For International Cinema (a film course I’m taking right now at Salisbury University), we watched an Italian film some might know as Life is Beautiful. In Italian, the title La Vita e Bella rings very poetically and is all you need to know from the get go: That this movie is living, breathing poetry about darkest hours and brightest smiles.

Guido is a middle aged man traveling through the Italian countryside, bringing immense life and indomitable imagination with him everywhere he goes with his hyperactive talent for humor and romance. He meets a woman who literally falls on him from the sky, and decides pretty much in that moment that he’ll look for her every chance he gets- she is his “princess.” The first half of the movie is his demonstration of character and whimsy- consistently drawing others into his imagination and making life truly worth living for those who surround him. However, he just so happens to be in the wrong time for love- that being the 1940’s, where it was popular to name children Adolf and Benito, and the disregard for human life took a back seat to “progress.”

He succeeds at wooing his woman, and even is gifted a very smart, and very well played child named Giosue, with whom his life truly becomes beautiful. The time catches up with him, however, and he and his son are taken away to a Nazi Holocaust camp, where there fate will be unknown. It’s up to Guido to mask the horrors of this life from his son, much to young to understand, and make sure that his son never has to know the real suffering, the deep hatred, and the cruel traumas of war. The movie is about this gift that a father gives a son. Is it a gift of ignorance, or a gift of freedom? You decide for yourself, but for me, it’s a gift of salvation.

This film has gone on to win numerous awards, including Best Actor Oscar for its star, the stellar and always entertaining Roberto Benigni, who well deserved his acclaim even though his entire film has been bashed some critics for being unreal and unfair to the past.

Well, I’m here to set the record straight- I am not even going to wait till the end of this review to say this: This movie strikes the biggest pose I’ve seen in a while. Clever, sympathetic, sweet and never exploitative of the true events (it handles the Holocaust tastefully), yet the ending is still guaranteed to evoke tears in even the hardest hard-ass.

Filmed in some way that resembles classic Technicolor looks, with flat, exaggerated coloring that truly brings it into a romantic genre, the film feels like a 1950’s or 40’s classic, but with the spirit of hindsight to make it even more potently covered in the era it is trying to amicably recreate. For something that feels so old fashioned it completely blows away most modern efforts to entertain while making the viewer consider the situation the characters are in. The movie Moulin Rogue, for instance, uses modern day effects of grandiose coloring and movement to keeps it’s viewer on the picture at all times. What this film does is mainly give you one incredible character, various incredible settings, and frame them all in an astonishing script that never lets up on laughter and joy. This isn’t just the joy of romance, parenting, or survival- its just the ability to breathe. I used to have a theory- as long as we’re alive we’ll be alive. We can breathe, we can live. It’s slightly abstract but if I could ever find a movie to define what I meant, this film would be it.

Automatically getting a seat in my top 50 flicks of all time (and possibly top 10 upon later viewings,) Life is Beautiful isn’t so much a story of struggle as it is a story of the power of imagination and living. To say something any more original about it would be quite difficult, because this movie so quintessentially sticks to that theme, it’s probably bar none the best example of pacifistic dignity ever captured on film.

****/****

AUDREY BILLINGS (Amber Valleta): I thought you were a professional driver?

If the name of the site and the company doesn’t make it clear, then I’ll make it crystal right now: I’m a HUGE action movie fan. I was watching Aliens, Predator, and Terminator 2 when I was five- all uncut, and all at my mom’s recommendation. The advantage? I grew up loving really GREAT action films that not only had huge explosions but deep stories or at least solid directing and command of plot.

The Transporter 2 stars the quickly-rising popular action icon, Jason Statham (who’s career could go down the drain if enough people see the next Uwe Boll film, Hail to the King- A Dungeon Siege Tale) in a film written by the fantastically-oriented Luc Besson, directed by the ever-growing Louis Leterrier, in a movie about a man who is moving things for money with his tricked-out ride. In this film, his “item” is a young boy going back and forth to school for a month, only to be kidnapped by the “nefarious badguy.” This angers our hero, who goes to save him and stop an even more twisted plot to take down the entire DEA. Or something like that. Cars crash, explosions explode, and people get smacked with Jason Statham’s fire hose…no that’s not a pun that’s actually what happens…deal with it.

