My Holiday Obsession: Cinematic Sharks

Robert Shaw as Sam Quint, in Jaws (2005).

On America’s annual Fourth of July this month, I lazily tuned into a late-night cable broadcast of the ultimate Independence Day movie: Jaws, which haunted my visits to the beach – and that of countless others – long after it was released in 1975. This time around, adrenaline-fueled insomnia kept me glued to the TV for the film’s next two sequels, which I’d never seen before. But I was too pooped by 2:45 a.m. to keep my eyes open for Jaws: The Revenge. I can only assume that a franchise getting sillier by the year had reached an apex of silliness by its fourth go-round.

This guilty-pleasure marathon came despite the fact that Steven Spielberg’s career-making hit (he only directed the first one) and George Lucas’ 1977 Star Wars forever altered the landscape of cinema in my country. (Or should I say the seascape and galaxyscape?) The more introspective narratives with gravitas of the early 1970s gave way to action and adventure, a scenario that bombards us with one mindless summer blockbuster after another, few of them ever as original as their lower-tech antecedents of three decades ago.

The ‘Millennium’ Movies: 'Stieg Larsson' Adaptations Fall Short of Brilliant Books

The Girl Who Played With Fire, which opens in North America today, is a significant improvement on its predecessor, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, released last spring. (Both films are adapted from the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s phenomenally popular novels and make up the first two thirds of his ‘Millennium’ trilogy.) Whereas the first film in the series, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, was a clunky affair, lurching from scene to scene before slowing down to breathe, the second movie, with Daniel Alfredson at the helm, is a smoother, more consistent and pleasing experience.

Much of the reason for that is Alfredson’s superior skills as a director – both he and Oplev have TV backgrounds and credits I am not familiar with – which is good news for those awaiting the final film in the series, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest, also directed by Alfredson. But to be fair to Oplev, there was quite a bit of exposition to cram into The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which at over 2 & 1/ 2 hours is about half an hour longer than The Girl Who Played With Fire. (The Swedish cut of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo clocks in at three hours, which may mean it flows better than the shorter version that reached North America.)

Michael Golamco' s Year Zero

In one of history’s most insidious social experiments, after the April 1975 overthrow of the Cambodian government, the Khmer Rouge began trying to erase that ancient civilization’s culture and traditions. During a single day, these “rice paddy nationalists” emptied the capital city of Phnom Penh. Many died during the forced march of two million residents into the countryside, where they were enslaved in agricultural labor camps, working night and day without adequate food. People with an apparent education -- even anyone who wore eyeglasses -- were executed. The insane goal was to return the populace to a peasant economy with no class divisions, no monetary system, no schools, no hospitals and, for a devout Buddhist society, no religion. Torture was commonplace. Surgical experiments were conducted without anesthesia. The forces of leader Pol Pot, who had been a university student in France, even murdered babies. He predicted that his ultra-Marxist minions would “do away with all vestiges of the past” and described the new era, in which an estimated 1.7 million citizens were killed, as Year Zero.

Petrolheads: Our Love Affair With the Car

Ever since I played on the remains of my maternal grandfather's one-and-only car back in the 1960s, I've been fascinated by cars and driving. My grandfather owned a Model T Ford that, once it was no longer viable for the road, he had turned into a tractor to work his land. By the time I got to it, it was a rusting hulk that sat on my uncle's property. We kids used to hop on the old seat and pretend we were driving anywhere but there.

Though I've had a life-long love affair with cars, I've actually never, technically, owned one. Both cars my wife and I have owned have been in her name. So it goes. Yet, I love the idea of the freedom that a car gives you; I love the speed and I love to drive fast. Just not as fast or as well as Nelson Monteiro (more on him in a second). Unfortunately, living in the city, with the congestion, incompetent drivers, irriating stoplights and unrealistic speed limits, it's taken much of the joy out it for me. So, I live vicariously through a long-running, very politically incorrect BBC series called Top Gear (BBC Canada, Monday through Friday at 9 pm -- repeats of the 2002 through 2009 seasons; new shows, Saturdays 9pm). The show has been on TV for almost 33 years (with a one-year break between 2001 and 2002 when it was reconfigured into its current format). The show, hosted by three archetypes (Jeremy Clarkson, the tall, paunchy, man/boy; James May, the long-haired, intellectual, musician who's nickname is Captain Slow due to his, by the show's standards, unwillingness to drive fast; and Richard Hamilton, sort of the 'cute Beatle' of the show who's nickname is The Hampster because he's not as tall as the oafish Clarkson), is pretty basic. Using humour of a decidedly 'laddish' variety, they start most episodes by showcasing some sort of super car (usually an Audi, Maserati, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche, you get the idea) on their track. All three are skilled drivers, with Clarkson being the best, Hamilton the most reckless and May, well, his nickname is Captain Slow for a reason. Clarkson or Hamilton almost always take on this part of the show. They race around the track while they discuss a 'fast car's' strengths or weaknesses. There's usually a lot of speed, lots of spins, tons of smoke and a bunch of silly showing off.

