Cinema Spectacular — 2008

This seems to be written in this space every year, but I must write it again: What a great year for movies.

After more than 100 years of filmmaking in America, there are still unheard stories, unfilmed subjects and unknown dramas. This year in film seemed to accentuate the human drama that exists in our world: good and evil (The Dark Knight), kindness (Happy-Go-Lucky), love (Wall•E) and personal triumph (Milk, Slumdog Millionaire). There is so much we can still learn and feel from film, and 2008 proves it. Here is the evidence.

— Michael Clawson

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1. Wall•E

The most human movie of the year stars a robot, which should hardly be surprising from Pixar, a film studio that could bring meaningful life to a jelly donut if a story called for it. Pixar’s talented storytellers and animators — and voice artist Ben Burtt — have done more than inject life into Wall•E, though: they have transplaneted real personality, humanity even, into their little trash-compacting robot. Abandoned on a junk-covered Earth, Wall•E chugs away at his clean-up directive while scooting around to Hello, Dolly! songs. After meeting a vegetation scanner named Eve, Wall•E embarks on an intergalactic rescue mission that changes the course of human history. As much satire as it is an environmental plea, Wall•E is fundamentally, at its core, a brilliant character study, where the robot’s actions, motivations and heart-wrenching love for Eve are on full display. It's so rare to even think this, let alone type it, but here it goes: Wall•E is a perfect movie.

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2. Slumdog Millionaire

So authentic are the Indian locations of Danny Boyle’s cultural and visual extravaganza that the stench and filth seem to waft from the screen in hazy plumes, but the characters and culture are so captivating you’ll want nothing more than to see it firsthand, slums and all. Films tend to romanticize India, but Slumdog shows it as it is: a collision of squalor, crime and decay (India’s past) with engineering marvels and a burgeoning computer industry (India’s future). Stuck in the middle is Jamal (Dev Patel), who’s appearing on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, where he gives more correct answers than a poor “slumdog” should. Between show tapings he’s beaten by a local police officer to find out how, or even if, he’s cheating. The movie is Jamal’s life story as he tells it to the police detective: orphaned young, living on the streets, conning tourists at the Taj Mahal, begging for change, crime with his brother and love with a girl from his old neighborhood. Slumdog’s a travelogue, a romance and a great tragedy all at once. It’s also so much more — it’s food for the soul.

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3. The Dark Knight

Yes, Heath Ledger is very good. As is Christian Bale; when is he not? But The Dark Knight is a monumental film because of writer and director Christopher Nolan, who extends his themes — mainly, the duality of man — way beyond those two-dimensional comic pages. He also creates real mythology for his hero and villains: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Nolan has not only made a human drama with depth, but he’s created an intense thrill ride, spectacular visual effects, a compelling romance, rich dialogue and characters that matter not just to the plot, but to us. And that shot of the Joker hanging out the car window as it weaves through Gotham is perfect in its composition and its lunacy. Every piece of The Dark Knight works and works skillfully.

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4. Milk

Milk is a brave movie because it presents Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay elected official, with all his character flaws. It doesn’t deify him, but shows him to us just as he was: devilishly funny, romantic, charmingly blunt with a distinctive speaking style and occasionally very single-minded. It helps, of course, that Sean Penn plays him the way only Sean Penn can, with great humanity and honesty. Here's an interesting observation: Picture Penn as Penn talking in his own voice. I can't do it; I just his characters. That is an actor.The Gus Van Sant film follows Milk as he moves to San Francisco’s Castro district, falls in love, starts a business and, after witnessing ratcheting persecution against gays and lesbians in the area, runs for a city office on a gay platform. The movie dangles tension above our heads when Milk meets another city official, Dan White (Josh Brolin), who will eventually go on a shooting spree in city hall. Yes, I’ve revealed the end, but it should be a historical fact, not a spoiler. The movie presents a dilemma that still rages today: is sexual orientation a religious issue or human rights issue? Milk knew the answer. He lived the answer.

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5. Gran Torino

So Dirty Harry retires. Clint Eastwood directs himself in one of the most provocatively racist films ever made. Snarling to no end, he plays a retired Korean War veteran who’s at odds with his Hmong neighbors, who annoy him for simply being Hmong, or anything that’s not white. In between his racial tirades and unrepentant Catholic shame, Clint accepts his neighbors as his friends and saves them from the Asian gang that terrorizes their street. But the movie is more than that. It’s an examination of two generations: the old generation, which is callous to the new world and all its integrations, and the young one, which is quick to forgive. Clint Eastwood is a treasure to the pictures, this one in particular, but he might be upstaged at times by his younger actors, who smile through his snarls and accept him for the curmudgeon he is.

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6. The Reader & Revolutionary Road

Kate Winslet excels at everything she touches. A Colgate commercial with her in it would make for riveting television. This was her year, too. In The Reader, she plays a teenage boy’s first lover, who is later revealed to be a former guard at a Nazi death camp. The movie, which should not be mistaken for a Holocaust picture, is a careful examination on shame, particularly with the boy, who refuses to speak up at a pivotal junture. In Revolutionary Road — in which Winslet is directed by her husband Sam Mendes and reunited with Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio — she is a loving ’50s-era housewife who’s not ready for life in the suburbs and dreams of a trip to Paris that never comes. Here she plays the role society wants her to play — homemaker — only to abandon it when her husband perpetuates a myth that never happens. Winslet doesn’t just memorize her lines for her films; she becomes the characters. And she also plays them with affection, as if she really liked who they were, or at least understands their motivations. She’s one of the most gifted actresses working now and these are two prime examples of her craft.

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7. The Wrestler

Mickey Rourke guts himself, his real self, right up there on the screen in The Wrestler. Yes, Randy “The Ram” Robinson is a fictional character, but you can’t look at The Ram and not see Rourke. Randy is a has-been wrestler — fake television wrestling, not real Olympic wrestling. His life oozes from all sides, fading away into oblivion. His muscles ache so he takes steroids. Wrestling gigs in VFW halls don’t pay well so he becomes a supermarket butcher. His love life is gone so he socializes at the topless bar. You can’t look at Randy and not feel pity, or just great sadness. But director Darren Aronofsky doesn’t frame him that way; he gives Randy and Rourke room to move, to show their gentle spirits resonating behind the tough exteriors. And Marisa Tomei, in one of the performances of the year, plays a stripper who needs a second chance as much as Randy.

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8. The Visitor

A man returns to an apartment he has not lived in for several months. There is a couple sleeping in his bed, using his things; they’ve been duped into paying rent to a man who doesn’t own the place. Who’s the visitor here: the intruding couple or the man who owns the apartment? The movie is a meditation on that and other questions about visitors, sometimes called immigrants or aliens, or maybe even illegal aliens. The star is Richard Jenkins, who performs his role so carefully that it’s almost a whisper. His character befriends the couple and then, curiously and inexplicably, learns to play the drum as a form of expression. Eventually there is an arrest and a threat of deportation, and a mother appears to give a son guidance. Again, the issue comes up: Who is the visitor? The answer is either everyone or no one, but not both.

