SE7EN

Freeman and Pitt

SE7EN (aka Seven/1995). Director: David Fincher.

An unknown serial killer is choosing victims based on the Seven Deadly Sins -- the first victim is an obese man who symbolizes gluttony -- and a veteran homicide detective, Somerset (Morgan Freeman),  is teamed with a young and immature partner, Mills (Brad Pitt of Troy), to investigate. Se7en, one of the big "serial killer" films of the 90's, still retains its punch. Gritty and well-acted -- Kevin Spacey [House of Cards], whatever you think of him,  is outstanding in a supporting role -- Se7en also has an effective score by Howard Shore. The characters in this are better developed than in the average slasher film, although Gwyneth Paltrow [Iron Man] has a relatively thankless role as Pitt's wife. She does, however, figure in a gut-wrenching finale. Sinister and obsessive serial killers later became the province of such TV shows as CSI and Criminal Minds. David Fincher also directed the excellent Alien 3, although he apparently disavowed it later on.

Verdict: Fast-moving and suspenseful. ***

TROY

Eric Bana as Prince Hector of Troy

TROY (2004). Director: Wolfgang Petersen.

On a mission to establish good relations between Greece and Troy, the Spartan prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) foolishly spirits away King Menelaus' wife, the beautiful Helen (Diane Kruger). Paris' brother, Prince Hector (Eric Bana) is appalled at Paris' actions and fears the worst when they return to Troy. Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) wants revenge on Helen and Paris while his brother, King Agamemnon (Brian Cox), is more interested in sacking Troy and adding to his power. Although the rather egomaniacal Achilles (Brad Pitt) has little respect or admiration for Agamemnon, he is importuned to join the Spartan forces and eventually engages in one on one combat with Hector. The main difference between the two is that Achilles fights for sheer glory, while Hector fights for king and country. After much bloodshed on both sides, the Greeks come up with an idea for a certain horse ... Inspired by Homer's Iliad, Troy is an exciting war movie that eschews all the fantastic elements of the story (such as the Gods influencing many of the characters behind the scenes) and tries to present it as something historical. [Although 19th century scientists did find evidence of the city of Troy in modern-day Turkey, and it may be true that the Greeks mounted an expedition to, or some kind of assault on, Troy, the story of the Trojan War is mostly mythological.] If you haven't read Homer's Iliad or Edith Hamilton's Mythology since college it may surprise you which elements of David Benioff's screenplay are taken from those sources and which aren't. Whatever the case, Achilles' dull and unconvincing romance with Hector's cousin Briseis (Rose Byrne) serves no useful purpose except to give Brad Pitt a chance to show off his butt. On the other hand, one of the best scenes in the movie is when King Priam (Peter O'Toole) of Troy begs Achilles to give him his son's corpse for proper burial.

As for the acting, this is not Brad Pitt's movie but Eric Bana's. Bana [Deadfall] not only plays the most sympathetic character in the movie, but plays it extremely well, with quiet strength and nobility along with a sex appeal that puts his lover boy brother, Paris (as essayed by the average-looking Bloom) in the shade. Pitt [World War Z] seems wildly miscast at first -- and he's never completely convincing as some great warrior -- but you get used to him and he isn't awful. O'Toole has some excellent moments, as do Cox and Gleeson, while Sean Bean is less effective as Odysseus. Bloom is okay as the unsympathetic jerk-off whose selfish actions both precipitate and, due to his cowardice, prolong the war, but Diane Kruger, although quite pretty, displays little acting ability as Helen. An unintentionally hilarious shot shows Bloom and Kruger watching the burning of Troy and the murdering of its citizens and displaying about as much emotion as a couple watching a commercial for Shake 'n' Bake (one hopes for their sakes that this was a rehearsal shot that accidentally made it into the final cut).  Garrett Hedlund makes an impression as Achilles' young cousin, Patroclus -- many people feel he was not Achilles' cousin, but his lover, and he is not a cousin in The Iliad --  and there are also small roles for Saffron Burrows and Julie Christie as Achilles' mother. James Horner's musical score is surprisingly generic, but he's done so many of these things he can probably compose them in his sleep by now. Wolfgang Petersen also directed Shattered.

