clint eastwood's GRAN TORINO (2008)

the first thing we notice, of course, is that cocked scowl. it was there when A Fistful Of Dollars first introduced him to the world, and it's very much there on Clint Eastwood's face throughout most of Gran Torino, the film that will allegedly steal his grizzled visage away from the screen for good; he was handsome once (maybe still) and his features have only sharpened as he's aged, but the sharpest of all is that unmistakable expression. Clint Eastwood, it would seem, is perpetually one step away from giving you the ass-whooping you've always deserved.

there's no denying that Gran Torino's Walt Kowalski (Eastwood, who also directs) has found plenty to scowl about. we first meet him at his wife's funeral, glaring at his bored, immodest grandchildren and listening to the empty words of an earnest rookie priest. receiving guests later that afternoon, he grouses about the crowd in his house and speaks testily to his two sons, who seem no more interested in his grief than he does in theirs. as they finally pull away, the retired auto worker quietly condemns his son's Japanese SUV, spits on the ground, and turns his attention to his neighbors, who have spent the afternoon celebrating a birth.

Walt's problem with these people (if he needs a reason) is the same as his problem with most of his Detroit neighborhood, which has been slowly and steadily overtaken by immigrant communities, particularly the southeast Asian Hmong. a Korean War vet, Kowalski looks upon them with undisguised, bluntly racist contempt, and they're prone to returning his gaze with fascination. Kowalski is, after all, as much a relic as his twin prize possessions: the M1 Garand rifle in his basement and the mint-condition 1972 Gran Torino in his garage.

naturally -- or, if you rather, by considerable contrivance -- our crochety, despicable hero is coaxed into a reluctant relationship with the neighboring Lor family. circumstances surrounding Kowalski's reflexive rifle-wielding confrontation with a gang of Hmong hooligans bring the teenage Thao (Bee Vang) into his home through a customary indentured servitude, while Thao's plucky older sister Sue (Ahney Her) seems to sense the old man's loneliness, and brings him into their home in return.

so there we are: Gran Torino is, at least at first, a film about racism and its reconciliation, with no small bit of the boring baggage that sort of film typically entails. screenwriter Nick Schenck goes to great pains to paint Kowalski as a bigot, but falls there and elsewhere into a tendency to tell rather than show; we are spared honest examination of his mindset in favor of abundant, casual epithets, ugly in the wrong way because they find no weight to carry. there is even a flatly superfluous scene between Kowalski, Sue and some black street toughs, existing only to emphasize the "wow he's racist but those guys were validating his prejudices" angle (as well as the "wow its badass when Clint pulls a gun on dudes" angle, which i have much less quarrel with.)

luckily Gran Torino slowly snaps out of its Crash-Lite sermonizing as Kowalski and Thao's relationship develops, and we come to understand what has drawn Eastwood to this story, particularly as an onscreen swan song. Kowalski's cantankerousness, it seems, is rooted just as firmly in masculine identity as racism, and he goes to increasing lengths to encourage the quiet, submissive Thao to pursue manly self-sufficience, especially when the Hmong thugs (led by Thao's cousin Spider) ride in on the third act.

while Thao remains fairly inert (it's evident that the majority of the Hmong actors are non-professionals) this thematic re-evaluation finally gives Clint something to do besides slur and sneer, and it becomes clear that Walt Kowalski has more in common with Dirty Harry Callahan than just the name on the marquee. the racism, resentment, and resistance to change are all outlets for rage, forged in war and tempered for decades by a manly life but newly impotent in the face of a world moving on. Kowalski clings to his own empowered experience as he clings to his Gran Torino; if he is a relic, he is unashamed.

it becomes clear, then, that Gran Torino is not simply the labored cross-cultural melodrama we've figured it for, but a meditation on a career on the screen, now too in decline thanks to age and changing times; Eastwood may be American cinema's most important masculine figure -- that cold scowl is an iconography in and of itself -- and whether or not his performance lives up to the legend (it doesn't, sorry) he's certainly rooted out a thoughtful curtain call in Gran Torino.

it's a good thing, however, that he plans to continue directing films. once the quotation marks are firmly in place around Walt Kowalski, Gran Torino's lazy character study sputters to a stop, dutifully hitting its marks and building to a nearly surprising ending but apparently content to have left its audience behind in fond daydreams of woolen ponchos and .44 magnums. (maybe we're happier that way anyway?) farewell, scowl, and godspeed.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

spike lee's MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA (2008)

is there another filmmaker working today that we can compare to Spike Lee? In the two-plus decades since She's Gotta Have It rocked black cinema and helped spark independent film as we know it, the lovably loudmouthed iconoclast has followed his muse through every nook and cranny of the film world. he's done music videos for the likes of Michael Jackson and Public Enemy, as well as commercials ("Money it's GOTTA BE THE SHOES!") and short films for anthologies. he's worked extensively in nonfiction, from music, comedy and performance films to serious docs like 2006's thunderously poignant When The Levees Broke. and in the meantime, of course, he has directed sixteen feature films, the majority of which cement his reputation as American cinema's preeminent lecturer on the subject of race. (he even found time to write books about the production of five of his first six films.)

