The Screengrab : barack obama

Great Beginnings: Screengrab's Favorite Opening Scenes Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Yesterday marked the 100th day of the Obama presidency, which means I’m cautiously starting to believe that Bush is maybe really, actually gone and won’t suddenly pop up again for one last attack like Freddy Krueger at the end of Nightmare On Elm Street.

Cheney and Rove and the rest of the neo-conservative gang are still with us, of course, and the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world certainly didn’t need the full 100 days to determine they were right all along about Obama’s anarchist-fascist-abstract-impressionist agenda.

Most of the rest of America (and the world), meanwhile, thinks the new administration is actually off to a pretty good start -- and while great beginnings don’t always lead to happy endings, they at least give us some...what’s that word again? Oh yeah, HOPE...

...much like the opening sequences in the following movies, which hooked us right from the get-go and made us completely forget about sneaking out of the theater to see what was playing on the next screen over and/or changing channels.

Of course, your pals here at the Screengrab fully appreciate the irony of running this list in light of recent events here in our little corner of the cyber-verse...but, considering that every ending brings with it the possibility of a new beginning, what better time, really, to salute OUR FAVORITE OPENING SCENES OF ALL TIME!!!!!

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)

The mother of all tracking shots opens with a bomb being set -- telling us right away that it will explode in three minutes -- and hidden in the trunk of a ludicrously long and garish vehicle. Then begins the long dance through the streets of Tijuana. The camera pulling ahead of the car, but the car always catching up or passing, always staying in frame. The sound (on the reconstructed version, at least) is disorienting, as passing through the streets of a busy nightlife district can be, with different noises blaring for attention. As soon as they appear, the camera is focused on Janet Leigh and Charlton Heston, paced by the car with the bomb, crossing the numerous obstacles in their path. As they arrive at the border crossing, the film reveals that they are just married, and he is a Mexican policeman (yes, yes, ha ha) known for taking down a drug ring. He laughs it off and, just as the car passes them, moves in to kiss his wife. BOOM! In the next couple of minutes, we'll meet Hank Quinlan, as much a power-mad racist as The Searchers' Ethan Edwards, but far more monstrous and strangely vulnerable. But the rest of the movie belongs to him. Here, at the beginning, the movie belongs to that single unbroken shot that defied the millions of things that could go wrong and introduced most of the major themes, all without breaking a sweat. Astonishing, even now. (HC)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)

Three killers are waiting for a train. One of them, his craggy, weather-beaten face a dead ringer for the desert landscape that surrounds them, is distracted by an annoying fly. Water drips onto the hat of another, until enough has accumulated for him to tip the hat to his lips and take a cool drink. The buzzing of the fly and the dripping of the water and the creaky whine of a windmill are the only sounds we hear, until that whine fades into the whistle of the approaching train. Their intended victim has arrived. He plays a harmonica and looks like Charles Bronson. Extreme close-ups give way to the widest of widescreen vistas, the whole of the wild west in one deep focus shot of impending violence. This is how you build suspense, Sergio Leone style. (SVD)

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

Even exposition can be thrilling when the Coen Brothers are operating at the peak of their powers. Accompanied by the spirited whistling and banjo-plucking of Carter Burwell, Nicolas Cage’s sleepy drawl narrates the tale of an unusual courtship. Recidivist H.I. McDunnough is such a regular at the mug shot station, he becomes smitten with the photographer, a spunky officer named Ed. (Short for Edwina.) Hilarious bite-size vignettes of small-time crime (“I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn’t easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House”), prison life (“When there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand”), parole hearings (“These doors gonna swing wide”) and pitching woo (“I’m walkin’ in here on my knees, Ed”) sketch the unfolding romance, which gives way to trailer park life, the daily grind and the yearning for a critter as the banjo plunges joyfully into Beethoven’s Ninth. Endlessly quotable, relentlessly rewatchable, kinetic as a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this opening sets the stage for one of the zippiest romps in the Coen catalogue. (SVD)

THE PLAYER (1992)

Robert Altman’s cutting Hollywood critique self-consciously strives for Wellesian grandeur in its impressive 8-minute single take opening shot, which makes its homage upfront by having a character overtly reference the Touch of Evil sequence (as well as Bernardo Bertolucci’s sustained tracking shot in The Sheltering Sky) upon which it’s based. Altman uses this bravura scene to firmly establish his major studio milieu and the various, cretinous industry clowns who populate it, mocking the agents, pitch-men and execs who manufacture the country’s celluloid dreams. The shot’s inquisitive, labyrinthine movements subtly suggest the probing survey to come. And Altman’s opening proves a hilariously caustic encapsulation of his story’s modus operandi – to scathingly ridicule the Hollywood machine via the type of dazzling, daring filmmaking that, as evidenced by comments made by the scene’s various dunderheaded players, has little place in a studio system where market-focused creativity-by-committee is the rule. (NS)

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager

The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes In Cinema History! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

President Obama is two weeks away from the end of his first 100 days as Commander-In-Chief, and it’s been a wild ride so far, what with all the pirates, puppies and Queen-touching...but naturally, the administration’s main focus has been moving heaven and earth to ensure that nothing will prevent Bank of America executives from receiving my tax money while they charge me 24% interest on my credit card debt, thus ensuring I’ll never be able to afford any of the hundreds of empty, overpriced luxury condos in my neighborhood...because, as we all know, if the day ever comes when bankers and real estate developers make less than a zillion percent profit every second of the day, no matter how badly or unethically they run their businesses, then the terrorists win! (Or something like that...frankly, I’m just happy gas isn’t four dollars a gallon anymore. Hooray, bad economy!)

Anyway, the point is, now that Bernie Madoff has all the world’s money buried in a treasure chest somewhere on Skull Island, Americans have finally realized that money can’t buy happiness, and at long last we’re no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses, but instead living within our means, valuing the simple pleasures of life and judging people on their character, rather than the size of their wallets or the labels on their clothes.

Nah, just kidding: in truth, we’re all still cheating on our taxes, begging for bailouts and building bigger and better Ponzi schemes, because in the words of Danny Devito’s crooked fence in David Mamet’s Heist, “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” And so, in that altruistic spirit, your pals here at the Screengrab hereby present our very own economic stimulus package: THE BEST & WORST GET RICH QUICK SCHEMES IN CINEMA HISTORY!

OFFICE SPACE (1999)

By the time Mike Judge’s half-brilliant Office Space gets around to its get-rich-quick scheme, its best moments are behind it. It starts out so well, with the story of a chronically bored office drone (Ron Livingston) who finds himself – after an accidental dose of post-hypnotic suggestion – completely incapable of giving a shit about his job. This is Office Space at its best, a note-perfect satire of cubicle life enlightened hugely by the appearance of a character who upends the whole idea of consequence and thus makes for some of the most viciously barbed gags of its day. Once it gets around to Livingston and his colleagues hatching a Superman III-inspired, computer-aided plan to steal millions by shaving half-pennies off of every transaction, it becomes more or less a goofy caper comedy, which, while well-executed, can’t hold a candle to its truly inspired first half. Still, as get-rich-quick schemes go, it’s a classic, and damned if it doesn’t almost work. (LP)

HEAT (1995)

Heat famously brought Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on-screen – if only for one diner conversation and a climactic chase sequence – yet it’s Michael Mann’s direction that elevates this cat-and-mouse saga to near-greatness. The story revolves around the efforts of Pacino’s cop to catch De Niro’s crook, two kindred warriors on opposite sides of the law. Though this dynamic is, to put it mildly, hackneyed, Mann’s film is an energized, invigorated work that recalls Jean-Pierre Melville’s noirs, which also focused on peerlessly cool lawmen and thieves whose dedication to customs, habits and ethical codes leaves them isolated. As the criminal struggling to reconcile personal desires for happiness with instincts that warn against being something he’s not, De Niro delivers his last great performance. Pacino’s trademark quiet-screaming overacting and a few too many narrative diversions prove occasionally aggravating, but De Niro’s superb turn helps offset these slight missteps, as does the thrilling in-broad-daylight centerpiece robbery that cements Heat’s status in the pantheon of heist films. (NS)

OCEAN’S 11, 12, 13… (1960, 2001, etc.)