Now all grown up and starting my own film business, I’m on the way to working on two of my own action pictures, The Peregrine Saga, and The Atavist Splinter: BLIND-SIDED. I love listening to rock songs by bands like Disturbed and N.E.R.D., all while imagining what great action could flow with it.

So even when it comes to downright cheeze, I will watch almost any action movie at least once. I mentioned in my last post that I’m an avid fan of Ryuhei Kitamura’s VERSUS (2000), a movie so low-budget it makes El Mariachi look like it was personally funded by Microsoft. The style was high but it was also “so obviously fake looking we’ll wink at the camera while shooting each other” extremely shot that I couldn’t get it the first time. The second time I loved it, and the third time while listening to the director’s commentary, I absolutely fell in love with how it sky-rocketed Kitamura’s career- the man has since directed the 50th Anniversarry Godzilla film, and the cutscenes for Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. I also seem to remember that his movie Azumi is officially coming to America soon…I’m going to be checking that out.

Anyways, that’s all beside the point. Today was Christmas, and under the tree I mostly got clothing. I also got two DvD’s: Miami Vice (say what you will, Mann knew what he was doing in my opinion), and, oddly enough and not at all requested, The Transporter 2.

I’m a fan of numerous things in film, but when it comes to action there’s two things that excell: Luc Besson and Jason Statham. Luc Besson is the legendary French director who brought us such classics as The Professional (one of the highest rated movies on IMDB as you can clearly see), and the less-critically loved but undoubtedly clever The Fifth Element. Luc Besson does not direct this film, however, he gives the reigns to one of his most trusted associates, the young and upcoming action phenomenon Louis Leterrier, who has directed the other Besson-penned masterpiece, Danny the Dog, AKA Jet Li’s Unleashed, and of course the original Transporter. Luc Besson’s taste for action is hard-hitting, realistic elements put into fantastical settings and bizzare situations. Usually this pans out brilliantly as was the case for the films Unleashed and one of my personal favorite action flicks, District B13 (review to come soon!) in which the action can be seen as the point, but the stories and characters behind it are built up to be something just as strong as any punch thrown in terms of integrity and growth.

Unfortunately, the story for The Transporter 2 is incredibly…mmm…I’ll just use the\ word “blah.” Now, I can usually deal with this being that I was raised in a video game society (which the other Jason Statham flick, Crank, satires saliciously) in which paying attention to a story wasn’t necessarly goal number one. I, however, being the elitist jerk I am, could hardly ever swallow a game unless the story along with it proved to be just as exciting as the action. I kept that policy from childhood, and it has followed me into my career as a filmmaker and reviewer. For instance, the Tony Jaa flick Ong-Bak, was a great duty-bound story of a man who had to save his village from people who did not respect the faith of others. It ends with one of the minor characters redeeming his flawed ways and re-learning the respect he was taught as a child. That’s gold! The Protector (known as Tom Yum Goong outside the ‘States), the spiritual successor to that film, starring Tony Jaa again, lacked that same continuing message, instead just going for balls-out (and less solidly choreographed) action. In the end, the good guy literally kills EVERYONE and then just walks away peacefully with no real growth or explanation, aside from a decent albeit only ironic monologue by one of the minor characters.

To compare it to one of those two films, which aren’t necessarily polar extremes but certainly different variations of similar styles (like how my younger brother keeps trying to explain to me the difference between the 2 billion different styles of Metal music), The Transporter 2 would have to fit into the second category with The Protector. That’s ok though- the action it brings in with it is great: intense and well paced, with variation of some of the best car chases in recent history and a lot of cheesy “finale” effects that still prove amusing even after the realization that they’re 90% CGI.

This all works because of one thing: Jason Statham himself. His IMDB profile claims he does all of his own stunts, and since he’s still rising in popularity and shows off some level of integrity with his acting, I doubt his profile is as cluttered with mis-information as Jean Claude Vanne Damme’s (freaking gymnast!). If I ever found out it was a lie, I’ll personally tell you, personally. In any case his stuntwork is very welcomed as not a lot of people had been doing it until the last few years without a stuntman to back them up, and I like that step in the right direction that modern action flicks are taking. I know Harrison Ford did it way back in the day with the Indiana Jones series, and the thing about this is it REALLY strengthens the acting and connection the actor has to his character. Statham pulls off his role remarkably, with Bond-like charm and pure bad-assedness. His fight scenes are pulled off with enthusiasm and brutality, and its really great to know the man behind the wheel for the remarkable chase scenes is actually the man getting out of the car in the next shot.