Notes From a Critic at Large (Part Two)

Along with some of the forgettable pictures I mentioned yesterday, there was one riveting movie I did catch up with in recent months – and it never turned up in a theatre. Killshot (2008) is a tip-top crime thriller featuring Mickey Rourke in the role in which he should have been acclaimed.

As good as Rourke was in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2008), the picture was shaped around our knowledge of the damage Rourke did to his career after the promise he displayed; first in a small role as an arsonist in Body Heat (1981), and then in a major part in Barry Levinson’s autobiographical Diner (1982). After showing some of the flair of Brando, with his soft machismo and sweet charm, Rourke (to paraphrase Brando in On the Waterfront) quickly took a one-way ticket to Palookaville. Leading a life of excess and self-destruction, Rourke’s career basically took a header. The Wrestler was his unapologetic calling card for redemption, a celebrated comeback, and he delivered a touching and bruising performance as a man making amends with what little he had left. But his life flooded into that performance to such a degree that you couldn’t really separate the actor from the man. (Brando had done a similar thing in Last Tango in Paris but he used that role to examine the nature of masculine aggression that he had so dramatically defined early in his career. In The Wrestler, Aronofsky’s redemption story confined Rourke, who could only trace the lines of a promised life now gutted.)

Notes From a Critic at Large (Part One)

Ever since “losing” my job as a freelance film critic for Metro Newspaper last fall, I’ve spent very little time going out to movies. Whereas in the past thirty years, as a professional critic, I used to see about three films a week, I’ve been lucky to see three movies in a theatre in the last five months. I’ve simply lost the heart for it. But I’ve also been seeing signs that films aren’t getting any better, either.

Looking at Russell Crowe’s grim, purposeful expression on the billboards for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, the movie seemed to be issuing a threat rather than enticing audiences to see it. Besides, I had already seen that glum look of Crowe’s way back in Ridley Scott’s equally dour Gladiator (2000). (On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed watching Crowe in Scott’s inconsequential, but lovely 2006 comedy, A Good Year, which most people had ignored, or dismissed.) Witnessing the collection of stooges (Adam Sandler, Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock and Rob Schneider) on posters for Grown Ups, the film seemed to be arrogantly daring you to defy its potential stupidity. (Stupid can be fun when it’s smart stupid. Dumb stupid, on the other hand, is always a drag.)

Lately, I’ve been working on my new book and catching up with reading, music and some films that were gathering dust at the foot of my television. Movies I’ve caught up with on television have been largely stupefying. Law Abiding Citizen, for instance, is one of the most incoherent thrillers I’ve seen in years. Clyde Shelton (Gerald Butler) witnesses his wife raped and his daughter killed in a home invasion. During the trial, Philadelphia prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) tells him that one of the two criminals will get a light conviction due to botched forensic evidence. Rice ultimately makes a deal with the most brutal of the offenders (the guy who did the raping and killing), so that they can fry his accomplice. Shelton feels betrayed and ultimately gets revenge on the killers, the prosecutor and the whole damn city of Philadelphia. Director F. Gary Gray (2003's The Italian Job) starts out by staging scenes more outlandish than Michael Winner’s ugly vigilante fantasy Death Wish (1974), but he realizes (soon enough) that, with the popularity of torture porn in mainstream horror pictures (Saw, Hostel, etc.), he better turn Shelton into Dexter. As a result, Shelton only mutilates those he finds responsible for heinous crimes. But in order to explain how Shelton is able to continue wreaking havoc, even while in prison, Gray (and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer) concoct a ridiculous subplot about Shelton having connections to black ops in the CIA. (Apparently, his black ops training enabled Shelton to dig tunnels between his solitary cell and a garage he happened to own nearby thus allowing him to prowl the city unnoticed.) While a number of good actors (Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb) try to save face by gamely following the dots in the story, the charmless Gerard Butler can do nothing to cover the preposterousness of the avenging father.