The original 1960 Ocean’s 11’s best get-rich quick scheme didn’t take place onscreen; it was the Rat Pack’s all night, every night ring-a-ding-ding showcase at the Sands while shooting the film on location in Las Vegas. Sure, knocking over five casinos during a blackout on New Year’s Eve has a certain flair to it, but there’s nothing like working 22 hours a day for six straight weeks to really fatten the wallet. In 2001, a Frat Pack led by George Clooney and Brad Pitt staged their own Vegas heist, lifting $150 million from the Bellagio vault with the help of a Chinese acrobat, a Cockney explosives expert mysteriously played by Don Cheadle, and the always indispensible Elliott Gould. The remake took in even more than $150 million at the box office, which led to two further get-rich-quick schemes: the winky, self-referential Ocean’s 12, a sort of spiritual cousin to The Cannonball Run II, and Ocean’s 13, which proved once again that the death knell of a franchise sounds a lot like Al Pacino yelling. (SVD)

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)

Part of the point of John Huston's classic is that prospecting for gold isn't actually an easy or quick way to strike it rich at all, but once you've laid out for the tools and traveled all the way out into the middle of the Mexican desert and gotten used to the sight of Walter Huston jeering at you without his dentures, you're more than likely to stick with it until you've got something to show for it. After that, all you have to worry about is whether your paranoid, half-mad partner is going to be able to convince himself that you're plotting to steal his share of the "goods" so that he can feel justified in knocking you off and helping himself to your share. Whatever moral and practical defects can be found in Bogart's plan, it has to be said that he's a sage and a prince compared to the hippopotamus-toothed bandit played by the immortal Alfonso Bedoya, whose master plan involves decapitating Bogart and stealing his burros, after he's thrown away those saddlebags filled with the funny yellow powder that's weighing them down. (PN)

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Kal Penn Puts Acting Career on Hold to Mind Obama's Front Door

Phil Nugent — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

First Joaquin Phoenix, and now this: Kal Penn, the 31-year-old actor best known for his roles in the Harold and Kumar films and the TV series House, has taken what we hope will be a temporary retirement from acting to take a position as President Obama's associate director in the White House office of public liaison, which he describes as an outreach position in what is "basically the front door of the White House." A native of Montclair, New Jersey, the actor was born Kalpen Modi to Indian immigrants in 1977. (He uses the name "Kal Penn" professionally; according to Penn, he originally put the "Americanized" version of his name on his acting resume as an experiment to prove that it wouldn't make a difference to casting directors, then stuck with it when his callbacks instantly rose by fifty percent.) Although the official announcement of Penn's appointment wasn't made until yesterday, savvy House fans first sussed out that something was up on Monday night, when they tuned in to the latest episode and learned that Penn's character, Dr. Lawrence Kutner, had unceremoniously shot himself in the temple. It was a shocking tragedy, not least for special guest sick people Meat Loaf Aday and Colleen Camp, whose storyline had to be awkwardly sandwiched in between extended fits of grieving. It was only the next morning, when Penn broke the story to Entertainment Weekly, that it became clear that TV Land's loss was the White House's gain.

Penn campaigned for Obama in the 2008 campaign and served on his National Arts Policy Committee. More recently, he was one of the featured performers at the Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, where he and George Lopez delivered quotations from Dwight Eisenhower and Barbara Jordan. He has also taught a course in “Images of Asian Americans in the Media” at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, what might be most impressive about the appointment is that Obama wasn't scared off by Penn's stoner movie comedy past. (In addition to the Harold and Kumar movies, he first attracted major attention for his role in National Lampoon's Van Wilder, and starred in the sequel, The Rise of Taj. In a more dignified but possibly less entertaining vein, he also starred in Mira Nair's The Namesake, for which he received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor, and appeared as one of Lex Luthor's henchmen in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. In 2007, Penn also played a terrorist in four episodes of 24; about that role, he's said, "I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it’s repulsive. But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage." The guy's gonna do just fine in Washington. In the meantime, fans needing closure can visit the online memorial to his character that Fox has set up.

Screengrab Q&A: Mark Webber, director of Explicit Ills

Peter Smith — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:30:00 GMT

At twenty-eight, actor Mark Webber is already a recognizable veteran of the indie film-festival circuit. Using several years of valuable experience Webber took on a different role as the writer, director and producer of his first feature Explicit Ills. The semi-autobiographical film follows four interconnected stories within inner-city Philadelphia and focuses on some very relevant and timely social issues. It's been a big year for Webber. Aside from the release of his debut feature, he has been cast alongside Michael Cera in Edgar Wright's upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and also saw the birth of his first child. He spoke with us about the trials and tribulations of getting a movie from notebook to big screen as well as his muted optimism about America's current political landscape. — Bryan Whitefield

Obviously you've worked on a number of films as an actor and even a few as a producer, but how difficult was it to get your own film done from start to finish?
You know what? It's really hard [laughs]. I mean the turnaround from when I wrote the script to when we got it cast, then got financing, to up and shooting, actually happened in a matter of months. And even with editing and post it all came together within a year — which is really fast. But at the same time it's taken me almost twelve years to make this happen, in a way, because it's taken me working as an actor and meeting directors and learning from them as well as throughout that process establishing relationships with other talented, creative people. And because of that I was able to call Paul [Dano] and Rosario [Dawson] and [Jim] Jarmusch directly and get them to read my script, which for a lot of people starting out is the uphill battle that takes up a lot of your time and energy. So I was very fortunate in that way. Then the actual making of the film was just a series of constant highs and lows. We were working with a really small budget and not a lot of time and some really ambitious set-ups shooting-wise. Not to mention we were shooting on film and working with young kids in some not-so-great neighborhoods. But fortunately for me, the majority of the films that I've worked on have been shot in a similar way, so I was able to lean on some of that experience as a filmmaker myself.

Which directors do you feel like you learned the most about directing from? You already mentioned Jim Jarmusch, who was the executive producer on your film.
Jim is a big influence. His career as a filmmaker to me is awesome because he's just made the films he wanted to make the way he's wanted to make them. Ideally, that's how I feel all films should be crafted. Unfortunately, I've seen friends of mine essentially have films taken away from them and re-edited for the sake of making something that was more "commercial" — which is a really odd term to me, but one that permeates a lot of the talk outside of filmmaking. So Jim is really inspiring to me, and the fact that he was willing to be the Godfather to my first film was extremely helpful and beneficial.

I've done two films with Ethan Hawke now, and he's just a great person and an incredible actor, and has this really infectious spirit on set as a director that keeps everyone happy and willing to explore.

I also got to work with Todd Solondz on Storytelling and I was just blown away by the guy. In a way it was similar to when I worked with Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier, where you're working with someone who you know is incredibly talented and you think they might have some trick up their sleeve, as if you're part of some experiment, but you want to be there. That's really cool to me.

One thing that really impressed me was the film's strong visual language. I know that you worked with Patrice Lucent Cochet, the cinematographer from the film you did with Steve Berra, The Good Life.
Thanks, and it was really cool that Patrice got that recognition at SXSW (Best Cinematography) for his work on the film. But having worked with him before, even just as an actor, went a really long way. I think it would have been difficult to have to develop a relationship with someone that important to the outcome of the film because there were so many other aspects that I was trying to manage.

On a side note, how disappointing is it when you make a quality film like The Good Life that for whatever reason never ends up getting into theaters? And on the flip side how satisfying is it when you do get to see a project through and get it out there?
It hurts. With The Good Life in particular, I was really proud of that film and the people who were fortunate enough to see it at Sundance that year seemed to really love the film. It got a DVD release, but it was made for theaters. So yeah, that one stung. But then to write and direct and produce a film and have it play at the Angelika? That's really a dream come true. It's just a crazy climate for independent film right now and you're really fortunate if your film gets seen at all, which is why film festivals are so crucial for a lot of these smaller movies. But I'm ecstatic that we're opening at the Angelika because I've seen a lot of incredible films there throughout the years, so it's a proud moment for me.

When did you decide to get an actor to essentially play the "Mark Webber" part?
[Laughs] Yeah, I had thought at one point that I would be in it, but I really wanted to feel what it was like to be a director on this film Then I saw Thumbsucker, and I had been hearing about Lou Pucci for awhile, partly because he was the young guy vying for some of the roles I might have been up for. And then I got a chance to meet him and talk about the project and we really got along. Part of it too was that Explicit was already so personal that I felt like I needed a little distance so I could retain perspective on it.