So we’ve got a great writer with a so-so story line and a great action star with some so-so action. Other than the damned-decent opening performances of the little kid (first timer Hunter Clary) and some of the bad-guys, the acting is nothing special. The direction is solid but ends up being overblown with impossible sequences that, while good for munching popcorn, only end up causing yawns upon later viewings. I enjoy CG work when its done right, however in an action movie when the main focus of the action is realism and choreographed stunt work, CGI takes away my “how did they do that?” factor and doesn’t exactly inspire me to watch it upon later viewings.

The movie does strike a decent balance between stylish and cheesy, and over all is a fun view for any action enthusiast or person just looking to lose their brain for an hour and a half. Things blow up stylishly, you get one great character in Statham’s Frank Martin (who, up until Casino Royale, was one half of the future twin-split children of the James Bond franchise, the other half being Jason Borne from the Bourne series), running the paces of current action movie trends, such as white guys doing insane martial arts. NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT as long as they got the balls to do their own stunts!

So, my review is going to be a little hard for me to swallow, but I can really only give this flick a 2/4, seeing as, while I enjoyed it, it won’t be something I’m going to watch over and over again for the action or the story line, but will encourage me to keep looking forward to Statham’s work. He’s got SO much potential to be one of the next great action stars, returning us to Schwarzenegger’s glory days of the late 80’s.

Let’s hope he keeps it up.

This film STRIKES A POSE!!! from the driver’s seat, zooming past the road only to kinda fly by without much notice.

**/****

BENSON (Harvey Keitel/ Dubbed by Roy Dotrice)

Yes, you have a great body. May I use it?

I sat down today in front of my widescreen TV and decided to surf my high-definition digital cable for a good movie to watch. I turned to God-knows what channel, and came across a movie about to start starring Kurt Douglas and Harvey Keitel, not to mention Farrah Fawcett. Apparently it was a sci-fi flick about two lovers who’s space station is breaking down, so they need to call in a doctor with some “big tools” to patch the place up. The Robo Handy-man, Hector begins to feel lovelorn as he inherits the lust for the loyal female character (Fawcett, of course) that his socially-retarded creator (Keitel) builds up in competition to the usually-naked space Commander (the aging Kirk Douglas)! Sounds like the opening of a porno, no?

Now let me ask you something- how does a movie starring Spartacus, Mr. White, and a freaking Charlie’s Angel end up being some of the biggest dreck I’ve ever had to witness, even by MY low standards? I mean…I watch the movie Versus like religion!

Well I was reading some forum threads from IMDB, and it seems like the cast and crew might have not enjoyed this movie either. One thread poster states that, more than likely, Harvey Keitel hated everyone and everything to do with the movie- probably because his character, the maniacal Dr. Benson, was dubbed by Roy Dotrice because he couldn’t compensate for the directors inane need for REALLY STUPID SPEECH PATTERNS. Let me explain something: Harvey Keitel has an amazing voice, and an amazing style of articulation. If you wanted Dr. Spock for this movie, labotamize Leonard Nimoy in the stylings of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and stick a crazy straw in his throat. This character sounded so awful, and while I know it was intentional it still does not deserve any forgiveness. Half the time I had no idea what this character was saying because the screenplay didn’t really get any damned coherent thought across even when Kirk Douglas was making a perfectly humorous quip! In fact if he wasn’t smiling like a jackass through half of his lines (probably out of contempt for this garbage) I doubt I would have even known he was making wisecracks!

Farrah Fawcett practically plays a Barbie Doll for the bumbling (notice how his legs never really move that much yet he walks? Bizarre) Hector- who falls madly in love with her to the point of evicerating her arms and trying to…wait…

Hector never tries to do ANYTHING to her! He just stands there going “look at me, I’m a killer robot! Insert Really Annoying Robot Noises HERE!” God if I had an audio clip for this I assure you I could give brain tumors to 90% of the people who read this review. It is THAT awful.

