FEEDING THE MONSTER: a review of "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"

"THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE"
Based upon the novel by Suzanne Collins
Screenplay Written by Simon Beufoy and Michael deBruyn
Directed by Francis Lawrence
**** (four stars)

If there was a way to profit handsomely through the politics of peace, what a richer world we would be.

As much as I love the sheer fantasy and escapism of science fiction films and adventures, and I always will, sometimes the very best science fiction, fantasy or action adventures films are the types that fully transcend their genres and boldly hold a mirror up to our current society. The films that force all of us to think about the world in which we all co-exist, yet are presented in a fashion that is undeniably entertaining, creatively inventive, eye-popping and story driven as opposed to just functioning as a diatribe. With films like Director Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) plus this year's propulsively brutal "Elysium" from Writer/Director Neill Blomkamp, we explored our turbulent and increasingly precarious social/economic/political structure and landscape through the respective lenses of comic book heroes and gritty sci-fi. Where all of those films worked as parables, it could be argued that all of those films also serve as a series of passionate call to arms for all of us sitting in those movie theater seats to wake up and pay strict attention to the actions of the real world powers-that-be and how those actions affect our world.

Last year, I awarded four stars to "The Hunger Games," Director Gary Ross' intensely riveting adaptation of Suzanne Collins' blockbuster young adult science fiction novel. At this time, I am excited to announce that "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," the second installment in the four part film series, and now directed by Francis Lawrence, is even better. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is not only a superior piece of entertainment and one of the only event films of 2013 to hit the bullseye, the film is also a powerfully provocative and brazenly grim political statement that takes deadly aim at the politics of war and fear, the subjugation of a nation by the powerful few, and even the soul crushing universe of so called "reality" television and our culture's never ending and still growing obsession with any and all kinds of fame. Certainly all of those themes are prevalent in Collins' original novel, but after reading two books in her trilogy, I just feel that her awkward and sometimes wooden prose kept me at an arms length distance when I should have been enveloped and enraged. So, believe it or not, here is an instance where I think that the film versions are even better than the novels, as they not only honor Collins' original vision but also elevate it. With regards to "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," Francis Lawrence has delivered a masterfully helmed film, one that powerfully exceeded my already high expectations as it gives us a dark and dystopian future vision that is uncomfortably and disturbingly very present...if only we are paying attention.

As with the novel, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" begins shortly after the events of the first installment as Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has survived the carnage of the 74th annual Hunger Games, a government ruled and live televised event in which teenagers are forced to complete and fight each other to the death, through her quick thinking and has also saved the life of fellow  "tribute" Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) while in the battle arena. Both Katniss and Peeta have convinced the entire viewing public of their otherwise manufactured "star crossed romance," a passionate love that fueled their simultaneous shocking acts of rebellious political insubordination and television ratings euphoria.

Unfortunately, and on a more inter-personal front, the "love affair" has wounded both the hearts of the unrequited Peeta as well as her most trusted friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth). But on a larger scale and most crucially, an unconvinced President Coriolanus Snow (a terrifically sinister Donald Sutherland) makes a personal visit to Katniss' home to warn her that she and Peeta must properly convince the public and indeed himself of their supposed romance while on their victory tour of the country, or else risk the collective fates of her family, friends, District and all of its inhabitants.

While on tour, and reunited with their team, which includes veteran Hunger Games victor and alcoholic mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrleson), fashion designer Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) and the plastically glam and grotesquely unctuous Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), Katniss and Peeta become firsthand witnesses in viewing how their televised act of rebellion has planted the seeds of revolution against the government of Panem, resulting in increasing acts of violence against the people by the ironically named Peacekeeper soldiers.

To squash the building uprising and to ensure further retribution against the masses, President Snow announces that the 75th annual Hunger Games would in fact be a special version of the event entitled the Quarter Quell, which is held every 25 years and in which all contestants would be selected from the pool of surviving Hunger Games victors--thus meaning Katniss and Peeta may be forced to fight for their lives on live television all over again.

Francis Lawrence's "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is a  richer, deeper, broader experience than its predecessor. As with the previous installment, all of the actors rise to the occasion and inhabit their roles impressively and with gravitas. Woody Harrleson has only eased into his role even more comfortably, and has also begun to show the layers beneath his drunkenly sardonic personality, allowing us to see shadows of the Hunger Games horrors that rest too closely behind his eyes. As Effie Trinket, Elizabeth Banks also begins to show signs of her distaste of the very system that has lavished her but could turn on her in an instant. As Hunger Games television host Caesar Flickerman, Stanley Tucci continues to provide his savagely wicked parody of those vacuous MCs that litter our television screens ad nauseum. And what a welcome sight it was to add Jefferey Wright, Amanda Plummer, and a ferocious Jena Malone to the cast as a collective of veteran tributes forced to return to the Hunger Games as well as the great Phillip Seymour Hoffman as new game maker Plutarch Heavensbee, who harbors a deeper agenda of his own.

Again, the sensational Jennifer Lawrence (no relation to the Director) shows why she is not only the perfect actress to portray Katniss Everdeen but that she is only the real deal who truly deserves all of the critical attention she has received. Through her sheer physicality combined with her passionate performance, Jennifer Lawrence brings Katniss into full three dimensional life in a way that I really do not believe she is represented on the page in the source material. Where the film was riveted on her perspective in the first film, Jennifer Lawrence wisely allows her fellow actors to take center stage, because even though Katniss remains our main protagonist, the world in which she exists and her (as well as our) perceptions of the world of the suffering Districts, their respective populations and how the seeds of rebellion are planted have only grown. Unlike that insipid Bella Swan from Twilight, Katniss increasingly realizes that while she is the catalyst for the events that transpire in this second chapter, everything is not always about her and that newfound sense of social/political/economic inter-connectivity makes "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" more propulsive and more thought provoking than it ever needed to be...a quality I deeply appreciated.      

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is a film that is so confident with its abilities to juggle a variety of purposeful themes and concepts in a completely clear eyed and complex manner. Lawrence always maintains the film's brilliant ability of keeping the moral core of the story front and center, ensuring the action sequences within the Quarter Quell contain the proper levels of terror, insanity, sorrow, sacrifice, survival and the desperation of trying to keep control of one's humanity in an entirely inhumane environment. With "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," you get your politics with your popcorn and then some!

First of all, it is a film that explores our relationship with violence in regards to our simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards it and most impressively, Francis Lawrence creates an atmosphere in which we in the theater audience are as complicit as the home viewers of the Hunger Games in the film itself.. Lawrence understands that in both the fictional and real worlds, the Hunger Games are precisely what we have all come to witness, even knowing the inhumane brutality of the experience. Lawrence toys with that very stage of anticipation as the events of the Quarter Quell do not arrive in the film for over an hour and when they do, they are equally impressive and terrifying to behold indeed. Lawrence stages and executes the Quarter Quell sections of the film with the proper amount of intensity and solemnity (and all WITHOUT the dreaded "shaky-cam"), allowing the power of filmmaking inventiveness and suggestion carry the day instead of drowning us in actual gore. It has been surprising to me to hear from some people that they felt the film was essentially not violent enough! Despite the fact that the filmmakers are not about to make an R rated film from a young adult novel, I do find it to be an odd criticism considering what these stories are about. But, that criticism, in and of itself, is completely indicative of the concepts Lawrence immerses us deeply inside of, forcing us to really think about what our individual relationships with violence actually happen to be.