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9. Happy-Go-Lucky

Sally Hawkins’ character in Happy-Go-Lucky, a lovable sprite named Poppy, could have been a blissful caricature. Instead it’s so real it’s heartbreaking. Mike Leigh’s movie is all about Poppy. There are other characters, but everyone and everything revolves around her. There’s no plot really, just adventures with Poppy, who lunches with friends, visits a sister, talks to a homeless man and takes driving lessons. Poppy is infectiously happy, so much that it makes others uncomfortable. Her sister views her smiles as sarcastic insults on her suburban lifestyle. The driving instructor mistakes her kindness for attraction. Everyone seems to take issue with her optimism. It’s a parable on the world we live in, where we feed off negativity. More than anything, though, it’s a character study on Poppy. And Hawkins aces it.

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10. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Director Guillermo del Toro is the visionary this age of filmmaking not only desires, but requires. He has taken an absurd story about a kitten-loving demon and made it into a rich fantasy of equal parts dream and nightmare. This is not the first time he’s toyed with our imaginations (remember Pan’s Labyrinth?) and it’s unlikely to be his last now that he heads into The Hobbit. Hellboy, played by Ron Pearlman, is a gentle giant with a mean left hook. He’s poetically glib about everything, except Liz (Selma Blair), who he adores to no end. The story is fun, and it’s told using humor and wit, but really the showpiece here is del Toro’s dark creature creations and elaborate fantasy settings.

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Honorable Mention: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Here is my guilty pleasure. It’s a Judd Apatow comedy with a third-rate star (Jason Segel) and a pointless series of romantic comedy setups. But it has heart, and it’s not afraid to break it to serve its theme. When the male and the female can finally vent to each other why their relationship never worked they come to this realization: they both failed, which is an observation that is entirely too honest for a movie this dumb to be sharing. Like Lil' Wayne sampling Chopin. Somehow, though, amid Segel's wiggling penis and Kristen Bell's winking bikinis, the movie finds a relationship's decaying soul and mercy kills it in one crushing swipe. You will hear echoes from your own failed relationships in this movie, and listening to these characters’ struggles can be cathartic. And that Dracula song from the puppet musical is the best song to emerge from a movie all year long.

Phoenix Film Critics Go Slumming

Yes, I'm still alive. It's been like 45 days and I return to what may be end of the world: Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler have new movies in previews, Tom Cruise is getting decent write-ups for his new flick, and poor Marisa Tomei deserves an Oscar for posing for this photo.

In case you're curious (you're not and it's OK), I've been away buying and renovating a house. And since my newspaper has drastically reduced my movie coverage, there's really been no reason to post new material even if I have been keeping up on the new flicks, and seeing some old ones in between. Consider this my return, though, and I shall never abandon my faithful readers (all 12 of you) again.

But before new reviews start appearing here, first some housekeeping. Here are the winners for the annual Phoenix Film Critics Society awards. The PFCS, which I've been a member of for several years, has also launched a new Web site here. Check it out. Here are the 2008 winners:

Best Picture — Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director — Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor — Sean Penn, Milk
Best Actress — Meryl Streep, Doubt
Best Supporting Actor — Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress — Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Best Acting Ensemble — Milk
Best Original Screenplay — In Bruges
Best Adapted Screenplay — Slumdog Millionaire
Best Live Action Family Film — High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Overlooked Film — In Bruges
Best Animated Film — Wall-E
Best Foreign Language Film — Let the Right One In
Best Documentary — Man on Wire
Best Original Song — "The Wrestler" from The Wrestler
Best Original Score — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Cinematography — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Film Editing — Slumdog Millionaire
Best Production Design — The Dark Knight
Best Costume Design — The Duchess
Best Visual Effects — The Dark Knight
Best Stunts — The Dark Knight
Breakout on Camera — Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Breakout Behind the Camera — Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Best Performance by a Youth (Male) — Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Performance by a Youth (Female) — Dakota Fanning, The Secret Life of Bees

Top Ten Films of 2008 (in alphabetical order):
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
In Bruges
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
The Visitor
Wall•E
The Wrestler

Buckle up for Chi

Sorry for the month-long hiatus. I just bought a house and I've been painting and remodeling before I move in. I have some cool stuff in the pipeline, like an interview with Doug Jones, who plays Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies, and last week I saw Bond's latest, Quantum of Solace, so a review is almost ready to be posted. Check back soon for full-length posts.

But before all that, I had to post something on Deftones bassist Chi Cheng, who was seriously injured in a car accident in Northern California earlier this week. According to a recent posting on the band's page by singer Chino Moreno, Chi's in serious but stable condition. Chi's mom is by his side and — like any concerned mother — has asked the band to spread the word on Chi's condition and things we can do for him. First up: wear a seatbelt. Whether Chi was wearing one or not doesn't really matter anymore, but we can all do him and ourselves a favor by strapping in before we (be quiet and) drive.

And in case you've been living in a thatched hut for the last 20 years, the Deftones are one of the most important (if also underappreciated) bands making music now. From Adrenaline's raw ferocity to White Pony's devestating grace to Saturday Night Wrist's subtle loud-soft dynamic, the Deftones not only crushed their way out of the nu-metal sludge of the ’90s but unfolded their buzzsaw sound to expose lush, delicate soundscapes that were heavy in all new directions. Chi, like the other four members of the group, played an important part of crafting the Deftones' trademark sound, which was often more remiscent of Radiohead than Korn, a band they were mistakenly slopped together with by critics and radio DJs. I've interviewed Chi a number of times on the phone and in person and he's been nothing but gracious with his time. And he always spoke highly of the music he helped create — not because that's what a band member is supposed to do, but because he was confident in his band's musical progression. It looks like Eros, the Deftones' new album, will be delayed, and rightfully so to allow Chi time to recuperate and heal.

I've heard very little religion or spirituality from the Deftones in the 14 years I've been listening, but Chino has asked all the fans to pray for Chi and his family during this "serious but stable" phase, and hopefully he'll be on the mend very soon.

Newman: A tough act to follow

Rather than add to the already widespread and universal praise for the life and career of Paul Newman, who died Sept. 26, I want to instead celebrate one film in particular. It’s my favorite film of Newman’s, one of his most popular — Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Part musical, all western, and pure Newman, Butch Cassidy is the story of two charismatic outlaws who go down in history not so much as bandits or criminals, but more as folk heroes. Newman played Butch, the rough and tumble leader of the Hole in the Wall Gang, and Robert Redford played Sundance, a gunslinger with a dangerous reputation — it was their first of two movies together and the beginning of their long friendship.

The movie has many great scenes, including a memorable train explosion (Sundance: “Use enough dynamite there, Butch?”), a wonderful musical montage to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” and a famous shootout with Bolivian bandits, where Butch admits he’s never actually killed anyone before. But you have to admire the ending, with Butch and Sundance’s last moments frozen in time, their legacy and legend preserved in grainy silence.