Crossover Standard: Renee Fleming's Dark Hope

Crossover is a term used in the music business that refers to an artist from one genre "crossing over" to another. Its most familiar definition refers to an opera singer taking a stab at either jazz or pop. For me, this approach has failed more often than succeeded in the history of popular music. Consider Kiri Te Kanawa's disappointing jazz album many years ago with Andre Previn, or Sting’s rather soulless Songs from the Labyrinth featuring the music of John Dowland.

For Renee Fleming, one of the finest voices to hit the operatic stage, her new album Dark Hope sets a new standard and level of achievement to which all other crossover artists shall be compared. This is a thoughtful record of songs from new bands such as Muse ("Endlessly") and Arcade Fire ("Intervention"), with more familiar songs from Peter Gabriel ("In Your Eyes") and Leonard Cohen ("Hallelujah"). The music works for two important reasons: she sings in her own speaking voice and she took the time to prepare each song with a trusted producer. Clearly this was the way to go for Fleming, now 51 years of age, to inspire her in new ways beyond the regular schedule of opera performances. Her producer, David Kahne, wanted to create an album linked by her voice, rather than song selection, consequently what we hear is rather seamless; something akin to a euro-pop or dream-pop sound. And while that may not challenge my ears, I do find the mix irresistible.

-- John Corcelli is a musician, actor, broadcaster and theatre director.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & The Girl Who Played With Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Masterful Mysteries

Not since the Harry Potter novels has a series of books so connected with such a wide variety of readers as the Stieg Larsson mysteries have. Last week, on two successive days, I saw a different person, one male, one female, on the transit system reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the late Swedish writer’s ‘Millennium’ trilogy. Over the last month, I’ve noticed at least half a dozen folks with eyes glued to that book and several more dipping into the first one in the series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Considering how few people read at all while taking transit or are content just skimming the free subway newspapers, that’s a pretty impressive statistic. Wondering what’s so great about the Larsson oeuvre? Lots, actually.

Larsson has created, in Lisbeth Salander, one of the most compelling, ferocious and complex protagonists ever to appear in mystery literature. She’s twenty-four when the series opens, a tattooed and pierced young woman who has suffered horrendous abuse in her short life, doesn’t trust a soul, is anti–social to an unparalleled degree, yet affects everyone she comes into contact with, so much so that they become her staunchest defenders.

The Last Airbender: Not the Worst Movie Ever Made

The Last Airbender, which went into wide release this week, is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated series produced by the American cable channel Nickelodeon, and broadcast from 2005-2008. Avatar ran for 61 episodes and three seasons, and it was a critical and popular success, resonating with viewers far beyond the network’s very young demographic. I count myself among those adults who, in the summer of 2008, eagerly awaited its concluding episodes. In January 2007, months before the show`s third season had begun, it was announced that M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Happening) would write, direct, and produce a live-action feature film adaptation. I greeted that announcement with the usual trepidation of one who hears that a beloved novel has been tagged for Hollywood treatment. And so, having been following the film’s production for over 3 years, and putting my creative concerns aside, I walked into the theatre with genuine anticipation. But it wasn’t ‘the new M. Night Shyamalan film’ that I came to see, nor the summer’s next highly-promoted ‘3-D fantasy epic.’ No, I came to see The Last Airbender, the big screen adaptation of a television series that I genuinely love.

A Second Look at HBO's Horrifying The Pacific

Let me be blunt. Films or mini-series about the war in the Pacific in World War II have been few and far between because it was one gigantic horror show from beginning to end. Most that have been made -- save David Lean's Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) -- have been commercial if not critical flops (Terence Mallick's overrated The Thin Red Line (1998), for example). Obviously, the war in the European theatre was no picnic -- the barbarity there was equally deranged -- but at least there were brief glimmers of humanity and dignity within it (and as one European vet tells a returning Pacific vet "I at least got down time in Paris or London"). The war in the Pacific was a seemingly unrelenting bloodbath. Now that I've finished watching Tom Hank's and Steven Spielberg's The Pacific (they were the executive producers), I understand why it never got the ratings or the critical acclaim the European-set predecessor, Band of Brothers (2001), received. The Pacific is a shattering, deeply disturbing nightmare that will haunt you long after it is over. As depicted, both sides committed atrocious acts, innumerable atrocious acts. Nobody comes off well, and the characters we spend 10 or so hours following end up seriously emotionally damaged (those that survive, that is). This is not material that goes down very easily on a Sunday evening before the start of the work week.

