Where the Buffalo Roam

Miracle at St. Anna

Some of the best movies ever made have centered on World War II. Its heroes, villains, atrocities and pageantry have played out in biopics like “Patton,” parables like “Les Misérables” and high drama like “Schindler’s List.”

The latest World War II film to hit theaters is Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna,” which covers an element of the conflict which has rarely been explored in Hollywood. The movie follows the men of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division, known informally as the Buffalo Soldiers, who fought in Italy during the last two years of the war. The Buffalo Soldiers comprised the only African-American infantry division to see combat in Europe during World War II.

Like “Saving Private Ryan,” another World War II action film, “Miracle at St. Anna” is bookended by scenes from the future. In 1983, we meet Hector Negron (Laz Alonso), a New York City postal worker. At work one day, a man approaches Negron’s window and asks for stamps. When Negron looks up from his station and sees the man’s face, he fumbles around in his desk, pulls out a pistol and shoots the stranger, killing him.

From there the movie flies backwards in time to Tuscany in 1944, where two platoons of the 92nd are attempting to cross a strategically important river. The foray turns into a bloodbath as German troops surprise the platoons and most of the men are killed. Four survive, including a young Negron, and find themselves trapped behind enemy lines.

“Miracle at St. Anna” is a long movie, 160 minutes, and packed with plots, sub-plots and mysteries. It is an epic movie in terms of scope, but not necessarily size. Lee explores a wide range of human feelings and emotions, but does so in relatively intimate settings: an interrogation room; a command post; and the spare, dark rooms of an Italian villa.

There is also a strong element of fantasy, of strange, dreamlike occurrences in “Miracle at St. Anna.” Most of these revolve around the detached head of the statue of the Primavera, which the company carries with them as a good-luck charm, and an orphaned Italian boy, who is adopted by the most sensitive of the four men, Private Train (Omar Benson Miller).

The topic of racial injustice is also explored in the movie, and is most potent in two scenes. The first finds Staff Sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke) commenting that he feels a sense of belonging in Italy much more than in his native country. The second scene, which occurs after a flashback to an example of bigotry, is a long, unbroken shot of all four soldiers, Train, Negron, Stamps and Sergeant Cummings (Michael Ealy), staring directly into the camera, as if to force the audience to address their injury.

Whether or not you enjoy “Miracle at St. Anna” will have a lot to do with your level of patience with the subject matter and your willingness to negotiate the sometimes difficult blend of fantasy and reality. Those who follow the story to its conclusion and invest themselves emotionally will be richer for the experience. Those who give up toward the beginning of the film will have a long two hours and forty minutes ahead of them.

*** 1/2 out of ****

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Vicki Cristina Barcelona

Woody Allen has always been preoccupied with sex, unrequited love and the dangerous pitfalls in relationships, but he's always had compelling characters and stories on which those preoccupations have thrived. His latest film, "Vicki Cristina Barcelona," is a romantic comedy of sorts (although not entirely funny or romantic), that's party guilty pleasure, part love letter to Barcelona and part monograph on monogomy. What it isn't, however, is compelling.

"Vicki Cristina Barcelona" starts off on a bad note: a monotone voice-over narration that signals to the audience that Allen, who wrote and directed the movie, is being lazy. We meet Vicki (Rebecca Hall), an uptight, studious young woman whose life is more or less set in stone. Her career path is set, she's engaged to be married and has no desire to deviate from the future she's set for herself. Vicki is spending her summer in Barcelona with her long-time friend Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), a loose, uninhibited young woman who seems to share nothing in common with her best friend other than a chromosome. How these two opposites, who adhere to divergent philosophies on life and romance, became good friends is difficult to explain.

Vicki and Cristina are staying in the home of a family friend, and their time in Barcelona is filled with good food, good wine and sight-seeing. One evening, at an art gallery, Cristina catches the eye of Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a tall, dark and handsome painter. Later that evening, Antonio approaches Vicki and Cristina, who are in the middle of dinner, and invite them both to a romantic getaway. His intentions are spelled out clearly: good food, good times, good sex.