The film addresses some serious social issues. Do you feel more optimistic now with President Obama in office?
I feel like the very PC answer to that question is yes, but unfortunately I don't entirely feel that way. I think Obama is the first person in office in a really long time that actually feels like a real person and he has a good heart and he means well, but I'm still a believer in people coming together to change this world. I just don't think that it's possible for one man in a very corrupt system to be able to create real change. At the same time, I think President Obama is an eloquent speaker for change and an important catalyst for it even just in inspiring people and making them feel like they've elected someone who represents them. I just don't want people to lose the perspective and the faith in their own ability to create change and remain committed to actively trying to make this world a better place and not think it stops with electing someone. I am very happy that he got elected, but I'm also a little worried that it might take the wind out of people's sails. I don't want the empowerment that people felt in coming together and electing him to go away because he won. I want them to use that energy to help make their own lives better.

I know you already have some films lined up to act in, but will you write or direct again?
Definitely. That idea was cooking while I was shooting Explicit and then it just reached a fever pitch during post-production, because I always feel as soon you're done with something, all of a sudden you really know how to do it. Part of it is just accepting that idea and as an artist trying to learn from it for the next time. Making Explicit Ills was phenomenal for me because I love storytelling and filmmaking and the collective effort of making a movie, and now I feel like I could do it better. I've got some ideas that are just chicken scratch in a notebook right now, but I'm excited about starting this whole crazy process all over again.

Jailhouse Rock: The Greatest Prison Films Of All Time (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Until Jack Nicholson’s kooky Colonel Nathan Jessep made fun of Tom Cruise’s faggoty white uniform over lunch in A Few Good Men, I’d never heard of America’s Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Oh, for those carefree days of yesteryore.

Today, of course, most of us are sick-to-death of (and mostly just sickened by) references to all the terrible, terrible shit that’s gone down at Gitmo since America went torture-happy in 2002 and turned the base into a slightly less awful Abu Ghraib, where (according to our terrible, terrible 43rd president) the Geneva Conventions, legality, common sense and human decency no longer applied.

As of this writing, our hopefully much, much better 44th president has, according to Reuters, ordered a 120-day halt to all pending Guantánamo Bay prosecutions “to give the new administration time to evaluate the cases and decide what forum best suits any future prosecution.”

In the meantime, your pals here at the Screengrab would like to commemorate President Obama’s pledge to shut down one of the worst prisons in our nation's history with a salute to THE BEST PRISON MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

THE ROAD TO GUANTÁNAMO (2006)

Time will tell if Barack Obama truly represents the hope and change upon which he campaigned, but it was a good sign when his first act upon assuming office was to begin the process of shutting down the prison camp maintained during the Bush administration at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. Meant to detain enemy combatants and terror suspects captured during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Guantánamo did almost nothing to fight al-Q’aeda, instead becoming a symbol of the degraded state of civil rights during the War on Terror. Michael Winterbottom’s powerfully effective documentary The Road to Guantánamo tells, through a clever mixture of documentary interviews and dramatic reenactments, the story of young British Muslims who visited Pakistan for a friend’s wedding; through foolhardiness or naivety, they ended up taking a detour into Afghanistan, and before they knew what was happening, they were captured, turned over to U.S. forces, and ended up in the world’s most infamous prison camp. Eventually released without charge two years later, their story is especially harrowing not only because a true prison tale is always scarier than an invented one, but also because it’s illustrative of how little it takes to destroy someone’s life in an atmosphere of paranoia and political fear.

COOL HAND LUKE (1967)

Given the timing of its release, Cool Hand Luke will probably always have the aura of a counterculture artifact, although in many ways it's your basic meat-and-potatoes prison flick. The conflict between our anti-hero Luke and the establishment – that is, the Bosses who keep him and his fellow prisoners in line – is certainly emblematic of the cultural divide of the Sixties, but it's also a well-worn standby of the genre. What makes Luke memorable, in addition to Newman's iconic performance, is the sweat-soaked Southern atmosphere and the rogues gallery of rugged character actors lined up on the chain gang, including George Kennedy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ralph Waite, Dennis Hopper, Joe Don Baker and Wayne Rogers. Sure, they may seem a little too comfortable playing grabass in their underwear, but prison does strange things to a man. The horrors of the work farm, from the backbreaking labor to solitary confinement in "the hole," are so far out of proportion to Luke's crime of cutting the heads off parking meters out of boredom, we'd root for him even if he wasn't a lovable rogue who settles the great question once and for all: can a man eat 50 eggs?

O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

Pigeonholing the Coen Brothers' perpetually underrated Americana romp as a prison movie would be just as ludicrous as studying The Big Lebowski for bowling tips, but the plot is indeed set into motion by a good old fashioned escape from a chain gang, and those big bold prison stripes really bring out the best in George Clooney. Although the Coens draw some of their imagery from classic prison flicks like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and Cool Hand Luke (their sunglasses-wearing pursuer appears to have stepped straight out of the latter picture), none of these influences have ever delved so deeply into the importance of the proper hair care product. Indeed, O Brother was the first prison movie that dared to depict the potential danger of the escaped fugitive being transformed into a toad by bewitching sirens. For speaking such hard truths, O Brother deserves a better reputation than it currently enjoys.

GRAND ILLUSION (1937)

Jean Renoir’s WWI opus about French and English pilots captured by the Germans is a film of startling depth and grace, a testament to the power of movies to reveal elusive truths about humanity, and a hell of a good time, to boot. I realize that critical opinion of this movie is such that the last statement is akin to affirming the wetness of water, but sometimes we have to acknowledge the waters in which we swim before we dive. It is hard to describe The Grand Illusion as a prison flick, even though most of the action takes place in various prisons. The movie is about class and prejudice and war and love and honor and this list could seriously go on for a while. At the height of his powers, Renoir was an artist of amazing scope, and his little prison flick manages to illuminate the contradictions at the heart of human psychology while judging no character for behaving as they have been taught to behave. The movie is a veritable who's-who of great European (and even American) cinema. It stars Jean Gabin, one of Renoir's favorite leading men, as Lieutenant Maréchal, the central figure of the movie. Renoir himself was an aviator during WWI, and the uniform Gabin wears was Renoir's during the first World War. Pierre Fresnay plays Captain de Boeldieu, the aristocratic aviator shot down alongside Maréchal. The director Erich von Stroheim plays Captain von Rauffenstein, the aristocratic German officer who shot them down and later acts as their warden. Marcel Dalio, credited at IMDB with 177 film appearances, plays Lieutenant Rosenthal, a Jewish French officer. The gorgeous Dita Parlo also appears, along with her L'Atalante co-star Jean Dasté. But the cast is only a component of the greatness; far more important is Renoir's sweeping vision of humanity, both in confinement and in freedom.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Hayden Childs

Screengrab Presents: The Best Stage-To-Screen Adaptations Of All Time (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

HENRY V (1989)

There’s been a lot of impressive speechifyin’ over the course of this past election year, and the Screengrab is currently accepting nominations for a Top Ten (or maybe even Twenty) of the greatest movie speeches of all time (to run in conjunction with Obama’s sure-to-be-classic inaugural oration)...yet, for my money, the tippy-top of any such list would have to include the classic St. Crispin’s Day pep talk from Shakespeare’s Henry V, wherein the titular monarch rallies the seemingly doomed, vastly outnumbered British army to give their lives gladly in the upcoming mother of all battles with France. Delivered by Kenneth Branagh (directing himself in a gripping action movie adaptation that makes you forget all about the pesky iambic pentameter stuff), the scene was so powerful on screen I wanted to rush right out and sack the concession stand. (And the rest of the movie ain't bad, neither.) Too bad the kind of talent (and ego) that allows a young firebrand like Branagh to helm and star in ambitious adaptations like Henry V and Hamlet tends to burn bright then quickly fade...at least, of late, from high-profile leading man movie roles (not to mention Emma Thompson’s heart).

ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930)

As a cinematic object, there’s not much to recommend Animal Crackers. Its staging is stiff as a rail, its romantic subplot just sits there and dies, its musical numbers aren’t much to write home about, and it’s hardly on the cutting edge of big-screen audiovisuals, even by the standards of eighty years ago. But it does do one thing that forever cements it in the upper echelons of stage-to-screen adaptations: it introduces the Marx Brothers to the world. Animal Crackers was one of the brothers’ most successful Broadway shows, running for almost 200 performances with the same cast, so Paramount took a chance that the comedy stylings of Groucho, Chico and Harpo would translate easily from play to film. In a certain sense, they were wrong: a number of Groucho’s more salacious lines, which were big hits with sophisticated New York audiences, were judged too risqué by the Hays Code bosses and cut out of the film version. But in most other respects, the Marx Brothers proved even more popular in the world of cinema than they did on the stage in Manhattan. Even the most cerebral elements of their mile-a-minute comedy, like the metahumor qualities evident in Groucho’s asides to the camera and Chico’s famously copping to not being Italian (the only movie in which he does so), proved to be as beloved by the heartland, and even foreign audiences, as they were to their Broadway fans.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988)

Stephen Frears made a risky choice when he helmed the first English-language adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ oft-filmed 18th-century novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. While most stage plays are opened up on film – made to look as non-theatrical as possible – Frears deliberately played up the staginess of the production. Instead of shying away from its origins as a play, he soaked it in theatrical elegance, and intentionally called attention to its artificiality. He couldn’t have picked a better play on which to attempt this tactic: Dangerous Liaisons, written in a high-nasty style that evokes the sadistic game-playing and one-upmanship of the courtier class of its day, is all about lies, about artifice, about theatrical chicanery. That’s why Frears and his screenwriter Christopher Hampton (updating his theatrical adaptation of the original novel for the screen) made such a wise choice; the world in which Glenn Close’s Marquise de Merteuil and John Malkovich’s Vicomte de Valmont lived was as unreal as a play, and that sensibility rightly pervades the entire movie. It also further provides us all the evidence we need that Keanu Reeves cannot act, and that Uma Thurman can – and is might purty to boot.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

Reviews By Request: The Times of Harvey Milk (1984, Rob Epstein)

Paul Clark — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

As always, I’ll be polling you folks to determine my next Reviews By Request column. To vote, see the poll at the end of this review.

When I floated Rob Epstein’s documentary The Times of Harvey Milk as a possibility for a Reviews By Request column, I did so primarily in anticipation of the upcoming biopic Milk. The principal reason for this is because I generally have a rule against getting my history from “fiction” films, so I wanted to learn about Milk’s life beforehand, the better to concentrate on the performances and filmmaking in Gus Van Sant’s film. Not having seen Milk yet I can’t be sure, but to my eyes, The Times of Harvey Milk, though relatively undistinguished as filmmaking, is invaluable as a cinematic account of the life and legacy of Harvey Milk. It doesn’t tell everything about him- what movie could?- but it’s a great jumping-off point.

One of the biggest misconceptions that The Times of Harvey Milk cleared up for me was that Milk was more or less a one-issue politician. I knew going in was that Milk was the first openly gay man ever elected to major civic office in the United States, so I jumped to the conclusion that his political interests revolved around gay-centric issues, like his successful campaign against 1978’s hateful “Briggs Initiative”, which would have forced California’s openly gay school teachers out of their jobs. However, this was hardly the case. Milk was a vocal advocate for the rights of senior citizens and minorities in San Francisco, and also was a proponent of stricter “pooper-scooper” legislation in the city. One of the film’s most vivid moments is an old news report in which Milk discusses the poop law and dramatically steps in a pile of droppings he’d strategically placed there earlier that day.

But The Times of Harvey Milk isn’t just about the man, but about, yes, the times in which he lived. San Francisco became a haven for homosexuals during the 1970s, including Milk himself, a former Wall Street analyst who moved West during the sixties. Already into his forties, Milk unsuccessfully ran for public office three times before being elected city supervisor, a beneficiary of a new San Francisco policy that required supervisors to represent specific districts rather than the city as a whole. As one of the interviewees states, “we had finally elected one of our own.” Indeed, this same election would also elect the city’s first Chinese-American, the first African-American woman, and the first committed feminist to the city board.

The fifth (and final) newly-elected city supervisor was named Dan White, who of course would eventually kill Milk and Mayor George Moscone. White’s trial and the fallout from the verdict take up most of the film’s final third, and this is its most troublesome aspect. Most of The Times of Harvey Milk is devoted to historical accounts of Milk’s work and impressions of his life by people who knew him, but in the section on White’s trial, Epstein includes some unfortunate editorializing by the people he interviews, in which they posit that White’s reduced charges (for voluntary manslaughter rather than murder) were the result of homophobia among the jurors. While this was no doubt a factor, so too was the boneheaded move by the prosecution to play White’s taped confession for the jury, which only served to humanize him and make him seem penitent. But whatever the reason, White’s verdict- predicated on the now laughable “Twinkie Defense”- remains a colossal blunder by the courts.

Much more interesting, and illuminating to Milk’s legacy, is a pair of public events that followed Milk’s death, the first a candlelight vigil a few days after Milk was shot, the second a full-scale riot in reaction to the White verdict. It’s in the second case that Milk’s absence is most profoundly felt. The Milk we get to know throughout the course of The Times of Harvey Milk was not about violence or fear, but a positive inspiration to others- as someone else once put it, “a uniter, not a divider.” In one of his most famous speeches, Milk said, “you gotta give ‘em hope,” a message that seems particularly relevant today, considering the hopeful message of change put forth by our recent President-elect. How unfortunate, then, that there was no Milk-like figure to lead the movement to defeat California’s Proposition 8. With anti-gay marriage laws being passed across the country, will we soon see the times of the next Harvey Milk? Only time will tell.

The end of the year is fast approaching, and with that the time to make end-of-year lists and awards. However, ever since I went and got myself a life, I haven’t had time to catch all the movies I’d like to see. So for the next couple of months, I’ll be devoting the Reviews by Request polls to 2008 releases only. This week, five acclaimed- and very different- movies from which to choose. Should I see the latest documentary from the great Herzog, which sadly never made it to my area? The weird-looking kids’ movie from Kung Fu Hustle’s Stephen Chow? A Berlin Golden Bear winner from the director of the awesome Bus 174? A lightweight French cinematic bonbon starring Amelie’s own Audrey Tautou? Or would you like me to review the latest from cinematic enfant terrible Harmony Korine? Ball’s in your court:

Which should I watch next? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. See you in two weeks!

John Cusack: Political Poet

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As a senior in high school, I fancied myself a John Cusack-y sort and loved The Sure Thing (oh, Daphne Zuniga, we hardly knew ye), and since then, the guy with the boombox has generated a pretty impressive body of work: Stand By Me, Eight Men Out, Say Anything, The Grifters, Bullets Over Broadway, Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity...

...but somewhere along the way, Cusack also contracted a bad case of Garafolo Political Syndrome, exacerbated by symptoms of the acute humorlessness and self-regard usually associated with stage one Sean Pennitis.

Sadly, rather than sending the condition into remission, the inspiring victory of Barack Obama may actually have made things worse, if Cusack’s recent douchey outbreak of post-election poety on The Huffington Post is any indication:

Real Shock And Awe
By John Cusack

More powerful than was imaginable,
We are almost in a state of collective shock/awe.
The promise -- Antigone before the king comes to mind -- wonderfully hard to process.
He looked as a man with providence; the opposite mirror of Bush.
There was humility inside it.
He was even careful not to get too frenzied -- gave a soft landing.
Sober, reflective, determined... emotional beyond words.
The world looked to America... we showed our best.
For one night at least, the world was sane.
The planet sighs in relief and deserves a righteous party.
We have beaten back the worst in ourselves, the old and inevitable forces of cynicism and greed.
No more patriotic primates to rule the roost.
Real change will take sacrifice, vigilance and will.
The bailout of Wall Street, the wars and the final gorge of the right wing must be stopped now, a return to Keynesian balance.
Bottom up instead of top down.
The gold standard that every human has value -- be awarded respect, dignity and opportunity --
The currency of grace.
A wave of renewal and possibility.
And now the real work begins.

The Screengrab wishes Mr. Cusack a speedy recovery, and hopes the poetry doesn’t spread to Joan.

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The Barack Obama Film Festival

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Nov. 1-7, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Change has come to America. The campaign was long and hard-fought, like that of Billy Jack. While we all enjoyed the Election Day Online Viewing Guide, that time is behind us. Forgotten are the days of Gabriel Over the White House. No longer must we ponder Visions of Change: Utopias and Worst-Case Scenarios (Parts One, Two, Three and Four). The Barack Obama Film Festival has begun. As such, I have chosen the Screengrab to outline my agenda for the next four years.

Highlights include:

Stopping the Three Stooges Revival

Exalting Kate Winslet’s Real Ass

Expunging Alone in the Dark, Great Expectations and Angels Brigade from the Library of Congress

Mourning Michael Crichton

Turning Guy Ritchie Gay

Visions of Change: Cinematic Utopias & Worst Case Scenarios (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Now that our favorite reality show is over and Barack Obama has officially been declared America’s Next Top Commander-in-Chief, we here at the Screengrab can finally breathe a sigh of relief and allow ourselves a few hope-filled dreams of a better world full of gay terrorists and socialized abortions and redistributed wealth for all...while up in Alaska, Track and Trig and Trots and Trickle-Down and all the other residents of Wasilla are having nightmares about the very same thing.

