FILM REVIEW: COMPLIANCE

A scene from Compliance.

 

T-bag work, force

By Don Simpson

During the opening scene of writer-director Craig Zobel's Compliance, an irritated delivery man (Matt Servitto) exclaims to Sandra (Ann Dowd), the manager of ChickWich, "You are fucked without bacon!" You see, a freezer door was accidentally left open overnight and most of ChickWich's supplies have gone rancid. Luckily Sandra was able to get a rush delivery to replace most of the spoiled ingredients before their lunch rush, but can ChickWich survive an entire business day without the ingredients that could not be replaced, such as bacon and pickles?

The worries of a bacon-less and pickle-less day at Chickwich quickly dissolve into the ether when Sandra receives a phone call from Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) informing her that one of her employees -- a cute, 19-year-old blonde named Becky (Dreama Walker) -- is in a pickle of her own. You see, Becky has been fingered by a recent ChickWich customer as a thief. (It must be Monday, because crappy days like this one only happen on Mondays, right?) Until Officer Daniels and his team can get to ChickWich to apprehend the suspect, it is Sandra's appointed responsibility to keep Becky locked up in the back room. From this point on, the disembodied voice of Officer Daniels proceeds to conduct an interrogation of Becky by masterfully puppeteering the employees of ChickWich. Transferring his authority as a police officer to various fast food civilians, Officer Daniels utilizes the persuasive power of his position to get precisely what he needs out of Becky.

Compliance is an intriguing conversation starter on the manipulative power and control of authority figures. For all the Chickwich staff knows, Officer Daniels is just a voice on the other end of the telephone line barking orders at them; yet, never once does Sandra or any of her staff attempt to verify Officer Daniels' credentials. It seems pretty ridiculous, huh? Of course most of us probably believe that we would just say no if we found ourselves in this situation...but how many of us would actually question a police officer's judgment or motives? When given permission by an authority figure, how many of us would take full advantage of our newly found power? Then, there are the gender dynamics of power struggles... Would a male who is placed in a position of power treat an attractive young woman differently than a female would in the same position of power? On the flip-side of things, what about Becky's personal freedoms? Is it not Becky's prerogative to be considered innocent until proven guilty in court?

Besides guaranteeing some very heated post-screening debates on human psychology, Compliance serves up some really tasty acting performances. Dowd is masterfully conflicted and confused as Sandra, so much so that seems like it might be a bit too heavy-handed for Zobel to drown Sandra in such a shit storm of a day. Did Sandra really need to begin the day with the freezer snafu while simultaneously stressing over the possibility of a mystery shopper visiting her location? It is as if her horrendous day is intended to give Sandra an excuse for her behavior; because of all of the stress she is under, Sandra is obviously not thinking clearly. The same goes for Sandra's boyfriend. Van (Bill Camp), who is heard early on in the film asking Sandra for permission to go out drinking with his buddies. Even Sandra voices her opinion that Van's phone call is unnecessary, but again it is deemed necessary for the audience to understand that Van is drunk when he shows up at ChickWich later that evening. Van is therefore given an excuse for his behavior -- his inhibitions are lowered. These two characters raise questions regarding the effects of stress and alcohol (or drugs) on situations such as the one we find in Compliance. What would have happened if Sandra was having a great day when Officer Daniels called Chickwich? Would she have been able to think through the situation more clearly and logically?

I am not going to point out that Becky is too naturally beautiful to be a cashier for a fast food chain as that would be incredibly condescending to fast food workers, who are already working in some of the most thankless (and underpaid) jobs in the whole US of A. Gross over-generalizations regarding their physical appearance would be in very poor taste. As for Becky being the most attractive worker at this particular ChickWich location -- well, I believe that is exactly why she is targeted. (Of course, this depends heavily upon whether or not you believe the predator stalked out the ChickWich location beforehand. I believe that he did.) Besides, something I really appreciate about Zobel's approach to filming Becky is that he never exploits her, even though he has countless opportunities to do just that. In fact, by his choice of camera angles and framing, it is abundantly clear that Zobel is purposefully avoiding any overt sexualization of the situation. It also helps that Walker handles her character with a great deal of restraint. In Walker's hands, Becky comes off as the most realistic character in Compliance.

Healy is pitch-perfect as the disembodied voice of Officer Daniels, so I would have preferred if Zobel kept his identity concealed until much later in the narrative. By showing us Officer Daniels when he does, Zobel totally changes the tone of the story from a true crime thriller to a demented psychological study. For me, this narrative tactic definitely lessens the thrill of it all; but again, this is something that will probably be debated among cinema-goers post-Compliance.

FILM REVIEW: THE CAMPAIGN

A scene from The Campaign.