Even beyond the actual games, our reactions towards Katniss and the variety of tributes are designed to mirror those of the audience in the fictional world. For example, when Katniss debuts her new fashion creation on live television, the very one that reveals itself to be a representative symbol of the uprising to come, both real and imaginary audiences are meant to be awed by the beauty and special effects as well as become newly and...ahem...hungrily inspired to rise for revolutionary change.

But then, and as I previously stated, Francis Lawrence cleverly makes us complicit with that very fictional audience in regards to how we continuously crave, consume and become anesthetized by the very things we all know are false and harmful yet continue to do so to keep ourselves distracted from the true horrors of the world in which we co-exist. What are Caesar Flickerman's sickeningly opulent televised spectacles but versions of almost every single sickeningly opulent spectacle that we can find on the E!, Style, Esquire, Bravo, A&E, Lifetime and major networks. Flickerman's programs would be a fun-house mirror version of what we expose ourselves to if only the soullessness was not so right on! The monster always needs to be fed and said monsters are voluminous, ever shifting and always ravenous, and sometimes as close as actually existing inside of our own skins. We are all involved as participants, whether we realize it or not.

Certainly our endlessly insatiable obsession with all things that glitter in the media, no matter how desperate and no matter how much we already know how terrible it all is, exists as a substance that serves our societal monster. We can just change the channel or turn it off completely, but we are not doing it, so we only have ourselves to blame. But "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" wants us to widen our canvas by looking outwards into our communities and nation at large and think seriously about the ways our own leaders are utilizing the monster of fear to silence us, keeping us "doped with religion and sex and TV," as John Lennon once sang.

Through the wider conceptual lens Lawrence has placed in front of us, and with Katniss as our guide, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is passionately urging us to think seriously about how the powers-that-be have rigged the system against the very people that they were elected to serve. How is it that the wheels of war continue to spin?  How do the powers-that-be prey upon our sense of increased numbness, apathy and fear in order to keep us all subjugated? How are we used as political pawns by our leaders, just like how Katniss is used by the politicians and the revolutionaries, to justify their own desires? How is the news disseminated or more truthfully, not disseminated? Why do we live in an era when the public is more invested and motivated to vote for a television "reality" game show than in the very elections that could conceivably alter the very courses of their lives? How can one fight the power when we live in a such an Orwellian period when corporations are considered to be people, money constitutes speech, war equals peace, unprecedented levels of government spying on innocent citizens that is supposedly designed to "keep us safe," the stripping of voting rights to supposedly protect the sanctity of our electoral process, and the politicians who are crying out the loudest for smaller government would create and pass ideologically based laws that go as far as mandating trans-vaginal probes, for example?

Just this past Summer, in my own home base of Madison, Wisconsin, innocent civilians were being arrested for enacting their constitutionally protected 1st Amendment rights of protesting the policies of our Governor through...wait for it...singing songs in the State Capitol! These incidents included an 88 year old woman being handcuffed, a Mother and small child being arrested, a handcuffed war veteran being dropped down a flight of stairs by his arresting officers, the Editor of The Progressive magazine being arrested for simply reporting on the controversial events and even a young Black man being tackled to the ground by several over-zealous police officers and who was then arrested and detained in jail without any charges for several days thereafter. And was any of this reported on our local news stations? Very scantly, if at all, and only when one of those over-zealous police officers, one of our very own "Peacekeepers" was slightly injured. Look around, dear readers, this film seems to be imploring. Take a look at your own communities and home states and really view what your leaders are doing and decide if those aforementioned powers-that-be are working either for or against you. What will it take for people to become angry enough to demand change, accountability and even retribution? And conversely, why is it that when the words of truth to power are spoken, they often feel so empty and meaningless?

It is happening, whether in the fictional world of Panem or in the very real world we travel through every day. And as dire and sometimes as hopeless as it all seems (and sometimes is), there is indeed room for compassion. One more element that I thoroughly enjoyed about "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" was the concept of having surviving tributes being forced to return to the battle arena. While on the page, if memory serves, there was no real mention of racial makeup of the variety of characters who will forced to fight against Katniss and Peeta to the death. But, with film being a visual medium, Francis Lawrence, I felt, was very smart to have Suzanne Collins's characters exist in a variety of ages and races, making the plight of the games serve as a symbolic societal metaphor of how intertwined these characters, and all of us in the movie theater, truly are: We are all in this together. We rise and fall together.

That is the unquestionable power of Francis Lawrence's "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," a film, in its own way I think is actually not that terribly far removed from Director Steve McQueen's incendiary and poetic "12 Years A Slave," as the brutal odyssey of Katniss Everdeen requires us not think about what freedom, justice, fairness, friends and enemies, totalitarianism, revolution, survival, sacrifice and even what the act of living really means. And when an event movie can get the viewer to think alongside being superbly entertained, then that is greatness to me.

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" is one of 2013's very best films.

SPIKE LEE'S SNUFF FILM : a review of "Oldboy"

"OLDBOY"
Based upon "Oldboy" Co-Written and Directed by Park Chan-wook
Screenplay Written by Mark Protosevich
Directed by Spike Lee
1/2* (one half of one star)

I feel like I am in desperate need of a shower to rid myself of the filth I have just unearthed myself from.

It just pains me to write these words but I call them as I see them, dear readers. Spike Lee's "Oldboy," a remake of Director Park Chan-wook's South Korean cult classic from 2003, is, without question or debate, the absolute worst film I have seen in 2013. And furthermore, it is, without question or debate, the absolute worst film of Lee's otherwise glowingly illustrious film career. "Oldboy" is a ruthlessly, relentlessly repugnant exercise of pulp fiction at its grisliest and its most ultra-violent which would be just fine if the exercise were also not completely devoid of heart, soul and any sense of purpose or being.

Dear readers, I have expressed to you many times over the years that I am not one that is offended easily. The reputation of the original film's lurid nastiness and graphic violence, which I should inform you that I have not seen, precedes Spike Lee's new version quite heavily so I did have a strong sense of what I was getting myself into when I walked into the movie theater. I am also no tone who would tend to utilize art, and movie violence in particular, as a scapegoat for real world violence and brutality. That said, I do think that artists have a responsibility for what they chose to put out into the world for public consumption. Therefore, I just cannot understand why Lee would even chose to take this project at all as it seems to fly completely in the face of his entire oeuvre to date. To think, just last year, he publicly admonished Quentin Tarantino for making "Django Unchained" (2012), a film which he refused to see because he feared that it would trivialize the holocaust of slavery. Well Spike, congratulations!! You have just made a film that completely trivializes the human experience altogether as "Oldboy" is an ugly film about ugly individuals that is told without any sense of regard for any redeeming social or artistic value. It's nothing more than a snuff film with a big budget.