As Milton said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n,” and, frankly, given the overactive imaginations in our little corner of the blogosphere and all the campaign promises and scary robocalls of the past few weeks, we’ve spent WAY more time than usual contemplating any number of best and worst case scenarios for our nation and the future of humanity in general...

...which eventually led to us contemplating our Netflix queues instead, so we could stop thinking so much and just zone out for a while with the following movies, as we take a break from politics and go to our happy place (and a whole bunch of not so happy places) with our salute to The Screengrab's all-time favorite cinematic utopias and dark, dystopic futures!

IDIOCRACY (2006)

We already paid tribute to the brilliance of Idiocracy in a previous list, but it seemed appropriate to kick off with a nod to Mike Judge’s cult classic about a fast-food, monster-truck future where the average IQ has dropped to sub-Heidi & Spencer levels, anybody with an original thought is automatically labeled a “fag” and Ow, My Balls! is America’s number one show, since it features the endlessly hilarious spectacle of a man getting nailed in the nuts again and again and again and again and...anyway, let’s just say it’s the kind of “real” America a certain fake plumber I know might find utopian, while my elitist ass would be searching for the nearest “Time Masheen” home.

LOGAN'S RUN (1976)

There's always a catch, isn't there? The world of Logan's Run certainly seems like a utopian one, assuming your idea of an ideal society resembles a Dallas shopping mall circa the Bicentennial. Inside the domed city of the future, everything is provided for you, including all the sex, drugs and plastic surgery you could ever want. However, as your thirtieth birthday approaches, the red crystal implanted in your palm begins to blink, signaling that your time is just about up. On Last Day, you report to Carousel, which looks like a fun way to go if you like floating around in a colorful bodysuit and bursting into flames. Be advised that there is always the chance of "renewal" although no one really seems to know exactly what that is or if it has ever happened. If this seems like a bad deal, you can always run and seek Sanctuary outside the dome. There are two flaws in this plan: 1) Armed enforcers called Sandmen will try to kill you. 2) If you do manage to find Sanctuary, you'll probably be disappointed unless you want to spend the rest of your life with a smelly old man and his cats.

WALL*E (2008)

Let's face it -- for all the hard work that goes into designing them, most big-screen sci-fi and fantasy worlds aren't exactly the kinds of places we could imagine ourselves actually living in. To cite one example, we wouldn't want to live in a future full of feral Australians who power their city with pig shit, although to be certain, we'd consider it if Thunderdome was there. So compared to most movie futures, the world conjured up by Pixar's WALL*E looks pretty darned appealing. After all, doesn't it sound ever so wonderful to live forever in a deep-space colony where all of your daily responsibilities -- walking, feeding yourself, even procreating -- are taken care of for you by the latest in efficient yet people-friendly machines? In the world of WALL*E, all of this is possible. The catch? The space colonies aren't destinations for vacationers, but rather their new home after life on Earth became unsustainable as a result of excess consumption and pollution. Enabled by mega-corporate sponsor Buy-N-Large, the citizens of these brave new worlds become even lazier, not to mention universally obese. WALL*E was attacked by the right as being a pro-environmental screed (like that's really a bad thing?), but take a second look at the film and tell us it's not more of an attack on complacency, that unfortunate tendency on the part of most people to take the easy way out rather than do a little more work to save themselves in the long run. Luckily for the characters in WALL*E, life eventually finds a way, making it possible to resettle and rebuild the Earth. It's up to us to pull ourselves together enough to preserve our way of life before WALL*E becomes a reality.

ROAD TO UTOPIA (1946)

Okay, so it’s not really Utopia. It’s Alaska, which, judging by the quality of politicians they produce, is anything but. “Utopia” isn’t much more than the title of the final entry in the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby ‘road picture’ series; in fact, it’s just a hustle by Crosby’s Duke Johnson to swindle Hope’s Chester Hooton out of some cash. But Road to Utopia is far and away the funniest of the Road pictures, its self-reflexive, self-deprecating, mile-a-minute humor much more in keeping with the anarchic films of the Marx Brothers than the kind of hoke that Crosby usually associated himself with. There’s lots of inside jokes, an amiable hatred between the two leads, an absurd plot that never gets in the way of good gags, special guest appearances by master humorist Robert Benchley, and, of course, Dorothy Lamour, looking as lovely as ever. Watching Hope and Crosby take clever cheap shots at each other for an hour and a half may not be Utopia, but it’s close enough for us.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940)

In Barack Obama’s America, “socialism” is a word that got thrown around before his election to scare people. Betting on the ignorance of Americans that dozens of prosperous countries get along just fine with some state control of the private sector, right-wing scaremongers used to imply that Obama was a new Stalin who would centralize the Wal-Mart and send anyone who owned a shotgun to a gulag somewhere outside of Wasilla. In John Ford’s Hollywood, though, “socialism” was a new and tempting word for a country that had been beaten to the point of utter despair by the worst economic depression in history. To millions of Americans, the limited socialism advocated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt seemed like it might be the country’s salvation at the same time the nation’s rich excoriated him as a communist who would be America's doom. While much of Europe turned to the poison of fascism to rescue it from the Depression, FDR’s mad notion that the government’s job was to help those who can’t help themselves found a receptive audience among most citizens – a notion reflected in The Grapes of Wrath. Late in the book, Tom Joad’s migrant Okie family, near shattered from death and poverty and hostile, exploitative bosses – come upon a farm camp called the Wheat Patch, which seems like a utopia: no cops allowed without a warrant, free food and shelter for those who work for it, and “the best dances in the county, every Saturday night”. Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad, in utter disbelief that such a place exists free from the cops and bosses who have tried to squeeze him every step of his journey, goggles: “Who runs this place?” Told it’s a government facility, he asks why there aren’t more of them. “You find out,” replies a caretaker with some cynicism. “I can’t.”

Click Here For Part Two, Part Three & Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Paul Clark, Leonard Pierce

The Barack Obama Film Festival

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Our British friends are delighted with America’s choice as new president, which hasn’t always been the case. (Who can forget the Daily Mirror headline from four years ago, “How Can 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb?”) In fact, they’re already prepared with some advice for President-elect Obama, even if that advice is as seemingly unimportant as the five films he should watch before taking office.

As Xan Brooks notes in The Guardian, Obama’s favorite film is The Candidate. “Robert Redford's idealism harks back to a better day. That said, my team won't let me watch the end for some reason.” In case you’ve forgotten, Brooks reminds us the film “ends with Redford's hero unable to cope with his victory; so drained and compromised by the campaign that he loses sight of why he ran in the first place. ‘What do we do now?’ he murmurs, as the mob runs in to claim him.”

Brooks understands that Obama may not have a lot of couch time between now and January 20, but he does offer five movies for the incoming president’s consideration. They include The Grapes of Wrath (“an angry, humane account of the last Great Depression”) and Nashville (‘a warts-and-all celebration of the American melting-pot”) as well as the cautionary tale A Face in the Crowd. Maybe Sarah Palin can take some time over the next four years to check that one out.

And Bob Hoskins As Joe The Plumber

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Well, we figured it was only a matter of time. I suppose we're just lucky it's the still somewhat respectable Los Angeles Times who's doing it, instead of, say, the New York Post, or worse yet, the National Review.

We're talking about casting the lead roles in the 2008 election, which, if it ends anything as crazily as it's played out so far, will be in theaters near you by around 2010 at the latest. (Of course, that depends on who wins. There may not be any theaters near you by 2010 if it's the G.O.P. candidate.) The Times has decided to put their best guesses to filling the big-screen roles of the candidates and their various First Ladies and Gentlemen, and their choices run the gamut from obvious (Tina Fey as Sarah Palin) to intriguing (James Caan as Joe Biden) to inexplicable (Paul Giamatti as John McCain?).

Will Smith as Barack Obama seems like a boringly safe choice; why not Don Cheadle, or our personal favorite pick, Anwan Glover? You gotta take risks sometimes, in casting no less so than in politics. What about you, Screengrab readers? Who would you cast as the 2008 contenders and their spouses?

Warners DVD Keeps John McCain Interview Under Lock and Key

Dennis Hopper Beats Joe The Plumber To Death With Pipe

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Okay...I'll admit that headline is a tad negative and misleading. But isn't that what campaign season's all about?