Appetite for Destruction: The Media Coverage of the G20 Summit

“The media are all-knowing. They supply a community of knowledge and feelings, and a common morality. Many people, literate and illiterate alike, simply do not read. They receive information from television whether or not they seek that information. It often comes to them in the form of entertainment.”

--Tony Schwartz, Media: The Second God (1983).


Like most people, especially Torontonians, who witnessed the war zone that became our city during the past weekend of the G20 summit, I was appalled by a number of things. One could get into a number of healthy debates over the decision to have the summit in Toronto (given the violent history of these events), the destructive acts of the Black Bloc, or the reaction of the police to those acts. But I was struck more by some other factors that I believe contributed to creating the dark vortex the city fell into while world leaders were discussing the problems of the planet.

Good Intentions: Herbie Hancock's The Imagine Project

Herbie Hancock is one of my musical heroes because he’s constantly trying new things and takes none of his talent for playing, writing and arranging for granted. His latest effort is The Imagine Project which is, as he describes it, “an effort to show the power and beauty of global collaboration as a golden path to peace.” This is a well-intentioned album with some successes and failures.

The opening track is John Lennon’s iconic song adapted to a world - beat arrangement, but the vocal track fails to be inspiring let alone take you to that idyllic place that Lennon wrote about back in 1971. Some songs never work well when they’re re-configured; this is one of them. Interestingly, a Beatles song, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” is also included. Performed by Dave Matthews, with the requisite phased-vocal track, I wondered why this song was chosen in the first place. "T.N.K." never had the notion of a “path to peace” for me; more of quiet trip to another, other worldly place after death. (The lyrics are taken from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.)

Reporting For Battle: A Rolling Stone Coup

As a child, Michael Hastings dreamed of becoming a war correspondent.  “I remember drawing a map of the Middle East and watching CNN nightly with my dad,” he recalls, referring to his fifth-grade interest in the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict. “One day, I even asked my teacher if I could skip gym class to hear a speech by General Norman Schwarzkopf.“

But it’s his Rolling Stone profile of another general in another war -- Stanley McChrystal, until last week the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan -- that has provided Hastings with the scoop of a lifetime. Even before the magazine hit newsstands Friday, the online version had pundits across America correctly predicting that the military leader was toast. The story quoted him and his staff dissing President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and several other members of the administration. For Hastings, only 30, this All the President’s Generals moment came while he was back in Afghanistan. I’ll call him Michael, since we’ve known each other for many years and he hails from my town (Burlington, Vermont). That’s why I’ve done several interviews with him, including one last Tuesday when his name suddenly became a household word.

Fighting Nostalgia - Two Views on the Jethro Tull/Procol Harum concert: Molson Ampitheatre, June 18/10

I've never been one for the nostalgia musical acts that hit the road every summer (The Monkees, Crosby Stills & Nash, REO Speedwagon, Styx, The Who, to name but a few) because there's too much new music 'capturing my ears' (such as The Killers, Drake, Broken Social Scene, Metric, Cale Sampson, Femi Kuti, Eminem, Jamie Cullum, etc.) for me to wallow too much in the musical acts of the past. That doesn't mean I don't still listen to the music of these performers on CD/MP3, but I just don't have the need to see these acts perform well past their 'best before dates.' The first exception to this rule was two years ago when I got tickets to see Chicago. Now, ironically, I wasn't even a fan, but the tickets were free and the seats were great, so... I came away impressed by the still expert musicianship of the performers, even if the music, with a few exceptions, was really not my style.

Recently, I broke my rule again when I, along with a group of friends (including my Critics At Large colleague Kevin Courrier - see his review of the same show below) got tickets to see Jethro Tull with Procol Harum as opening act. I've always enjoyed the early music of Tull (the last album I bought was 1978's Heavy Horses), so when the opportunity came to see them live I was willing enough to enjoy an evening of, as one of my friends said, "Klassic Rawk!"

