Movie Review: Beasts of No Nation (2015)

by Tony Dayoub


There is a sense that Netflix is venturing into new territory with this week's release of Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation. Fukunaga, whose greatest claim to fame so far is the much lauded first season of HBO's True Detective, trains his focus on the plight of African child soldiers, measuredly delivering his message by placing us in the shoes of Agu (Abraham Attah) as he comes of age in the war-torn jungle of some anonymous country. There he falls under the spell of the charismatic Commandant (Idris Elba), a nameless fighter who resembles pretty much every megalomaniac ever. And therein lies the problem with the film.

Movie Review: The Water Diviner (2015)

by Tony Dayoub


Who knew that the usually brutish Russell Crowe could be sensitive enough to fashion a film as lyrical as The Water Diviner? By turns epic and intimate, The Water Diviner is a low-key directorial debut for the macho Australian actor who stars as Joshua Connor, a man who lost three sons on the same day in the Battle of Gallipoli. Determined to bring their remains back to Australia, Connor sets out for Çanakkale, Turkey and encounters a larger number of Turks sympathetic to his mission than anyone could imagine. Among them is the beautiful young Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), a woman who also sacrificed a great deal during the war. As conventional as the story reads on paper, Crowe instills it with an unpredictability and earnestness that seem damn near inventive. From a hauntingly surreal opening through a dewy, personal second act and onto a grand, epic conclusion, The Water Diviner frequently confounds, not just because of who Crowe is and what one expects from the forceful actor. But also because Crowe shows a remarkable self-confidence, letting the film meander in a way one associates most with the most unpretentious classic films.

Movie Review: Fury (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


Writer-director David Ayer crafts another fine look at the way shared violent experiences form a tenuous brotherhood among men with Fury. Set in the final days of World War II's European Theater, the movie follows a Sherman tank, christened "Fury," and its battle-hardened crew led by Staff Sergeant Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt). Among Wardaddy's crew are the God-fearing "Bible" (Shia LaBeouf), wisecracking "Gordo" (Michael Peña), and the crude "Coon-Ass" (Jon Bernthal). After losing one of their drivers, the tight-knit unit is saddled with a virtual rookie plucked from the clerical corps, Private Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman). Norman is our way into this predictably episodic depiction of the horrors of war, one that becomes a surprisingly stylish and at times contemplative suspense film punctuated by short, intense bursts of violence.

Movie Review: The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier ) (2013)

by Tony Dayoub


Hungary's The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier) is another in a long line of films in which Nazi occupation is viewed through the eyes of children. The Tin Drum and Au revoir les enfants are two that have been reviewed here. Like with those movies, The Notebook is structured in an episodic fashion. Usually, this gives a clearer if somewhat simplified perspective on the horrors of war. But there's a sadistic streak in The Notebook's two central characters, unnamed Twins (László and András Gyémánt), that marks it as far more harrowing film contemplating how exposure to violence only begets more violence.

Movie Review: The Expendables 3

by Tony Dayoub

Anyone looking for The Expendables 3 to provide summer's final hurrah at the box office might want to look elsewhere. Where the first Expendables played like a shaggy, small-scale reprieve from career oblivion for former action stars Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Jet Li, this one feels like it's lining up the burial plots. Where the second and best film in the series raised the stakes by bringing in Jean-Claude Van Damme as its villain and Chuck Norris as comic relief, The Expendables 3 overplays its hand amassing a cast of has-beens and future never-will-bes of such an unwieldy size that few get a chance at making any kind of impression.

Movie Review: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

It's early still, but this summer, it looks like the action film to beat is Edge of Tomorrow. It's not entirely a surprise to those who've followed Tom Cruise's career closely. The actor may have limited range. But within that narrow space, he knows what plays and what doesn't (his misguided stab at expanding his action hero repertoire with the still competent Jack Reacher notwithstanding). Cruise is masterful at playing bewildered. And unlike Sylvester Stallone, another favorite action hero of mine, Cruise is self effacing enough to trust the writers and filmmakers he's surrounded himself with.