This review is based on the Director's Cut of the film, which adds thirty minutes to the running time and probably should't have.

Verdict: Well-produced if imperfect movie is the obvious product of a lot of hard work and good intentions. ***.

FROM MOTHER AND DAUGHTER TO FRIENDS

FROM MOTHER AND DAUGHTER TO FRIENDS. Nancy Aniston. Prometheus; 1999.

As I have little interest in the TV show Friends and its star, Jennifer Aniston, it may seem odd that I chose this tome to read. I think I have always been curious about how it really feels for someone in show biz to essentially have a non-career while their child goes on to great success and fame. From Mother to Daughter does not really explore that, as Nancy Aniston -- if we're to believe her -- seemed more interested in her actor husband's success than her own, and encouraged her daughter in her acting pursuits. She doesn't come off like a stereotypical "stage mom," either. Nancy did her best to get husband John Aniston on his feet and make a living when his acting career stalled for years. He later became a successful soap opera actor and, typically, discarded the wife who'd been there for him, although Nancy is charitable and suggests that what she saw as encouragement he only interpreted as nagging. All Nancy could get her husband to say was "I am not committed to this marriage" -- she subsequently learned he had a girlfriend (one of his co-stars). After daughter Jennifer's success on Friends, Nancy made the innocent mistake of talking to a tabloid show (ostensibly about a special school she felt was doing good work) and an over-reacting Jennifer stopped speaking to her mother. (This book did little to close the gap but after a few years -- when Jennifer broke up with Brad Pitt -- she reached out to her mother once again.) But forget about Jennifer, Friends, and Brat Pitt, From Mother and Daughter works because it is a very well-written memoir that frankly explores painful moments such as the death of Nancy's baby sister; her mother walking out on the family (and the mother's subsequent death); the rejection from her husband and their divorce, and watching as her children grew up to lead their own lives in which she may not necessarily have played as large a part. Some of this must be taken with a grain of salt, as the book presents only one side of the story, and there are hints that Nancy could be a mite priggish, but her writing about how women -- especially cast-off wives -- need to empower themselves is admirable. If her account is accurate, however, Jennifer should probably have stopped talking to her father, not her mother. In any case, Nancy Aniston passed away a few weeks ago, and one hopes that she and her daughter reconciled long before then.

Verdict: Affecting and often moving memoir. ***1/2.

WORLD WAR Z

Brad Pitt in one of the film's few quiet moments

WORLD WAR Z (2013). Director: Marc Foster.

"You can't make a dead person sick."

Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family suddenly find themselves in the midst of chaos when a plague breaks out in their city -- indeed, around the world --  driving people crazy and making them violently attack others. These people turn out to be zombies, reanimated after death by a virus. UN representative Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena) gets Lane out, but he learns that his family can not stay in their safe refuge unless he agrees to accompany a biologist, hoping to create a vaccine, to the spot where the virus originated to look for clues. Lane later winds up in Israel, were the undead pile atop one another in a grotesque exhibition so they can launch themselves over a wall to get at the living people on the other side. [Unlike the dead in Night of the Living Dead, these zombies movie very quickly]. Lane saves the life of a young female Israeli soldier named Segen (Daniella Kertesz), and both wind up on a plane when the passengers become infected. They wind up at a research center in England where Lane thinks he's come up with a novel way of protecting people against the zombies. Despite some arresting passages -- such as the wall sequence in Israel and the outbreak on the plane -- World War Z can't quite overcome the fact that it's just another apocalyptic zombie movie [like 28 Days Later] with over-familiar ideas. Based on a novel, it still owes a lot to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. However, it is generally fast-paced, creepy, well-acted, and often quite exciting. [Gore geeks must have been quite disappointed that despite the gruesome tone the movie does not indulge in much graphic bloodiness.] Humanism is in short supply -- there's little talk of compassion for the dead victims nor scenes where a living person sees a dead one that they loved -- and the ending is kind of flat. Foster also directed one of the worst James Bond movies, Quantum of Solace.