Butch Cassidy was one of many amazing achievements by the talented actor. Newman’s career also included courtroom dramas (The Verdict), sports comedies (Slapshot), an underrated Hitchcock thriller (Torn Curtain), a Christ allegory set in a prison (Cool Hand Luke), two stints as a pool maverick (The Hustler, The Color of Money), a gangster picture about fathers and sons (Road to Perdition), his Newman’s Own line of food products, auto racing and philanthropy. And also that iconic grin — Dragline in Luke said it best: “He was smiling … That’s right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end … That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke, he was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker.”

Here’s Newman world-shakin’ in one of my favorite scenes from Butch Cassidy:

Scene

Butch and Sundance, bank-robbing outlaws, have returned to their gang’s compound and are immediately met with contention as one of their gang members, a giant of a man named Harvey Logan, has decided to hijack the group’s leadership while Butch and Sundance were away. Butch, rightfully still the gang’s leader, doesn’t agree with the new arrangement or the showdown that’s required to settle it. The scene begins as Butch and Sundance ride up to the gang as they’re preparing to leave for a job.

Butch: Hi, News. Whatcha doin’?
News: [Nervously buckling a saddle] Oh, uh, howdy, Butch. Uh, nothing. Nothing. Howdy, Sundance.
Butch: Well, you sure? You’re doin’ something. What?
[Harvey Logan comes out of a nearby cabin and eyes Butch]
News: We’re fixing to rob the Union Pacific Flyer, Butch. That’s what we had in mind.
[Butch gets off his horse]
Butch: You fellas got everything I told you all wrong. Sure, we might hit the Flyer, but if we do it will be the return. Now Sundance and me we’ve been checking the banks ...
Harvey: No banks.
Butch: What?
Harvey: Flyer, Butch.
Butch: Fellas, bad as they are, banks are better than trains. They don’t move; they stay put. You know the moneys in there. When I left I gave orders.
Harvey: New orders been give.
Butch: Well, I run things around here, Harvey.
Harvey: Used to you did. [Harvey approaches Butch] Me now. [He points at Sundance] This don’t concern you. You tell him to stay out of it.
Butch: Well, he goes his own way like always. [Butch looks around irritated] What’s the matter with you guys. When I came here you were nothin’. You weren’t even a gang. I formed ya.
Harvey: Who says?
Butch: Well, read a clippin’, News.
News: Which one?
Butch: Any of’em.
[News takes folded papers from his vest pocket]
News: Uh, this one here is from the Salt Lake Herald: “Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall Gang struck ...”
Butch: “Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall Gang,” that’s me. You want Harvey doing your planning for ya? You want him to do your thinkin’ for ya? You want him to run things?
Butch: [Noticing News is still reading the newspaper] You can shut up now, News!
News: Oh, not yet, not until I get to the good part, Butch. “Also known to have participated in the hold-up are Flat Nose Curry and News Carver. [News flashes a toothy grin] I just love readin’ my name in the paper, Butch.
Butch: OK, so we just forget about Logan takin’ over, Flat Nose.
Flat Nose: You always said any one of us could challenge you, Butch.
Butch: Well, ’cause I figured no one would do it.
Harvey: Figured wrong, Butch.
Butch: You guys can’t want Logan!
News: Well at least he’s with us, Butch. You’ve been spending a lot of time gone.
Butch: Well, that’s because everything’s different now ...
Harvey: Guns or knives, Butch?
Butch: ... it’s harder now. You gotta prepare more.
Harvey: Guns or knives?
Butch: Neither?
Harvey: Pick.
Butch: I don’t want to shoot with you Harvey.
Harvey: [Drawing a knife from his belt] Anything you say, Butch.
Butch: [Turning to Sundance and in a low voice] Maybe there’s a way to make a profit in this. Bet on Logan.
Sundance: I would, but who’d bet on you?
Harvey: Sundance, when we’re done and he’s dead, you’re welcome to stay.
Butch: [To Sundance] Listen, I don’t mean to be a sore loser, but when it’s done, if I’m dead, kill him.
Sundance: Love to. [Sundance waves to Harvey and smiles]
[Harvey, now with his shirt off, is in a fighting stance]
Butch: No, no, not yet. Not until me and Harvey get the rules straightened out.
Harvey: Rules? In a knife fight? No rules!
[Butch winds up and kicks Harvey in the groin]
Butch: Well, if there ain’t going to be any rules, let’s get the fight started. Someone count, “1, 2, 3, go.”
Sundance: [Quickly] 1, 2, 3, go. [Butch, with his hands laced together, knocks Harvey out with a sweeping punch to the jaw]
Flat Nose: I was rooting for you all along, Butch.
Butch: Well, thank you, Flat Nose. That’s what sustained me in my time of trouble.

Another reason not to use Windows Vista

Eagle Eye asks audiences to suspend disbelief to an unfathomable level. It might preface the request with this: “Don’t most thrillers, though?” Yes, but this one deserves some kind of special plaque, a pat on the head or maybe just a footnote in cinema history for plotting impossible developments and then asking us to believe them without chuckling.

But go ahead and chuckle, because on a deeper level Eagle Eye has to know it’s ridiculous. And if it doesn’t, then the fact that it takes itself so seriously could easily be just as funny.

The movie is one of those robots-become-aware science-fiction movies. It’s less sci-fi than say The Matrix or the Terminator movies, but it involves the same concept: a computer given artificial intelligence will start to make decisions it was never intended to make, including the elimination of the human element that created it. The genre, hardly a fresh one, was probably kick-started in 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL 9000 refused to open the pod bay doors for poor Dave Bowman. Here, the computer is Eagle Eye and its purpose is to use advanced algorithms to protect the United States from terrorism. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The plot settles on Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), a perpetual loser who works at a copy store in a bad part of town. One day his normally empty bank account is overloaded with funds and his usually bare apartment is overloaded with military hardware, including weapons, all of which are iron-clad proof of terrorist activity when the FBI arrives in door-smashing mode. Of course, Jerry is framed, but the hows and whys elude him until he starts getting phone calls from an icy-cold OnStar voice that tells him when to jump, duck and get on trains.

The voice — which can contact Jerry through hijacked cell phones, electronic billboards and anything slightly less illogical than biplanes writing in smoke in the sky — guides Jerry away from capture and deeper into trouble on a mission that is never clear until he arrives at the Pentagon the evening of the State of the Union. All along the route, he meets other victims of the voice who are given equally perplexing tasks that somehow fit into a larger plot that may involve explosive crystals, a trumpet and a computer named Aria. One of the victims, and Jerry’s travel companion, is Rachel (Michelle Monaghan, Made of Honor), whose son, a young and white version of Morgan Freeman, is threatened with train derailment should she not help Jerry on his thrill-a-minute quest.