Every Road Leads Home: Toy Story 3

When I was extremely young my parents gave me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure for my birthday. My friends and I would get together and create these fantastical situations with all of our toys and face the wrath and ridicule of our siblings in the process. My Ninja Turtle would woo the Barbies and join forces with the Ghostbusters to vanquish evildoers which existed solely in our overly imaginative minds. As time faded, Leonardo lost his plastic katanas and the paint on his body began to scuff and peel. Before long I had simply outgrown him. When the time came I tossed him away in a box with the rest of my plastic memories without remorse. His blue bandana was frayed, his legs and arms were scratched and my name written in permanent marker along his bottom foot had all but worn off.

American Conscience: John Mellencamp's On the Rural Route 7609

A colleague of mine, who didn’t know John Mellencamp, asked me what he would be remembered for in music. I said, the song “Cherry Bomb” one of Mellencamp’s biggest pop songs now part of the musical currency of formatted radio. It remains a catchy track with just enough edge to stand out on any “soft-rock” radio station. I suspect that I have better ears than most, if I may be so bold to say, because there’s something explicitly “American” about John Mellencamp. His songs have continuously featured stories of farmers, the working class, rodeos, county fairs, etc. This new 4-CD box set which looks like a relic from your grandfather’s collection of 78s, seems intended to depict Mellencamp in a particular way. Quotes from Tennessee Williams bracket the collection with an essay by Anthony DeCurtis, music critic for Rolling Stone and The New York Times. If nothing else, this set is intended to re-imagine the songwriter in a less commercial way.

Five Cancelled TV Shows You Should Watch

Gone are the days of television producers holding out for that mythical 100th episode in order to guarantee a syndicated afterlife following cancellation. With DVD rentals, Netflix and Hulu.com, On-demand services from your cable provider, and entire cable channels devoted to running and rerunning every old TV show ever produced, no TV show is ever truly gone.

Even so-called failed shows, shows with no ratings and a single season (or half season) run, can have real impact, often years after airing only a few episodes on broadcast TV. Shows like Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks, Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night, or Joss Whedon’s Firefly can meet untimely ends, but still stick around long enough to find their audiences, sometimes 10 years after their cancellation. Some of these shows were ahead of their time, some were just too idiosyncratic to find their audiences, many were ambitious and brilliant but flawed, and others just aired in the wrong timeslot or on the wrong channel.

Today I’m looking at 5 recent additions to the list of my favourite ‘failed’ shows. I’ll be sticking with shows of 1-hour length, and leave the sitcoms to a future post.

Tom Cruise’s Film Career: Nice Try But No Cigar

Knight and Day, Tom Cruise’s latest movie, which opens today, is a reminder, once again, of how he simply can’t hold up his end of the bargain when it comes to creating a charismatic, gripping character on screen. Up against a talented actress like Cameron Diaz he is particularly lost. Cruise, in fact, is the Energizer Bunny of Hollywood. You admire his efforts to act, but it becomes quickly apparent he’s really not getting anywhere acting.

Treme on Hiatus: The Devil's in the Details

The first-season finale of Treme on June 20 was titled “I’ll Fly Away,” and the 1929 gospel song about loss and redemption is performed at a funeral that ends the episode. Some of the lyrics (“Like a bird thrown/ driven by the storm...”) certainly apply to Katrina, which has taken place six months before the fictional TV saga begins. But, with oil now befouling the Gulf of Mexico, an untold number of those birds cannot fly at all. If only the HBO series -- which is scheduled to resume production this fall -- could fast-forward to 2010 and address this Louisiana double whammy

Produced and Abandoned: The Whole Wide World (1996)

The Whole Wide World, based on the 1986 memoir One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis, is a small gem. Set in the early ‘30s, the picture tells the story of the turbulent relationship between pulp writer Robert E. Howard (Vincent D’Onofrio), who created Conan the Barbarian, and Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger), a young Texas schoolteacher who had aspirations to be a writer. Director Dan Ireland provides a probing and touching appraisal of the gulf between the genders and how these two innocents attempt to bridge it. Where Price craves experience and is deeply drawn to Howard’s fervid imagination; Howard, who can only live in the world of his imagination, is initially drawn to Novalyne’s passionate desire to take in the whole wide world.