Verdict: More zombies that you can shake a stick at. **1/2.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

Christoph Waltz, the real star of Basterds

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009). Writer/director: Quentin Tarantino. "Nation's Pride" segment directed by Eli Roth.

Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) is the sole survivor when her Jewish family -- hiding under the floorboards in a farm in Nazi-occupied France -- are wiped out under the orders of SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Years later she and Landa meet when she (under an assumed name) is the owner of a movie theater in Paris and the boyish German war hero Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) takes a liking to her. Like a German Audie Murphy, Zoller has starred in a film about his exploits entitled "Nation's Pride" and wants it to be premiered at Shosanna's theater with top Nazi leaders, including Hitler, in attendance. Shosanna and her lover Marcel  (Jacky Ido) love the idea of wiping out all of the Germans in one fell swoop but have no idea that others have the same notion, such as a group of Nazi-scalpers known as the "Inglourious Basterds" headed by a good ole Southern boy named Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). I've never been a fan of Quentin Tarantino's -- and even this film hasn't quite convinced me of his alleged genius -- but at least he's come up with a genuinely intriguing storyline instead of childish drek like Kill Bill. The trouble is that some of Tarantino's "touches" get in the way and the film is at least thirty minutes too long. For instance the taut opening scene at the farmhouse is so lengthy that the tension almost dissipates. Robert Richardson's photography is top of the line, and there are a lot of fine actors in the movie -- and Brad Pitt. Pitt is given top billing but the real star, if it's anyone, is the superb Christoph Waltz as the slimiest Nazi to come down the pike in a long time. [The scene when he ingests and thoroughly enjoys a French pastry with whipped cream on it had my mouth-watering, but I digress.] When he and Pitt appear in the same scene it's like they're not in the same movie. Laurent is also excellent, as is Bruhl, Michael Fassbender as a British Lieutenant, Diane Kruger as a German actress who's secretly fighting against the Nazi's, Alexander Fehling as Sgt. Wilhelm who figures in an important scene in a cafe, and Denis Menochet as the farmer in the opening scene and others. Mike Myers has a cameo as a British general and an unrecognizable Rod Taylor plays Winston Churchill! With some audacious, unpredictable developments at the end, the movie sort of goes off into fantasy land but remains entertaining. You get the feeling it would have been a lot better had someone else written and helmed besides Tarantino, who seems more interested in effect than human emotion.

Verdict: No Judgment at Nuremberg [if you're talking about films dealing with the evils of Nazi Germany] but absorbing, beautifully acted by most of the cast, and with several striking and tense sequences. ***.

OCEAN'S TWELVE

OCEAN'S TWELVE (2004). Director: Steven Soderbergh.

As the remake of Sinatra's Ocean's 11 was better, cleverer, and more entertaining than the original (if not exactly a world-beater), there were some high hopes that Ocean's Twelve would surpass it. What we have instead is a sporadically entertaining film that goes on too long, is over-complicated, and gets too clever for its own good. The casino boss (Andy Garcia) that the gang robbed in the last picture threatens each member with death if they don't repay him the money they stole – with interest. They now have two weeks to raise or steal 197 million dollars! This brings them into competition with a French master thief in an attempt to steal a priceless Faberge egg. Catherine Zeta-Jones appears as an old girlfriend of Brad Pitt's who also happens to be a detective, and Julia Roberts is back as George Clooney's wife. To help steal the egg she has to pretend to be -- “Julia Roberts.” [This whole business, in which the real Bruce Willis – who knows the real Julia -- shows up to complicate matters is amusing but threatens to take over the whole picture.] The performances are okay, if minor, and Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner effortlessly steal the show in their few brief scenes. This is not without entertainment value, but it runs out of juice long before the conclusion.

Verdict: A bit too self-congratulatory. **.