Two daysago, I wrote a rection piece about Ridley Scott’s being named director for an upcoming Alien prequel. Today, Variety is reporting that Steven Spielberg haschosen his next picture asdirector, an adaptation of the 1944 Mary Chase play, Harvey. Most audiences will remember the story from the 1950 film of the same namestarring, quite memorably, Jimmy Stewart. So here we have next projectdecisions from two towering cinema institutions: Spielberg and Scott. You already know what I think about the whole Alien thing. What do I make of this? Glad you asked.

Any IMDb troll worth his or her salt knows that following Mr. Spielberg’s next film is a game so confusing and full of deceit that it is better to just sitand wait for announcement such as this one. For example, his Abraham Lincoln project has been in the works forever. I personally prefer it this way. For a director as formidable as him, I’d rather not know what he has coming down the pipe. It only adds to the whole “Spilebergian” mystique. But now we know the next film.

The question that must be asked is does the world really need another incarnation of Harvey? Probably not, but there also isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t have one, right? We’re content to watch so many other remakes and redos and reboots, what’s the big deal about one more? The biggest problem with a director making the wrong choice is that he only has a limited amount of years to make films; any missteps waste years in which better films could be made. So who is to say that this is the right or wrong choice? Well, Mr.Spielberg himself.

The biggest piece that I left out of the Ridley Scott article was that these A-list directors are in a position to make whatever they want. Where younger up and comers may get wedged into a particular project for the money or the connections, an established director can think long and hard about the projects he wants to take on. So while it is all well and good for us to comment from the sidelines, we should also be at least excited that these people see something in these projects that propels them into the director’schair. Why is Mr. Spielberg taking on Harvey? Why is Mr. Scott rejoining the Alien franchise? Because they see something wonderful, and in time, that vision will be shared with us.

All that being said, I feel totally secure sitting here on my tuffet, eating my curds and whey, giving Spielberg the stink-eye (one eyebrow raised) and saying “Harvey? Really? Uhhhhhhhh-reeeeally?” That’s what separates the twoof us. While I can blog my cynical thoughts away, he gets to wake up and make whatever the hell he wants. Good for you Steve, just please don’t cast Tom Hanks in the lead; your Frank Capra-Jimmy Stewart relationship has come far enough.

Guest poster Sunrise Tippeconnie is a filmmaker currently living in Oklahoma City. He is an old friend of the candler blog who also dabbles in film criticism and history. You can read more of his work in [Sooner Cinema: Oklahoma Goes to the Movies](http://www.amazon.com/Sooner-Cinema-Oklahoma- Goes-Movies/dp/0981710514/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249039848&sr=8-1). We hope to see more of Sunrise on the candler blog in the future.

There are three questions that immediately come up about this picture. 1. Is it a “passing of the torch” film? 2. Is it film a masterpiece? 3. Is it funny?

Let’s answer the last question first. Funny People is exactly what the title suggests, it is about people, and not about being funny. To be direct, the film is funny but it is definitely not a [traditional] comedy. In fact the concept of the film being a comedy (specifically a crossbreed of two subgenres: the Adam Sandler and the Judd Apatow comedy) is a complex idea that reaches into anthropologic study in the vein of the Hal Ashby’s Being There. Sandler’s character George Simmons finds out in one of the first (and almost rushed) scenes at blank range that he has cancer. Comedy and death immediately call up another analysis of a comedic master: Chaplin in Monsiuer Verdoux (and we all know how the audience loved that film, despite it’s ranking as a masterpiece).

Yet, while the themes of death reign, Apatow’s analysis yields that being a star in the Hollywood system provides no success in finding the “happy ending” designed in any of the films actually made within it. In fact, any happy ending that resides within Funny People is tragedy in disguise, which of course is the true root of the finest comedy, and just happens to suggest that any “torch-bearing” carries with it the false promises of infinity.

