Prototype Issue
MOVIES: Madagascar 2, Milk, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, Matador, Pray The Devil Back To Hell, The First Basket, The Changeling, Dear Zachary, Let the Right One In, Secret Life of Bees, Happy Go Lucky, I've Loved You So Long, Religulous, Quarantine
By RTLA
(page 1 of 6)RealTALK picks favorites from movies in theaters now.
MADAGASCAR 2 – ESCAPE 2 AFRICA
Proving once again that Hollywood’s best, smartest and most mind-opening and kick ass movies are animations, MADAGASCAR 2 follows the hilarious comic adventures of another troop of African animals on their ridiculous, human-foible-emulating adventures. This is another gem the kids will love (and show you how sharp kids are today) and that no adult should miss in this otherwise dumbed down culture. Just sheer fun with brilliant script, characters and visuals.
MILK
Reviewed by Theodore Ott
I expect this movie to snatch Oscar nominations in at least the categories of Best Picture, Best Male Lead (Sean Penn), Best Director (Gus Van Sant) and Best Male Supporting Actor (James Franco or Josh Brolin). If it doesn’t, there’s something organically wrong with Academy voters.
This is not an easy film to watch, but it rewards its audience in many ways. Sean Penn is, as a celebrity personality, a very large presence. A measure of his acting genius is that his celebrity persona is completely subsumed into his character. His Harvey Milk emerges with pulsating, raw vitality. Despite Penn’s unimpeachable heterosexuality, his Milk is gay to the bone; there are no false steps nor non-committed moments.
Harvey Milk was a New Yorker who uprooted himself and moved across the continent to build his version of the American Dream. He opened a camera shop in an area called The Castro and sets his roots down. Within less than ten years, Milk had midwifed the emergence of The Castro as a gay mecca, had run repeatedly for office until finally being elected to the Board of Supervisors of the City/County of San Francisco, had established the Gay Rights Movement in San Francisco, had beaten back a right wing political attack and had been murdered.
Van Sant has assembled a cast of especially talented actors to tell the story. Fresh from his triumph as G.W. Bush in W, Josh Brolin delivers the kind of seamless performance that would stand out in any year. Don’t be shocked if he garners nominations in both the Lead and Supporting Actors categories. Diego Luna Alexander is brilliant playing a bi-polar Latino gay man who, traumatized, i sunable to come to grips with prejudice in his Latino community.
No performances are phoned in. Under Van Sant’s deft direction, the cast stays in their moment and resists the temptation to play the denouement before they get there.
The only jarring note is heavy use of archival and news footage at the outset to set tone, raising the issue whether we are going to see a documentary or a feature. This is quickly and artfully resolved, leading to one of those films that everyone will be talking about. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll be out of the conversation.
In a time of horrific global conflicts and tribal wars, two African women (one Muslim, one Christian) and two American women filmmakers demonstrate that non-violent protest can be a solution.
FROST/NIXON Reviewed by Theodore Ott
Director/Producer Ron Howard has hit another one out of the park with his screen adaptation of Frost/Nixon. He and partner Brian Grazer seemingly don’t know how to turn out run of the mill stuff.
Beginning with the casting of the principle parts Frank Langella as Nixon, Michael Sheen as David Frost and Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon as the real individuals, who had had a hand in shaping the real events which form the core of this intense film are so spang on that it almost seems inspired by a higher power.
Langella burst on the scene in Mel Brooks’ 1970 comedy The Twelve Chairs as a picaresque grifter in post Revolutionary Russia. And, Frost/Nixon proves just how much we’ve all been denied while he spent the majority of his time since then on the East coast doing live theatre.
Langella and Howard steered clear of the temptations to use prosthetics or Nixon’s well known physical ticks or habits and relied on the power of the script and Langella’s deep understanding of Nixon’s character and driving demons.
Sheen’s Frost is drawn from life, an individual who preferred to be seen as a lightweight from whom not too much should be expected. Sheen’s Frost is a light weight who has been able to slide through life on charm and looks and without ever really investing himself in anything. In fact his decision to pursue a post resignation and disgrace series of interviews with Nixon was not based on anything more than a deep seated desire for really big Nielsens.
But, this starcrossed intersection of the English dilettante and the humiliated schemer, once a ravening wolf on the world’s stage, was driven by its own gathering momentum. A momentum that would pull both men outside of themselves and take them places neither could have anticipated going before the event.
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