Eagle Eye reminds me a great deal of North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic adventure about an innocent man who gets wrapped up in an international espionage scandal. The man (Cary Grant), some desk jockey at an ad agency, is forced to become a spy to prove he’s not a spy, which confirmed Hitchcock’s theory that regular people are far more interesting than action heroes. LaBeouf is no Cary Grant, but he plays the character with an invigorating zeal. He did an equally commendable job last summer when he played a Jimmy Stewart role in Disturbia, which was a loose copy of Hitchcock’s Rear Window — all LaBeouf’s missing now is a horror movie at a hotel (Psycho) and detective-thriller in San Francisco (Vertigo) to complete his neo-Hitchcock canon.

What a likeable guy Shia is. I’ve interviewed him twice and both times he was so wired with energy — naturally or chemically, I don’t know — it was infectious. He seems ambitious and that oozes from his roles. He sometimes seems like a punk, but he’s a punk with depth to his performances, even if they involve talking transforming robots. There’s a moment toward the end of Eagle Eye, with LaBeouf in a police officer’s uniform running around the catacombs of the Library of Congress, when I realized LaBeouf is one of the most consistently entertaining young actors working now, and this role is no exception. Although, I would have appreciated a better ending, one that didn't use the Shoulder Wound Rule.

LaBeouf’s character is chased by some other great actors, including Rosario Dawson as an Air Force investigator and Billy Bob Thornton as a G-man who does a Hollywood first: he has an air-to-ground battle with an unmanned Predator drone in a traffic-jammed tunnel. (On a side note, Live Free or Die Hard featured almost the same idea but spread out over three different sequences.)

In terms of plausibility, Eagle Eye starts to go haywire right at the beginning when military special forces deploy a modified paper airplane to track a terrorist. Later, when Eagle Eye goes online it seems to alter everything in the known universe to get Jerry to go where it wants. How can this be when at any given time 97 percent of the world’s computers aren’t communicating properly with the printers they’re hooked up next to? So yes, this is a very smart computer. Too smart, in fact, which is why it can control buses, traffic lights, sprinkler systems, military cargo planes, automated junkyard claws and every cell phone regardless of provider or minutes of use. In terms of functionality, it even tops the intelligent jet in Stealth, which, in an effort to learn, “downloaded the Internet … all of it.”

The actual hardware of Eagle Eye is housed 36 floors beneath the Pentagon in what looks like one of Tesla’s electric current experiments. Inexplicably, it’s stored over a lake of water, which makes me question its intelligence, but nevermind. It freely quotes the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, yet somehow still justifies killing people with high-voltage lines and 18-wheelers. Once the film establishes the power and the reach of the all-knowing computer, I found myself longing for a human villain instead of this floating computer orb.

But see, therein lies the dilemma with computer villains: they are flawed, often more so, than human characters. I have one of those GPS navigation systems in my car. It’s ingenious: it can not only tell me how to get somewhere and by what route, but also the arrival time within a couple of minutes. It maps any road in the United States, even some outback goat paths, and it can talk to me in 15 different languages including Suomi, which is the official language of Finland. But as clever as it is, sometimes the damn thing tells me to drive around a city block when I’m 30 yards from my destination. Sometimes, when at red lights, it shows that I’m parked past the intersection or at the next light. No computer system will be perfect, yet Eagle Eye’s is perfection personified, a technological marvel of the ages, which is why it doesn't work — it's too unrealistic.

As dopey-smart as Eagle Eye’s villain is, though, the movie has some killer stunts, a fast-moving pace and relentless action. Some of the chase sequences feature that Bourne Ultimatum hyper-editing style that’s likely to cause a seizure; I hate that style, but I’m in the minority ever since Bourne won an editing Oscar back in March. I’ve really railed on some of the plot elements, but I had a good time and found LaBeouf’s presence amid the mayhem an enjoyable factor. Just don’t go into Eagle Eye expecting to come out any smarter.

Celebrities/Naked: The Search Destroyers

There are no naked celebrities on this page so feel free to click away if you reached this blog by mistake. No hard feelings.

Two weeks ago Roger Ebert wrote about the brilliant little SiteMeter he put on his blog — take a look at the bottom of this page if you haven't seen one yet. I had a SiteMeter before his post, so I was stoked to read his comments, which reinforced the little gadget's curious skills. The little green button links to its home base, where it tracks visitors to this page. It catalogs their visit: how long they stayed, where they came from and where they left to. It's completely anonymous except for a little blip that will appear on a world map indicating where the click originated, be it northeast Phoenix or Norway. One list on SiteMeter, called referrals, shows the page the visitor was on when they clicked onto this page. Sometimes the pre-PickupFlix page is a Yahoo or Google search. Incidentally, SiteMeter has a funny little trick to its cataloging: it preserves the original search criteria of the visitor. So not only can I see that they visited my site, but that they clicked into it after searching for "Humphrey Bogart movies" or "great cop flicks." Or maybe the occasional "Marisa Tomei nude."

Yes, there are lots of people looking for porn on the net. Apparently some get sent to my page which is 100 percent porn-free. I first noticed this lost-porn-surfer phenomenon after naming a non-nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens "tween," which sent droves of assistant principals to this page to see Miss Hudgens sans clothes. Creepy indeed. (I've since renamed the photo, by the way.) One variation on the "tween" search was "tweens nude," which my blog was able to keep up with since, three posts before the one with Hudgens, I had used the word "nude" to describe a plot element in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Yahoo and Google have a hard time analyzing the distance between searched words apparently, so as long as "nude" and "(insert your favorite female celebrity's name here)" appear on the same page it counts them as if they appeared in the same sentence.

The phenomenon came up again after running a piece on rapper and pop superstar M.I.A., less commonly known as Mathangi Arulpragasam. She played the 2007 Vegoose music festival, where I was photographing her. Shortly after her set (like 2 seconds) I decided she was the hottest thing on the planet. I'm sidetracking, but I write that only to underscore her abilities to charm men out of their socks. Anyway, the piece ran last December, yet every week I get a lovely array of Mathangi Arulpragasam searches. Here's a small cross section of some of the searches: "MIA topless," "MIA nip slip," "MIA sex video," "MIA bra flash," "MIA crotch shot," and all kinds of variations of "MIA nude" and "MIA naked," because apparently there's a difference. Now, let me again clarify something: It would be delightful to see M.I.A. naked, but until M.I.A. actually comes to my door to remove her clothing for a visual inspection by me then I'm going to assume that she does not want me to see her in nothing but her skin. So I just kinda skip the internet treasure hunt for Mathangi Arulpragasam nip slips and sex videos.

That, of course, doesn't stop hundreds of others who cozy up in front of their computers to begin their nightly searches of "Megan Fox lesbian video" or "Zooey Deschanel no panties." Curiously, I've yet to have anyone land on Pick-Up Flix after they've searched for "Laura Dern nip slips," "Kathy Bates hot tub video" or "Christina Aguilera breastfeeding in clown makeup." And, yes, I realize that by including these searchable phrases in this text that I'm increasing the chances of random porn seekers landing on this page instead of their beloved nude sites. It doesn't matter because they stopped reading a long time ago; in fact, they stopped reading as soon as they didn't see any "Jenna Fischer see-through dress" photos, which would be rad but, alas, they don't exist. Yet.