Just as the walls of the film are lined with creative greats from Jimi Hendrix to Rodney Dangerfield, the time of these greats has passed and there will be no other like them. This does not mean that there was any attempt at torch- passing, there might just be someone whom believes that Lenny Kravitz is reincarnation, but most of us do not, and Funny People says that is okay. In fact the film, following the rules of a Sandler comedy, provides great comedian cameos, although they function so much more eloquently: Paul Reiser’s discussion of missed limelight over making his family laugh is no real conflict for him at all, and that in fact reveals the great truth of any Sandler film: life is the most important thing after family.

As Simmons struggles to comprehend the true worth of life, Seth Rogen’s character, Ira Wright, is introduced to these ideas early in his attempts to climb the star ladder so that he can find salvation before falling into the star-fucker trap he sees in his idol Simmons. So to answer the first question: Seth Rogen’s character Ira Wright does not like the choices he must make to survive in the world of successful Hollywood stars, even though he is on the verge of stardom himself. After the end of the film there is a good chance that his character might walk away from the trappings of Hollywood success for things that be believes in more: doing the right thing (which in the case of any Sandler film is proving that solidification of family is more important than any “success” implied by a “happy ending”).

Sandler walking away from this film with no one to carry on a legacy is a hard thing to digest when everyone should be laughing and the set-up suggests such a torch-passing. Cancer is on the mind, and it’s a slow death by show- business. Any implications that someone is going to get laid in the film also carries with it the strain of “star-fucker”, the strange compulsion that copulation with someone famous brings you closer to something infinite. There is literally nothing further than the truth, and every character in the film searches for this physical equivalent for the infinite, when it only resides in a connection that holds no potential for such a “star-fucker” relationship. When the fragile state of Simmons’ and Wright’s friendship comes to terms with the possibility of end, there is no struggle to maintain stardom and the “happy ending” dreams of immortality.

Yet, the final implications of Apatow’s analysis suggests that comedy serves not a as a device for escape from pain, but a constant reminder that these pains are just as much a part of life as the joys that life can bring. Again, the rules of a Sandler picture ring. If his picture can call both the pain and joy to mind over the formalistic and historic properties of comedy (or film), then any Sandler film is a masterpiece. [Of course it’s a little too late to tell you that I am biased about question number two, since “Adam Sandler” is a hero of mine because all his works remind me more about life than anything else (again, like Chaplin). Sorry, question number two was no fair, since it was a trick question.]

Yesterday, Variety reported that Ridley Scott is attached to an upcoming Alien prequel. I am a fan of both Mr. Scott and his groundbreaking 1979 space thriller, but I can’t help hiking up my crotchety old man pants and start telling it like it is. So here comes a finger-wagging rant; get ready.

The Alien franchise is one of the most interesting in film history (for the purposes of this article, I am excluding the Alien vs. Predator series of films from the franchise). It stands out mostly for the incredible list of alumni. James Cameron, who directed Aliens, went on to pioneer the art of digital special effects and make the most successful film of all time, Titanic. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jeunet, already established for international hits Delicatessen and City of Lost Children by the time he made Alien: Resurrection, directed Amélie a few years after joining the franchise; that film became the biggest francophonic film outside of France ever. Mr. Scott’s brother in arms from the Propoganda Films days, David Fincher, first cut his teeth with Alien3 in 1992, going on to make some of the most provocative thrillers since.

But it is Ridley who has always stood out as the most illustrious alum. The original Alien is a landmark film that took the world by surprise. It was a thriller set in space, not a sci-fi film that was thrilling. Three years later, Mr. Scott turned the sci-fi world on its side once again with Blade Runner. Essentially a film noir set in a bleak future cooked up by Phillip K. Dick, it remains the gold standard of futuristic cinema in the age of advanced special effects. Of course, sci-fi was only the beginning for him. In 1991, he received his first Oscar nomination for Thelma & Louise, which again rattled the world for defying genre and moving us forward.

