Volume 04, Number 22
Movies
Movie News
By Bill Hersey
The Brave One
It was really nice seeing superstar Jodie Foster again. Quite a few years ago I got to know her at a small dinner party, and was really impressed by her intelligence, sense of humor and down-to-earth attitude. A few years later I helped set up a party for her at the US Embassy where she met and chatted with many of Tokyo's best known and most interesting woman. Believe me, she impressed them all. Jodie said she's been here “13 or 14 times and has been all over Japan” and was really happy to be here again. It's obvious she takes care of herself. She's slim, has a good figure and doesn't look much different to when I first met her way back when.
This time she was here with producer Joel Silver and director Neil Jordan to promote The Brave One for Warner Brothers. When asked about his success, Joel said, “I've really been lucky, Jodie was a great partner and major creative force in this film”.
The film is similar to Bronson's Deathwish where members of the main characters family are killed, and they become vigilantes seeking revenge and honor. Jodie said the character was so full of fear and that she is not really so brave in her own life. She went on to say that she's not much of a political person and having a gun in your pocket gives you a false sense of power and changes everything—even the way you walk.
She felt her character—a radio announcer, was interested in issues of morality for a long time and this became more complicated as the story developed. It finally came to the point of I'm not going to destroy myself anymore—I am going to hurt somebody else.
The director felt he and the others did not lose sympathy for her. Jodie concluded by saying “I think she's wrong, and feel she knew this but was compelled to take the path she did”.
Movie Review - A Mighty Heart
by William Casper
In late January 2002 Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. After being held for a few days his body was found in a Karachi graveyard. His horrific death was filmed and shown on various websites. Daniel Pearl's pregnant wife, Mariane, who was with him in Karachi at the time of his kidnap, subsequently wrote a book A Mighty Heart in remembrance of her husband.
A testament to the power of the filmed version of A Mighty Heart, (directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Angelina Jolie) is when the dreaded, inevitable news of Daniel's death arrives it still comes as a jolting, painful shock. Moreover though Winterbottom chooses, wisely I think, not to recreate the infamous footage of Daniel's murder (save for a few seconds where Pearl bravely states his Jewish heritage) the sense of his death—regardless of the manner—being an obscene, tragic waste is overwhelming.
Winterbottom and his superb cast and crew, using documentary style sequences and fast, tight editing, expertly create the seeming chaos of Karachi's packed streets. The narrative-tense, frantic and studiously non-judgmental follows the frustrations, and occasional successes the authorities have in searching for Daniel, with Mariane very much at the centre of their hunt. At all times the contrast between the modernity of the technology used by journalists, police, terrorists and kidnappers for their various purposes and the timeless rawness of life in areas of Karachi makes for an uneasy sense of worlds colliding.
Angelina Jolie is extremely convincing as Mariane Pearl, capturing perfectly her desire to stay calm and focused all the while battling the incredible anguish she must have felt. The support cast are all excellent but special mentions must go to Archie Panjabi as Astra Nomani a colleague of Pearl's, who fell under suspicion of spying when the Pakistan authorities discovered she was Indian, Will Patton as Randell Bennett a CIA officer and especially Irfan Khan as Captain, a Pakistani security officer whose commitment to the cause of finding Daniel alive sometimes goes beyond the call of duty.
East/West Double Bill
by M. Halliday
What has gone and what will be, are utmost in our minds at times of any major move. Ingmar Bergman's 1957 classic Wild Strawberries concerns itself with these very themes.
An aging professor, beautifully played by veteran Swedish directorand actor, Victor Sjöstrom, is traveling to receive an honorary degree. Along his journey, through various incidents, people he meets, his dreams and memories; he is forced to re-evaluate his life and the undeniable fact that he is very much closer to the end than the beginning. In heavier hands this may sound a recipe for doom and gloom, indeed some of Bergman's later work is susceptible to this charge, but Bergman fills his film with hope and spirituality as the professor reconnects with people and regains the faith in mankind he had lost somewhere in his life's journey.
Funny, heartbreaking, utterly memorable Wild Strawberries is a cinematic landmark. Look out for a youthful Max Von Sydow in a small early role.
For a brief moment in time, American director Peter Bogdanovich was talked of in the same reverential tones that people reserved for the likes of Bergman. His reputation rests almost entirely upon the 1971 wonderful The Last Picture Show (Though his Paper Moon is also a fine film). Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms star as Duane and Sonny, two teenage boys in a small, dusty Texas town in the early 1950s. Based on the novel by Larry McCurtry, The Last Picture Show is an almost perfect meditation of small town life and coming of age. With stellar supporting cast, including Ben Johnson, Cybill Shepherd, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Randy Quaid, (Johnson and Leachman both won supporting actor Oscars) and beautifully shot in black and white (the character this adds to Texas sky is breathtaking) The Last Picture Show is a true American masterpiece. A sequel, the underrated Texasville was released in 1990.