Movie Review: The Railway Man (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Based on Eric Lomax's autobiography of the same name, The Railway Man is a contemplative film about the damage Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome inflicted on him for decades after his torture at the hands of the Japanese at a prisoner-of-war camp. The title refers not only to the love Lomax held for anything related to railways but also to his coincidental imprisonment in a POW camp where the prisoners were responsible for building the Burma Railway, a job so difficult that, as Lomax puts it, only punishing slave labor could accomplish.

Movie Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Not long after the start of The Monuments Men, George Clooney's elegiac tribute to the dwindling Greatest Generation, it becomes clear why its release date was changed from 2013's exceptionally busy awards season. Spare, subdued and not the least bit flashy, The Monuments Men is a classically structured World War II drama about a group of middle-aged art historians enlisted by Lt. Frank Stokes (Clooney) to reclaim a fortune in looted art from the Nazis. Adding some urgency to the matter at this stage of the war is Hitler's inevitable defeat and his "Nero Decree" calling for the destruction of all of the Reich's property before the Allies acquire it. As critical as this might sound, the crux of The Monuments Men is whether the destruction of some of the world's greatest works of art justifies even one life lost in preventing it. It's a philosophical dilemma that, by its very nature, makes Clooney's film a contemplative exercise more than a thrilling dramatic one.

Movie Review: Lone Survivor (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

Adapted from the book of the same name, Lone Survivor is the story of US Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell and SEAL Team 10's failed mission to apprehend a notorious Taliban leader nearly 10 years ago in Afghanistan. Only the most insensitive would lack any empathy for Luttrell and his fellow soldiers if the brutal ordeal they go through occurred as depicted onscreen. Discovered on a treacherous mountaintop by shepherd's loyal to the Taliban, they are soon surrounded by greater numbers and the film proceeds to show how they are mowed down over the course of the next 40 minutes. But only the most jingoistic would celebrate this punishing endurance test, as anything more than a kind of cruel Passion of Private Ryan.

Movie Review: Ender's Game (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

Forget the external controversies regarding homophobic statements made by author Orson Scott Card, on whose novel the new science fiction film Ender's Game is based. The movie itself is problematic for a myriad of other reasons inherent to its source material. Ender's Game advocates fascism for a major portion of its nearly 2-hour running time. What makes this somewhat disturbing is the story's approach. It plays less like your usual Joseph Campbell-type hero narrative and more like a Young Adult novel with elements of authorial projection/wish-fulfillment fantasy. With most of its military characters being children played by children, it's not unlikely that kids are its target audience. This begs the question, is this the kind of deceptively benign space saga you'd want your kids exposed to?

Blu-ray Review: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

by Tony Dayoub

"Dear old Clive, this is not a gentleman's war. This time you're fighting for your very existence against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain... Nazism. And if you lose, there won't be a return match next year, perhaps not even for a hundred years."

Thanks to the Criterion Collection's new Blu-ray release of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I've found a new film to add to my list of all-time favorites. I shouldn't be surprised. Colonel Blimp is written, produced and directed by those Archer chaps, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes). Though the works of theirs I've seen are relatively small in number, movies like Black Narcissus and even the relatively obscure Gone to Earth sit high among my most beloved movies. Colonel Blimp appeals to me for much the same reason the others do. It is representative of Powell and Pressburger's disregard for conventional storytelling, structured as a complex flashback with digressive tonal shifts galore. If one can assign any overriding emotion to Colonel Blimp it is wistfulness. In this way it reminds me a lot of a deeply flawed picture that's still very dear to me, Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

Zero Dark Thirty

by Tony Dayoub

Zero Dark Thirty begins with heart-wrenching audio recordings of 911 calls placed from inside the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. From there, the long awaited film about the manhunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden follows a rigid three-act structure that is one part Michael Mann-style procedural—in which we get to know a protagonist simply through process—and one part meta-analysis of how America once again lost its innocence, possibly for good this time. That director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal frame this film through a unique perspective rarely found in war films—that of a female—is the key innovation. Instead of attempting to duplicate the action beats of their last Academy Award-winning film, The Hurt Locker (2008), by predictably zeroing in on the SEAL operation to capture or kill Bin Laden, aka UBL, Bigelow and Boal open up the canvas to spin a sprawling tale involving everyone from CIA field operatives to their more political Washington-based intelligence counterparts, from suspicious informants to the most trustworthy of military officers.