Like every filmmaker, Mr. Scott has grown up. Over the years, his films have garnered a huge audience. His 2000_Gladiator_ took home Best Picture and reintroduced the classical epic to modern eyes. Just the same, Black Hawk Down reinvented the American military protags for a bloodthirsty and hero-deficient audience in the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001. These films, while respectable, don’t evoke quite the same earth-shattering sensibilities as his earlier work. They feel more like the conventional studio pics he defied in his younger days, fitted to a formula that could statistically bring in an audience and get awards voters’ attention. When I say he has grown up, I mean it in the sense of Peter Pan; he will need some fairy dust to get back to his old self.

So any fanboy (or girl) who feels all tingly inside over the decision to bring Ridley Scott back into the Alien fold must consider his body of work over the last decade rather than his whole body of work. It has been thirty years since he made us realize that in space, no one can hear you scream. I don’t mean to minimize the extent of his work in recent years. In fact, his Scott Free shingle, which he shares with directing brother Tony, has produced some wonderful content of late.

My point here is that the logic behind bringing him back to the film may be exciting because of who he is now, but I am not interested in the fact that he started this whole thing so long ago. Perhaps bringing a fresh face to the series would create an even better film. To wit, would anyone have preferred Leonard Nimoy or Nicholas Meyer to have directed this summer’s Star Trek? Even better, couldn’t the last three Star Wars films have been enhanced by a director other than George Lucas in the same manner that Irvin Kershner brought a fresh eye to Empire Strikes Back? I’m not saying these rules always hold true. For example, look where Richard Lester and Sidney J. Furie took Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie (the dumps, we can fight about it in another post if you like). On the other hand, could anyone imagine Mr. Donner stepping back in to that series in 2006? The guy who made 16 Blocks?

In short, I am happy that, at least on paper, Mr. Scott will be returning to space, but I can’t find it in me to get all hot and bothered that he is doing so with the franchise that made him famous. While we obsess over these franchise reboots, I suppose I can take solace in the fact that a master like him will be joining in the fun. Who knows, maybe there’s a little 1979 Ridley hiding inside of him, just waiting for the right moment to blow us all away again. We’ll see.

Farewell, Ben Silverman. I have no doubt that whatever business venture you and Barry Diller are cooking up will be, if not successful, something that will generate a great deal of conversation. At the candler blog, we don’t usually get into the muck and dirt of Hollywood biz talk, so let’s change that for a brief moment.

Yesterday, Mr. Silverman announced his resignation as co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and NBC Universal TV Studios, a job he has had only two years. His is an interesting story, the center of which isn’t even the NBC gig at all, but a company called Reville Productions. Founded in 2002 by Mr. Silverman, the company has spawned some serious money-makers for a number of networks. Some big hits include “Ugly Betty”, “The Tudors”, and “The Biggest Loser”. In a very short amount of time he managed to produce hit after hit, garnering Emmys and prestige along the way.

But it was a short-run midseason replacement that aired in 2005 that set Mr. Silverman apart as a power-producer. “The Office” wasn’t an instant hit when it went on the air, but after the smashing success of The 40-Year Old Virgin that summer, star Steve Carell became an instant household name. America wanted more of him and Silverman had his ace in the hole.

After “Friends” went off the air in 2004, it was viewed as the final nail in the coffin for NBC’s Thursday Night programming. Fondly referred to as Must See TV through the 1990s, NBC’s late week programming was an unstoppable juggernaut of success. “ER”, “Seinfeld”, “The Cosby Show”, “Cheers”, “Mad About You”, and others all found a home on Thursday nights. But as reality TV took hold with NBC sticking to it’s sitcom guns, as the last decade began the evening’s popularity waned. Without an institution like “Friends” anymore, NBC’s Thursday future seemed grim.

“The Office”, on the other hand, managed to buoy both Mr. Silverman’s prominence and the network’s chances of restoring its former glory. The show is smart, funny and current. It’s documentary style, a mainstay of the original UK version, lends an immediacy to the action that audiences have become so used to in reality programming. Nixing a laugh track and a live audience lends a sense of purity to the humor: we will laugh when we want to. This is the sitcom, evolved.