Beginning in the year 1993, "Oldboy" stars Josh Brolin as Joe Doucett, a raging, blustering, profane, misanthropic alcoholic and advertising executive who, after one more endless drunken binge in Chinatown, awakens the next day to find himself imprisoned in a tiny hotel room, complete with a bed, the most meager of toiletries, a television, and the servings of horrible Chinese food through a slot at the bottom of the door. Over the course of the following 20 years, Joe remains imprisoned and only aware of the events of the outside world via television news reports, one of which announces that he was accused of the rape and murder of his ex-wife and that his young daughter has been kidnapped. After Joe falls into crippling despair and even attempts to commit suicide, he then begins to plot his revenge against whomever has captured him. And then, one one fateful day, his chance for unrepentant retribution arrives as he is released from a trunk, with money and a cellphone, into an open field in the year 2013.

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with the plot of "Oldboy" and in fact, durign the first sections of Joe's imprisonment, the Kafka-esque nightmare quality of the story does lend itself for a roaring tale of revenge, much like Tarantino's extraordinary "Kill Bill" films (2003/2004). I would have nothing inherently against a revenge tale of such unrelenting torment and torture but rich storytelling and characterizations are the key, the very things that have elevated all of Tarantino's films to such a high artistic bar, which did indeed cast an enormous shadow over the tremendous flaws of "Oldboy." Additionally, for a film like this one, I just think that there needs to be an almost perverse and infectious sense of fun which will only serve to ingratiate your intended audience so they will indeed travel down the very grim paths the filmmakers place in front of us. Tarantino possesses that quality in spades as his nearly orgiastic glee with filmmaking and storytelling sweeps us along so breathlessly and with unshakable commitment. You know that he full believes in what he is doing, the story he is telling and the film he is making. Or how about a film like Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" (1997)? Flawed as it was, that movie did indeed feel as if Stone and his cast were having a blast telling a story of such nastiness that it felt like they were all seeing how much they could actually get away with and that joylessness did indeed keep me attentive, entertained and involved unlike his horrific "Savages" (2012), which was a film that was so joyless and artistically under-cooked from its paper thin story and one-dimensional characters.

"Oldboy" suffers the exact same fate as "Savages" through its forcibly profane and weakly executed screenplay, which commits the sin of not even establishing the character of Joe as a rooting interest. By the time he is apprehended very early in the film, we have not seen even one positive attribute about this man. This is not to say that the character has to be superficially "likeable." We just have to have a rooting interest in him as a hero, or in this case, an anti-hero of such severity. And while Brolin performs his role with a feral feverishness, Joe is, frankly, an asshole and so reprehensible that I really didn't care about his plan for revenge let alone root for him.

In my posting for "Thor: The Dark World," a film I carried a less than lukewarm reaction towards, I remarked upon how I felt the film contained absolutely no personality and a surprising generic quality that did not serve a hero of Thor's stature at all, or even a film that could separate itself from the rest of the bombastic CGI movies that are all over the theaters these days. The lack of personality is something that Spike Lee has never exhibited in his work. In fact, his personality has been so prevalent within his art that you can practically see his fingerprints all over every single one of his films...that is, until now and that made "Oldboy" especially troubling and even depressing because it barely feels as if there is even a trace of Lee's personality in the film at all.  

Creating and maintaining one's personal stamp over thier films is difficult enough to accomplish in our increasingly homogenized 21st century cinema, but with American remakes of foreign films, I would imagine it to be an even more difficult feat to achieve. But, it can be done. I was extremely skeptical about Director David Fincher's remake of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (2011) but was ultimately surprised an d more than satisfied with the end result which honored the original film while existing as something Fincher probably would have made if the foreign film hadn't existed. Writer/Director Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" (2001), itself a remake of Director Alejandro Amenabar's excellent "Abre Los Ojos" (1997), not only honored the original material but miraculously also found a way to completely represent Crowe's sensibilities and artistic aesthetics and he ended up making one of my most favorite films from the last decade. I certainly would have loved to have seen what Spike Lee would achieve with the South Korean based material but it hardly felt that he even showed up for work. Yes, it is a good looking film, I guess. And yes, Lee does stage a few fight sequences featuring a hammer wielding Brolin against a small army of adversaries that are very well executed. But, where were those Spike Lee fingerprints I mentioned? Absolutely nowhere. Even his trademark credit "A Spike Lee Joint" was altered to the more traditional and therefore impersonal "A Spike Lee Film." And his trademark 40 Acres And A Mule production company logo, which ends every single film was nowhere to be seen at all.

If Lee was going to make even those kinds of changes, then it begs to question why he would even take on this film project in the first place? Would it be to have the opportunity to work within the studio system and budget again, to try and prove a certain box office weight in order to procure funds for more passion projects? Did he simply love the original film and wanted to take a crack at the material himself? Both of those possibilities are noble enough, I suppose. But, "Oldboy" felt as if he just didn't care enough to fully commit himself or there was nothing in the material for him to latch onto on a more personal level, thus rendering the exercise moot.

In addition to having a film with no real characters to speak of, an empty screenplay and the complete lack of presence from Spike Lee himself, "Oldboy" continues to suffer greatly due to its level of exceedingly graphic violence which was so gratuitous that I honestly felt violated. It was as if the invisible contract between myself and the work of Spike Lee had been rudely ignored and broken. It is not as f Lee has not handled heavy violence in any of his past films. Look at the murder of the character of Radio Raheem at the hands of the police in "Do The Right Thing" (1989), or the tragic, life-altering alley way beating of trumpeter Bleek Gilliam in "Mo' Better Blues" (1990), or the Marvin Gaye inspired Father/son shooting and murder in "Jungle Fever" (1991). On a wider scale, Lee has handled drugs and crime in the inner city in the extraordinary "Clockers" (1995) and then, in "Summer Of Sam" (1999), a film that what was possibly his widest conceptual canvas, Lee gave us his blistering portrait of 1977 New York and themes of suspicion and paranoia fueled by the murders committed by serial killer known as the "Son Of Sam." In all of those instances, and as graphic as the violence was depicted, Lee always ensured that any violence was story and character driven, which then placed the humanity and therefore, the inhumanity front and center, so as not to have his art fall into works of exploitation.

The violence of "Oldboy" is not presented in a provocative fashion or even one that is compelling or cathartic. It is a film where beatings, bludgeoning, torture, rape, and excruciating splatter filled shotgun blasts that explode heads and bodies completely apart rule the day...and for what and to what ends? Sometimes when I see an American remake o a foreign film, I like to see the original material to compare the two. In the case of "Oldboy," I just do not care if it was faithful or not because if this is the core of what the original film happens to be, then there is just no reason to put myself through something so senselessly horrific all over again. It is nihilism without purpose. It is soul numbing gore at its most vile.

Dear readers, I have no need or desire to have art, and especially the movies, make me feel safe. Sometimes the movies we need the most are the ones that rattle our cages, shake us up and alter our perceptions about the world and how we see it. Spike Lee has been a provocateur, one that has been equally infuriating and fair-minded and uplifting as well as existing as an artist of the highest order for over 25 years.