Now if you may have noticed I’ve been adding pictures to my reviews lately. Well let me tell you something about the next image: It’s a picture of a model/promotional tool for the film from 1980. And guess what? This scene, filled with intensity and action- never happens.

So what do we get from this movie? Well…we get sex…a lot of sexual innuendo…starring Farrah Faucett and your grandpa, I mean Kirk Douglas. Now the relationship between these two could have been really well established had they not made Fawcett seem like a plaything to every actor (that meaning, two on-screen characters and two offscreen horney fighter pilot) and the giant robot who probably needed to adjust his apparatus. Maybe it was social commentary, but my only guess is that it was the commentary on: If you’re a stupid blond with your headlights constantly going berserk, yes, men will fight over you and you will be able to do nothing about it.

Then again maybe the only real love going on in the movie was going on between the Commander and the robot, as seen in this image of a man giving one last glorious hug to his giant mechanical monster! Oh the passion!

On the plus side, Hector was decently designed, as were the sets and the special effects…

OH WHO AM I KIDDING!!? The sets looked like something out of a BAD episode of the original Star Trek (and by bad I meant worse than standard), Hector made Robbie The Robot look like a talented Jazz Dancer, and the special effects were stolen straight from Alien, only it looked like it had the budget of a sophomore film school project from 1964.

In his directorial debut, John Barry, the production designer for the original Star Wars movie, started directing this film, and died (or was fired, I can’t tell from the rumors on the net) about half way through the project. The cause: Menegitis.
Guess what? I’m going to place my bets on this film for causing his untimely death: It wasn’t the menegitis- it was the overwhelming obviousness that after this film, his career would already be miles down the crapper.

In the end, there were some very interesting ideas posed- humans giving robots intelligence through brainwaves would make a great film if done right (and I’m sure it has been, my brain is just too melted by this rotten-egg to remember any) and the fact that the two main characters were trying to make their own private Eden in a solar system of despair seemed relatively touching. Too bad it ripped the opening directly from Alien and didn’t even HAVE an ending!

This film does NOT strike a pose. It simply flops around like a fish out of water…and on a bed of burning embers, covered in sault and about to be sauteed with pig urine.

*/****

XXXX (Daniel Craig):

“Always remember that one day all this drug monkey business will be legal. They won’t leave it to people like me… not when they finally figure out how much money is to be made – not millions, fucking billions. Recreational drugs PLC – giving the people what they want… Good times today, Stupor tomorrow. But this is now, so until prohibition ends make hay whilst the sun shines.”

Wow, those damned Brits! They sure know what they’re doing when it comes to crime flicks. I honestly haven’t seen many of the British variety, but for a genre that in recent times has been dominated by the, in my opinion, WAY-too-over-the-top Guy Ritchie, this Daniel Craig door-opener directed by newcomer Michael Vaughn REALLY took the cake (pun completely intended).

The story centers around a character who is known as “XXXX” in the credits. Craig played the anonymous character so convincingly, with a sensibility and stare that could rival Christopher Walken’s,that the impact caused me to just know the character even without a lable. If Daniel Craig has nothing else going for him (and he does) its those damn cold-blue eyes. The character is a young cocaine dealer, very professional and businesslike, who aims to retire soon after he completes two jobs. Trouble arises when he’s asked to locate another mob bosses’s daughter and also to sell off one million Excstacy pills.

And a gang of Serbs want him dead if he doesn’t bring them the head of a megalomaniac cockney drug dealer. And he doesn’t know who’s trying to screw him over on his own side- everything is spiraling out of control.

But as previously mentioned, this film is not an insane “Look at me, I’m Guy Ritchie and I can edit like a teenage shroom addict with Adobe After Effects” British crime flick- its a well paced, easy to swallow yet still brilliantly shot crime-character painting. The many different colors of crime are present here- the dealers, the hitmen, the thiefs and the killers. Its stylish, but not bombastic, and for that you get to center in on the charismatic acting of Craig, who got to practice his torture reactions long before the Testicals of Insanity scene from Casino Royale. Vividly shot, the film goes from 0 to 60 over its brisk 105 minutes- a really great amount of time for a crime flick. Most don’t pack this much punch in two and a half hours, especially in recent years, and anything shorter is usually just a bunch of attention-span-deprived grade school crap for people who aren’t willing to look at characters who are more than just stereotypical, or gimmicks.