I don’t want to wax poetic too hard on “The Office”. It is, after all, only building on what the brilliant Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created for the BBC. Plus other American shows beat it to the punch, specifically “Arrested Development”, whose intellectual pace became a liability for the show, leading to cancellation. Unlike that show, “The Office” has found an audience, and it is huge. Greg Daniels deserves the creative credit for bringing “The Office” to fruition, but Mr. Silverman’s gift was in getting into the homes of millions. It was an incredible coup for those longing for smart situational comedy. Mr. Silverman landed a sweet position at the top of NBC because of this success, and now he’s on to bigger and better things.

So where are we now? “30 Rock” now makes a nice sandwich of Thursday nights. After 3 seasons, with a 4th on the way, the show has won the hearts of critics and Emmy voters alike, but it is still slowly finding the right footing with the American public. To his credit, Ben Silverman stayed strong and kept ordering full seasons of this scruffy little show, which is paying off at least in mindshare. Smarter shows bring smarter viewers, who may be inclined to stay and buy expensive things.

“Kath & Kim”, another Reville production, was a rather unsuccessful show this year; it won’t be back, thankfully. The new “Parks & Recreation” (what’s up with the ampersand in that time slot, right?) starring Amy Poehler showed some promise in its midseason premiere, but it smacks of mimeographed comedy from “The Office”. It was also created by Greg Daniels. Probably Mr. Silverman’s most interesting decision during his tenure was giving an hour long show to Jay Leno at 10:00pm after his resignation from the Tonight Show. When the show, whose format is still unclear, premieres this fall, we’ll see whether or not this maverick move pays off.

Ben Silverman is a very young executive who came to the once number one NBC two years ago with a single task: raise the network out of fourth place (read: last place). After two years of trying to bring smarter content to the airwaves, and in my opinion bringing back the creative energy of the 1990s, NBC remains in fourth place. The numbers don’t lie, but with a promising fall schedule orchestrated by the exiting Silverman, we will have to see who gets to have the last laugh.

About a month ago I entered a short film into a contest hosted by culture/event blog Flavorpill and literary magazine GRANTA. The idea was to make a film that encapsulates the idea of life as a rehearsal. The film I submitted, Process, managed to win the contest. [They gave me a lovely writeup for the film](http://flavorwire.com/30712/the-rehearsal-project-short-film-contest- winner-announced). Watch it here.

I made the film a few months ago from footage I took a few months before. While hanging out with my friend Nazy, I broke out my Nikon D90 and started filming her. She thought I was going to take a still photo any minute, not realizing at first that I was recording our conversation. From about 15 minutes of footage I snipped together this little piece. (Nazy consented to all this, so don’t be afraid to hang out with me while I have my camera)

The candler blog is specifically a site about film by filmmakers, so I thought you might like to see a bit of what I do when I’m not picking apart blockbusters or dolling out career advice. I would love to hear your thoughts on the piece in the comments, and will happily field any questions about it.

When adapting a novel to the screen, a director may choose one of two routes: stick to the facts, especially the plot points, of the original work, or follow the same emotional arc as the literary forbear, perhaps treading over a few accuracies along the way. David Yates has opted for the former in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but only just so. While the digital wizards were busy making sure audiences leave the theater thoroughly wowed, the overall story of this sixth installment seems to have been left by the wayside.

Half-Blood Prince spends most of its time in the troubled world of adolescent love instead of, you know, that whole end-of-days wizarding war that’s been going on. Sure there are death eaters and imminent danger and wands-out moments of intensity, but this film seems to be all about the snogging gossip around the halls of Hogwarts. It’s not that I don’t care for these bits of the plot, it’s that these amorous sidelines were always supplemental to the magic, not fore-fronted.

Our three young stars, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron, and Emma Watson as Hermione, try their darndest to keep the story moving. They don’t seem to have been given enough direction to spin memorable performances out of the choppy screenplay. In six films, the dust on their roles is beginning to show. The film plays as if they showed up to work each day and went through the motions. In fairness, these are the roles they’ve been playing their entire careers; boredom has to set in eventually. Hopefully, as the cycle draws to a close in the coming years, each will find a way to reinvent, reinvigorate his or her role.