Democracy for dollars

By Don Simpson

The United States finds itself teetering on the verge of becoming an oligarchy (or corporatocracy) under the guise of capitalism and free enterprise. Just as money makes the world go round, it is money that determines who will be elected into our government. Money also determines whether or not any legislation will garner enough support to become a law. Oddly enough, despite the polarization of our nation's two political parties, almost everyone seems to agree on this; but rather than doing anything about it, we just point fingers, blaming it all on the other side. Politicians provide us with endless lip service about changing the way things work in D.C. The problem is our political system is structured in such a way that things will never change. The three branch system of the U.S. government serves one purpose: to ensure that. The political environment is one of compromise, which means it is reliant upon persuasive powers and there is nothing more persuasive in our society than money. The two party political system is all about compromise as well, leaving most Americans with the option of voting for the better of two apparent evils or not voting at all.

Jay Roach's The Campaign presents us with a political climate that is controlled by the purse strings of billionaire brothers, Glenn (John Lithgow) and Wade Motch (Dan Aykroyd). The Motch brothers' bankroll carries so much persuasive power that it can instantly transform a stereotypical loser like Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) into a viable candidate. On the other side, we are presented with the long-term incumbent Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) who has historically run uncontested. The Motch brothers have one goal, to get Cam out of office, but Cam will not go down without a ridiculously long and drawn out fight.

What could have been a biting political satire, The Campaign comes off as totally toothless and downright stupid. Other than its all-too-easy condemnation of the Motch brothers (who are modeled after the Koch brothers), Roach opts to not offend anyone...except his audience. The plot is a directionless blob that serves the sole purpose of setting up a nonstop barrage of absurd humor. If The Campaignis about anything, it would be the horrors of one-upmanship. Just as Marty and Cam try their darndest to out do each other, Galifianakis and Ferrell seem to be immersed in their own no holds barred competition for the most outlandish gag. Sure, some of the jokes are funny, but Galifianakis and Ferrell are trying way too hard. A little restraint would have gone a long way.

FILM REVIEW: THE BOURNE LEGACY

Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) in Bourne Legacy.

Our Cross to bear arms

By Ed Rampell

The Bourne Legacy is a highly entertaining, tautly directed movie movie that will have audiences’ tooshes hanging on the edges of their seats during a number of action packed scenes -- especially when Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) gets all Steve McQueen-y in a nail-biting motorcycle chase sequence.

Now your humble cinema scribe likes being entertained as much as anyone (actually, probably more, given all the time he spends in the dark reviewing movies and more), but to this cultural critic, film is not only an entertainment medium and art form, but also a chronicle of its times. Watching this outrageously ultra-violent flick I couldn’t help but reflect on what an egregiously violent society we live in. Did you notice after that heartbreaking shooting at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises there was nary a peep about the possible relationship between our blood-drenched mass entertainment and the mass killings and other brutality in America?

I mean, there were some murmurs about gun control (although not from our major party presidential candidates, including the coward-in-chief), but the silence was deafening about the correlation between mass entertainment and mass murder. Hmm, could this be because much of the news media is owned by the same fine folks who own the movie studios? Could it be, for example, that Rupert Murdoch, who owns 20^th Century Fox as well as Fox News Channel, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and apparently endless phone hacking outlets in Britain, etc., doesn’t want a fair and balanced discussion of the possible link between the mentally unbalanced and trigger happy productions? Hmm, inquiring minds want to know.

Now, I realize that 2008’s The Dark Knight was a motion picture parable about the so-called “War on Terror”, and I wrote about that at the time. Similarly, The Bourne Legacy certainly makes scathing points about contemporary America: Drone warfare; high level intricate intelligence conspiracies; government secrecy; big pharma; military experiments gone awry.

Okay, the filmmakers may have intended social criticism of the powers that be, but be that as it may, mentally unstable people may only perceive the aggression and viciousness inherent in movies like the Bourne flicks, and not be able to grasp their political nuances. And the movie’s Third World sequences show an utter lack of regard for the lives of Filipinos, giving new meaning to the title of John Ford’s 1945 Philippines-set They Were Expendable. Once again, Third World people only serve as exotic background to advance the plot points of the really important Caucasian characters.

The vicious circle and cinema cycle seems to be: A warlike society that endlessly invades, bombs, bullies other countries (and lest we forget, its own oppressed peoples) requires an aggressive populace to fight its dirty wars and also spawns a blood soaked culture, which in turn generates more belligerent individuals, who have easy access to weapons of mass murder, and round and round and on and on we go, traipsing towards Judgment Day.

FILM REVIEW: BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!

Fredrik Gertten in Big Boys Gone Bananas!

Dole out some justice

By Ed Rampell

In 2009 Swedish director Fredrik Gertten’s documentary Bananas! was the most controversial Scandinavian import to America since I Am Curious (Yellow). Forty years earlier Vilgot Sjoman’s 1967 film was seized by U.S. Customs because the X-rated film dared show sex acts and full frontal nudity. But Gertten dared to take on an even touchier (no pun intended) subject in his nonfiction film: corporate America.