Besides, according to the terrorist-and-fact-loving elitists at The New York Times, Joe isn't really a plumber and he isn't actually named Joe. In fact, based on photographic evidence, he may even be Michael Chiklis.

And Dennis Hopper, despite a history of crazy behavior like almost but not quite blowing himself up with dynamite, doesn't really go around like Frank Booth randomly bludgeoning people he doesn't agree with (or even people who symbolize people he doesn't agree with)...

...but, surprisingly, the annoying hippie nutjob turned annoying neo-conservative also won't be voting for McCain this Election Day, no matter how many folksy plumber stories the Republican candidate pulls out of his funny Maverick hat.

In other words: Dennis Hopper's turning Blue, and we don't mean Velvet.

Yes, despite his recent turn in David Zucker's alleged comedy, the liberal-bashing An American Carol, and despite voting "Bush" not once, not twice, but four times in as many presidential elections, Hopper recently told reporters, "I pray God Barack Obama is elected."

Regarding his reasons for the change of political heart, the one-time easy rider cited the many lies of the current administration...

...but since he made the statement while he was in France(!) receiving that nation's Order of Commander of Arts and Letters, it's entirely possible he was lying.

(Hey, when in Rome...)

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Indiana Does Linguistics: Nuking the Fridge with Professor Jones

Phil Nugent — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:00:00 GMT

In the overall scheme of the 2008 summer movie season, which began more than a month before summer did and is already entering its winding-down stage, The Dark Knight has established itself as the Movie of the Moment, Sex and the City the stealth smash and favorite subject for op-ed kvetchers, and Robert Downey, Jr. the star who people root for as lustily as any of the characters he plays. By contrast, the fourth Indiana Jones picture performed about the way one might have expected: after months of hype and even some genuine expectations, it opened big, collected its first-weekend money, and moseyed its way out of first-run theaters. But its left something behind: a new phrase in the English language. That would be "nuke the fridge", which the urban dictionary defines thusly:

A colloquialism used to delineate the precise moment at which a cinematic franchise has crossed over from remote plausibility to self parodying absurdity, usually indicating a low point in the series from which it is unlikely to recover. A reference to one of the opening scenes of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", in which the titular hero manages to avoid death by nuclear explosion by hiding inside a kitchen refrigerator. The film is widely recognised by fans as a major departure from the rest of the series both in terms of content and quality.

Guy 1: "Wow. Did you see the new Indy movie? What the hell was that? It was like I was having some kind of flu induced absurdist nightmare."

Guy 2: "Yep... did or did not that series permanently Nuke the Fridge?"

The obvious reference point is of course to "jump the shark", the phrase for the moment when a TV series has gone south, which was popularized by Jon Hein's website of the same name sometime around the last turn of the millennium. Hein's payday came in 2005, when the site was sold to TV Guide, and since then the phrase, which apparently originated in bull sessions Hein had with his friends back in college, has slipped its leash and entered the mainstream, where it is applied willy-nilly to anyone and anything. (Last week, wild man pundit David Brooks, going far off the reservation of conventional wisdom, opined that, with his tumultuously received speech in Berlin, Barack Obama's "unity act" had "jumped the shark.") Variations on "nuke the fridge" have already started turning up in the names of website, such as nukedthefridge.com. One of the fellows who runs one such site told The New York Times' Noam Cohen that “‘Jump the shark’ is for people over the age of 60, who remember the show.” By contrast, “nuke the fridge” offers a “new, fresh take” on long-running entertainment phenomena that have entered the sucking stages. For his part, Jon Hein is magnanimous towards these youngsters, though he does point out that it's been a while since he's heard anyone use the phrase "jump the couch" (Remember? Tom Cruise on Oprah? Anyone?), so maybe the people trying to cash in on "nuke the fridge" shouldn't jump at the chance to buy any yachts on credit. Leaving aside how weird it is that some people apparently feel that their generation will be ill-served if they don't have their very own snappy three-word on-line phrase for this sort of thing, I suspect that when a replacement for "jump the shark" that will stick does arrive, it won't be one that sort of replicates the rhythm and idea behind "jump the shark." One reason that "jump the shark" caught people's attention was that it wasn't obviously engineered to resemble something that people were already saying.

Spike Strikes Back

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Folks, we’re having a hard time keeping up with this story. When we checked in on Friday afternoon, Clint Eastwood had just fired back at Spike Lee over his complaints that Eastwood’s Iwo Jima pictures were lacking in African-American presence. Coining perhaps his most iconic catchphrase since “Go ahead, make my day,” Eastwood remarked of Lee that “A guy like him should shut his face.” Naturally we figured that Lee, being the mellow, non-confrontational fellow we know and love, would simply let it slide. But that’s not the case.

The Guardian, the newspaper that carried the Eastwood interview in which he made remarks, now brings us Lee’s retort. The Do the Right Thing man hauls out the heavy ammunition right off the bat. "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films ... And a comment like 'A guy like that should shut his face' - come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."

“I'm not making this up,” Lee continues. “I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to the second world war. Not everything was John Wayne, baby.” Responding to Eastwood’s defense that none of the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima was African-American, Lee says, “For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ... no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film.”

Lee wraps it up by getting topical. “Even though he's trying to have a Dirty Harry flashback, I'm going to take the Obama high road and end it right here. Peace and love.” Yes, we can only hope the upcoming McCain/Obama debates will match the level of collegial discourse found in the Eastwood/Lee dialogues.

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Spike Lee Goes to War

Will Barack Obama Be America's Next Great Black President?

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:30:00 GMT

You know how there’s usually nothing good on TV, and then finally there are TWO shows you want to watch and they’re both on at the same time? That’s what this election has been like for me. After a a lifetime of troubled Democratic administrations and doomed Democratic candidates from McGovern to Kerry (and don’t even get me started on the disastrous Gore/Lieberman campaign, Nader haters), we finally get two really strong contenders...IN THE SAME FREAKIN’ ELECTION YEAR. And they just spent the past few months beating the shit out of each other.

But that's all behind us now: according to media scuttlebutt, Hillary will officially concede the Democratic nomination on Saturday and become America’s #1 Obama Girl, while Barack moves one step closer to becoming our nation’s first real black president, after many years of fake black presidents on TV and the big screen.

And so, in honor of Senator Barack Obama’s historic achievement, Screengrab decided to look back at some of the African Americans who occupied the Oval Office in fiction before reality finally caught up:

Morgan Freeman as President Tom Beck in Deep Impact (1998)

After playing God in Bruce & Evan Almighty, President of the United States was actually a step down for Morgan Freeman...but America was lucky to have his wisdom, authority and soothing, inspirational baritone during a crisis involving a potential Extinction Level Event, a.k.a. a giant comet on a collision course with Earth. Rather than farming out the whole thing to Haliburton, President Beck freezes wages and prices to prevent an economic disaster and dispatches Robert Duvall’s Capt. Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner and a multinational crew of astronauts, who sacrifice themselves to destroy the big rock, thus saving (most of) humanity. Heckuva job, Fishie.

Dennis Haysbert as President David Palmer on 24 (2002-2004)

After surviving assassins in a truly harrowing California primary, Haysbert’s resilient, basso profundo commander-in-chief is faced with nuclear and biological terrorism, as well as attempts by corrupt American businessmen to manufacture war in the Middle East in order to drive up oil prices and...uh...hey, isn’t this a Fox show with a big conservative fan base? Must be all the torture...so much torture, in fact, that West Point Academy worried cadets were starting to view such behavior as acceptable interrogation procedure, and I’ve personally heard talk radio guys condone extreme neo-con interrogation policies because, heck, they always work for Jack Bauer. Yet isn’t it also possible, given the show’s impact, that Haysbert’s performance as the indomitable President Palmer in some way helped Middle America get used to the idea of a handsome young African American Democrat in the White House?

Bill Clinton as President Bill Clinton in Contact (1998)

While not technically African American, Bill Clinton received an honorary designation as the nation’s first black president (until the real thing comes along) from a plurality of U.S. comedians. And while not technically a cast member of Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of Carl Sagan’s tale of Earth’s first contact with extraterrestrial life, Clinton nevertheless received more screen time than Rob Lowe or Angela Bassett thanks to a presidential speech about rocks found on Mars that was repurposed (controversially) as a fictional proclamation about alien transmissions received by astronomer Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster). Ironically, the only reason Clinton got to portray the president in the movie was because Sidney Poitier passed on the role.

