Simply put, America does not much like itself right now. There are myriad domestic and economic issues at play in this anger, anxiety and depression, of course, but almost every interpretation begins with a look overseas, at the $12 billion a month being spent in Iraq, and the outlay for long-term military involvement in that country, and Afghanistan, that will cost the United States $1.7 to $2.7 trillion by 2017.
The long, seemingly endless slog of the war in Iraq, as well as re-litigation over the reasons for its launch, and a prosecution by the Bush administration beset with moral scandals (e.g., Abu Ghraib), corruption and waste (just a few days ago, CBS News revealed that $8 $8 billion was paid to multinational contractors with little or no oversight, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent), have taken their collective toll. If, as recent polling suggests, more than 80 percent of the country thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction, it’s safe to assume that number is even a bit higher in the left-leaning Hollywood creative community.
All of which brings us to John Cusack’s War, Inc., a lumpy political satire being loosely, if misguidedly, pitched as in the same general vein as Grosse Pointe Blank. The latest in a string of movies — a list that includes Brian DePalma’s controversial Redacted, Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs, Gavin Hood’s Rendition and Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss — to put America’s war policies under the microscope for analysis, the film is set in the fictional country of Turaqistan, a nation occupied by an American private corporation run by the recently retired vice president.
The filmic equivalent of a bleating, hot microphone — all crossed wires and misfunneled energy — War, Inc. apparently came together via the draft. Co-screenwriter Cusack, a fan of absurdist author Mark Leyner, pulled him into the project, wanting to write about the privatization of war. Also a fan of 1998’s Bulworth, Cusack rang its writer, Jeremy Pikser, and asked him to join the tea party. The strange seams of this unusual collaboration show, with supporting characters (including a sexy, hard-charging liberal reporter played by Marisa Tomei and an outrageous Middle Eastern pop star played by Hilary Duff) jammed in at unusual angles and certain situations seeming to have no realistic bearing on others.
While beset with different problems, the aforementioned films, all commercial busts, were arguably each in some small way, to degrees, felled by their inability to reconcile their makers’ personal anger or irritation with the current administration’s political choices with basic tenets of good drama. Similarly, though more wryly than stridently, War, Inc., too, summons to mind Benjamin Franklin’s quotation that “whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.” It’s a satire, and clearly aims for interlocution just by flinging out different concepts and riffing on them (journalists “feel” the war by partaking of a battle simulator ride, apolitical local wedding videographers compensate for a drop in business with porn and insurgent be-headings), but War, Inc. doesn’t even have the tasty advantage of flinty, anger-fueled wit. Its exasperation and resentment with the current political clime has merely hardened, like oatmeal left out overnight, into something sludgy and almost unrecognizable. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here. (First Look, R, 106 minutes)
Daily Archives: May 27, 2008
Sydney Pollack Dead at 73
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sydney Pollack, who last year bowed out of helming the just-released HBO flick Recount for health reasons, passed away Monday evening at the age of 73 from cancer. Very sad, all the way around, as Pollack — who acted in the Oscar-winning Michael Clayton and whose last two films behind the camera were 2005’s The Interpreter and the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry — was one of the industry’s true nice guys, and a good, thoughtful interview to boot. He had varied interests, but also a real love of films in general, as evidenced by the fact that you could hold an interesting conversation with him about movies in which he was not involved.
Dancing in the Street
Not all music history is about the Beatles and Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and James Brown, as Dancing in the Street, which gathers a quartet of respected artists who combined for more than 100 hit songs, amply demonstrates. A 90-minute, rare “lost” concert that was part of a roadshow that toured 21 cities in the summer of 1987, as U2’s The Joshua Tree lit up the airwaves, this disc throws a welcome spotlight on Mary Wells, David Rufflin, Martha Reeves and Eddie Kendricks.
Shot during the second show of the series at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles — the former home of the NBA’s Lakers, during the “Showtime” era, ironcically — this title holds a sadly nostalgic value apart from its separate, standalone musical merits: Wells, Rufflin and Kendricks would all die within five years, and this would mark their last public tour. Wells sings “You Beat Me to the Punch,” “Two Lovers,” “The One Who Really Loves You” and “My Guy,” while also dueting with Curtis Womack on “Wonderful World,” “He Will Break Your Heart,” “Shout,” “Bye Bye Baby” and “Chain Gang.” Reeves, meanwhile, gives the following tunes a workout: “Ready for Love,” “Come and Get These Memories,” the classic “Nowhere to Run,” “I’ll Have to Let Him Go” and the equally inimitable “Jimmy Mack” and “Heat Wave.” The energy here is high, and the musicianship certainly fantastic as well. Housed in a regular Amray case, this region-free disc comes with Dolby digital stereo surround sound, animated menu screens, artist biographies and discographies, a photo gallery and a small clutch of interviews. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Concert) C+ (Disc)
Why Does Lindsay Lohan Want to Date Me?
I really should go ahead and christen a special category here at Shared Darkness, so strangely cinematically flavored are my dreams. Last night’s REM special — or one of them, at any rate — involved a labyrinthine scenario by which Lindsay Lohan kept trying to date me… no, not because I’m irresistibly attractive, funny and rich, but chiefly in order to stay away from her mother. (Umm, apparently I had a car?) I think this entire thing owes to the fact that I caught five or six seconds of a promo of Living Lohan on E! yesterday, after popping out a disc I was screening for review. Still… what?