Bananas! exposed Dole Food’s role in spraying poisonous pesticide on bananas in Nicaragua and exposing agricultural workers to DBCP, which allegedly resulted in sterility for some of the affected campesinos. Gertten’s doc included footage of a Dole executive basically confessing on the witness stand during a lawsuit brought by the banana proletarians to using the pesticide in its Central America plantations.

The results of Gertten’s temerity were entirely predictable. The multi-billion dollar multi-national banana bullies headquartered near Los Angeles went bananas, waging a heavy handed P.R. offensive against the director and documentary as it was about to debut at the Los Angeles Film Festival, wreaking havoc and movie mayhem at one of L.A.’s top film festivals. The unfortunate LAFF brouhaha (which was no laughing matter), Dole’s aggressive publicity campaign, the corporation’s defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers and Gertten’s bold countersuit formed the basis for a great sequel, in that grand cinematic tradition: Big Boys Gone Bananas! (Even Sjoman made a sequel of sorts to his hit: 1968’s I Am Curious (Blue).)

Unlike retrograde reviewers who blithely reveal plot spoilers, your humble cinema scribe won’t ruin the fun for you. Suffice it to say, in that great silent screen slapstick tradition, that Dole slips on a banana peel. In any case, Dear Viewers, if you see only one movie this summer, get thee to the Pasadena Playhouse 7 (and wherever else it is theatrically released and screened) pronto to see this epic David against Goliath saga of biblical proportions, as Sweden’s WG Film -- with its four employees -- go up against the wall, motherfuckers, fighting the $7 billion corporation that has 75,000 employees. Forget about Spidey or Batman, Gertten is cinema’s superhero, as he fights against all odds for freedom of speech -- something U.S. journalists should take note of, especially those despicable pigs, media miscreants and Dole shills who stabbed Gertten in the back with pens and keyboards.

The role David Magdael and his L.A.-based P.R. firm also plays onscreen and off is also truly inspiring -- would that more publicists valued ballyhooing truth and artistic integrity over commercialism (but that would be a sci-fi fantasy flick). And those Swedes, who passed legal free speech protections way back in 1766, 10 years before our Revolution, can teach us a thing or two about freedom of the press and that crazy little thing called “democracy.”

Big Boys Gone Bananas! is highly dramatic and great fun (arguably a worthy successor to Woody Allen’s 1971, Bananas), with many twists and turns, and far more entertaining than most Hollywood features. During his quixotic crusade Gertten fights back on a number of fronts, but most effectively, this veteran filmmaker, who also produced the stellar 2008 Oscar nominated doc, Burma VJ, does battle with his mighty weapon of choice: a movie camera. If you value a free press and enjoy stand up and cheer movies, don’t miss Big Boys Gone Bananas! Bravo!

And, on a personal note, may I add: "Mahalo nui loa," thank you very much, to the Dole family for the role your forebears played in overthrowing Queen Liliuokalani and the independent Kingdom of Hawaii and turning it into a pineapple and banana republic.

   

  

 

 

 

FILM REVIEW: TOTAL RECALL

Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) in Total Recall.

Dismembering the way we were

By Don Simpson

It has been a very long time since I have watched Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, primarily because I find any film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger to be overwhelmingly unwatchable. So, as a fan of Philip K. Dick's source short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," I was actually kind of excited when I first heard that Len Wiseman was adapting the same Dick short story. Okay, "excited" might be too strong of a word -- I hated Wiseman's embarrassingly flawed Live Free or Die Hard and I am not a fan of his underwhelming Underworld franchise -- but at least Schwarzenegger was not going to be in this adaptation. At least Colin Farrell seemed to be a somewhat legitimate choice for the leading role, so this adaptation had that going for it. Of course, by naming his new film Total Recall, Wiseman does risk the assumption that this is a remake. Like I said, it has been a long time since I have watched Verhoeven's Total Recall, but if my memory serves me correctly, Wiseman's interpretation is drastically different. Wiseman's film is also drastically different from Dick's short story. Unfortunately, it still does not come anywhere near the same intellectual levels of complexity as Dick's short story.

Douglas Quaid (Farrell) lives in a futuristic world in which the tyrannical ruling elite live on one side of the world and the working class lives on the other; the rest of the world is a vast post-apocalyptic wasteland. Every day, Douglas must travel via a tunnel through the center of the Earth to work on an assembly line in a factory in which a robot army is being constructed for the ruling elite. Douglas' wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), is a police officer. Together they are cogs in the tyrannical machine, helping the elite become richer while their own lives on the other side of the world are far from idyllic.