But for now, I seriously wish to believe that "Oldboy" is somehow some disgusting fluke of a film that even he will want to wash away from his resume.
   
SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT
At this time of writing, "Oldboy," which opened on Thanksgiving weekend has bombed at the box office and is very close to already leaving movie theaters. And it seems as if my feelings about the extreme lack of Spike Lee's personal stamp upon "Oldboy" were more true than I could ever have known. Since seeing the film, I have read articles, one of which was published in Variety, that the film was not only a box office disaster (and frankly, if you don't advertise your film--which the studio in question barely did--how do you expect anyone to go and see it?), both Lee and Josh Brolin are extremely unhappy with the final cut of the film, which was not Spike Lee's at all.

It turns out that those pesky powers-that-be took the film away from Lee and cut a hair of a full hour out of Lee's original and nearly 2 1/2 hour cut and even re-edited some sequences. During the editing stages, Lee was the one who changed his trademark credit to the impersonal "A Spike Lee Film" and even removed his company logo. Aside from that, Lee has said nothing publicly. Josh Brolin on the other hand has said that Lee's version of the film was much better but who knows if we'll ever get to see that cut.

Even so, I had to review what I saw and furthermore, if Lee's original cut does see the light of day, I really don't know if it is worth going through this morass of filth all over again.

ASSEMBLY LINE ASGARDIAN: a review of "Thor: The Dark World"

"THOR: THE DARK WORLD"
Based upon the Marvel Comics series created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby
Story by Don Payne and Robert Rodat
Screenplay Written by Christopher Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Directed by Alan Taylor
** (two stars)

It was bound to happen and not even a red caped, hammer wielding Asgardian would even be able to stop something to powerful and sadly inevitable: the sorrowful beast and burden of creative stagnation.

Yes, dear readers, for me and my own sensibilities, "Thor: The Dark World," the latest film from the Marvel Comics film universe assembly line is the first significant stumble in the otherwise rock solid film series. This is a shame because this particular film series, which includes one GREAT film in Writer/Director Joss Whedon's "The Avengers" (2012), has been one that has consistently placed characters, stories, inventive filmmaking, strong writing and acting at the forefront, ensuring that these films would exist as much more than mere fodder for the latest "advances" in CGI technology and the thunderous rumbles of DTS sound. That is, until now...

My feelings are not to suggest that the latest film to feature Thor is indeed a "bad movie." As with all of the previous installments, "Thor: The Dark World" is a handsome production with good performances throughout. The problem I had with the film is that it was just so impersonal and therefore, so insignificant, that it is 100% symptomatic of the bloated, emotionless CGI  heavy movies that have become the yawn inducing non-spectacles that all of the other Marvel films have effectively side stepped to varying degrees of success. But therein lies the problem with making movies in an assembly line fashion. Sometimes, the speed of the production circumvents the overall quality and in the case of "Thor: The Dark World," this is the first time where I felt that the powers-that-be behind the scenes of the Marvel series (I'm looking at you, Disney) knowingly delivered a shiny, soulless product.

As with Director Shane Black's strong "Iron Man 3" from earlier this year, "Thor: The Dark World" picks up the adventures of our favorite Asgardian shortly after the events of "The Avengers," yet the catalyst for this story has planted its seeds in a much earlier time. In a ponderous prologue, we are introduced to the Dark Elf Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who once threatened to conquer and ultimately destroy the universe through a weapon known as the Aether but was defeated by Thor's Father, Odin (again played by Anthony Hopkins). Escaping capture, Malekith vanishes, as well as hides the Aether within a stone column, vowing to one day make his return and enact the fullest of  his revenge against not Asgard but all of the Nine Realms.

Flash forward to present day when Astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), on an expedition in London, finds herself not only separated from her group, which includes her tart tongued intern Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), but teleported to another world where she is then infected by the Aether. Noticing her disappearance from Earth from the Asgardian heavens, the mighty Thor (Chris Hemsworth) embarks upon a search to find her, which leads to their long awaited reunion.

Whisking Jane to Asgard with the hopes of curing her of the Aether, Thor learns from Odin that the return of the weapon spells certain doom for all of existence. And how! Because, as promised, Malekith indeed makes his grand resurrection in which he hopes to retrieve the Aether and unleash it during the rare cosmic event known as the Convergence, a time when all of the Nine Realms will become perfectly aligned, an action that will undo all that exists and return everything to eternal darkness. Unless, Thor, with the reluctant aid of his imprisoned and increasingly malevolent half-brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is able to stop him.

The plot of "Thor: The Dark World" is in fact more straightforward and at times, even simpler than it may sound, which is just fine because it is indeed all you need to elicit that comic book zing. That said, the end result, as directed by Alan Taylor who has helmed episodes of "Mad Men," "Deadwood" and most notably, "Game Of Thrones," is surprisingly bland, colorless and devoid of any passion, awe, creativity or even just a sense of unabashed fun, which is precisely what Director Kenneth Branagh so wondrously brought to the table with the first film. How I wished that there was a way to bring Branagh back to the Director's Chair for this second installment because he truly injected a sense of real personality and purpose to the proceedings. He knew that while "Thor" (2011) could be epic and bombastic, it was also more than a little silly and yet, he found a way to give us a thrill ride that wasn't campy, and a dramatic arc that honored the character and source material but also did not take itself too seriously. And since I would imagine that he had not ever worked on a film with a budget as large as provided on films such as these, he treated the opportunity as excitedly and with as much gobsmacked glee as a child allowed to race free through the largest toy store. That very enthusiasm gave the CGI special effects the very kick they needed to become honestly special. And so, we ended with with a film that was filled to almost the tip-top with bravado, bluster, excitement and a terrific wit.

With "Thor: The Dark World" however, Taylor piles on the bravado and bluster to bludgeoning effect and just assumes that the cacophony would be able to handle the responsibility of telling a great story and making this film sing like an opera. Unfortunately, he was very wrong. Yes, it is a good looking film but beyond the visual sheen, Taylor seems to have no opinion or perspective over who Thor is, who he wishes to become, the world of the Nine Realms, the threat of intergalactic oblivion or even what it means to Dr. Jane Foster to essentially be in love with a Norse God and travel via a Rainbow Bridge to Asgard. That complete lack of interest is palpable to say the least and it reminded me very greatly of Director Sam Raimi's profoundly underwhelming and wholly disinterested "Oz The Great And Powerful" from earlier this year. If the filmmakers cannot find it within themselves to present some joyfulness with being able to tackle a story and character like this one, then why should I be interested in turn? "Thor: The Dark World" was just a series of one special effect driven set piece after another all adding up to not very much other than just existing as just the next Marvel comics movie.