Just as he did on the previous film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Mr. Yates delves deeper into the dark side of celluloid. Using a palette that is mostly black, green and blue (‘cause those colors are scary, boogey boogey boogey), the point is driven home that the fun and games are over for our young heroes. The thing is, we knew that already. We got that from the last one, and it’s been building for years, right?

The Harry Potter franchise of films has become almost like a television series, not only in terms of its frequency of production but in the tired feel that permeates the lengthy runtimes. People from all departments appear to be phoning it in. The special effects are unoriginal and the directing is all over the place. It is an unfortunate fact that box office success determines a director’s staying power in any big screen franchise. Given the financial windfall that has welcomed both films directed by Mr. Yates, we will be forced to endure at least one more installment as bombastically misguided as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Another franchise, down the tubes.

The Ugly Truth is a romantic comedy that is meant to be a vehicle for Katherine Heigl’s comedic talents. Unfortunately, she is grossly upstagesd by Gerard Butler’s deft skill in the laughs department. Instead of driving this pony, she is more often (literally) the butt of every joke. The film follows Heigl as Abby, an uptight control freak television producer, who meets her match in Mr. Butler as Mike, a misogynistic slob who lands a position on her show. Believe it or not, this boring redux of every other rom com you’ve ever seen is actually an attempt at a smarter kind of comedy. Going out on a limb, the film keeps the dirt in to earn an R rating, rendering this a raunchy sex-comedy tailor made for proper ladies. We know that boys will go see R-rated romps, but will women? Yes, but they’re going to need something a little more substantial than The Ugly Truth.

Written by veterans Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith as well as newcomer Nicole Eastman, the script saves almost all of the good lines for Mr. Butler’s chauvinist pig. I can only imagine how they must have relished banging out lines like “Well thank your pussy for me” for the British beefcake. On the other hand, they handed Ms. Heigl the word “cock” and asked her to run with it. As the slick Mike dips behind a couch before Abby answers her door in her new My-Fair-Lady-ed skin, he calls her back at the last second, only to smack her ass for an uproarious laugh. He is the power broker here, he is the funny one.

Ms. Lutz and Ms. Smith are well regarded in the film biz for the spectacular number they did on Reese Witherspooon’s career with the brilliant Legally Blonde. Director Robert Luketic was also on-board for that project. The difference between the two films is not really laughs (they are both chock full), but rather a seriousness of character. With the Witherspoon film, bimbo Elle Woods is a dumbass who the writers take very seriously, fine-tuning the tiniest little laughs that surround her. Here, Abby is just your run of the mill stuck-up producer type, something that is getting very very tired in this genre. On the other hand, Mike is the obvious voice of reason wrapped in a thick layer of angry tirades. It is unfortunate that he is such a strong voice, I’d rather our protagonist learn something more than a fake orgasm.

Where the film does win is in being a nice adult respite from the kid-centric summer madness. If you’re tired of things getting all blow’d up everywhere, The Ugly Truth is certainly a nice way to spend 90 minutes. And hey, it’s actually about two notches above completely stupid, plus the R-rating will keep the brats out of the theater. Adults rejoice! We’ve almost got a reason to head to the movies.

P.S. Its in 2.35:1 cinemascope. What the hell, Mr. Luketic? Let’s fit some of those laughs in vertically, pal. You lose 2 points for unmotivated choice.

As a blogger, I don’t actually have an office in which to conduct business and interviews. So when the opportunity arose to meet with multi-hyphenate John-Luke Montias, the first sport that came to mind was Central Park near the Upper West Side. Being the sport that he is, Mr. Montias trucked over to meet me. Waiting on the corner by a hot dog stand on a warm July day, I began to wonder if so serene a spot was proper for meeting a man whose film deals in sex-slavery, gangsterism, money laundering, and grand theft auto. Then I remembered, this is New York City; we’re all in the soup.