Cap and His Howling Commandos

Ensemble support in Captain America: The First Avenger

by Tony Dayoub

One of the most unexpected pleasures of some of the recent crop of superhero blockbusters is how adjustments to period and setting have freshened up what was fast becoming a moribund subgenre. Nearly half of Thor takes place in the mythological Norse realm of Asgard. X-Men: First Class isn’t just set in the 1960s; it takes place in a jet-set imaginary '60s right out of the 007 films. The backdrop for Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger is an art-deco-by-way-of-steampunk version of the '40s not seen onscreen since Johnston's last superhero film, The Rocketeer (1991). Such application of period and locale legitimizes what for many is an inherently childish class of film. (Personally, I prefer to think of superhero films as escapist but, nonetheless, my kneejerk stance when discussing one is to come out of the gate defending it.) This affords the filmmakers the ability to attract a higher caliber of actors or technicians while generally making it a tougher sell to general audiences. (2005's noir-ish Sin City, based on a graphic novel series, comes to mind.) What it also does, though, is allow the knowledgeable helmer (such as journeyman Johnston) to have some fun with cinematic conventions, and not just the comic book in-jokes that have become de rigueur in these films.

Cap and his Howling Commandos

Ensemble support in Captain America: The First Avenger

by Tony Dayoub

One of the most unexpected pleasures of some of the recent crop of superhero blockbusters is how adjustments to period and setting have freshened up what was fast becoming a moribund subgenre. Nearly half of Thor takes place in the mythological Norse realm of Asgard. X-Men: First Class isn’t just set in the 1960s; it takes place in a jet-set imaginary ’60s right out of the 007 films. The backdrop for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger, the most recent of these films to come out on Blu-ray and DVD, is an art-deco-by-way-of-steampunk version of the ’40s not seen onscreen since Johnston’s last superhero film, The Rocketeer (1991). Such application of period and locale legitimizes what for many is an inherently childish class of film. (Personally, I prefer to think of superhero films as escapist but, nonetheless, my kneejerk stance when discussing one is to come out of the gate defending it.) This affords the filmmakers the ability to attract a higher caliber of actors or technicians while generally making it a tougher sell to general audiences. (2005’s noir-ish Sin City, based on a graphic novel series, comes to mind.) What it also does, though, is allow the knowledgeable helmer (such as journeyman Johnston) to have some fun with cinematic conventions, and not just the comic book in-jokes that have become de rigueur in these films.

Blu-ray Review: The Four Feathers (1939)

by Tony Dayoub

My first viewing of Zoltán Korda's The Four Feathers, the fourth adaptation of A. E. W. Mason's Kipling-esque novel, left me feeling a bit sour. Its depiction of the Arab and African followers of the jihadist Mahdi (affectionately nicknamed "Dervishes" and "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" by the red-coated British conquerors locked in battle with them) is a simplistic caricature at best. Produced by the director's brother, Alexander, the famous immigrant mogul who made it big in England, the movie seems to push the virtues of British imperialism the way you would expect coming from a stranger trying hard to assimilate into the political/economic establishment of the country he now calls home. A second viewing demonstrated something more subversive, however. But first, a quick summary for those unfamiliar with the film.

Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Flying Leathernecks (1951)

by Tony Dayoub

Another aviation-centered picture from billionaire Howard Hughes, Flying Leathernecks is also an uncharacteristic feature from director Nicholas Ray. Set during World War II's Battle of Guadalcanal, it essentially boils down to a two-hander pitting the stalwart John Wayne (Sands of Iwo Jima) against the pugnacious Robert Ryan (On Dangerous Ground). Given its use of an incredible amount of actual war footage, I'm assuming the story was built around the footage used (especially with such unique images as a pilot bailing out of a downed aircraft). So it's funny to think of a left-leaning maverick like Ray having to conform to all of these elements—a notoriously demanding eccentric as his studio chief, an equally iconic star who no doubt had demands of his own (both right-wingers) and the limitations demanded by such specific footage—in order to complete the war movie.

It Takes a Village

The misguided colonialism in Of Gods and Men

by Tony Dayoub

Last week’s most notable DVD release was Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux), winner of the number two prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Prix. (Out this week is the comparatively better-known Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, winner of last year’s Palme d’Or.) Curiously, though a sensation in its native secular France, this faith-based drama has received relatively little press in the more religious US. No doubt this is rooted in the fact that Of Gods and Men takes a complicated view of Christian-Muslim relations, a less black-and-white perspective that Americans, still smarting from September 11, may not be ready to accept just yet...

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Revisiting Gone with the Wind (1939) and its Problematic Legacy

by Tony Dayoub

From my column in this week's Wide Screen:

Next month marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and 150 years ago last month, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired. Here in Atlanta, now a mecca for many African-Americans well-versed in the rich history of the city’s civil rights movement, one can still find dubious organizations, like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, that refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression.

In fact, living in present-day Atlanta is a curiously dichotomous affair. The past and the present are constantly juxtaposed in the strangest of ways. Take our midtown, a thriving collection of gleaming, new buildings reaching into the sky and surrounding landmarks like the iconic Varsity restaurant (the largest drive-in joint in the world), Peachtree Street’s Fox Theatre (once – and sometimes, again – a luxurious movie palace), or the Margaret Mitchell House, the place where the author wrote a large portion of Gone with the Wind until moving out in 1932. The Margaret Mitchell House itself is emblematic of Atlanta’s and, indeed, the South’s tendency to rehabilitate its image in light of its dubious history before the civil rights era.

Mitchell and her second husband, John Marsh, never actually had the run of the entire house, affectionately nicknamed “the Dump” by the novelist. In 1925, when the building was a 10-unit dwelling known as the Crescent Apartments, Peggy Mitchell (as she was known to her fellow journalists at the Atlanta Journal) and Marsh moved into Apartment 1 on the ground floor. Last week, I took a tour of the small flat. I was shocked by its size, so tiny that the radiator is bolted to the living room ceiling. Much of the furniture in the apartment, though not actually Mitchell’s, is of the period. And many of the objects that occupy the rest of the museum are replicas, looking accurate despite not being the true antique objects of value.

So it is with Gone with the Wind (1939), a film that only approximates the truth about Southern society pre- and post-Civil War, distorting its more unsavory realities...

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Flying Leathernecks (1951) and Ray's Surrender to Conformity

by Tony Dayoub

Another aviation picture from billionaire Howard Hughes, Flying Leathernecks is also one of the stranger offerings directed by Nicholas Ray. Set during World War II's Battle of Guadalcanal, it essentially boils down to a two-hander pitting the stalwart John Wayne against the pugnacious Robert Ryan. Given its use of an incredible amount of actual war footage, I'm assuming the story was built around the footage used (especially with such unique images as a pilot bailing out of a downed aircraft). So it's funny to think of a maverick like Ray having to conform to all of these elements—a notoriously demanding eccentric as his producer, an equally iconic star who no doubt had demands of his own, and the limitations demanded by such specific footage—in order to complete the war movie.

On Demand: Centurion (2010) and Don't Look Back (Ne te retourne pas) (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

More and more, films which don't necessarily get a fair shake at the box office are being released through the On Demand platform. Movies with well known names attached both in front and behind the camera can now be watched comfortably from home. Last year's Two Lovers, directed by James Gray and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix, even made it onto my top ten list. The two films reviewed in this post don't come anywhere near being top ten material. However, each is of varying levels of interest and, though it doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, both are at least as good as most of this year's theatrical offerings.