What stunned me even further was that this film actually possessed no less than five writers! Five writers to just...ahem...hammer out a by-the-numbers screenplay that certainly took no advantage of the comic book's 51 year history and wealth of material and they certainly did not take any advantage of the team of terrific actors at their disposal. "Thor: The Dark World" is the classic example of loading a film with a great and game cast but then giving them absolutely nothing to do and no real characters to play. I do feel that Chris Hemsworth is a much more skilled actor than he is being given credit for and face it, the character of Thor, in concept, is a nearly impossible character to play without being laughed off of the screen. And yet, for three films now, Hemsworth has made this character come to vibrant life with that same sense of combined heft and humor that Kenneth Branagh brought to the first film as a whole. Somehow, Chris Hemsworth makes us believe.

In "Thor: The Dark World," Hemsworth injects a new layer to Thor, which is a sense of melancholic displacement, as he is now both Asgardian and alien immigrant to Earth, and also a nice dose of romantic yearning when he is apart from Jane for extended periods. Those emotions are Marvel comics trademarks and how I wished that Taylor and his five writers played to those emotions and gave the film some desperately needed urgency.

Just look at what both Directors Jon Favreau and Shane Black and undeniably Robert Downey Jr. accomplished with the three "Iron Man" films in regards to the evolution of the Tony Stark character. They all could have easily coasted and essentially have Tony Stark hit the same beats over and again and just call it a day. But, thankfully, they probed nicely and deeply, giving us films that play off of each other as well as build up from each other. Even with "Iron Man 3," I truly appreciated how the character of Tony Stark experienced degrees of post traumatic stress syndrome brought on by the events from "The Avengers." Yet, with "Thor: The Dark World," the events from "The Avengers" are barely mentioned and we have absolutely no idea of what that experience even meant to Thor himself. Just one of many wasted opportunities in this second film, where Thor himself is not even driving his own story and basically becomes a supporting player to all of the events that surround him and it is all because the filmmakers just have no idea of what to do with him.

I am hoping that this lackluster film is more than a one time fluke than a sign for things to come. The first trailers for next year's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" do look very impressive but with Disney holding the purse strings, my faith has significant reasons to dwindle. As I have said many times before on this site, I just believe that if one indeed has the finances and does not need to worry about where that next dollar is going to arrive from just in order to fund one's artistic creations, then the art and artistry is the only thing that matters. Disney will absolutely never, ever, EVER have to worry about where their next dollar is coming from or if they will ever run out of funding so with that knowledge and just plain 'ol reality, then they should be doing everything to ensure that the films they bankroll are of the highest quality and assembly line filmmaking is just not necessary at all.

Just look at Pixar, once the GOLD standard for American animated films and their steep decline in quality over the last few years as they have just cranked one uninspired sequel or creatively stagnated film after another. I am tremendously worried for the future of "Star Wars," which Disney now owns as well and their wishes to release new "Star Wars" films every year beginning in 2015 with the arrival of Director J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: Episode VII"--incidentally a film he wished to be able to unveil in 2016, a desire to which Disney vehemently declined, since they already set the release date.

I just do not understand it, dear readers. I do not understand. Audiences for Pixar films, "Star Wars" and the Marvel comics universe are so built in and rock solid that Disney is in no need to worry about not making money so why are they treating these films in such a way where it seems that they think that audiences will forget these characters and films if they stay out of theaters for too long. To that, I would ask them, "Do you want these films made quickly or do you want these films made greatly?" If  my hands were at the wheels, I would want my filmmakers to take as much time as they needed in order to ensure that the stories are being told in the best way possible and that audiences will want to see them over and again out of sheer passion and not out of a sense of near brainwashed obligation.

It's OK to make us miss these characters for a while. Their absence will indeed make audiences' hearts grow that much fonder. In the case of Thor, with his third film appearance in just two years, he deserved so much better than what he was given because what a shame that an Asgardian is weighted down by something so...average.

SAVAGE CINEMA'S COMING ATTRACTIONS FOR DECEMBER 2013

Today, December 1, 2013, marks the 78th birthday of Writer/Director Woody Allen and in discovering this bit of news, I feel that I must take stock in that milestone, especially as I will soon hit a new milestone with Savage Cinema.

Last month, life certainly pulled the proverbial rug out from underneath me as my home computer crashed and died, due to an ancient Motherboard. This event certainly took the wind out of my sails, and truth be told, painfully so as I do try to obtain and maintain a certain personal momentum, which I desperately hate to have disturbed for any reasons, be it through sickness, obligations through work, the basic responsibilities of life and most certainly, those pesky technological difficulties which do have their way of seemingly stopping one's life dead in its tracks in the 21st century.

Having this blog and my musically themed sister blogsite of Synesthesia on a hiatus made me feel somewhat adrift and unpleasantly so. Over these past two weeks or so, I even briefly questioned whether I could or even should try to continue these blogs if unforeseen events could stop me so suddenly and without any sense of mercy or care to what I wished to be doing with myself. It may seem to be a drastic measure to consider, but that is indeed how my mind and spirit work, for better or for worse.

The significance of Woody Allen's birthday for me is quite simple as he is a filmmaker of seemingly unstoppable productivity. Here he is, in advancing age, still cranking out one film after another at nearly the same pace of one film a year as he always has. It doesn't seem to matter if the previous film was artistically or financially successful or not. It doesn't seem to matter to him if the critics loved it or not or if it was bestowed with awards or ignored altogether. Woody Allen continuously writes and makes films because that is indeed what he does. And so, for me, writing about films and music is what I do as well and if technology would spontaneously fail me, then I do still have my mind, my hands and my heart...and technology can catch up to me again. Words I need to remember when those nagging thoughts of doubt and disappointment creep up again...as they always seem to do.

And so, life did indeed move forwards for me. I dusted myself off and I did continue to see movies and feel the inspiration to write about them--which I did--in longhand on a yellow legal pad. Now, that I am officially back on-line with a new home computer, I am slowly trying to get both blogs back to their active statuses, so please bear with me if new postings should arrive at either a slower pace or if they are featuring films that have been playing in your theaters for a spell already. I do have some catching up to do...

1. As of this time, I have new reviews of "Thor: The Dark World," Spike Lee's remake of the cult Korean thriller "Oldboy" and "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" all on deck in a flurry of scribbled notes and thoughts and I hope to be able to type them up within a week or so and have them ready for you shortly thereafter.

2. Now that our theaters will soon be flooded with new films, I know very well that I will be slowly viewing new films all the way through January 2014! But as of right now, I know for certain that I will get myself to Director Martin Scorsese's latest collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, the three hour epic "The Wolf Of Wall Street."  

3. I am extremely anxious to see "Her," Director Spike Jonze's first film since the groundbreaking and breathtakingly beautiful "Where The Wild Things Are" (2009).

4. My curiosity is also very high for Director Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" and Director Jason Reitman's "Labor Day" and most certainly, there is no way possible to keep me from any new film by The Coen Brothers, in this case, the folk music themed "Inside Llewyn Davis."

5. And yes...I am going to head back to Middle Earth for "The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug," Director Peter Jackson's second installment in his new trilogy.

Certainly, that is more than enough to keep me busy and I will try my very best, as always, to keep pace, remain focused and to never forget how much this site means to me as that aforementioned milestone will arrive in a few short weeks and just before 2014 makes its official arrival.