For the first two thirds of "Vicki Cristina Barcelona," the two young women contend with Antonio's advances, Cristina eager to jump into bed with him, Vicki just as eager not to. In these opening acts the people onscreen have a lot to do with how interesting the action is. Bardem, for his part, is wonderful to watch. His Antonio is sensual, honest, comfortable with himself. Hall is dull at first, but becomes more interesting as her personality, stereotypically written by Allen, becomes more three-dimensional. Least impressive is Johansson, who seems in way over her head. Where Antonio's sensuality seems rooted and organic, Cristina's seems forced and synthetic.

Only in the final act does "Vicki Cristina Barcelona" find itself, with the introduction of Antonio's passionate ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Cruz is so convincing, so wild and so overflowing with sexuality that she almost overshadows the limp performances of Hall and Johansson.

If only the movie had been called "Antonio Maria Elena" instead of "Vicki Cristina Barcelona."

** 1/2 out of ****

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Stupid People

Burn After Reading

No time off for good behavior.

Only seven months after winning three Oscars, including a Best Picture award for their melancholy western-nouveau “No Country for Old Men,” Joel and Ethan Coen have released another movie. It’s “Burn After Reading,” a comedy about intelligence, or the lack thereof.

“Burn After Reading” is the story of a group of unlikable people whose lives become intertwined when a compact disc containing sensitive information is lost by one party and discovered by another. The players include disgruntled CIA analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), womanizer Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), insecure fitness instructor Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) and her fellow employee and moron Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt).

When Linda and Chad find the lost disc on the floor of their gym, Hardbodies, they concoct a hair-brained, almost moronic, scheme to blackmail its owner, Osborne. Into the mix come Osborne’s cold, humorless wife (Tilda Swinton), her secret lover Harry, and a host of confused CIA officers, who are bewildered at the nonsensical goings on.

The disc itself is little more than a McGuffin, and has no intrinsic value, but it serves to push the film’s characters back and forth and into some wildly funny scenarios.

Take, for example, a sequence in which an ill-prepared Chad attempts to blackmail Osborne. He arrives at the designated spot on bicycle (in a suit) and stumbles through his obviously rehearsed lines, including a hysterical “appearances can be…deceptive.”

There’s blackmail, there’s sex, there’s murder, but all of it is framed in a darkly humorous way, as only the Coen brothers can do.

All of the actors in “Burn After Reading” appear to having the time of their lives, especially Clooney, who mugs for the camera throughout the movie. Supporting actors turn in amusing performances as well, including Richard Jenkins and J.K. Simmons.

What is so remarkable is that the Coens were able to turn out “Burn After Reading” only one year after “No Country for Old Men.” In fact, the brothers wrote both screenplays at the same time, alternating every other day for each script.

The next Coen brothers’ movie, “A Serious Man,” will be released next year. It’s another black comedy, like “Burn After Reading” and like so many of their previous works, including “Raising Arizona” and “Fargo.” Joel and Ethan Coen have a brilliant understanding of the line which separates funny from unfunny and a knack for infusing one with the other.

*** out of ****

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Happy Birthday, Star Trek!

Forty-two years ago today, "Star Trek" premiered on network television. The series ran only three seasons, from 1966 to 1969, but from those humble beginnings came four spin-off series and ten motion pictures. The eleventh film, tentatively titled "Star Trek," is due out next May.

In honor of the "Star Trek" franchise and its creator Gene Roddenberry, I have composed a short list of the top three "Star Trek" movies.

For a list of the top three "Star Trek" episodes, please visit http://doc755musings.blogspot.com/.


Top 3 "Star Trek" Movies:

3) "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

Released in 1991, "The Undiscovered Country" went a long way to cleaning out the bad taste left in fans' mouths by "Star Trek V," considered by many to be the worst film installment. It reunited the original T.V. cast in an inventive, suspenseful and, above all, plausible scenario: renewed hostilities between the Federation, a confederacy of allied star systems, and the Klingon Empire, their principal enemy, days before a peace treaty is to be signed.

The most interesting and compelling part of "The Undiscovered Country" is Captain Kirk's opposition to the Klingons, who he blames for his son's death. His usually sound judgment seems impaired by his visceral hatred for the Empire, which is personified in General Chang (Christopher Plummer), one of "Star Trek's" greatest villains.

2) "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

The original film treatment of "Star Trek" officially marks the first time the science-fiction franchise appeared in theaters, but it was "The Wrath of Khan" that set the tone and mood for future movies.