Terry Crews as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in Idiocracy (2006)

Of course, some presidents are better than others, though given the average IQ of the dumbed-down populace of Mike Judge’s little-seen, depressingly spot-on social satire, Idiocracy, Crews’ President Camacho doesn’t really do that bad a job. Sure, he almost executes the smartest man in the world (Luke Wilson’s cryogenically-preserved average Joe, whose 21st century common sense reads as genius in 2505 America). But he does have leadership skills, and when Joe’s brilliant plan to water crops with, y’know, water instead of corporate sports beverages helps to end a crippling food shortage, Camacho has the wisdom to actually listen to expert opinion rather than (ahem) stubbornly staying the course.

Tommy “Tiny” Lister as President Lindberg in The Fifth Element (1997)

Forget the Axis of Evil...Lister’s science-fictional administration has to deal with The Great Evil, a sentient flaming asteroid intent on, yes, wiping out all life on Earth. While Bruce Willis’ cab driver and Milla Jovovich’s supernatural supermodel do most of the heavy lifting in the fight against Evil (and its chief henchman Zorg, played by Gary Oldman in a peculiar plastic hat), President Lindberg nevertheless doesn’t ask and Chris Tucker’s Ruby Rhod doesn’t tell when his ultra-flamboyant radio host joins the mission, and the intergalactic commander-in-chief even supports his troops by preventing a naggy mother from cock-blocking Willis’ eventual clone chamber tryst with Jovovich...talk about advocating stem cell research!

Jessica Alba Is Ready To Be Taken Seriously Now, Please

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Jessica Alba is tired of getting all these scripts containing gratuitous nudity. I know, I know: what’s the problem? “I don't think this is happening to Natalie Portman,” she tells The Independent’s James Mottram, who may have had to wipe the drool off his profile of the actress before he sent it in. “Jessica Alba mesmerises men,” writes Mottram. “It's what she does…Her signature roles so far have seen her in various states of undress, from a bikini-clad diver in Into the Blue to a lasso-wielding stripper in Sin City… Hamstrung by her beauty, she is typical of what Hollywood wants from its young starlets these days: a girl-next-door with just the right amount of sex appeal for the 18-25, male, movie-going demographic.” He goes on to praise Alba’s “ability to stir male loins,” which maybe sounds dirtier than he meant it.

So now that we’re all clear on the fact that Alba is an attractive woman and that this fact goes a long way towards explaining why she’s in movies, it must be about time for Alba’s Serious Actress phase to commence. The first step is to dismiss her previous work as fluff or worse. Of Good Luck, Chuck, her recent rom-com with the execrable Dane Cook, Alba says “It's porn…It wasn't supposed to be like that.” On Into the Blue and her co-star Paul Walker: “Paul was the lead. Paul helped develop it. You wouldn't believe how much that kid got paid! And I don't think he did one ounce of publicity.”

In the J-horror remake The Eye, Alba got to flex her acting muscles as a blind violinist. She learned “basic Braille and how to walk with a cane. And she spent six months learning how to play the violin – even though, in the end, this is seen in just two sequences.” Mottram is also impressed with Alba’s political consciousness – unless he’s putting us on, which seems increasingly likely as the article progresses. Alba “recently appeared in a pro-Barack Obama video directed by Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am.” Her thoughts on the candidate? “Everyone views him as the next JFK. That's where people are putting him, because he's for the people and not necessarily about making more money for corporations that are running our country.”

“Maybe there's a chance of that Oscar yet,” Mottram concludes. Yeah, I think he might be putting us on. Either that or he’s in love.

Depp vs. Murray: Dueling Gonzos

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Many people think of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson as the drug-addled grotesque at the center of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, a buffoonish personification of the worst of ‘60s & ‘70s excess...and, by most accounts, Thompson both played up and fell victim to this public persona in the latter part of his life and career, trading on his wild-and-crazy persona in the pop culture fast lane like a counter-culture Hugh Hefner while his writing became ever more lazy and diffuse. "I'm leading a normal life and right alongside me there is this myth,” he admitted as early as 1977, “and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting [his crazed, quasi-fictional alter-ego Raoul] Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."

In his prime, however, Thompson was not only a larger-than-life, groundbreaking literary stylist, but also a crack-shot political reporter with a formidable grasp of American realpolitik. Nearly four decades before Hilary and Barack started trading body blows in the 2008 primaries, Thompson was bemoaning the essential fracture he saw at the heart of the modern Democratic Party in Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail ’72: “I think what most people seem to be tired of are the sort of lint-headed, wooly-minded—what a lot of people call do-gooders—people who would like to do the right thing, but who just can’t get it up.”

On The Campaign Trail ’72 is a fantastically insightful cautionary chronicle of the doomed McGovern presidential campaign, essential reading for anyone interested in the health of the Republic (especially in an election year)...and, in fact, I'd only just recently finished re-reading the book when a friend, out of the blue, sent me a DVD packed with various bits of Thompson-alia, including The Crazy Never Die, a 1988 documentary short about Dr. Gonzo by the Mitchell Brothers Film Group of San Francisco, along with material from the two extant fictional depictions of Thompson’s life: Terry Gilliam’s Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) and Art Linson’s Where The Buffalo Roam (1980).

I had seen both Thompson biopics before, but it was interesting to compare the movies and their lead performances side by side. According to Doug Hill & Jeff Weingrad’s backstage history Saturday Night, Bill Murray became so immersed in his semi-autobiographical portrayal (in Buffalo) that he palled around with and virtually became Hunter S. Thompson, “complete with long black cigarette holder, dark glasses, and nasty habits,” a pseudo-Method transformation that lasted until the movie came out and bombed like the Enola Gay, after which the comedian returned to his regular, affable self, as if waking from a long, strange coma.

Despite all his apparent mental immersion in the role, however, Murray the actor never really disappears into the character, and his performance as Thompson is not markedly different from his 1979 performance as Trip Harrison in Meatballs or his later depiction of Carl Spackler in Caddyshack. If anything, his Thompson seems like the bastard child of Carl and Trip, with a few Gonzo quotes and props thrown into the mix.

Johnny Depp also palled around with Thompson before, during and after his portrayal of the man, but the actor’s performance as “Raoul Duke” in Gilliam’s adaptation of the allegedly unfilmable Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is a believably stylized depiction of a more fully-realized character, grounding the film’s bombastic excesses with deadpan wit and an undercurrent of genuine sadness for the lost utopian dreams of the '60s counter-culture.

In the final analysis, Depp (arguably) offers a better performance in a better film, but after Gilliam’s surrealistic take (and Benicio del Toro’s intense but off-putting performance as Duke/Thompson’s friend, Dr. Gonzo/Oscar Acosta), Where The Buffalo Roam’s more laid-back, relatively naturalistic approach, while meandering (and, well, bad), still makes me wish for an accurate, insightful biopic of the real Hunter S. Thompson, beyond all the same old fear and loathing.

Strange Bedfellows: Jack and Hillary

Paul Clark — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:00:00 GMT

This clip has been making the rounds for the past few days, so we figured we'd chime in. Normally, we don't go in for political or campaign-oriented discussion, but since Jack Nicholson is involved it's fair game. For most of the clip, this feels like a joke, like some bored YouTuber got it in his head to create a campaign spot using footage from old Jack movies. Even after the text starts popping up onscreen and it becomes clear that the creator of the spot is a Hillary supporter, it's still highly possible that we're dealing with that same semi-anonymous party. Then the final shot comes like a punchline — Jack himself, saying "I approved this message" directly to the camera — and it suddenly hits you that this is for real.

And that's what's so bizarre. I won't begrudge Jack his political opinions, especially since former President Clinton made a lot of big-shot Hollywood friends during his term in office. But what could have convinced him that this spot would work? What prevailed upon him to open with the Joker asking "who do ya trust?" Hate to break it to you buddy, but half of the clips you've included in your little love note to Hillary show you as a bad guy. Do you really think people will embrace a candidate because the Joker, Jack Torrance, and Colonel Jessup told them to?

