Review of a Movie I Ain't Gonna See

The Brave One, with Jodie Foster, sounds like exactly the kind of movie nobody needs. Now that NY is the safest city on Earth, at least when it comes to crime, do we need a revenge fantasy movie a la Charles Bronson? I don't think so.
Horrible things happen to Jodie Foster in our beautiful town full of rodents and then she seeks revenge. Why would I want to see that?
My idea of a more realistic avenging movie in NYC goes like this:
Jodie Foster, playing me, is horribly annoyed by a number of things. Anytime those things cross her path, she blows them up.
• She vanquishes the entire rat population of NY singlehandedly by blowing up the infrastructure of the city, kinda like Con Edison. When the roaches see this, they decide to decamp by themselves.
• Every time a homeless person overturns a garbage can, Jodie makes sure, firepower in hand, that said homeless puts everything back and in the order in which they found it.
• As she walks into Bloomingdale's in Soho, she finishes off all the brain dead nubile idiots who love Juicy Couture, leaving bloodied, obscenely expensive schmattes in her wake.
• No taxi driver dares honk his horn any more, for fear of Jodie. Nobody honks and nobody blares his stupid music out his car windows. Jodie only allows blasters to live if they blast Mahler.
• Jodie has rounded up every SUV in town and dumped them all in the East River, drivers inside.
• Because she is a model citizen, she is helping Mayor Mike to get the congestion tax approved, by way of threatening a clean shot to the head to anyone that objects.
• She blows up Magnolia Bakery at the height of the inexplicable queue, just because. Next in her line of fire is the Meatpacking District (Only Bodum will be spared).
• New condos that promise wine cellars and pilates studios and screening rooms and zen gardens and a private fridge for your special gin, BAM!
• People who talk even during the previews at the movies are silenced -- with a silencer.
In fact, so many things annoy Jodie, that several sequels are in the works.

I have a theory about Jodie Foster. It goes like this. Since we all know she is gay, and since every attempt to cast her as the object of someone's affections has been historically disastrous (Nell. Sommersby. Maverick. Anna and the King: need I say more?), and since she does radiate intelligence and is a blonde and Hollywood does not quite know what to do when both converge, she is now a specialist in playing the tough, steely broad, alone against the world. Considering she is also in her mid-forties, it is a testament to her staying power that she is still working. Yet, like a Super Nun, no sex for her: Silence of the Lambs, Flightplan, Contact, Panic Room, Inside Man. You could pretty much take any male action star and substitute him for her and the movies would still work (except for Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs; Hannibal Lecter has a crush on her). She is, in the movies, like a man with breasts. Perhaps this is Hollywood's subconscious punishment for her gayness. Or perhaps I have too much time on my hands.

Vini, Vidi, Bardem

Yesterday night, O dear mortals, I had the privilege of attending a live interview with Javier Bardem, who is a magnificent actor and one of the most wonderful interview subjects I've ever seen. It is to his enormous credit that despite the very tepid, asskissing questioning and understandable but completely inappropriate flirtiness of Lynn Hirschberg, Bardem generously delivered very interesting information about his craft and his approach as an actor. She kept interrupting him with silly, giggly comments but he kept going back to his line of thought, gently bent on making the points he started out with. That he is one of the most effortlessly charming, intelligent, sensible and divine beings that ever graced this Earth also helped.
It has happened to me several times when attending this kind of events, that when otherwise fine reporters and intelligent journalists get to interview a famous subject in front of an audience, they become starstruck and squander everybody's time by fawning shamelessly. In Miss Hirschberg's case, she wasn't as terrible as that monster of brownosing, James Lipton, but she was gossipy and flirty and not serious enough. Bardem saved her from ridicule with his charm. People were saying she made him feel at ease, and it may be true to a certain point, but I think it was the other way around. Healthily acknowledging he has a huge ego, he was also charmingly self-deprecating. Utterly winning.
Now, it drives me crazy that she was obsessed with the fact that Bardem didn't speak English when he did Before Night Falls. It is an amazing feat, particularly since not only did he act flawlessly in a language he didn't master, but he used a pitch perfect Cuban accent on top of it, which she was too ignorant to even acknowledge. But how much time can one spend reminding the guy that he didn't speak English? She tried to save it with protestations that she can't speak Spanish (stupidly making him say things in Spanish so she could swoon) and that her French is bad, but it seemed childish and provincial. Get over it.
Bardem really spoke of his work as an actor with great openness and passion and he shared part of his approach. It struck me that either he is even a better actor than we all think, or he is not one of those actors who are tortured by their profession. He seems to enjoy it and respect it deeply, and his commitment is extremely serious. He spoke candidly about the envy actors of his caliber sometimes get in their countries of origin and was very generous, and seemingly totally sincere, with his praise for Antonio Banderas, who he claimed, correctly, paved the way for the international careers of people like him.
Thinking of his movies, it is worth pointing out that he has not yet sold himself out to stupid choices. His is a pretty solid resume and one can only hope he will not easily succumb to bad Hollywood temptations.