But going back to M.I.A., if I had to talk about a winner this summer it would be her. She didn't release a movie, or even a new album, but her "Paper Planes" in the Pineapple Express trailer was brilliant on a level that I have yet to define in any sort of articulate way. I loved the video and its catchy song so much that I sorta regretted watching the movie when I could have just watched the trailer again.

Language Abides

Remove one element from every Coen Brothers movie — indeed the exact same element from each — and what you’re left with is normal, run-of-the-mill movies of no great importance, mediocre flicks that garner sub-par reviews and moderate box-office takes.

Yes, their direction is exceptionally good, but in each of their movies the writing/directing duo weave one thing throughout their stories, one thing that unites all the characters with all the plot devices, one thing that exaggerates and manipulates the story just enough to make a basic story so utterly profound and diabolically sinister. That element: language. It’s the way the characters talk, the way they syntax their sentences, that twitchy diction, those Southern drawls, those glib jabs and frustrated burps of dialogue. The Coens don’t just direct great talkers, they write great talkers. Their scripts are full of colorful characters, nearly every one of which has an interesting manner in which he or she communicates.

Look at any of their works, even the early ones. Look at Raising Arizona, that madcap comedy that somehow manages to wring laughs out of child abduction of all subjects. Listen to the way Holly Hunter squeals at her no-good husband, the way she blasts through her thoughts in stammering run-ons and then howls those elongated syllables. All Nic Cage can do is grumble and fumble back, pecking out his lines like they were unwanted chores assigned to him. Cage and Hunter are talented performers, but these lines were not written nor directed by them. They may have breathed life into them, but they were spawned by the Coens, magicians of the English language, virtuosic players of the spoken word.

Raising Arizona is the absolute tip of the iceberg. Listen to Tim Robbins in The Hudsucker Proxy, confident and jeering in those crisp suits and that inflated ego. Listen to every character in O Brother, Where Art Thou? — those Southern twangers, gulping hillbillies, magnetic simpletons and Holly Hunter, who returns to utter what may be the most convincing non-sensical line in Coen history (“He’s bona fide.”) Listen to one of their more mediocre films, The Ladykillers, where a Tom Hanks pulls a Col. Sander-like baritone bravado with a highfalutin gentleman of the bayou. Listen to No Country for Old Men, in which Tommy Lee Jones uses a back-country form of English so effectively it transcends acting altogether; he speaks his words like he’s lived them. We could go on for several more movies (two more at great length below), but the point is that Joel and Ethan Coen use their characters’ language — tempo, timbre, tone, saliva, pauses, coughs and … everything — to heighten the detail and impact of their stories. Credit also goes the actors who breathe life into the dialogue; indeed, casting is as important to a Coen film as the manner of speech of the characters. But really the origins of the greatness exist long before the films are ever cast. The two examples that best show the style the Coens utilize were released about two years apart and each redefined they way people viewed these two talented writers and directors — The Big Lebowski, released in 1998, and Fargo, released in 1996.

First, let us consider Fargo, a movie of surprising detail and scope considering its setting is a white-empty canvas and it takes place in remote, lifeless locations. Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is a police chief and she’s very pregnant. She speaks in an accent I’ve since learned is called Minnesota Nice; it’s almost too comical to be real, but I’ve since found out it is a very real dialect. Roger Ebert, who was forgivably critical of the language in Raising Arizona in his 1987 review, wrote it best in one of his Great Movies essays: “Marge Gunderson is one of a handful of characters whose names remain in our memories, like Travis Bickle, Tony Manero, HAL 9000, Fred C. Dobbs. They are completely, defiantly themselves in movies that depend on precisely who they are. Marge is the chief in Brainerd, Minn., still has bouts of morning sickness, eats all the junk food she can get her hands on, speaks in a ‘you betcha’ Minnesota accent where ‘yeah,’ pronounced ya, is volleyed like a refrain.” Roger goes on, praising the acting, directing and especially the method of the dialogue.

Marge has this way about her: very soft-spoken and friendly, prone to strange bouts of regional slang (“There in a jif.”) and her language colors her with so much more detail. The way she communicates with people is so effective that Jerry Lundegaard, the man who orchestrates the bulk of the plot, finds it uncomfortable and invading, especially since he’s guilty of a lot more than he’s admitting to. Marge appears late in the movie, and before we get to hear her wonderful “I think I’m gonna barf” line we are able to communicate openly with many other characters, including Carl (Steve Buscemi), a man so obsessed with communicating with his near-mute partner that it becomes test of wills. At one point he tries to respond about a car in an intelligent way, gets frustrated, trips over his words and simply says, “Ah fuck it, let’s take a look at the Sierra” — in a sense, his limits to communication have been breached and he throws his hands up in defeat. This is one of many interesting examinations of the movie’s language. Consider later when Carl’s shot in the mouth, a clear assault on his verbal communication skills. And all the while his partner is silent, and those associated with him, like Shep Proudfoot, can only respond in monosyllables. Every character in this movie is given a device in their language. Jerry, who was hurt by his father-in-law’s words (“Gene and Scotty will never have to worry,” he says implying his money is no good for Jerry), communicates in lies, in “bold-face lies” making his language an integral part of his manipulations. Later, when he’s setting up another lie, the Coens allow him to practice his language before making that fateful and deceptive phone call to his father-in-law. Jerry and several other characters are given other forms of communication, too: they beat on iced windows, bang on snowy TV sets and slam the contents of a desk — clearly their mouths can’t express what boils over inside them.

The Coens use these devices in almost literary ways, and they are backed up by the images on the screen. Notice the bleak high-angle parking lot shot as Jerry walks to his car to bang on his window. It isn’t just a wonderful shot designed to amuse our eyes; it shows us how isolated and alone Jerry has become. Notice the tracks in the snow run opposite those Jerry’s car; it’s as if he were traveling against the film’s flow, grating past his moral limits and interrupting the lives of those around him. Language is important to Fargo not just because it transports us to Fargo and Brainerd, the home of Paul Bunyan, but because it transports us into the cop’s quaint lifestyle, the car salesman’s bitter plight, the kidnapper’s lonely assignment, and the murderer’s nihilistic rage. There has been some dissenting opinion on this with regards to Fargo. For instance, consider the writing of reporter James Lileks, who is actually from Fargo and found the accent of the characters as annoying and superficial as the film’s violence. He writes: “People in Minneesohta do talk that way, ya know. Yes, it’s funny to hear people plot, you know, that murder-type deal there in an accent better suited for swapping hot-dish recipes. I don’t think the accent is inherently funny, but that’s because it’s familiar … The real problem was the audience. I saw Fargo in Minneapolis, a supper-hour showing at the Mall of America. Behind us was a couple in their sixties who apparently had chosen this movie based on the title. Perhaps they expected a western. When characters started cussing, I could hear legs being crossed and uncrossed. When the policeman was brainer’d, there was a slight sigh of disappointment. Half an hour into the film, I heard the woman whisper: ‘Well, this is different.’ … In Fargo-speak, that means this is a raw horror blown straight from Satan’s colon, and any decent person would disapprove. I was embarrassed for them. And for me as well. It was a replay of those trying moments when you rent a videotape to watch with your parents, and suddenly the characters are naked and having sex.”

