Feel-Good Movie of The Year?

I won't lie, I have not been overly impressed by the work of Steven Spielberg lately. "Catch Me if You Can" and "The Terminal" both lacked the passion and care that makes us love him in the first place, and "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds" felt too overblown, without any of the intimacy that we are usually given by this cinematic maestro. But nothing that Spielberg has done since "Saving Private Ryan" has had the gravitas that Munich has. Nothing since then has had the buildup, either. A troubled set in a politically troubled climate helped create the back-stage edginess to the film, especially considering the film's subject matter. Eric Bana (Hulk) is a former Mossad agent who, after the 1972 Massacre at the Munich Olympics, is tasked with a special mission by Golde Maier: he and three other men must track down and kill several Arabs who they are told "had a hand in Munich." They are given no evidence, but they don't need it. As the mission goes on, the men wear thin, and Eric Bana begins to miss his wife and newborn daughter. In all, the film is a great exploration of civic duty and what we do for what we believe is right. Eric Bana truly gives a great performance as a man who is being destroyed from the inside out with an intensity and depth that should have earned him a nomination for either SAG or the Oscars, but that's another matter. Daniel Craig gives a great performance as well, as an English Jew on the team. Unfortunatley, his character was lacking in depth. He plays an agent who doesn't care who he kills, or why he does it. After all, as he says: "The only blood I care about is Jewish blood." The logic seems a bit thin, but I'm willing to overlook it. Geoffery Roush gives just one of the many great supporting performances in what is a great film, save for one thing: the ending. The film contains many flashbacks to Munich, the most unfortunate of which is at the end, where it is cut between the terrorists in a shoot out and Eric Bana having sex with his wife. Even more unfortunate in Tony Kushner's otherwise great screenplay is definitely the last shot, which is of the World Trade Center, standing ominously behind Eric Bana, and there it remains as he leaves. A seemingly cheap ending to an otherwise great film.

Grade: A-

Just A Little Plug Here...

This fall at 10pm on Mondays, please head on over to NBC so that you can enjoy the latest Aaron Sorkin-penned TV Show (see: Sports Night, The West Wing, seasons 1 - 4) "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." It stars Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Steven Weber, Amanda Peet, DL Hughley, and Nate Cordry (yes, from The Daily Show.) I've been following production, and from the trailers I've seen and scripts I've read, I have to say, this promises to be great. So, Mondays at 10 on NBC. Be there. Woah.

Oh my stars and garters...

The title of this review (the first in quite a long time,) is one of Beast's (Kelsey Grammar, wearing all-blue make up) lines, and, incidentally, is one of the more realistic pieces of dialogue in this weeks film, "X-Men 3: The Last Stand." I won't spend any more time talking about the crappy dialogue (well, maybe,) but I felt that mentioning this utterly ridiculous line would help set the tone for this review. Granted, the film had pretty big shoes to fill, after the first two X-Men essentially set the new, fresh tone of superhero movies, thanks enirely to director Bryan Singer, who gave "X-Men," and "X2: X-Men United" a certain realism and drama that could best be characterized as gravitas. The films had intensity, and managed to take away the silliness and add an urgency to a comic book movie, even when the debate is of "mutant rights." The themes of the first two were honor, love, friendship, peace, and understanding. The theme of X3 is... I don't know, exactly... special effects? In X3, the 'war' that has finally been promised has finally come, with Magneto (Ian McKellan, undoubtedly the best thing about the movie) leading his army of mutants against humanity, which has now introduced and weaponized a "cure" for mutation. There are several good scenes debating whether or not it is right for a mutant to take this "cure," and we once again see the conflict between the two different schools of thought in trying to protect the minority: violence or peace? The plot itself is pretty solid, and it certainly does sound like agood time, but unfortunately, they also decided to stuff in a secondary plot about The Artist Formerly Known as Jean Grey (Famke Janneson, now a lovely redhead) becoming Dark Phoenix, an evil being of destruction... or something, it's not made entirely clear in the film. Not enough time. And therein lies the true flaw of the film: too much to do, not enough time. For some reason, the film ends at about one hour and forty odd minutes, while the others took a bit longer to draw their plot. They had two great plot ideas, each with personal and cultural significance, but tried to cram it into an unreasonably small amount of time. The result is a film that feels half-baked at best: teenage love triangles with very little heat, epic battle sequence leading into... epic battle sequence #2, and about eight characters each with their own half-a-scene long character arc that I'm somehow supposed to care about. So please, Mr. Rattner, no offense intended. It was a great try, and I wish you well on Rush Hour 3, but please... stay off Bryan Singer's turf. After all, how would you feel if he took a movie from your franchise and made it good? Sorry, that was snippy.

Grade: C+