Spaghetti High Noon

I have been sternly taken to task by dear readers Barry and Katya for not mentioning Sergio Leone, the maker of Spaghetti Westerns, as the salvation of the Western.
Sadly, I'm not a fan of his either, although I will admit that he did much to revolutionize the genre; to actually make it fun, instead of as ponderous as La Ponderosa. His contribution is strictly aesthetic (as in bringing in Claudia Cardinale to the proceedings, certainly an improvement on the genre). Plus he is to blame for the stardom of El Clinto (Eastwood, to you), and he gave us some fantastic cowboy music from Ennio Morricone.
I find Leone's movies cheesy and cartoony and difficult to take seriously, although lots of film mavens adore them. Perhaps I just don't get it.
I'm the only person I know who h.a.t.e.s. Once Upon a Time in America, his gangster movie with Robert De Niro and James Woods.
Sorry, amigos.

3:10 to Yuma

I've never cared about Westerns. Could not be bothered about the sheriff, and the bad guy and the Indians and the saloon and the horsies. The few Westerns I saw growing up bored me to tears (except Red River with Montgomery Clift, I remember liking that one) so there is a big gaping hole in my exposure to the genre.
The 3:10 to Yuma doesn't seem to be a great Western, but it is quite enjoyable, if a bit meandering, and well worth seeing because of the actors.
So who is better? My darling Christian Bale or Russell Crowe?
For my money, Mr. Bale wins by an inch. Russell Crowe is a wonderful actor and a bona fide movie star. He plays Ben Wade, a very evil man who is very charming and smart and somewhat sensitive, but ruthless. In between the mayhem he orchestrates, he draws artsy doodles (that's how we know he is sensitive, perhaps gay), he is courteous and irresistible to women, and his eyes radiate the wisdom and fake benevolence of the supremely arrogant. It is to Mr. Crowe's credit that he delivers a very understated performance, very quiet and still and compelling, instead of going for scenery chewing showboating. He seems almost too aware of his own stillness, and as such gives more of a movie star turn. Still, he is very good and he has in Christian Bale a great partner. Bale is super intense, you can feel the commitment of his character. He is totally credible as the man who feels he needs to bring Wade to justice so people stop taking him for a wimp. It is hard to think of him as a wimp, because he burns with an inner fire that is totally palpable, and that is what makes him so wonderful to watch. As in his amazing turn in Rescue Dawn, he makes the heroic human, which as far as I'm concerned, is an heroic feat for an actor. I am apeshit over Christian Bale, in case you haven't noticed. Had Martin Scorsese tapped him to play Howard Hughes in The Aviator, that would have been a much better movie.
Then there is Ben Foster, a guy I don't think I'd ever seen before, who plays Wade's extremely evil sidekick, who happens to be gay. Foster relishes his villainy and yet he seems to have a major crush on Wade. He is excellent. And Peter Fonda shows up as a grizzled self-righteous guy, not acting up a storm as usual, but making it work somehow, in his offhand way.
Yuma is above average because it tries quite hard not to make the meanie all that mean, while the good guy is a decent man who hovers perilously close to stupid. Both represent the worst and the best of the American psyche. The ruthless self-interest, always couched by a great deal of sophistry, and the impulse for decency and respect for the law and for others. The plot itself doesn't add up to scrutiny, but it is an extended metaphor on how can these two opposing sides of the national character be reconciled. Why insist on following the letter of the law in a lawless society? Why not take justice into your own hands? It's an interesting point to make today. Bale's stubborness almost begs you to scream, just shoot the bastard and get it over with, but the point is there is a law (and a reward, let's not forget) and it's there for something. Basically it boils down to whether you can thrive honestly or you are going to lie and cheat and steal and kill your way into riches. Story of this country.
Unfortunately, the movie is uneven. It has some great dialogue and then some silly lines that seemed pegged on (on torture: "that's immoral". DOH), and not all is pristinely staged.
For my taste, the first action sequence in Yuma is very confusing, the sound not always intelligible, and it takes a while for the movie to hit its stride. I don't know if it is the film or the sound system of the theater, but I could hear the bullets much more clearly than the dialogue.
I read that people were plotzing because digital effects were used in the big robbery sequence. What's the big deal? That's precisely what CGI should be used for, not so much for elves and trolls and aliens vs. predators, but for not blowing up a real horse if you can help it.
I'm glad Yuma did such great box office this weekend because it is not a stupid film, although it has a really stupid ending.

When is the next 3:10 to Yuma?

I can't wait! I have decided to skip the apparently killjoy (to judge from the headline) review by A.O. Scott and I am ready to take that train tonight. I'm not a fan of westerns, but if they happen to have both Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, I'm so there.