THRONE OF BLOOD--An OLEG Movie Club Selection

Shakespeare’s classic play of bloodshed, power, betrayal, insanity, and the supernatural, has been an inspiration for many weather it be Roman Polanski’s way of dealing with the death of Sharon Tate in his Penthouse funded version or as a villain in the 90’s Disney television series Gargoyles. This version, directed by acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and set in feudal Japan, may be the best I’ve ever seen.

Japan may be one of the best settings for this story, with it’s rich history. The story of McBeth is the story of a man’s descent into his own darkness and pride and ambition, spurred on by mystical prophecies and an overly ambitious wife. McBeth, or in this case Washizu, does desire power, does desire to rise the position of “Great Lord” but won’t admit it even when confronted by it several times. It is only when his wife pushes him towards it does he take action. Once he achieves his goals though, his power gets the better of him and he, and his wife, both descend into madness and a struggle to hold unto to the prophecies spoken about them.

I loved how Kurosawa showed us, even subtly, how things would play out. Early in the film we hear about Washizu’s talent with the bow, at the end his enemies employ a similar strategy against him. At one point we see Washizu and his childhood friend and fellow warrior Miki, kneeling before the Great Lord and Kurosawa holds on them from behind and we see the contrast of Washizu’s black banner and Miki’s white banner. Washizu has a black heart, one easily corrupted, while Miki’s heart is white, looking only toward the future. This is continued with the insignia, Washizu’s is a centipede, whereas Miki’s is a rabbit. Also the scene where the porters in the northern castle are going to clean out a room for Washizu when the Great Lord visits, mention that the blood stained floor cannot be scrubbed clean, Lady Washizu has a similar problem when trying to scrub her bloodstained hands, which in her mind won’t come clean.

There are also some very subtle changes to the original story, such as the use of only one witch/spirit in the movie as opposed to three in the original play and starting off the movie in the castle as opposed to the plays introduction by the witches planning on meeting with McBeth. I was also glad to see that Kurosawa, while keeping the storyline and the outline the same, used little to no of the original lines.

I was pleasantly surprised by the special effects used, especially for 1957. 3 scenes really stand out, the witch, or spirit’s, disappearance; the latter appearance by the spirit and several phantoms; finally the moving forest. The moving forest was especially impressive, because that is always one of the hardest elements of the Scottish play to pull off without looking cheesy.

I thought the black and white photography worked well, especially for this picture which deals with very dark themes.

The acting was excellent, and all part of Kurosawa’s stock company, with Toshiro Mifune as Washizu and Minoru Chiaki as Miki. Isuzu Yamada as Washizu’s wife.

This film may well be an “anti” Samurai film. In traditional Samurai films, the samurai are honorable and Washizu is NOT honorable. On the DVD commentary it is mentioned that McBeth was Kurosawa’s favorite play by Shakespeare and it shows with his obvious

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

I also watched The Forbidden Kingdom this weekend and while I enjoyed it and am not ashamed to own it or anything, and will watch it again, it was great or what I really expected out of Chan or Li.

I know that it's been Jet Li's dream to play the Monkey King and I know Chan loved being able to do a little role reversal and be they Drunken Master this time instead of the disciple, and it looked like both were having fun, I have to wonder who this movie is made for?

Hong Kong cinema fans are going to be disappointed because the way the fights are filmed and their length.

Kids aren't going to understand the mythology or the influences (I watched this with my 11 year old sister and she loved the closing fights and was on the edge of her seat, but was confused by why the bad guys had magic but the good guys (except for the Monkey King) didn't--bored by the opening credit sequence, and had some difficulty understanding Chan and Li).

I liked Micheal Argarano in Sky High and thought he was really good in this, but in the back of my mind wondered what it would have been like if the white kid had been the bully and his role was played by an Asian.

I also, unfavorably I know, compared the actor who played The Jade Emperor with James Wong and wondered what it would have been like with him in that role. I thought it would have been a nice little "shout out" to Big Trouble in Little China.

like I said, not bad, but not great either, re watchable but not a classic.