But to counter his response, he doesn’t have the luxury of being not from Fargo like most of the viewers of the movie, most of whom will find the dialogue to be expressive and a defining factor of the film. Language — not just what is said but how it is said — allows us inside the turbulent world of characters that can’t be unfolded just by looking at them. The Coens have mastered it with every picture.

The other film, The Big Lebowski, follows a similar approach. The movie, an inside-out deviation of the film noir — it asks the question: What if Sam Spade were a loser bowler? — not only created a believable world for its eccentric characters to flourish, but it nourished and enriched a growing cult following that now call The Dude an unlikely saint (St. Duder, maybe). The Coens took what could have been any one of James M. Cain’s pulpy detective stories and flipped it on its head and then blew bong hits in its face. And it did this using language. Deadbeats have been in film noir before: Detour, for instance, had a famous deadbeat, as did The Killers. But never has a deadbeat been given so much meaningless dialogue before in a film noir. Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski is a cursing, existential nobody. He has a rug that “really ties the room together,” calls the bowling alley a home away from home, has spliffs that tumble from his pockets when he leaves change for coffee, consumes glass after glass of White Russians, and oh I can’t forget, his Creedence collection in his heap of a car. But more than anything, he has his mouth, a ranting hole of mindless philosophy, deliberate stupidity and simple brilliance.

The Coens have since said The Dude really exists, but I doubt he was this philosophical or crude with his tongue. In Fargo everyone speaks in turns; in Lebowski the dialogue overlaps three and four times creating tapestries of voices and ideas. While Dude rants Walter rants louder and Donny, who wears bowling shirts with every name but his own (proving his ghost-like status in the film), chimes in with question. Donny’s chatter always produces the same response from Walter: “Shut the fuck up, Donny.” It’s language as a weapon, which happens throughout the film with Walter, who intimidates and hurts with his words. Other performances: the nihilists with their cruddy English and thick German clicks, Big Lebowski’s assistant who uses his swollen Harvard language to promote himself and his employer, Maude and her faux British elitism, and finally Maude’s friend (David Thewlis) who uses giggles to stab at Dude’s eardrums. The dialogue is even self-referential: “Do you speak English,” Big Lebowski says to The Dude; later we’re explained words, that sex is coitus and coitus is sex; not long after we’re told men fear the word “vagina”; and when the stranger (Sam Elliott) makes one of his quick appearances he asks if the dude has to swear so much. Speaking of the stranger, he translates stuff into his own vernacular — “I ain’t never been to France, and I ain’t never seen the queen in her damned undies either …” The Coens are manipulating language for our benefit, otherwise what they would have given us would have been a basic, even boring, mystery.

The way the Coens write dialogue is important and by looking at how things are said, in what manner, in what speed and in what tone, we can analyze and come to our own conclusions about what they’re trying to tell us. Whether it be Marge Gunderson or The Dude, language can diagnose their agenda, rip through the plot to reveal the methods and tactics of their players, and the language cuts through the genre to reveal truly intelligent and important filmmaking, the kind we talk about — and quote — for years to come.

Another critic bites the dust

Hooray free time!

Really, though, what else is there to say? I've been canned. At least from movie reviews. In this crap market, in this shit newspaper era, in this colon-reaming bout of dysentery we call an economy, what room do newspapers have for movie critics? The answer: none. And that's why critics across the country are getting pink slips, buyouts or, like me, restructured beat lists. Even Roger Ebert's long-running show was given the boot for something a third as intelligent, thus five times more sellable to a TV-watching America. If Ebert's not safe, and big-name critics at big-name papers in big-name cities aren't safe, then what hope does little Michael Clawson of the community weekly the West Valley View have? Apparently some, although that's now fading … for now. Frankly, I'm surprised I was allowed to write movie reviews through the summer.

So here's the skinny: I was told that my movie reviews would no longer be needed until ad revenue increases and page counts go up. It sucks, but I'm just grateful I still have a job (I'm also a photog and I write Volume). The movies aren't gone completely, though: reviews of "big movies" are allowed. The logic of that single instruction should make most movie critics chuckle. Hmmm, big movies … Transformers is a big movie, but it's also one of the most mindless movies ever created, too. And No Country For Old Men is a classic, but clearly not a big movie, even if it did win the Best Picture Oscar. But I get what the bosses are saying: review the movies that most of America is going to show up to see. Why give space to a movie that, yes, will win Academy Awards and be on year-end Top 10 lists, but won't be seen by 97 percent of the movie-going public?

I'm taking this news remarkably well: No anger. No hatred. No frustration. This time of year helps. The first review I didn't have to write was Death Race ... hallelujah! Had it been Wall•E or The Dark Knight I would have sobbed at my desk. How can I be mad, though? Yeah, it's miserable that the movie section I built up over eight years has been shelved, but if no movies is my sacrifice to my paper then so be it. I've read that when a person is submerged in freezing water their body senses the temperature change and, in a defensive move, begins shutting off circulation to expendable parts of the body. Heart rate slows, fingers and toes go numb, breathing slows, but the body is trying to right itself, or at least weather through the storm. I love movies to death, but I'm not afraid to admit that movie reviews are fingers and toes — expendable.

America has too little film analysis and genuine critique, two things I've always strived for in my writing; reviews are too often random commentary about the stars' nip-slips and what they wore on the red carpet at the premier. There will be a time when I can once again offer film analysis in the West Valley View. My days aren't over. To quote Ahhnold: "I'll be back." In the meantime, as many reviews as I can do will be posted here. And look for other features as well. I'll weather this storm and when I'm back in print I'll be better than ever.

Military correspondence: Dye in The Pacific

Captain Dale Dye has been to war. So when he speaks of authenticity and realism in war movies he’s not just referencing some petty idea that he’s morphed into grandiose film philosophy. No, to him authenticity and realism are the culmination of his entire war experience, the embodiment of a career living and breathing combat.

The retired Marine Corps captain, who saw plenty of real action in Vietnam, has taken the vast history of warfare and his own combat experience and used them to consult big-time Hollywood directors on war pictures, first with Oliver Stone’s semi-autobiographical Platoon and nearly every war movie filmed since then, from Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. And because Captain Dye, with his distinguished silver hair and drill sergeant voice, still lives and breaths the military lifestyle, he’s often cast in the films he consults on — he memorably played Col. Robert F. Sink in HBO’s Band of Brothers and an assassination conspirator in JFK.

