4.5 Razors

Chaplin

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Chaplin
  • IMDb: link

“What do we do now Charlie?”
“Smile.”

It is impossible to discuss Chaplin without first mentioning the singular performance by Robert Downey Jr. There are many biopics where the star does a passable job and others where movie magic truly happens and the actor, to an almost eerie extent (think Jim Carey in Man on the Moon, only better), embodies the subject on film.

Downey may have failed to take home the Oscar (Anthony Hopkins, also in this film, spirited it away for his performance as a cannibal), but there is nothing here to be ashamed of.  From the recreation of Chaplin’s famous scenes to the more intimate moments far from the cinema, Downey gives us a Chaplin that lives and breathes, and a magic that makes us want to go out and buy all of the Tramp‘s films.

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L.A. Confidential

/ / Home Video
  • Title: L.A. Confidential
  • IMDB: link

“Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.”

The year was 1997 and the film was L.A. Confidential. Based on the James Ellroy novel of the same name the film tells the story of corruption and murder in 1950’s Los Angeles.

The film follows the investigations of three distinctly different cops.  The first is the ambitious career-mined Det. Lt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) who makes a name for himself on honesty and a willingness to throw those who don’t agree to the wolves.

The second is Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe) a blunt instrument with a strong desire to help women in trouble and more brains than most people, even himself, give him credit.

And the third, Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), is a fame obsessed cop drunk on the Hollywood scene, his small role as a consultant for the cop show Badge of Honor (think Dragnet), and his ties to sleazoid magazine editor (Danny DeVito).

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Miracle at St. Anna

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Miracle at St. Anna
  • IMDB: link

“I know who the Sleeping Man is.”

The latest from Spike Lee is an adaptation of James McBride’s book itself inspired by events in Italy during WWII.  A murder and the discovery of a priceless artifact lead to a tale forty-years before involving four African-American soldiers in a Tuscan village and a disturbed child, the lone witness to a monstrous act.

Aside from the beginning scenes and the epilogue the majority of the film takes place in 1944 where four members of 92nd Infantry Division (Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller) find themselves cut-off from their unit and trapped in a small Italian town in the Tuscan countryside surrounded by German troops.

The film is about secrets which are slowly unveiled to the audience, though not necessarily the characters, over the course of the movie.  The discovery of the small child (Matteo Sciabordi) in 1944 who survived the Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre and the murder and discovery of the artifact by the police at cub reporter Tim Boyle (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in 1983, at the beginning of the film, are but two pieces of a much larger story.

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A Better Batman

/ / Movie Reviews, Theme Week
  • Title: The Dark Knight
  • IMDB: link

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Christian Bale returns to the role of Bruce Wayne, and his pointy-eared alter-ego Batman.  The sequel takes place months after the end of Batman Begins.  Batman and Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) have been busy squeezing the Gotham mob, and with the help of the golden-haired District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), they hope to make real changes in Gotham.

However, there’s a new player in town.  A psychotic mystery man named the Joker (Heath Ledger) who, after robbing them blind, offers his services to Gotham’s crime families to kill the Batman.

There’s so much to discuss.  And I haven’t even mentioned the love triangle between Bruce, Harvey and Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal, taking over the role Katie Holmes played in Batman Begins) or the in-fighting among the mob, or the cops on the take.  Whew!  The film is a bit long at 152 minutes, however it’s also chocked-full of plot; there’s barely a wasted moment.  This is the Batman movie fans have been clamouring for.  I’m betting good money that more than one fanboy will wet himself.

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Our ‘Knight’ In Shining Armor

/ / Movie Reviews, Theme Week
  • Title: The Dark Knight
  • IMDB: link

Though there are plenty unsure of him, it’s made clear at the beginning of The Dark Knight that Batman (Christian Bale) has done a lot to clean up Gotham since the events in 2005’s Batman Begins.  But he never saw a foe as strange and evolved as the Joker (who you are probably pretty aware was played by the late Heath Ledger).  Like a virus that evolves to survive the new antibiotics that is Batman, he’s a permutation of the typical criminal unpredictable, gets results and worst of all, seems immune to the power and threats of the Caped Crusader.

It makes for terrible timing – it was just looking like the day Bruce Wayne could quit his night job was within sight, with the newly elected Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) looking like a serious figure to unwaveringly enforce the law onto a corrupt city.  A real man to serve the city is going to be easier to follow than a grown man playing dress-up.  But by the time the Joker settles into front page news, it’s clear that Gotham’s never been worse off.

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