George Harris (Black Hawk Down) and Colm Meaney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) have brilliant supporting roles as the two old-timer drug dealers who are trying to make sure Craig’s character stays on the right track, all the while being part of one of the biggest set ups in recent film history. In my opinion, the ending has only been met in terms of direction with Scorcesese’s recent masterpiece The Departed in terms of wrapping things up in a neat, tidy, “didn’t see that coming” surprise finale.
Filled with suspense, rife with tension, and spiced with some one-shot action here and there, this film entertains on a grand and intimate level- never deviating into scenes of complete disbelief. I have to say one of my favorite scenes involves Craig’s character being shot at by an unknown adversary, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Watch for this scene- its a keeper, and most of the other ones are too!

If you loved Casino Royale and agree that Craig deserves the role of Bond, then watch this movie and see why they GAVE it to him! He’s cold but he’s real, just like the theme of this movie- crime is a business to many, it exists, and it is unavoidable. An honest living is made off of it by some, but when taken too far, even the killers and drug dealers have someone dangerous and evil to watch out for: each other.

This film is highly recommended, striking quite the nasty pose!

****/****

LAYER CAKE TRAILER PROVIDED BY YOUTUBE

Here’s a lead in to a funny quip: After seeing this movie, I can guarantee every person who’s ever been in the audience of a Vin Diesel film has gone along with the crowd in one or two ways- love him or hate him. If you love him it’s because he’s a D&D playing nerd who’s gotten buff and crazy, accused of being homosexual (last time I checked he was dating a model) and all sorts of rumors just to make him even more special than he is.

For all the wrong reasons. If you hate him, its probably because of The Fast and the Furious, The Chronicles of Riddick, or the admittedly God-Awful The Pacifier. Let’s look at some facts here:

“Time is fleeting…”

Vin Diesel got his start doing drama, and slowly, very slowly moved into action. His first major role was a minor role in a huge picture: Saving Private Ryan. Every actor in that movie deserves credit for making one of the best Spieldberg flicks imaginable, and also one of the best WWII films ever- Diesel included. He knows his roles are a joke most of the time- hell he co-wrote the Riddick character to such a degree that most of the story was adapted by him, and backwritten, so he could craft one of the best games of the Xbox era- The Chronicles of Riddick- Escape From Butcher Bay. He creates characters whenever he’s chosen for a movie and makes them his own.

Even when he plays an insufferable bastard there’s some sort of exciting “on the edge of morality” play the audience can get just from his look- is he a big, black/Italian criminal, or is he just your crazy football playing cousin with a heart of gold? The man has utter control over his two very stereotypical sides, and in this film directed by the GREAT Sidney Lumet (who you might know for directing the best courtroom drama that doesn’t take place in a courtroom- 12 Angry Men starring the great Henry Fonda, and the best informant movie when the informant is the only non-crooked cop in the world, Serpico starring the GREAT Al Pacino) he completely destorys the line and for once thanks to a helping hand from 30 lbs of icecream and baggy clothes, gets to drop his “I’m so tough I’ll kill you with a tea-cup” routine in favor for a character who’s only true arsenal is just that: Character.

Find Me Guilty is the absolutely true-life story of Jack DiNorscio, a somewhat black-sheep thug of one of the Five Mafia Families during the U.S. v. Accetturo case. Over twenty men were being charged with organized crimes that could result in life in prison. Jackie Dee, as his “friends” called him, was a very simple man with a big, though often polluted, heart, who decided Loyalty till Underverse Come (sorry, wrong movie) to his “family.” Angry with his lawyer, he decided to save himself sixty grand and defend himself as an attorney. Using wry and sometimes offensive humor, he defends himself and the other “gangstas” on occassion for the extreme length of over two years.
“Send me to jail. I’m not guilty, but I’m used to it.”