REDBELT

David Mamet is one of my heros. Here is a man that started his own theatre company, writes his own plays, has an amazing "voice"if you will, he's a theatre graduate who has moved into films but has never forgotten the stage. He's worked with great actors and made them better and has worked with ok actors and made them good. One of the best gifts I ever got was his book called "On Film" from my college theatre director.

Redbelt is his latest movie to come out on DVD and while I saw the advertisments on TV I never got around to seeing it in a movie theatre, I wish I could have. It's a great movie with a great story.

Mamet has said it's his samuari film, in the tradition of [Akira] Karusowa, and I can totally see that influence in this movie about Mike Terry, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and self-defense instructor who imparts upon his students the skills to survive on the street, rather than compete in unarmed combat sports. A series of circumstances brings Terry in contact with popular movie hero Chet Frank (Tim Allen) and a legion of Hollywood movers and shakers. Terry soon finds himself the victim of a con and, combined with a destitute financial situation, is pressed to enter the ring for pride and profit.

This is yes a movie centered in the world of UFC like Mixed Martial Arts, but unlike the similar NEVER BACK DOWN, which has more in common with THE KARATE KID, this is a movie that deals with issues and questions, like "what is honor?" "how far will someone go to protect their mentors" "what is the nature of competion" etc.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is Mike Terry, and does a fantastic job as the honorable and troubled master. Tim Allen is surprising as a Hollywood action movie star. Joe Mantegna and Rodrigo Santoro are delightfully sleazy, and Emily Mortimer is both victim and encouragemtn, troubled and sweet. This is a Mamet film, and like I said above, he does excellent work with actors.

Mamet isn't really known for his abilty to film fight scenes, Micheal Bay he is not, but the fights are servicable.

This is one of those movies that may really fly under the rader but is really good and if you haven't seen it, see it.

The Godfather Part 2

So they say that the Godfather 2 may be the best sequel ever made, and I can't say that they are wrong, this really is a great movie. As good as The Godfather (1), it's debatable. The Godfather told an epic story of the fall of a family from power and their attempt to rise out and possibly above it. The story The Godfather Part 2 tells is really at it's heart, and in both stories (sequel and prequel) a revenge story.

What Coppola masterfully did though was tell two similar and yet different stories: The rise of the Don Corelone (Vito and Micheal) framed around revenge. I also found it interesting that Don Micheal may be more alike to his grandfather's killer then he is like his father. Despite his viciousness Vito clearly loved his family and I don't think he would have treated Fredo like Micheal did, especially after what Don Ciccio(sp?) did to Vito's family and attempted to do to Vito himself. Maybe I'm wrong here but the portrait I get of Vito from the prequel and from part 1 was that Vito viewed things as business whereas Micheal, despite what he says, takes things much more personal. Even the birthday party scene when Micheal is almost sulking, hurt by Vito and the family, you see that he is taking this personally.

The acting was again just wonderful. DeNiro was maybe not as polished as we'd see him a few years later in Raging Bulls and later in Goodfellas, he still had the kinda slump shuffle thing that he did in Mean Streets, but is really good here, although I will admit that seeing him in a film like this not directed by Martin Scorsese is strange. I think it goes back to Coppola and Scorsese 's backgrounds and experiences. FFC grew up in a musical family, almost I'd call it "high Italian" large family, where things are a family business. His father was a musician who helped with the music on his films, his mother was an actress, his sister is Talia Shire, his nephews act. I think that's why his focus, in these movies, is never on the grunts or the soldiers but on the High Mafia families. Scorsese, on the other hand, grew up in a more working class Italian family, a street family, and that's why his best gangster movies, even something like The Departed, have a focus on the mafia soldiers.

Honestly I haven't see anything with Lee Strasburg in it other then this, but I can see why there is an acting method named after him. Talia Shire didn't annoy me in this movie, in fact I kind of enjoyed her trampy performance. It was really different then Adrian, which really is her defining role. Diane Keaton still bugged me in this movie, maybe it's just the character of Kay, maybe it's Keaton's performance, I don't know but I don't like her. I talked to one of the biggest Godfather fans I know and he agrees that Keaton is annoying.