Thank you for being here with me and as always, I'll see you when the house lights go down...

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA: a review of "All Is Lost"

"ALL IS LOST"
Written and Directed by J.C. Chandor
** (two stars)

It will never cease to confound me about the hows and whens of some films, especially ones that are completely similar in tone, concepts and themes, will either work or not work, reach me or leave me wholly dispassionate.

In the space of one month, I have seen two visually ambitious, creatively and thematically complex survival drama films. Yet, where one film, in this case Director Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity," has sailed to being one of the finest films of 2013, the other film, "All Is Lost," the second film from Writer/Director J.C. Chandor, has somehow left me feeling uninvolved and empty. Simply an odd feeling to have as there is truly nothing wrong with the film (aside from perhaps the final moments). Like "Gravity," this film places you in the terrifying company of one character desperately attempting to survive in an un-survivable locale in increasingly desperate circumstances. It is also a challenging piece of filmmaking that features Robert Redford as the film's sole actor as an unnamed character in a movie which contains virtually no dialogue at all. And yet, I found my mind wandering often, unable to connect to what I was viewing in any sense of a white knuckle fashion. Oddly enough, I do not wish for you to take my words as a means to stay away from this film because, and please do believe me, this film may quite possibly reach you in a way and with a power that it did not reach for me. And besides that, I strongly feel that films like this, which are a tad left of center should be experienced and supported That said, and for me and my sensibilities, "All Is Lost" was not nearly as compelling for me as I truly believe that J.C. Chandor and Robert Redford wished for it to be.   

Known in the film's credits only as "Our Man," Robert Redford stars in "All Is Lost," as an amateur sailor adrift in the waters somewhere in the Indian Ocean. As the film opens, our unnamed hero is awakened by the harsh sound of the hull of his boat, named the "Virginia Jean," being punctured open by a wayward shipping container. Finding water pouring into his boat, he springs into action to re-seal the hull and excise the rising water from the inside of the boat. While embarking upon his repairs, Our Man discovers that his navigational and communication equipment have been severely damaged from the crash and soon thereafter, he in plunged into an eight day nautical nightmare where he is forced to fight for his life within two storms, the loss of the Virginia Jean (where he is then additionally forced to sail in a tiny lifeboat), a school of sharks, a contaminated water supply, and no signs of life anywhere at all.    

Now, as you can see, "All Is Lost" sounds like a really good nail biter and the conceptual comparisons to the closely released "Gravity" would seem to make this an excellent companion film to view. However, the film was not what I had hoped for it to be. My issues with "All is Lost" have considerably much less to do with its presentation and considerably much more to do with my reaction to it. There is no question that J. C. Chandor has created an impressively helmed feature and that he is obviously attempting to strike for cinematic gold on his second time at bat. "All is Lost" is a crisp and cleanly told thriller that is confident in its visual storytelling. Furthermore, Robert Redford is equally impressive with this physically (reportedly the 77 year old actor performed the lion's share of his own stunts) and psychologically demanding role that proves that he is not simply going to settle for coasting upon his unquestionable film legend. In fact, any attention during awards season that Redford is bound to attract will not be disputed in any way by me as every bit of it is well deserved. It truly is a Master Class in acting as Redford shows so effortlessly how much and more impressively, how very little he has to do (especially without the power of his own voice) in conveying the film's deeply complex themes and meditations about death and our human desire and capacity to survive even when all options in doing so are rapidly running out.

And yet, I was unmoved.

Perhaps my disconnection to "All Is Lost" was due to the film's highly effective and unfortunately, spoiler ridden trailer which in indeed another symptom of film trailers being more effective movies than the actual film that it is advertising. Trust me, if you happen to view the trailer to this film on-line, you have essentially seen the entire film in a drastically truncated running time. Nearly every single beat and predicament our unnamed hero faces in the Indian Ocean is on display and as many times as I have seen the trailer over the last few months in theaters, I do have to say that white knuckle desperation has appeared again and again. But with the full, finished film however...it seemed as if I was watching a two hour version of the trailer in that I was just waiting and waiting for all of the highlights to occur. Now, this is indeed not Chandor's fault by any means but it does indeed illustrate a major problem with film advertising in the sense that too much is being shown, and therefore, no mystery remains which makes for a movie that is underwhelming through no fault of its own. The trailers for "Gravity" however showed just enough, making you salivate in anticipation just wondering what could possibly happen next and wondering just where a film like that could possibly go. But even so, I watched those trailers for "Gravity" over and over in awe and terror and even seeing those trailer so many times did not diminish the overall power of that film in the least.
  
But even if you took the trailer out of the equation, for whatever reasons, I just could not help but to keep mentally returning to "Gravity" and how emotionally exhausting and even physically draining of an experience it was in comparison to the very similarly themed and conceived "All is Lost." And besides, a film has to be able to be successful completely independent of its trailer anyway. Just what was it about Alfonso Cuaron's visual storytelling that captured that pinpoint sense of primal fear which conjured up the sensation of losing my oxygen right alongside Sandra Bullock, the panic, shock and awe with every single perilous predicament that seemed to snuff of her character's life at any given moment? Even now, I can still think of that one shot where her body is spiraling end over end further and further into the vast blackness of space and the hairs on the back of my neck rise at the mere thought of being so lost, so un-tethered, so helpless and so doomed. And yet, as I watched "All is Lost," never did I once feel any similar sense of danger or life threatening pathos.

But let's go even one step further. Let's take "Gravity" completely out of the mix also. Let's think about other films that pit human against the simultaneously breathtaking and unforgiving backdrop of the natural world and its elements like Robert Zemeckis' "Cast Away" (2000), Sean Penn's "Into The Wild" (2007), Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" (2010) or even classics like James Cameron's "The Abyss" (1989) and "Titanic" (1997) and most certainly, Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" (1975). But, truth be told, those are all the cinematic "big guns." So, how about the comparatively tiny budgeted "Open Water" (2003) from Writer/Director Chris Kentis instead? Or even the infuriatingly self-congratulatory but somehow mesmerizing "Gerry" (2002) from Gus Van Sant? In all of those films, there is just that je ne sais quoi, that certain something in the cinematic storytelling that is so aggressively powerful and palpable that I am nearly able to forget that I am sitting in a movie theater or in the comfort of my own home that transcends mere movie viewing and becomes experiences where I am able to sit within the pit of my own deepest fears and questions of survival, life and mortality directly alongside the main protagonists. With "All Is Lost," I knew that was the effect J.C. Chandor was going for. I knew those particular emotions were precisely what he hoped to elicit from viewers. And while I would not be surprised if his tactics and techniques would work for many of you, for me, it all seemed as if he had all of the notes but somehow did not understand how to play the music, so to speak.

And then, there is indeed the film's ending, of which I will, of course, not reveal but I will tell you is apparently causing some level of debate among audience members (including the very one I saw it with). It is an ending that is needlessly ambiguous and for me, felt to be a complete cop out when placed against the finality of everything we had already seen over the duration of the the film. Those final two minutes or so of "All Is Lost" felt to be so disingenuous, so shoe-horned, and so phony to say the least and it depleted everything that came before them in my eyes.