Now I’m going to be honest here- this movie doesn’t break any boundaries and still won’t net Diesel an Oscar, but if it took Bill Murray thirty years of SNL and Meatballs-esque humour to net his first Oscar nod, then Diesel is certainly moving in the right direction at a far quicker pace. The acting portrayed is full of charm and wit, with emotive gestures and subtle stares that give you a chance to think about everyone else in the courtroom and then return to someone you wouldn’t expect to be so pensive- both the character and the actor are expected to be dim-wits, and I think Lumet was playing to that strength. From the first most quotable line from the film, Diesel proves he’s got enough to contend with the very long-winded and dialouge laden courtroom drama.

“I’m not a gangsta- I’m a gangsta.“

One of the main reasons Lumet stuck with the original courtroom transcript for what is probably a good 60% of the screenplay, is to keep the authenticity of the actual events. I found this as a double-edged sword of sorts, cutting off some creativity, but bringing in a lot of light on what it could really look like, and in the end giving Jackie’s jokes and cross-exams more credibility. The quote from the movie above described how the government had the right to persecute the individuals for their crimes- they had no delusions about who they were, but how society had quite possibly crafted Mafioso into non-stop crooks with an addiction for crime.

The movie talks in one scene very well delivered by Diesel about lifestyles and how they’re different based on perception. This very fresh dialouge lends the audience something to chew on and definitely makes them feel guilty-but-not-dirty for rooting for the mafia all at once. Who’s to say who’s bad when at the end of the day we all have mouths to feed and we’re not as priveledged as we think we are? It’s on every citizen’s mind when the country we live in is accused of warmongering, so why then, wouldn’t it be on the Mafia’s mind? Its questions posed like this as the film sifts through its various witnesses and testimonies- all authentic to the actual trial, that Lumet once again delivers something cinema doesn’t get quite often: a movie that isn’t just entertaining, or just intelligent, much makes you think about intelligent thoughts from an entertaining perspective- that being a large raspy Italian ripping one-liners into a courtroom.

The supporting cast does their job very well- from the other humble mafia guys, to the extremely arrogant mafia guys. One of my favorite cast members had to be Peter Dinklage- a guy who’s probably well known more for his shortcomings than his acting ability. He kept his role so serious and so natural that I doubt anyone would have found his part as a supporting actor bizzare- his delivery of the closing speech was somewhat preachy, but exactly the kind of thing you’d hear from a lawyer who holds the lives of many men in his hands. He spoke very proffesionally, though at times almost too much in the styles of Atticus Finch for his own good, but I think in that way it paid off to give the character of Jackie a good foil for the well-educated vs. the Ignorant lawyer– a very important role lest the audience forget what a REAL lawyer should be like.

Ron Silver as Judge Finestein played a very strong willed, yet empathatic character who was only on the side of the Law. Nothing about this courtroom felt truly crooked, and his presence helped, so the bias of the movie was never truly determined, making this part probably one of the most integral to the story. Watch for it- it’ll keep you guessing.

“If it talks like an asshole, and looks like an asshole, then chances are it *is* an asshole. ”

If it’s a good movie, its a good movie. If Vin Diesel is in it and its a good movie, it’s still a good movie. Lumet’s direction was solid- perfectly paced and never dull, with some odd-angle moments thrown in their just to ground the audience back into the real world so they didn’t always feel trapped in the courtroom themselves. This was one of the few Courtroom films where it didn’t feel like the audience was being made to look from the Jury’s point of view, but rather from the evolving character who had to take it all in. The audience by the end knows that the mafia members have no real respect for Jackie outside of him saving their butts, and that the people in prison see him as a hero though no one outside of the cells will give him any true honor.

The point to all of it then is just to feel what Jackie felt- two years of a very tense mind game, a chance to finally shine for intelligence and integrety when his whole life consisted of a job based around stupidity and crime, screwing over everyone in the process thanks to his bad habits and at times ill-manners. The reforming, it seems, happens before he even spends time in his 30 year sentence (which in real life was reduced to 17 and a half without him ever ratting anyone out). Lumet handles one of the most controversial characters in recent American history with grace and style, but a brilliant up-frontness that delivers a thought provoking and heartfelt film.

So let me go back to my “quip” lead in from the begining of this review:

If you all have a problem with me liking Vin Diesel, and loving this movie, I guess you’ll just have to slap the cuffs on me and Find Me Guilty.

Vin Diesel, and this film to a high degree, STRIKE A POSE!!! Go rent it!

*** out of ****