In "The Wrath of Khan" writer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer resurrected a villain from the original television series: Khan Noonian Singh, a genetically-engineered super-human. Ricardo Montalban is excellent as the villain Khan, who exacts revenge with cold precision. There is plenty of action and spectacle in "The Wrath of Khan," but many of the battles are fought and won (or lost) in the minds of Kirk and Khan, two formidable adversaries.

"The Wrath of Khan" is perhaps most memorable for the selflessness of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and the touching scenes between Spock and Kirk, his commanding officer. The entire funeral ceremony, including Kirk's eulogy, is devastating and touching.

1) "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"

The one with the whales? Yes, "The Voyage Home" might be the most polarizing movie in the "Star Trek" canon, but it's also the best, and for a number of reasons. "Star Trek" has never been, in its soul, a saga about epic space battles and larger-than-life villains; it is a story about humanity, and about mankind's place in the universe.

In "The Voyage Home," the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise go backwards in time to 1986 San Francisco to rescue a pair of humpback whales, which have gone extinct in the future. While there, members of the crew suffer from a serious case of culture-shock.

"The Voyage Home" is easily the funniest and most imaginative of the ten "Star Trek" movies. It lampoons some of the sillier things going on on the 1980s (punk rock) and some of the more serious (the Cold War). Chekov's "nuclear wessels" scene alone is worth the price of a rental.

High Anxiety

Pineapple Express

Although the summer movie season began, thanks to big-budget Hollywood blockbusters, with a bang, it seems to have ended with a guffaw, as August has been dominated by comedies. More remarkably, however, is that many of the high-profile comedies are based around original ideas, and not rehashes of old and lifeless plots.

One of the funniest and most unusual August comedies is “Pineapple Express,” the title of which refers to an exclusive and expensive variety of marijuana. “Pineapple Express” is the story of Dale Denton (Seth Rogan), a twenty-something with a dead-end job, a girlfriend in High School and an addiction to marijuana. When Denton arrives at a rich man’s house to deliver a subpoena, he witnesses a brutal murder.

Fearing that evidence he left at the scene of the crime might lead the bad guys back to him and his drug dealer, Saul Silver, Denton decides to scoop up Silver and go on the run.

In many ways, “Pineapple Express” is a buddy comedy, like “48 Hours,” or “Lethal Weapon.” Amid all the jokes, fights and stunts, there is some serious male bonding going on. The most hilarious bits come from the interaction between Denton, Silver (James Franco) and Red (Danny McBride), the drug dealing middleman. Franco is especially hilarious as the lonely and paranoid drug dealer who finds profundity in the least meaningful things. He steals virtually every scene that features him.

The supporting cast in “Pineapple Express” is also entertaining, especially drug kingpin Ted Jones (Gary Cole) and his two henchmen, played by Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson.

The star of “Pineapple Express” is its screenplay, which is very funny, silly and, at times, brilliant. Penned by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the pair who wrote “Superbad,” the screenplay allows its characters to act outrageously because they’re high most of the time.

The screenplay also tricks the audience into liking all of its characters, even though some are killers, some drug dealers and most amoral. This affection is most likely the result of the farcical nature of “Pineapple Express,” where all the action seems to be occurring in a safe, fictional universe. The plot is so improbable and the characters so comical that we forgive its moral ambiguity.

Rogen and Goldberg’s next joint project will be a film remake of “The Green Hornet,” the story of newspaper publisher Britt Reid, who fights crime in secret. Details on the project are scarce, but with their history of irreverent comedy, Rogen and Goldberg are sure to bring some absurdity and silliness to the traditional action-adventure storyline.

*** out of ****

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Bungle in the Jungle

Tropic Thunder

There are some comedies which make you laugh and send you from the theater with a huge grin on your face. Then there are comedies which make you laugh against your better judgement and send you from the theater masking your smile so other theater patrons won't think you're a sociopath. "Tropic Thunder" belongs in the second category.

Ben Stiller's latest movie, “Tropic Thunder,” tells the story of the production of a big-budget war movie, and everything that goes wrong in the process. When novice director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) comes to the conclusion that his Vietnam War epic is unconvincing, he decides to drop his cast into the jungles of Vietnam and shoot the picture guerilla-style (think “Platoon” meets “The Blair Witch Project”). Little does he know that the helicopter transporting the cast has flown far off course and landed them in a jungle filled with dangerous opium smugglers. Soon enough, the cast is thrust into real danger and forced the complete a real-life rescue mission.