After Platoon, Dye formed Warriors Inc., a consulting firm that guides Hollywood productions as they undertake war, combat and military themes. Some of the pictures he’s consulted on haven’t really been war films: Alexander, Forrest Gump, JFK, Starship Troopers and Tropic Thunder, which is now in theaters and is a slight exaggeration, almost spoof, of the Captain's job. The company is mostly known for Dye — or officers below him in the ranks — taking actors like Sean Penn, Michael J. Fox and Tom Hanks to a pre-filming boot camp where they clean machine guns, rumble through pre-dawn runs, undergo daily calisthenics regimens and eat K-rations. Dye’s thoughts are this: An actor can’t be a soldier until he’s lived like a soldier.

Besides consulting on films, Captain Dye is an actor, a military historian and a sharp-witted author, whose prose takes military jargon and adds colorful new versions of swear words that only a Marine could invent. He has a new book about his Vietnam experiences due soon, and he regularly writes on his Warriors Inc. Web site, where he shares stories from films, including one where Tom Hanks hit him where it counts with a dummy hand grenade.

Captain Dye is currently in Australia filming the sister piece to Band of Brothers, The Pacific, for HBO. He corresponded via e-mail with Volume.

— Michael Clawson

Volume: A vast majority of people think of World War II as only the European front — us against the Nazis. Even major films (with a few notable exceptions) tend to focus on the struggle in Europe as opposed to the battle in the Pacific. Will this be a learning experience to viewers who may not understand what went on in the Pacific?
Dale Dye: Historic touchstones such as Pearl Harbor and Iwo Jima aside, much of today’s audience does think of World War II in terms of the struggle against Germany and her Axis partners in the European Theater of Operations. Do a little digging into the history of the period and that will be understandable. Not proper or appropriate, but understandable. When America entered the Second World War in 1941, there was a tacit agreement among the Allies that the primary focus would be on defeating Hitler and the Nazis. Imperial Japan would be dealt with in due course, but first the continent from which most American families originated had to be saved. Hence, press coverage and public attention was focused on that theater of war and Pacific operations were a sort of public after-thought. There’s another issue involved in this also: The war in Europe was relatively conventional, confined to familiar areas and waged against an enemy that looked like us and for the most part fought like us. It was an entirely different deal in the Pacific where war was waged in remote areas that most people had never heard of against an entirely unconventional enemy that most definitely did not fight like us. War in the Pacific was hard to understand, generally under-reported and brutal in the extreme. We are dealing with those issues in the new mini-series and I believe The Pacific will be a sobering — perhaps even shocking — look at Marine Corps operations during World War II. It’s as different from Band of Brothers as it can be but just as powerful and insightful.

Volume: With Germany’s Ost battalions (made up of captured Soviet soldiers), pockets of unmotivated fighters and soldiers who were sometimes too young or too old, the war in Europe could have been much deadlier for the Allies. The Japanese were formidable opponents, though, as deadly as we could imagine. Why do you think we won?
DD: We won against Japan because we were flexible and innovative where they were dogmatic and slow to adjust to rapidly changing battlefield realities. We won because we were able to apply the power of American industrial might against their more backward industrial techniques and lack of raw materials. We won because we could maintain and defend our logistical supply lines across vast ocean areas and they could not. We won because we were willing to bypass strong bastions in the Pacific and let the Japanese defenders wither on the vine while they insisted on trying to defend every square inch of conquered territory. We won because we believed that metal is cheaper than meat. We won because we fought smart with an eye to preserving life where they fought stubbornly but stupidly with little regard for preserving their combat power in desperate situations. We won because we fielded combat formations that contained a strong corps of enlisted leaders who could take over and continue the fight when officers became casualties and the Japanese military hierarchy had no such functional middle class.

Volume: For The Pacific did you take your actors through your famous boot camp training? If so, any highlights from the experience?
DD: No project of this scope and scale could be done without building a solid, functional military unit that can — and will — do anything required over a long, grueling shooting schedule. Well, I suppose you could do it, but not to our exacting and demanding standards. When we got word that HBO had agreed to do this series early in 2008, we immediately began to construct a training schedule that would turn our actors and special ability extras into a credible, capable reflection of World War II combat Marines. Along with the technical stuff about period weapons and tactics, we always include a heavy dose of physical training and that includes long distance runs during which we sing and chant some fairly bawdy lyrics. These runs usually happen early in the morning when sane people are still sleeping. During our two-week training period in the rain forests of Far North Queensland, Australia, we usually ran along a county road that passed near several pastures in which cattle were grazing. Apparently Australian cows get a little skittish when a unit of ninety or so Marines in training come tromping by screaming at the top of their heaving lungs. As a result, I was forced to spend many long nights in the field writing “bovine trauma reports” for the lawyers before I could carry on with night activities. I just may be getting a little old and cranky for that sort of stuff.

Volume: Going broader now, onto movies and projects in general: Have you seen all the major war movies? Now, I’m not asking you to bash other filmmakers’ works, but have you seen any movies, old or new, that could have greatly benefited from your work as a military consultant? I imagine that The Sands of Iwo Jima would have been a much better film under your consultation.
DD: I certainly haven’t seen them all but I’ve seen a fair portion of what’s been made. I make it my business to do that and I have always been a fan of war movies anyway, for obvious reasons given my background. Given what I know now, I think all of them that I’ve seen could have been improved — and not just with better movie-making technology or computer-generated imagery. There are so many that play fast and loose with reality, mainly because audiences didn’t demand a heightened level of realism and filmmakers didn’t believe anyone would know the difference anyway. That wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. In the end it’s all a matter of supply and demand. What audiences demand is what Hollywood delivers. That changes with time and technology. And it has certainly changed since they began to listen to my advice.

Volume: Because you’ve served in Vietnam, a Vietnam film that is not authentic is probably borderline offensive. From your point of view, why is authenticity in war movies so important?
DD: Worldwide we have become a media-saturated society. The advent of constant news cycles in TV, live coverage of breaking events and dramatic advances in photography has made us much more aware of what things look like. We can’t expect people to watch a pitched battle live from Fallujah or Baghdad on the network news or CNN and then pay to enjoy a film about that fighting that doesn’t look like what they just saw on TV before they left home for the theater. Extend that concept to cable outlets such as The History Channel, or reflections of wars people have seen in magazines or books and you’ve compounded the problem. The short answer is that we know much more now about the reality of war than we ever have in the past. If what we see in films doesn’t reflect what we know from other media, there’s a disconnect that interferes with our enjoyment of the story.

Volume: As someone who’s been to war, you don’t seem opposed to working on films that may be viewed as anti-war, like Platoon or Saving Private Ryan, both of which show us the absurdity of war. How do you feel about films being used as a platform to speak out against war?
DD: I’m a firm believer in the adage that no one hates war worse than the people who have fought one. And I certainly don’t believe that I allow myself to be “used” as a conduit for generic anti-war messages. I understand, as do most rational and moderately well informed people, that wars are blight and a horrible waste of human lives. They are also the nature of our human beast and unlikely to ever disappear completely as long as societies differ politically and culturally with one side or another refusing to live and let live. Given that reality, a strong and capable military is a necessity for survival. I focus on the selfless people who fight wars when such events become necessary or advisable in the view of national leadership. When a film I help make or a story I’m involved in telling exposes political chicanery, failed diplomacy or just plain dumb-ass worldview, so be it. I believe in celebrating soldiers, not war.