Of course, it's entirely possible that Jack has another agenda entirely. By marshalling his crazy roles behind Hillary, perhaps he was doing his part to push the undecided toward Obama. It's the only possiblity that makes sense to me. But is this actually the case? Only your undertaker knows for sure.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Phil's Picks

Phil Nugent — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Let's make sure we're on the same page on this: if you bet money, household chores, or bragging rights on anything you're about to read in this post, you are out of your mind, and while I pity you, I will not admit in a court of law to ever having met you. I got off the Oscar train when I was eight years old and Sissy Spacek didn't win for Carrie; to have continued our relationship beyond that point would have been madness, madness! I claim no inside knowledge or deep understanding of how they decide these things, and the only thing I could tell you about the winners of recent years is that Jennifer Hudson won last year for Dreamgirls. (How do I know this? I was talking to someone on the phone when it was announced, and the woman I was talking to happened to have her TV set on. When Hudson's name was called out, the woman screamed. It turned out that it was a joyous scream, but until she calmed down enough to tell me what the hell was going on, my best guess was that she had just noticed that her couch was on fire.) Anyway, the only thing more completely charmless than the Oscars may be the ugly spectacle of a writer bragging about how little he cares about what he's paid to weigh in on, so now that we've just established that my opinion in this area counts for about as much as hair styling tips from Paul Wolfowitz, here goes:

BEST SCREENPLAY:

Diablo Cody takes Best Original for Juno because the voters have actually heard her name — it's not like, having come across it once, you can get it out of your head without laser surgery — and Paul Thomas Anderson takes it for Best Adaptation for There Will Be Blood, because that's what you get when you make a great movie but you aren't going to get Best Picture and the Best Director prize already taken.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Apparently this is going to go to Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There, partly because Blanchett is also nominated for a Best Actress award that she is not getting to get and nominating her twice in one year without giving her anything would just seem silly. A good and sound bit of reasoning, and so I will of course reject it. And not only because I don't get the universally accepted logic by which this is agreed to be a "supporting" performance. Who the hell is she supposed to be supporting? The term ought to mean something other than "Big name actor in a role that is frequently off-screen." She's definitely the unquestioned star of her section of the movie, and while I didn't put a stop watch on it, I'll bet that she has as much screen time as any of the other Dylans. And if it turns out that Richard Gere, say, has a little more actual screen time, I'm not sure that the editor did him a favor by it. Until persuaded otherwise, I shall remain convinced that Blanchett's placement in this category is part of some conspiracy to screw over Amy Ryan, who wouldn't win anyway, because you only win an Oscar for playing a character as skanky as her Gone Baby Gone character if the Academy has already seen you in a bunch of glamour-puss roles and so knew for sure that you were acting. It's a moot point anyway, because I boldly predict that the winner will be Ruby Dee, because she has had a long and distinguished career, because she is 83 years old, because her late husband, Ossie Davis, is much missed, and because even though she didn't have much of a role in American Gangster, she did get to slap Denzel Washington, and he needed slapping.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Hal Holbrook has had a long and distinguished career and is now the same age as Ruby Dee, so if she doesn't win in her category, his chances automatically go up by 50%. But I really don't see it happening. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives the best performance in this category — he's a stone hoot in Charlie Wilson's War, which marks a rare example of an actor giving the Academy three different performances to select for nomination and the Academy choosing the right one. I'd think he had a real chance if it weren't for the fact that he already won not too long ago for Best Actor for Capote, which makes Javier Bardem the needier candidate. Bardem's trigger-happy, unstoppable psycho in a much-discussed hairstyle gave audiences all the fun of watching a Batman villain ply his trade, but it's in an officially certified, critically approved serious film with a literary pedigree, and for this he will be the recipient of much gratitude from voters whose wives dragged them to Atonement. He's already won more than a few awards for this performance, and he'll be throwing one more on the pile.

BEST ACTRESS:

Julie Christie in a lock. Next?

BEST ACTOR:

The conventional wisdom seems to be that this one belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood. I think that George Clooney has a shot for Michael Clayton, which is the kind of hard-hitting, tough-minded, yet still glamorous-looking movie that Hollywood wishes and expects America to take to its bosom. (Clooney looks worn-down and dissipated in it, and a gorgeous-looking man looking as much like hell as he can is the most glamorous thing in the world.) Some would argue that Clooney himself gave the award to Day-Lewis at a recent Newsweek-sponsored gathering where he serenaded his shy British colleague by saying that all actors "bow low to this motherfucker." Indeed, the whole of the media has been going wild these last couple of months about Day-Lewis's position as the great screen actor of our time. I do not disagree. But I happen to be one of those suspicious types who, when I hear conservative pundits on Fox News go on and on about how fearsome a candidate Barack Obama would be against a Republican challenger in November, and how they think that any Republican would just chew Hillary Clinton up and spit her out, I can't help thinking, Okay, would they say that out loud if they really believed it? Hasn't anyone ever heard the one about wanting to be thrown in the brier patch? So, on this baseless idiot notion, I have just decided the media have been building Day-Lewis up in preparation for the shocking upset to come when Clooney takes the prize. Remember, you read it here first! Unless I'm wrong, in which case you can just forget that I said anything.

BEST DIRECTOR:

The Coens, for No Country for Old Men, in a bigger lock than Julie Christie.

BEST PICTURE:

The big pictures here are obviously No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and I think they're going to cancel each other out. Both are impressive, violent movies that actually alienate as many potential voters as they attract. For the same reasons that I think George Clooney is an attractive candidate for Best Actor, his movie, Michael Clayton, has the smell of a loser to it. So the contrarian, can't-we-all-just-get-alone vote will go to putting either Juno or Atonement over the top. After it won at the Golden Globes, I thought that Atonement, with its period romance and literary prestige, was a shoo-in, but since then I have shifted over to favoring Juno, partly because I got bored with my previous position, partly because Juno is this year's Little Miss Sunshine, and Little Miss Sunshine lost last year. That means that the partisans of indie-flavored whimsy will be harder-driving this year. Also, it came out later in the year than Little Miss Sunshine, and is lucky in its timing: I calculate that the backlash against the backlash against Juno is now on a rising wave and will crest in time for the awards Sunday. It will flatten out the next morning and the papers will be full of "What were we thinking" pieces for the next two weeks.

Kisses for My Precedents

Phil Nugent — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Writing in Newsweek, Joshua Alston reflects on the history of fake black presidents and woman presidents in the movies and on TV, a lineage that may have greased the way for the real-life battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's sobering to realize that the very notion of a woman or an African-American becoming president has, until recently, been treated mostly as a subject for comic or something close to science fiction, as in the 1964 movie Kisses for My President, which is all about how emasculating it is for Fred MacMurray to be cast in the role of First Husband after his wife, Polly Bergen, is elected president. Bergen eventually resigns the presidency to answer to what the film sees as a woman's higher calling: she's pregnant, and her family needs her. At least she was actually elected. The first black president in the movies, Douglass Dilman, played by James Earl Jones in the 1972 The Man (adapted, from an Irving Wallace novel, by that exemplar of socially conscious entertainment, Rod Serling), rose to the office after a perfect storm hit the line of succession. He just happened to be the President Pro Tempore of the Senate when both the president and the speaker of the house are killed by a collapsed roof in West Germany. After the ailing, elderly vice-president politely declines the job because he already has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, the cabinet actually urges the secretary of state to ignore the rules and jump ahead of Dilman; he turns them down (no Al Haig he), but The Man remains rooted firmly in the concept that a black man could become president only through a surreal set of circimstances and that much, if not most of the country would balk at regarding his presidency as legitimate. At the end, Dilman is planning to fight to hang onto the job (no Polly Bergen he), but in order to demonstrate that white America can trust him to govern in "moderation", he has to turn over a black revolutionary (Georg Stanford Brown) to the apartheid government of South Africa.

A lot has changed since then, but as recently as 2003, the Chris Tucker-Bernie Mac movie Head of State was predicated on the idea that a black president was both unlikely and hilarious, and more recently than that, the TV series Commander in Chief, in which Geena Davis ascended to the president after the guy who was elected at the top of the ticket suffered a cerebral aneuryam, earned a fair number of perplexed and hostile notices just for its premise. On the other hand, that show also set off a fair amount of tsk-tsking and throat-clearing among people who were appalled to discover how many people still felt comfortable with expressing dismay at the very concept of a woman president; in that sense, Commander in Chief may have been more successful at propelling the debate into, say, the twentieth century than it was as entertainment. Of course, the real triumph may be in Jack Bauer's alternate universe. 24, a show frequently criticized as right-wing propaganda (and one that premiered in the fall of 2001, shortly after Everything Changed), began with David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) campaigning for the presidency and wound up with him becoming first leader of the free world, then a martyr, and finally, with his little brother following him to the Oval Office, as the head of a dynasty. In the next season, Cherry Jones is set to play the first woman president who'll be telling Jack who to blow up next. The show has had its share of white male presidents, too, but they have tended to be a far less inspiring lot. After the last one, the Nixonian President Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin), Jack Bauer might not ever have take orders from another white guy again.