There is no escape for Douglas. There is no room for upward mobility; he and Lori will never live on the other side of the world. Douglas needs something to free him from his lackluster life so he turns to REKALL, a company that implants false memories into its clients allowing them to fantasize of a better life. Today we use cinema and television to escape reality, in the future we will use implanted memories. Sounds great, huh? Yeah, not so much.

Douglas' visit to REKALL unleashes a whole mess of shit. From that moment onward, he finds himself tirelessly running and fighting for the remainder of the film. Wiseman kicks everything into overdrive, leaving the story's inherent politics and philosophy in the dust. Suddenly, Total Recall turns into just another mindless action flick and once again Dick's heady original content is tossed aside for good old fashioned escapist entertainment.

FILM REVIEW: CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER

Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Sandberg) in Celeste and Jesse.

LA smart woman

By Ed Rampell

First of all, let me get this out of the way: Celeste and Jesse Forever is a perfectly entertaining rom-com starring Rashida Jones (who also shares writing and producing credits -- hey, that’s one way to get lead roles!) as Celeste, Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg as Jesse, with Chris Messina and French actress-model Rebecca Dayan. The comedy, directed by Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind) and co-written by Will McCormack (he also plays Jesse’s friend, Skillz, who schemes to get down Celeste’s knickers), mostly takes place in La-La-Land, with some good scenic shots and insights into L.A.’s show biz scene. Celeste, a happening trends prognosticator, has written a wittily titled book, appears in various media spots and co-runs a P.R. firm with Elijah Wood as her obligatory gay guy pal. They rep the obstreperous, trendy, punky pop star du jour Riley (Julia Robert's niece, Emma Roberts), who thinks the 30-something Celeste is over the hill.

The married-title characters seem ideally suited for one another, so, as their mutual friends’ remark with great consternation: why are Celeste and Jesse getting divorced? Good question: Even after announcing their separation Celeste and Jesse continue to live on the same piece of property and remain “best friends.” Aye, there’s the rub in this otherwise enjoyable romantic comedy: Celeste is far smarter than and more accomplished than Jesse, who has some unrealized, unspecified creative ambitions that your humble scribe wasn’t bright enough to get. Never mind that spiritually they are soulmates and remain sexually attracted to one another -- in terms of the bourgeois world, they are unsuited for one another due to I.Q. and income disparity. Because she’s supporting Jesse, whose prospects seem dim, and he’s dimmer than her, Celeste has opted to move on to what she supposes will be greener dating, mating and matrimonial pastures.

But does she unearth them? Jesse finds it easier to get another partner (even if he still prefers his soon to be ex-wife), but the know-it-all Celeste is confounded by returning to the dating scene. What seems to be the problem? Is she too career driven, accomplished and smart for her own good? The most emphasized fact on Rashida Jones’ IMDB bio is that she attended Harvard -- is she saying that intellect and success spoil intelligent women’s romances? If so, what a message to put out to women in the, you know, 21^stcentury.

This film’s arguably reactionary point of view reminded me of that great bit of dialogue in 1987’s Broadcast News, when a male colleague tells Holly Hunter’s not too pretty but extremely brainy producer: “It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room.” To which Hunter’s Jane Craig ruefully responds with the heartfelt: “No. It's awful.”

What’s next? A movie advocating the repeal of Title 9 because sports equality threatens boys’ self esteem on the field and in the gym?

Another extraordinarily strange thing about Celeste and Jesse Forever is that while the ethnicity of Jesse (Jewish) and Dayan’s Veronica (Belgian) is revealed, Celeste’s national origins seem to be a taboo topic. In fact, offscreen, Parks and Recreations co-star Rashida Jones is a bi-racial woman, daughter of musician Quincy Jones and Mod Squad actress Peggy Lipton, making their daughter of Russian-Irish-African heritage. But none of this ancestry stuff is mentioned regarding Rashida, who seems to be “post-racial” in the way America was supposed to be after Obama was elected (hey, tell that one to the birthers and Birchers!). Or worse, perhaps Celeste is meant to “pass” for white? If so, holy “Pinky," there Andy!

Another curious thing about this movie with lots of unresolved elements is that although Jesse is never gainfully employed, he dines at fancy L.A. eateries, attends concerts and the like, despite his lack of income. (Is he getting alimony or whut? Inquiring minds want to know.)

The point of this film seems to be that smart (and bi-racial/black?) women are losers in love. But maybe Celeste isn’t as smart as she thinks she is -- by buying into the bourgeois notions of relationships, she has jettisoned true love because her partner doesn’t meet society’s standards as an achiever in the career arena. Celeste seems to earn plenty of money for both of them, but that isn’t enough, so love gets tossed out the window (along with Skillz’s advances, presumably because he’s too much of a slacker). And that is truly stupid, because when it comes to romance, one size relationship doesn’t fit all.

Aside from its apparently anti-feminist polemics, I liked this movie -- in the same way that I can appreciate some of the cinematic sequences in Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 Olympics documentary, Olympia.