Volume: Many of the movies that have come out about our current war in Iraq have been largely dramas that focus on the human element as opposed to the military element. When do you think we’ll see movies about the fighting itself? When is it appropriate to begin making those movies?
DD: With some notable recent exceptions that are primarily anti-administration political screeds, no recently made film has dealt on a battlefield level with the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan. That’s not going to hold for long but it will likely hold at least until there is some view of how those situations will resolve for better or worse. Studio money managers are conflicted about these conflicts. They don’t know whether or not to believe people will pay to see a story about a misunderstood or unpopular war. Are the guys and gals doing the fighting heroes? Or villains? It depends on your political point of view and that doesn’t provide much reassurance that an expensive movie project will draw big box office. Before too long, someone will be brave enough to fund a story that stays with a fighting unit, examines their life and times and doesn’t cross into political areas. There are some good scripts out there right now and I hope we can work on one of them in the near future. The modern military deserves such a spotlight and I hope we can help shine it on them.

Volume: When you begin working with actors, what is usually the first thing they must be broken of? I’m sure they don’t get to carry a cell phone during your boot camp, right?
DD: No cell phones and no contact with the world outside our training area whatsoever. It’s full immersion and that the only way it works. We put these people in an alternate reality and press it home — all the way and all the time — from the time we first meet them to the final scenes of the film. That’s our method. It ain’t broke so I’m not about to fix it. The first and most difficult chore working with actors is to get them to understand that in a military outfit they are not the center of the universe; the sun does not rise and set on them. This is tough because most actors are so understandably self-centered and concerned with themselves — it’s just the nature of their beast. We work to get them to see another reality. We teach them that they are simply a small cog in a very large military machine and that the performance of the unit is much more important than the performance of any individual.

Volume: I think when people say Platoon or Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan are masterpieces, yes they’re commenting on the scripts and the acting and the directing and everything else. But because they’re war movies, they’re also commenting on the authenticity, which is paramount to everything else. Don’t be modest: How important is what you do for films?
DD: I think what we do is crucial and our success seems to indicate that smart filmmakers also understand this. A good story and exciting film techniques are critical to success, but you can’t expect to tell that story or justify those techniques through people who don’t understand what they are portraying. Most directors we work with also understand the relationship between a sense of reality and dramatic storytelling and that makes us partners in synergy. If a producer or director doesn’t understand that or doesn’t care about it, they are unlikely to ask for our help.
Volume: You’ve done a number of films that weren’t necessarily war pictures. Is it nice to break away from the battlefield every now and again?
DD: I’m always anxious for a little break from a constant diet of military films. As an actor I’m always on the lookout for roles that will get me out of a uniform but they are few and far between. If there’s a firmly typecast actor in Hollywood, it’s got to be me. I also welcome films such as Roughriders, Starship Troopers or Alexander that let us get into history or science-fiction a bit and experiment with things we don’t normally do. Interestingly, we have also worked as advisers in video games, themed entertainment and music videos so we’re not very often bored.

Volume: Maybe you can settle a fun disagreement I’ve had with another movie critic here in Phoenix: I think the way Tom Hanks wore his helmet in Private Ryan, with his officer’s bars in front, is correct. A colleague of mine disagrees, saying that officers wore their helmets backward to hide the bars from German snipers. Who is correct?
DD: You both are. There is no definitive correct answer. We researched this heavily during the production and talked with a great number of D-Day veterans. The truth is that it depended entirely on the unit you belonged to during the landings and the subsequent fighting inland from the beaches. Some COs ordered their officers to wear rank conspicuously so that troops could find and rally on their leaders in the confusion. Some commanders wanted their leadership preserved, so they ordered officers to hide the rank. We made a decision to have Tom wear his rank insignia on his helmet because it was not wrong according to our research and because it helped to identify our star performer in the fog of battle.

Volume: I’ve always liked the story of the Bridge at Remagen and how the United States entered Germany. Are there any great untold stories from World War II; maybe you have a favorite.
DD: In my view there are about as many great-untold stories from WWII as there are veterans of that conflict. We’ll never hear them all much less be able to make films about them. I’m just happy to have been involved in a few that are representative and popular with audiences who don’t know much about that aspect of our history. I’d love to see a film made about the epic battle for Tarawa in the Pacific or about the capture of the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine in the ETO. Clint Eastwood’s recent efforts aside, I’m also convinced we should make a film about the capture of Iwo Jima that focuses on the battle and the Marines who fought it from the landings to the end or organized resistance.

Volume: Focusing in on Warriors Inc.: when the company gets a script or a project, what’s the first things that’s done? Do you right away read through the script and look for ways to increase realism without sacrificing the story?
DD: We approach each project carefully and cautiously because there are typically a lot of delicate egos involved. If it’s trash and can’t be saved or the producers and director don’t care about any sense of reality, we’ll simply pass and move on to something else. That’s not to say we won’t work on science fiction or comedy. We love that stuff, but if the script purports to be about real people or real events, we start making notes to see what we might change, add or subtract, to make it better entertainment without turning it into a documentary. Given our track record to date, we can usually make points with the right people and get things changed or modified.

Volume: What kinds of things do directors usually fight you on when it comes to showing military elements on film? Is there anything you’ve fought hard to preserve in a picture?
DD: What I’ve fought hardest to preserve on film is a fair and unflinching look at soldiers and the reality of combat. That’s been our stated goal since we began this thing some twenty-odd years ago. Directors fight me on all sorts of things such as not wanting their stars to get military haircuts and not wanting people in combat to maintain a proper interval so they can get more of them into a frame. It’s a constant surge of give and take for us. We pick our battles and fight them when appropriate. We always understand that we are not making documentaries and the director needs to have the latitude to take certain creative licenses. If we didn’t understand that we’d never be employed.

Volume: What is the future of war movies on film?
DD: Filmmakers will always return to the well and make war movies. Hemingway was right when he said war is man’s greatest adventure. It’s also a genre that can — and most often does — involve the entire range of human emotions, strengths and frailties. That makes for good drama, pathos, comedy and even romance. What’s the downside?

Volume: Do you enjoy what you do?
DD: At my age I certainly wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. I love the aspect of my work that provides me with an opportunity to celebrate the life and times of people who have gone in harm’s way and selflessly faced danger or death simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. I understand that spirit from personal experience and I think it’s a bright, shining truth of the human drama. That’s worth contemplating and exposing to the world through popular media. As long as I can do it, I will. And when I’m gone, I hope the successors I’ve trained and coached in Warriors Inc. will carry it on for all of us.

***Parts of this interview originally ran in the West Valley View Aug. 19, 2008.***