From the very beginning, thanks to mock movie trailers, “Tropic Thunder” sets its tone: sarcastic, ironic, and bad-mannered. The audience meets the three stars of the movie, prima donnas all. There’s action star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), a Stallone-clone who’s famous for his one-liners and big guns; Australian method actor and award-winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), a very obvious jab at Russell Crowe; and funnyman Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) a riff on Eddie Murphy. The platoon is rounded out by rapper Alpha Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and rookie Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel).

Many of the jokes in “Tropic Thunder” come from the situation in which the conceited and overconfident actors find themselves: stuck in a strange jungle and pursued by dangerous men with real guns. The most hilarious bits, however, come from the personalities of the actors themselves, especially Speedman and Lazarus, who get the most screen time. Lazarus, the audience learns, has undergone a controversial skin pigmentation surgery to look the part of the platoon’s African-American sergeant. In fact, he’s so dedicated to the role that he refuses to break character even when the situation becomes increasingly dangerous.

“I don't break character until the DVD commentary,” says Lazarus.

Speedman, threatened by Lazarus’ acting chops and rejected by the rest of the ensemble, decides to travel into the jungle alone, where he’s quickly captured and held for ransom. In captivity, Speedman goes the way of Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now,” muttering crazy non-sequiturs and adopting a Laotian boy he calls little Half-Squat.

Above all, “Tropic Thunder” is a parody of war movies and of all movies in general. It pokes fun at the movie business, at Hollywood and at the intransigence of celebrities. “Tropic Thunder” might not be a movie for the politically correct, but it’s one of the funniest films to be released this year. It’s crude, rude and incredibly offensive, but it’s also sharp, knowing and often hilarious.

*** out of ****

Star Warriors

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The magical world of "Star Wars" has undergone something of a facelift over the last ten years. Once the preeminent sci-fi/fantasy franchise in the world, "Star Wars" has become a ghost of its former self: associated most recently with money, complicated special effects and amateurish writing; not the sense of wonder, adventure and humanity that characterized the original trilogy. Almost this entire shift in quality corresponds to the three "Star Wars" prequels, released in three-year intervals between 1999 and 2005. Those prequels, which range from passable to lousy, have gone a long way to dehumanize what was a distinctly human franchise. If the original trilogy was vibrant, bustling and full of life, the new trilogy is colorless, plastic and antiseptic.

The latest addition to the "Star Wars" brand is the animated full-length feature film "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which takes place between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith," the second and third prequels. "The Clone Wars" is the first installment of an animated "Star Wars" series set to debut on Cartoon Network and TNT this fall.

"The Clone Wars" is the story of the ongoing galactic civil war between the governing Republic and the secessionist Confederacy, played out in battles fought by Confederate droid armies and Republic clone troopers. Leading those troopers are Jedi knights, protectors of peace and justice in the Republic. Two knights in particular, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, are at the center of "The Clone Wars," just as they are at the center of the entire "Star Wars" storyline. New to the mix is Jedi hopeful Ahsoka Tano, a young woman sent by Jedi master Yoda to train under Skywalker.

Early in the film, Skywalker and Tano are called away from the frontlines for a mission with far-reaching consequences: find and rescue the kidnapped son of gangster Jabba the Hutt, whose criminal organization controls important shipping lanes that might swing the war toward one side or the other.

"The Clone Wars" is the most episodic of the seven "Star Wars" films, and tells only a fraction of a story that will no doubt be explored in the upcoming serial. But because its story is so short and diverting, "The Clone Wars" is more lean and Spartan than its three predecessors.

"The Clone Wars" is very much like the final (and most exciting) forty-five minutes of "Attack of the Clones," filled with non-stop action and fireworks. The beginning battle scene, in which rival armies fight ferociously in the streets of an alien city, is particularly compelling. In the second act, a platoon of clone troopers, led by Skywalker and Tano, scale a vertical cliff wall to access a heavily fortified temple.

One of the more surprising and touching elements of "The Clone Wars" is the sense of brotherhood and fraternity among the clone troopers’ ranks, and the strong impression of loyalty between the troopers and the Jedi who command them.

The funny and heartfelt moments in "The Clone Wars" will surely annoy many "Star Wars" fans and others who find them too juvenile. But "The Clone Wars" was made for kids, just as every movie in the franchise was made for kids.

*** out of ****

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