And so it goes.

Dear readers, please do not let my words deter you from seeing "All is Lost." As previously stated, you just may have the experience J.C. Chandor intended for us to have but somehow eluded me. Or maybe, you will feel as I did with my assessments and if so, perhaps you will also ponder that the only thing that was lost by the end of this film was your money.

Let me know...

TO SURVIVE, TO LIVE, TO BE FREE: a review of "12 Years A Slave"

"12 YEARS A SLAVE"
Based upon the autobiography 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northrup
Screenplay Written by John Ridley
Directed by Steve McQueen
**** (four stars)

Dear readers, at this time I want for you to take some moments and think, really think about what it means to be free. Take as many moments as you wish and return to this posting later if need be but I do want for you to think about this concept very seriously.

This afternoon, I took in a screening of Director Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" an adaptation of the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free African-American man in 1841 who was kidnapped and sold into slavery for the duration depicted in the title. Throughout, the concepts of freedom, slavery and all that exists in between were firmly placed front and center on screen and within my own thoughts and emotions as I looked upon my place in the world as an African-American male in the 21st century. And frankly, how could I not? Here I am, a black man, able to leave my home, drive in my car across the city in which I live, use my own money from my own wages to purchase a ticket to a movie just like my Caucasian counterparts, and sit in that theater seat to view a depiction of the very issue that still sits at the core of our country's tentative and increasingly turbulent race relations with such unblinking ferocity, sublime poetry and voluminous humanity. This undeniable fact was not the least bit lost on me. That said, I also know, only too depressingly well, that although I am a college educated man, as well as a husband, teacher, writer, tax payer, home owner, productive member of society, I could lose absolutely all that I have spent my life earning and achieving, and most frighteningly, my life itself, if I just happen to cross the wrong path of another individual who will hate and fear me upon sight solely due to my skin color. The story and film that is "12 Years A Slave" would function as the most horrifying "Twilight Zone" episode ever made or as an unrelenting Kafka-esque nightmare only if this story were not a true one. Knowing that this story is a true one makes it all the more devastating.

In a performance that should definitely earn copious amounts of attention, recognition and awards, the great Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northrup, a free, educated African-American man who earns his living as an accomplished violinist and lives in his Saratoga Springs, New York home with his wife and two young children.  One day, Solomon is lured by two men (played by Scoot McNairy and SNL's Taran Killam) into taking part with a highly lucrative touring job, which Solomon accepts. After an evening of fine dining and drinks, Solomon awakens the following day to discover that he has been drugged, kidnapped, chained, and soon to be sold into slavery in the Antebellum South despite his vehement protests which are met with brutal beatings and the enforced re-naming of himself as "Platt."

Solomon is first sold to the somewhat benevolent plantation owner and Baptist preacher William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), and consistently runs afoul of the vicious plantation overseer John Tibeats (Paul Dano) as he desperately attempts to keep the validity of his identity and his education a secret in order to survive. The bulk of the film involves the second plantation to which Solomon Northrup is sold. Run by the raging, alcoholic, abusive and reptilian Edwin Epps (an extraordinary Michael Fassbender) and his equally deplorable and enraged wife Mary Epps (Sarah Paulson), Solomon is forced to work as a cotton picker with the demands of collecting 200 pounds of cotton a day or else risk violent retribution if the daily goals are not met. Solomon befriends Patsey (an outstanding and crushing Lupita Nyong'o), a slave who out picks cotton by 300 pounds alongside the male slaves and who has also become the primary object of affection for Edwin Epps and the bottomless scorn of his wife, Mary.

As Solomon expresses to another slave early in the film, "I don't want to survive. I want to live." And therein lies the existential crux of "12 Years A Slave" for how can one live if not able to survive and how can one survive if not able to live?

While it may be presumptuous to make this sort of an announcement, especially as I will undoubtedly be seeing 2013 film releases through mid January 2014, Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" is hands down the movie of the year. I know that I will see greatness again over these next couple of months, I am highly uncertain if I will see anything else that contains this level of power, grace, fury and artistry. "12 Years A Slave" is a crisply photographed, gorgeously filmed, unflinchingly written by veteran screenwriter John Ridley and sumptuously acted piece of work that demands to be seen, re-seen and re-seen again. To go perhaps even one step further, like Director Lee Daniels' "The Butler" from this summer, I feel that "12 Years A Slave" should be required viewing in all schools across the country so younger generations, and especially those in the African-American community, truly gather a sense of this undeniable and unquestionable American tragedy from which we still have not recovered from and to really begin to explore what does the concept of freedom for ALL people even means in the 21st century.

Although "12 Years A Slave" takes place in 1841, it is also film that speaks precisely to this point in time in 2013. In fact, I believe that with this film, alongside "The Butler" and Director Ryan Coogler's "Fruitvale Station," we now have three films released in one year that truly depicts the status of the African-American male over three distinctive eras in our nation's history, providing all of us with the crucial opportunity to really perform some serious self-examination and ponder how much has changed and unfortunately, how much has not changed...and how our nation is even heading backwards at this point in time.

For instance, I loved how McQueen showcased the full religious hypocrisy exhibited by the film's racists, plantation owners and members of the slavery business industry as they utilize the Bible and the perceived word of God as weapons and as forms of severe subjugation and the stomach churning process of reducing human beings to mere objects of possession to be sold, mistreated, abused and discarded. One sequence, where William Ford is leading an outdoor church service, is juxtaposed with the vindictive John Tibeats singing "Run Nigger Run" to his new slaves, including Solomon, all the while forcing them to clap out the beat in time. In several other scenes, we see how Edwin Epps consistently holds out the Bible as his religiously sanctioned "proof" validating his bigotry, violence and sense of overall superiority. And then, there are all of the other scenes where scriptures are being read while African-American children are being wrestled from their families only to be sold like cattle into bondage.

Watching this film and those sequences in particular,  how could I not think about a certain sector of our nation's current congress who proudly and sanctimoniously tout the Bible and utilize it to justify the inhuman laws they wish to pass? While we do currently have an African-American man as President of the United States (who is routinely disrespected to increasingly alarming and seemingly endless degrees), we also currently have a legal system in place, run by those very same self-righteous Bible thumping individuals, that will allow the dismantling the sanctity of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the race baiting forcing of American citizens to carry papers confirming citizenship lest be arrested, detained or deported and more disturbingly, the freedom of a child murderer who shot an unarmed teenager walking home, bothering absolutely nobody anywhere but just had the misfortune to have been born an African-American? The more things change...

What is also amazing to me is that "12 Years A Slave" arrives nearly one year after Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino's highest achievement, the slavery epic "Django Unchained" (2012), and there is actually much that both films actually share that makes them work as companion pieces to each other. Like Tarantino, Steve McQueen's film never flinches, never blinks and never softens the physical, verbal and psychological brutality of slavery for even one instance. "12 Years A Slave" is not easy viewing in the least and nor should it be as it has to depict slavery as exactly it was: a holocaust. The difference, and a massive one, between "Django Unchained" and "12 Years A Slave" is that with Tarantino's film, we are indeed operating within some realms of fantasy despite his obvious and unprecedented moral outrage. With "Django Unchaned," there is superior catharsis. By contrast, there is no element of fantasy to be seen whatsoever in "12 Years A Slave," and therefore, there is no catharsis. Just endless suffering and tragedy, all with the stunning backdrop of the Southern plantations, and the glorious nature and wildlife that surrounds them.