but within this deep filmography and high profile is a dirty, if open, secret: Spike Lee makes kinda lousy films.

this isn't true across the board, of course; Malcolm X, for instance, is the rare biopic that doesn't let cliche undercut its spirit or respect, and Do The Right Thing remains the most penetrating, thoughtful and important film about the American race problem. but more plentiful are the loud misfires and quiet mediocrities, from School Daze to Girl 6 to She Hate Me, and the overrated, overwrought likes of Jungle Fever and The 25th Hour, undone by poor-taste melodrama and misplaced indignation. (hell, give The Original Kings Of Comedy a spin and watch Spike fail awkwardly where no-name Comedy Central technicians consistently succeed.)

so which Spike Lee shows up for his latest effort, the WWII drama Miracle At St. Anna? his most recent work seems to bode well (both When The Levees Broke and his taut, startlingly focused heist flick Inside Man rank among his best films, for very different reasons) and he certainly seemed confident earlier this year when a transparent St. Anna publicity stunt found him locking horns with Clint Eastwood. but the intermittently charming, occasionally boring, overwhelmingly frustrating Miracle At St. Anna sadly begs to differ.

if Spike had it in him to make a great war movie, this was surely the material. Miracle At St. Anna focuses on a group of four so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" (black infantrymen in the pre-integration US military) caught behind enemy lines in Tuscany during the final throes of the war and charged with the care of a young, slightly mysterious Italian boy they encounter along the way. taking refuge in a mountainside village, the soldiers befriend a group of war-weary locals and a small band of antifascist guerrillas, and the boy's "miraculous" story unfolds as the Nazis close in.

whatever potential the story has, though, James McBride's undisciplined, uninspired script (adapted from his novel) cautiously avoids capitalizing on. the pieces are all there, from the twists and turns to the intriguing frame story of a curious murder decades after the story's events, but nearly everything seems an afterthought; he lingers on scenes that do nothing to push the story or its characters forward, and whenever the plot does manage to advance it does so slowly and self-consciously, forcing the idea of an "epic" on a story that doesn't deserve such baggage and imposing thematics without earning them. even worse is the stuff that does need to be there: after more than two hours of interminable slogging, pretty much everything the film seems to be building to is crapped out in an overstuffed, undercooked battle scene masquerading as a third act.

however dismal McBride's work, it's not alone in sabotaging Spike's prestige pic; in fact, efforts seem to have been made across the board. Terence Blanchard's score impresses at first, but hovers heavy and unwelcome over every scene afterward; Barry Alexander Brown's editing steadfastly resists logic and decorum, ruining quiet dramatic scenes and outright butchering the painstakingly-yet-somehow-indifferently shot battle sequences; the oft-superb Matthew Libatique's grainy, bleached cinematography consciously apes Saving Private Ryan without regard for the fact that what's stunning on Norman beaches does a grave disservice to the hills of Tuscany. even the extras get in on the sabotage, flailing with each fatal gunshot like a preteen with a ketchup-packet squib.

in the end, though, the blame can't help but lay with Spike Lee, out of his element from the getgo but terminally self-serious to the final, unintentionally hilarious moments. His shallow epic cribs blatantly from superior filmmakers/would-be nemeses like Spielberg and Eastwood in nearly every regard, save only for the no less wrongheaded ones that make Miracle At St. Anna a Spike Lee Joint in the most traditional sense: Spike squanders his opportunity with the under-represented Buffalo Soldiers to wax heavyhanded about the dilemmas of black men fighting a white man's war, et cetera, et cetera, without any regard for the fact that a filmmaker truly equal to the subject (with, ideally, a competent screenwriter in tow) would recognize all that as painfully obvious, and at the very least steer clear of lengthy, tedious dialogue scenes spelling it all out.

if Spike really wanted to give the Buffalo Soldiers their cinematic due, he would have made a rousing war film in the classic tradition, emphasizing them as the heroes they were; if he really wanted to make a Great Film, he would have focused his and his collaborators' craft and emerged, as we know he can, with something memorable. But in trying to do both, and so much more, he has achieved nothing. you're better than this, Spike...aren't you?

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

jon hurwitz & hayden schlossberg's HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (2008)

catching a dollar showing on a whim, it's hard not to wish i'd chosen to see H&K the night i grimaced through Baby Mama; there's something special about the rarefied breed of comedy that attempts very little and ends up succeeding enormously on its own terms. like the original Harold & Kumar, ...Escape From Guantanamo Bay treads good-naturedly through the episodic capers of its titular stoners, from a plane to Amsterdam (it picks up nearly immediately where the last one left off) to Gitmo to the American South and finally to Crawford, Texas, where Harold & Kumar share a puff or two with what may long stand as the friendliest portrayal of Dubya in a feature film. it's a thoroughly dumb movie, but also disarmingly likable and even occasionally clever; its satire manages to be at once gentle and over-the-top, and it finds surprisingly genial ways to ridicule both racial prejudice and the fever pitch of America's war on terror. it is what it is, and i wouldn't send anyone in unprepared for that, but if you're willing to go along with it Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay is one of the funniest films of the year so far.