Finally JOHN CAZALE! This is the actor that played Fredo, and brought such humanity to a real jerk of a person.

Again a great movie.

The Godfather

For a movie fan this may seem like near blasphemy but until this week I had never seen any of the Godfather movies.

I have to say that opening scene is FANTASTIC, totally unexpected, I don't know if that was Robert Evans (I think in EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS, it is mentioned that Evans did have a lot of control over the first 2 movies as well) or Coppola, but that VO over black, then pulling back on the man in the shadows until you get to the back of Brando's head, was mesmerizing. I talked to my brother today about that scene (he's 19) and he said it was one of the longest dullest scenes he's ever seen, but what does he know. I really don't know if this is a movie that kids grown up on on Bay and Tony Scott and Roland Emmerich can appreciate, but I loved it. Interestingly I found out that the long zoom out was one of the first uses of a computer controlled camera.

My absolute favorite scene though is outside the hospital, the baker Enzo (which is another thing I loved, we didn't just meet people in the wedding scene for shits and giggles they had a genuine purpose and when they are introduced in Act 1 we see them again in Act 3 [Enzo] or Act 4 ["Sinatra"]), anyways Enzo and Micheal are standing outside the hospital and neither of these men are "made" they are civil ans, Micheal has been protected his whole life from this and now he has to step up, they have no weapons, they are NOTHING and they have to use Micheal's intelligence to keep The Don alive. It was a chilling taunt but very quiet scene.

I also really enjoyed Brando's scene with the little boy (Anthony) toward the end of the movie with the water pump and the orange. The only other scene in the movie between Brando and children is when he gets home from the hospital and everyone is moving him in and the baby is crying and whatnot. This scene really brought up the fact that this man, this killer, criminal, etc; was a father and a grandfather who really did care about his family.

I won't say this is a perfect movie, couple things I didn't care for:

a)Talia Shire's overacting especially in the scene where she finds out her husband is cheating on here and she just starts throwing crap around. She was loud obnoxious and I know we are supposed to sympathize with her because her husbands a dick who cheats on her and hits her but I didn't, I found her shrill.

b)Micheal's descent into becoming the new Don, it just felt like it happened too fast. Up to that point, he was the civilian, he was nervous when he shot the drug dealer and the cop, he never really took hiding in Sicily important. But now all of a sudden he's as cold hearted as Brando. It just didn't work for me,I think I would have liked to seen his fall from grace to happen a little more quickly. I also, honestly, didn't see what he saw in Diane Keaton. She was pretty and perfect for his life before Brando's attack and Caan's death, but I couldn't tell what he saw in her after that. Maybe that's the point of it though, he was trying to hold unto a life that was gone now. I also didn't buy his throwing Duvall under the bus if you will, Sonny I could see doing that but not Micheal. Up to that point Micheal had always talked well of Tom.

c) This is a little nitpicky but I hated when we see Vegas for the first time, we see a sign for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, up to that point, I don't recall them mentioning J Edgar Hoover, any presidents (Truman, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, etc). There is a throw away line about Hitler but most of the time they don't talk about anything in the actual "culture" of America. It's a fictional studio, a fictional singer, etc, but then you see something that reminds me of our actual reality and took me away just a split second on the movie reality that had been established so well up to that point.

d) Maybe it's a lack of knowing my history of America at that period in history, but I also really questioned weather the heroin (or narcotics) business was really worth starting a 6 family war over in the late 40s.

The actors were fantastic, I didn't recognize honestly Duvall until about halfway through, same with Cann and Keaton.

I also really liked how this felt like it was made in the period it was set in. The look, the feel, the music, the atmosphere. Even Coppola's limited use of the camera, using limited movements and static shots felt like something made in the 40s not the 70s.

I can see WHY this is an American classic and one of the greats. I'm anxious to see part 2 which I hear is better then 1.