The silence that McQueen utilizes often throughout the film is profoundly striking, especially during scenes of violence. In one section, Solomon is nearly lynched by John Tibeats yet after Tibeats is run off by other plantation workers, Solomon remains hung in the tree, his toes barely touching the ground and with soft, strangled gurgles emitting from his throat. McQueen allows this sequence, where Solomon is strung to the branch, to play out for a lengthy period and while there was this part of me just wishing that Django himself would ride onto the scene to save him, the reality is that there is no one. Life and time move onwards, without concern, care or judgement and the slaves continue on with their duties unless being strung upwards right next to him. Although one slave woman covertly arrives to provide Solomon with a quick drink of water before scurrying off again, the day journeys onwards and almost into evening before William Ford himself discovers Solomon and cuts him down. Yes, McQueen has delivered a sequence that is wrenching and unbearable but it is not gratuitous in the least and this is our history and we cannot be afraid of it if we are to move forwards.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is simply phenomenal as Solomon Northrup, a man trapped in a world he never made, never expected to find himself and forced into hiding his intelligence and pretending he is something he is not just in order to live another day and to hopefully, one day find himself back with his family again. It is incredible to me to regard the controlled and devastating power he accomplished, especially in the film;'s many scenes where he says not even one word. Late in the film, the fullness of his brutal plight is beautifully and heartbreakingly portrayed as McQueen just holds the camera on his emotionally complex and expressive eyes and face. Ejiofor says nothing. None of Composer Hans Zimmer's evocative score is heard. Just the sounds of nature and the sight of Chiwetel Ejiofor lost in existential horror and dwindling hope regarding his fate and how it is even possible that he could have ever ended up in a situation such as this. Ejiofor conveys strength, conviction, intelligence, cleverness, rage, crippling sorrow, and a world's worth of empathy and pathos, making this performance his personal best. What would thrill me once the Oscar season heats up is to see Ejiofor and Forest Whitaker from "The Butler" both nominated in the Best Actor category, an unprecedented event, too terribly long in the making, yet completely deserving for both of these fine, fine actors.        

Michael Fassbender is a beast! He takes what could be a stock cardboard villain and fills him with a fullness of life, making him a true representative from America's dark past. The character of Edwin Epps is a cauldron of wrath, fueled by racism and alcohol and this brutal mixture of forbidden love/possession for his slave Patsey and how those emotions stir the jealousy he feels once Solomon arrives upon his plantation and the scorn he feels for his wife as she grows more enraged with Patsey's presence. As Patsey, Lupita Nyong'o is fearless for all she has to endure within this role as her character is terrorized and dehumanized from one end to the other yet, Nyong'o always ensures that Patsey's dignity is never sacrificed. Once Ejiofor, Fassbender and Nyong'o are together, the movie simply erupts to an nearly unbearable degree. One extended section, involving all three actors, a whip and a bar of soap is easily the most shattering piece of film that I have seen all year long and to that end Fassbender and Nyong'o should be up for awards and large amounts of recognition as well.

As I write and remember, it has dawned upon me that 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." I recall how the world embraced that film. How it was upheld and awarded and sent to school across the country and discussed over and again, with the full purpose of never forgetting the atrocities humankind has endured and just barely survived. It would be my biggest wish that Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" receives a similar public embrace because here is a film that shows us how nothing is for certain in this world, how that proverbial rug can be pulled out from under you so instantly and without warning that you may find yourself in a situation that you could have never fathomed yourself existing in. That the freedoms that we all may take for granted just suddenly may not exist one day. Now, I certainly do not mean for you to read that statement with any sense of hyperbole. Just take a look at what is happening politically right now and ask yourself is this is the world that you were raised in, if this is indeed the world you wish to continue living in or for those of you with children, is this the world you wish to raise your children? I have believed for several years now that we have entered a stage where what is happening in our country is not about politics anymore. That what is happening right now speaks to our collective humanity and overall sense of morality. For all of the moral grayness in life, something are simply right and some things are simply wrong and in regards to our past, there is absolutely no way we can define slavery as anything but the ultimate of wrongs, as the internal damage from that chapter resonates to this day. The only way forwards is through honest and unmerciful discussion and endless compassion.

Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave" forces all of us to really think about how we treat each other, how we defend each other, regard each other, and despite all of our prejudices, how do we recognize that we are all human beings deserving of tolerance, respect and dignity. For me, freedom is about being free of the need to be free...and as far as I am concerned, we have a long way to go before we truly reach the glory of freedom for all.

Even so, may none of us lose what we have already been given.

SAVAGE CINEMA'S COMING ATTRACTIONS FOR NOVEMBER 2013

As always, now it is really time to head off to the races!!

Now that we have hit November, the movie studios open the cinematic floodgates unlike at any other point during the year--including the giant Summer movie season and it is always a challenge for me to keep pace. But, as you know, and the fates willing, I will do my very best to see all that I am able to see and share my thoughts and musings with all of you.

Last month, for me, it was all about "Gravity." This month, as far as I am concerned, it is all about Director Steve McQueen's "12 Years A Slave," which I will be heading out to see this weekend hopefully. Beyond that...

1. "All Is Lost," a survivalist drama set at sea and starring Robert Redford has surprisingly not made it to my city, and even our local Sundance theatre, as of this writing. I am expecting it to arrive soon and that film is very high upon my list.

2. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," the second part of the film quartet series and now with Director Francis Lawrence taking over from the first film's helmer Gary Ross will be arriving just in time for Thanksgiving and you KNOW that I'll be there...along with the rest of you I am most certain.

3. Also arriving this Thanksgiving is the American remake of "Oldboy" starring Josh Brolin and directed by Spike Lee. That is all I need to get myself to the theater. 

4. I have to say that while I am indeed growing wearier and wearier with the seemingly endless onslaught of superhero costumed adventures and frankly, I could use a break from them, the Marvel Comics movies have surprisingly continued to set a high standard for high quality entertainment. Therefore, be expected to see a posting about "Thor: The Dark World" sometime this month.

5. And then, there's the new romantic comedy/drama time travel tale "About Time" from Writer/Director Richard Curtis who already gave us the wonderful "Love Actually" (2003), who also wrote the equally entertaining "Four Weddings And A Funeral" (1994) and "Notting Hill" (1999) as well as directed the well intentioned but flawed "Pirate Radio" (2009). Curtis has announced that this new film will be his last as a director and if that is indeed his intention, I hope that he will go out with the most heartfelt bang. 

With life, family, work, holidays, and even a companion blogsite all jockeying for my attention, I will try as I might to find the balance so I can achieve all that I wish to achieve. Stay tuned...

...and I'll see you when the house lights go down!