned against actually giving out any advice. Meanwhile, Hank goes on a search for a beat up car so that he and Bobby can rebuild it. Bobby gets into trouble, by actually giving advice to his clients – two of whom end up falling for him. As always, Hank has to bail him out. This episode is intelligent and funny – with great vocal support by Laura Prepon, Alyson Hannigan and Lindsay Lohan, and once again rejects the new age touchy feely crap, for Hank’s more down to earth style.

7. An Officer and a Gentle Boy (Season 7)
Hank is concerned that Bobby is going soft, so he decides to send Bobby away to Cotton’s old military school. But lawsuits, and a new age of “self confidence building” has changed the school from Cotton’s days where they punished the students, to a new age of encouragement. Enraged, Cotton gets the headmaster fired, and takes up the reins himself, pushing Bobby harder than any of the other students – even going so far as bringing back the “hole” and putting Bobby in there for three straight days – a day longer than Cotton ever spent there, which almost drove him crazy. But Bobby is tougher than he looks, and he survives it all keeping his sense of humor intact. A funny, rather touching episode, as both Cotton and Hank find a new respect for Bobby. He may be goo, but while that makes it impossible to build him up, it is also impossible to tear him down.

6. The Perils of Polling (Season 5)
The episode gets off to a great start when at a county fair, Bobby dives into a tank of water to save Mitch the Diving Pig from drowning. With the 2000 Presidential election coming up, Luanne is finally going to get to vote, and decides to vote for a Communist because he has a nice tie. Horrified, Hank takes her to a Bush rally to hear the issues, and convince her to vote Republican. But Hank is horrified to discover that W has a limp handshake, and decides against voting at all. He spends Election Day in Mexico with Dale, who is convinced that society is going to crumble that day, but rushes back at the last minute to cast his vote. A fine episode about the importance of voting is also hilarious in many ways.

5. Get Your Freak Off (Season 7)
Bobby takes Hank to the music store, and tries to convince him to buy him a lot of albums, that Hank abruptly dismisses as vulgar crap. That is, until he hears the music of 4Skore, a new boy band that Hank immediately falls in love with. He even takes Bobby, and his new girlfriend Jordan, to a 4Skore concert, but is terrified when the band starts doing suggestive dance moves, and sees Bobby and Jordan imitating them. His reaction draws the ire of Jordan’s parents – who are “progressive” and are letting Jordan having a “coed slumber party”. Once again, Hank is in conflict with a “new” style of parenting, but finds that in the end, his way is better. A hilarious episode, as we see the usually low key Hank get excited, and Bobby dancing among other things.

4. Keeping Up with the Joneses (Season 1)
The best episode from the debut season sees Hank catching Bobby with a cigarette. To punish him, he makes Bobby smoke an entire carton of cigarettes, until he is ill. With one pack remaining, it makes Hank long for the days when he used to smoke, so he takes the habit up again, eventually drawing Peggy back as well. The punishment for Bobby backfires, as he becomes addicted to cigarettes, and so all three Hills are smoking, until Luanne convinces them to quit. There are many great moments here (I particularly love Bobby stubbing out his breakfast sausage), and the long night of the three of them trying to get through without smoking is classic. A great early episode for the series.

3. Aisle 8A (Season 4)
When Kahn and Minh go away for a few days, they leave Connie to stay with the Hills. Excited that he gets to spend time with his girlfriend, Bobby makes a lot of plans for the two of them. But things go horribly wrong when Connie gets her first period. With Peggy not around, Hank has to take her to the supermarket, and ends up going down the dreaded Aisle 8A, which features the feminine hygiene products. Connie becomes irritable and emotional, and drives a confused Bobby away, while Kahn is convinced that Hank did something horrible. A hilarious episode about guys and their hang-ups about female reproduction – which they don’t understand and don’t want to understand – and how women react. A classic.

2. Husky Bobby (Season 2)
Bobby becomes a model for the flyer of a store for “husky boys” and it turns out that he is a natural at it. His first gig leads to more and more, while Hank looks on horrified. Luanne thinks Bobby is lucky to be a model, and Peggy likes it as well, but when Bobby is invited to lead off a fashion show for husky boys, Hank puts his foot down. At first it appears like Hank is simply being closed mind, but when the fashion show turns into a food fight (including a brilliant Natural Born Killers homage), with bullies pelting the models with donuts, Bobby who has been dragged away by Hank, feels grateful. Husky boys, teenagers and donuts is a recipe for disaster indeed.

1. Three Coaches and a Bobby (Season 3)
Poor Bobby will never be able to live up to Hank, who was a great athlete in high school. But Bobby gives it a valiant effort on the football field anyway. Hank is horrified that the coach doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, so he convinces his old high school football coach to come out of retirement and take over the team. But that coach has gone pretty crazy, and torments the boys to no end. Bobby, along with many others, gets frustrated and ends up joining a soccer team, much to Hank’s horror. The soccer coach is voiced by Will Ferrell and hilarious teaches the boys to “high kick” and to love tying – because that means we are all winners! The best moment of the episode – and in fact in all of the series – is when Bobby convinces his soccer teammates to return to the football team – now coached by Hank – and the two of them share a nice moment at the end where Hank praises Bobby, and says he may make a fine coach one day, and rests his hand of Bobby’s shoulder. Bobby replies “I would be a coach, as long as I still got to wear my uniform. And a cape”, at which point Hank takes his hand off Bobby’s shoulder. A brilliant, subtle moment and the heart of what has always made this show great.