John-Luke studied acting at New York University. After school he did what he refers to as the whole actor-bartender thing: “I got tired of waiting for the phone to ring, I was working at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen that had some really crazy ass characters. I would hear a lot of crazy stories whether I wanted to or not. Then it dawned on me that this was a great opportunity, so I started writing.” That compilation of stories would eventually become the director’s first film, Bobby G Can’t Swim, but he admits that those stories still permeate his work. From listening to him, you can tell that his ears were well-chewed during his days serving drinks.

" For that project (Bobby G), I really wanted to hire a director, I just didn’t know any at the time." In hopes that the script would actually get made, Mr. Montias decided he could try a crack at helming. In an effort to look like he knew what he was doing, he took a course at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies in filmmaking. In the end, that film went on to win numerous awards at festivals around the country.

But, as is the way of life, John-Luke had to drop out of the filmmaking game for a bit due to family illness and death. “I felt kind of beaten up by the powers that be. Off Jackson Avenue comes from the feelings that I was experiencing during that period. As you can see in the film, none of the characters has an easy time of it. Maybe I was just taking out my frustration on the poor characters in the movie.” This is certainly accurate. The film follows a Mexican woman who is sold into prostitution, a Japanese hitman whose mother is fatally ill, and a bright-eyed hood, played by Mr. Montias, who dreams of going legit.

More than anything else, Off Jackson Avenue feels like a local film. Too often we (viewers, not locals) forget that while New York City is an international center of business, fashion and food (ahhh the food), it is also a place where people live, work, and do all the same things that rural Americans do every day. “That’s something I was really striving for, especially with some of the nooks and crannies in Brooklyn and Queens that appear in the film. A lot of the places in the film are just places I’ve hung out in or driven by over the years. For example, the spot where Joey keeps going to inspect his stolen cars; I used to ride my bike by that building every day and say ‘Damn, I really should shoot something here’.” He’s referring to a spot below the BQE in Brooklyn Heights, in case anyone wants to take an OJA walking tour.

Up next for Mr. Montias is a film called Mother’s Day, about a Brooklynite who gets in a scuffle with some badies and has to hideout upstate with his mother who has alzheimer’s. For now, he is promoting Off Jackson Avenue. He admits that the violent nature of the film has turned off some audiences, but he is hoping that people will begin to see past that to what is beneath. “Who knows, it could do really well on DVD,” he says with a smile.

Successful or not, it is his second feature and he has another one in the works. To me, that translates to a man with a film career. “Acting really holds no interest for me anymore. I really want to continue writing and directing.” I ask why he has had a role in all of his films. “Well, you know, if we need to shoot more, I’m not going anywhere.”

Off Jackson Avenue opens July 17th at the Quad Cinema New York.

Too often, we as viewers fall into filmic ruts. We convince ourselves that our understanding of a particular topic, character or time period has been perfected; questioning such concepts would be blasphemy, or at the very least uninteresting. Collectively, we must be shocked out of such beliefs. With Public Enemies, director Michael Mann has taken everything we thought we knew about the gangster film, deconstructed it, and put it back together into something wholly different and occasionally successful.

Johnny Depp slips into the bad boy role of bank robber John Dillinger. An opening title card informs us that he was enjoying the golden age of bank robbing, though this is hardly a heist film. There is some talk of a big “score” early on, but instead of any major planning going into the robberies, Dillinger and his partners rob as often as needed to pay the bills. The film plays more like a biopic than  anything else, but that doesn’t mean it is wholly impotent in the shoot ’em up department.

After last summer’s The Dark Knight received praise from all critical outlets, the citation that seemed to come up most often as a creative influence was Mr. Mann’s 1995 film Heat. The only thing the two films seemed to share was a violent acuity, the ability to nimbly bounce between any man’s ability to invoke pain on bystanders while evoking compassion in the viewer. Not a small feat on either account, but it seems that the elder director is back to school us once again on the importance of immediacy in an action film. What makes Depp’s Dillinger so foreboding is not his physical prowess or his intellectual superiority, it is his ability to use the tools at his disposal at any given moments to get precisely what he needs from people.

In one of Public Enemies most brilliant sequences, Dillinger stages a prison escape that is ingenious only by virtue of its simplicity. With each step that he takes, Mr. Depp becomes more and more fierce, slowly working his way from guard to guard, from door to door, until freedom is his. The scene occurs mostly in a single take, which impels us to become submerged in this moment. Privy to the act, are we not just as guilty?

Now seems like a good point to bring up Mr. Mann’s insistence on shooting _Enemies _on HD video instead of film. This is the third consecutive film that he has shot on video. It still feels like a learning experience for Mann and company, but one for which future generations of filmmakers will benefit. The immediacy that I spoke of earlier permeates the screen in three dimensions. To its core, the image on screen is unpredictable. Feeling almost like a reality TV show at points, we are stimulated on a level that we normally ignore while watching a film.

During one of the film’s most violent fits, this visual style plays an incredible role. After holing up in a cabin in the woods, a gun fight erupts between the FBI and the gangsters within, resulting in a late night chase through the woods. Under dark cover, the fluid camera comes along for the ride. This almost feels like a period version of _“Cops” _but plays as less of a gimmick. Mr. Mann is offering a new way to look at well trodden ground. It seems that ever since The G__odfather: Part II, in which cinematographer Gordon Willis gave early twentieth century Italy and New York a gold sheen, we have been led to believe that olden times necessitate an olden feel which is somehow defined cinematically by a clean, classical image. Even if you don’t think this, we have grown accustomed to it as a film culture. Thank goodness for renegades like Michael Mann who try to shock us out of such silly dispositions.

Ed. Note: I didn’t mention Christian Bale’s performance in this article because anyone could have played his part (kind of like in Terminator: Salvation, snap). Marion Cotillard is wonderful, but there’s only so much I can write about in one post. Leave added thoughts in the comments.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2009/07/thehurtlocker_10.jpg)There are many kinds of war films. Those that celebrate the heroism of men and women who rise to the occasion and those that examine the absurd event that is conflict; those that glorify the gory action on the ground and those that question the human event in its bloodiest hour. The Hurt Locker manages, quite impressively, to check off all of the above and then some. It is a heart-stopping thriller set amidst the modern quagmire that is Baghdad that never lingers long enough to feel preachy yet manages to suspend you in moments of extreme tension for what seems like eternity. In other words, it’s a bad ass good time.

Director Kathryn Bigelow, probably most well known for the 1991 surf action film Point Break, decided to stem the intellectual deconstruction of the war in Iraq that has hampered most recent attempts to bring the conflict to the big screen. Instead, she has no bones about making a first rate action thriller. The opening scene alone, in which a radio controlled robot breaks just before it can detonate an IED, is worth the price of popcorn. If you can’t handle it straight away, leave the theater.

In need of a new Bomb Tech on their team, Sergeant JT Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge find themselves under the command of Staff Sergeant William James. James is a reckless cowboy who rarely lets the others in on his half- cocked plans as they traverse Iraq in search of bombs. The relationship that the three form is complicated to say the least. In Sanborn we find a rationalist who offers us a moral grounding. Eldridge is more complex, a man- child thrown into the war probably trying to prove his strength.

But the most interesting character is certainly Sergeant James, played with boyish bravado by Jeremy Renner. Acting as if he is an army of one, James always seems to come out in one piece no matter how stupid his plans seem to be. As soon as we feel we know him and understand his motivation, he goes and does something even crazier. Not quite a patriot nor a mercenary, his character slowly unravels and we begin to see an incredibly strong deconstruction of modern masculinity. I don’t want to get into the details because it is the little things in this movie that become shocking to you as it progresses.

Ms. Bigelow has done what many of Hollywood’s biggest guns have failed to do: make an interesting film about Iraq that people will actually watch. Steering clear of political statements, she has crafted a solid character study amidst the most important international issue our nation is embroiled in. It’s the Iraq movie we have been waiting for, but we hardly notice that fact as we wipe the sweat from our brow and stand up from the edge of our seat.