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By Cole Smithey

‘Stop-Loss’

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Co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce returns after her impressive 1999 drama “Boys Don’t Cry” with an equally empathetic film centered around the U.S. military’s current backdoor-draft, responsible for forcing 81,000 soldiers back into war after multiple tours of duty. Squad leader Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), his best friend Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) and fellow soldier Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) return to their Brazos, Texas, hometown after spending five blood-soaked years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Following a welcome home ceremony, where King receives a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star from a U.S. Senator, he tries to help his friends adjust to civilian life in spite of their violence riddled psyches. King’s own effort to reacclimate to home life is challenged when he is ordered, under the Stop-Loss policy, to return to Iraq. “With all due respect, fuck the President,” is King’s vehement reply to the commanding officer who ineffectively attempts to jail King. What follows is an honest, patriotic soldier’s desperate attempt to find a way out of a malicious bureaucratic booby trap.

With the help of fiancé Michele (Abbie Cornish), King goes AWOL and they head for Washington, D.C., to seek assistance from the senator that called King a hero, just days earlier. On the run, the American streets that King dreamed of returning to take on a similar war zone quality to Iraq’s unpredictable alleys. Shriver gets in touch with King to tell him that “Boot” (a term applied to all U.S. military authority) has contacted the senator, and no reprieve will be possible. Starting a new life from scratch in Canada or Mexico becomes the topic of discussion as the road trip meets with dead ends.

Peirce, whose younger brother recently returned from duty in Iraq, doesn’t push the story for ultimate dramatic effect. She doesn’t track the sensual tension between King and his fiancé. Their off-limits relationship is understood and respected. Certain subplots could have been heightened to extract audience sentiment, but this is a movie about people, soldiers and their families, being forcefully submerged into tragedy with no less coercion than a water torture victim being vigorously tortured. It is a movie full of anger and heartbreak that sticks with you. Maddening, upsetting and articulate, it’s a story that dares to address a systematic tentacle of government expediency connected to a much larger monster. The term “Stop-Loss” comes from an economic definition. “A ‘Stop-Loss Order’ is an order placed with a broker to sell a security when it reaches a certain price. It is designed to limit an investor’s loss on a security position.”

The U.S. media has kept hidden the breadth of affliction that Americans are suffering from two wars that we are told will never end. “Stop-Loss” elegantly poses the question, when is enough, enough? It’s a question that every thinking person on the planet is asking about America’s radical necon movement, and one that you might be closer to answering after seeing the film. CV

By Jared Curtis

‘The Monster Squad’

The exploitation of classic films being remade for today’s audiences is one of my biggest pet peeves in Hollywood. Filmgoers who see the remake of a film first, before the original, lose respect for the basis of the story. Sure the special effects are better and flashier, and movies are made with a lot more money these days. But when a movie like “The Exorcist” or “Jaws” came out, it blew people’s minds. Storytelling had never been better, and you jumped when the shark, even though it was a mechanical puppet, makes its first appearance. That is what’s missing today, the story and the heart of filmmakers that are actually making something original.

So I was distraught when I heard the classic Fred Dekker (“Night of the Creeps”) 1987 film “The Monster Squad” was being remade for today’s audience. Essentially “The Monster Squad” was “Goonies” with classic movie monsters rather than pirates and treasure. Kids find ancient book, monsters are unleashed looking for the book, big final battle, kids save the day before the army shows up to try and save them. “Well, who are you? We’re the Monster Squad” is still is one of my fondest quotes from watching movies as a child. So I was pleasantly surprised to find my favorite director John Carpenter (“Big Trouble In Little China,” “The Thing,” “Escape from New York” and “They Live”) had signed on to helm the remake.

Now this is a remake I can enjoy. Gone are the kids, the story of “scary German guy” and the ’80s training/preparation montages. The new version is a big gun, big explosions type of film. Yes, your nightmares are real, and they are out there wreaking havoc on unsuspecting victims. A government unit, “The Monster Squad,” is a Special Forces group of soldiers who fight everything you think is not real (which is why they are so good at what they do). The squad, which makes the crew from “Predator” look like a first day basic training class, is a tough, battle proven group of soldiers. Led by squad leader Jake Hallow (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), a no nonsense former navy seal, the squad has been hunting Lourdes (Asia Argento), a vampire with ancient ties who is preparing to unleash a reign of terror the world has never seen before. While hunting for Lourdes and her flock, the squad battles with a slew of enemies including werewolves, zombies, boogie men, swamp creatures, a rabid town and a coven of sexy witches (Rosario Dawson, Amy Smart, Megan Fox and Taryn Manning) who are attractively deadly. “I would let them cast a spell on me any day,” says Bison (Jason Statham), a machine gun carrying British playboy.

The action is nonstop. once Commander Burton (Kurt Russell) gives the orders, the bullets start flying. Limbs are chopped and blown off as the squad takes down enemy after enemy in exotic locales. The supporting cast, like most of Carpenter’s films, are superior, including veteran force members Jax (Keith David) and Pig Pen (Mark Boone Junior), electronic specialist Wires (Steve Buscemi) explosives/self-proclaimed party expert Zig (Jason Lee), the rookie (Justin Long) and the baddest chick this side of the undead, T (Michelle Rodriguez).

Only Carpenter could have taken a treasure of my childhood and turned it into a memorable film going experience, adding the right amount of excessive violence, slapstick one-liners and copious glances at the female body. The battle scenes are intense, adding a handheld camera view offering the audience the feeling of being on the battleground firing round after round of ammo. A huge smile was on my face as I left the theater satisfied (which doesn’t happen often) and intoxicated with this amazing film. Thank you, Carpenter, for creating something that is completely different than the original, yet keeps the integrity of Dekker’s ’80s masterpiece. CV

By Cole Smithey

‘Funny Games’

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Austrian writer/director Michael Haneke has remade his own controversial 1997 film, in which he effectively mocked American cinema’s love for violence by pushing the limits of cinematic sado-masochism with an excruciating thriller that sticks to a standard formula, albeit with a different kind of ending. Because the original movie was in German, it was not widely seen by its target audience — namely the callused American audiences that Haneke believed could benefit from having their blood-thirsty asses handed to them like never before. I loathed the original film when I saw it at the 1997 San Francisco Film Festival, but have reconsidered it over the years and come around to appreciating its brutal satire, unrelenting misery and, surprisingly, its restraint. The new version is every bit as painful to watch, even if executive producer/actress Naomi Watts doesn’t approach the soul-shattered performance of Susanne Lothar in the original. I think both versions of “Funny Games” equally represent the most indigestible and unsettling fictional film I’ve ever seen. Proceed at your own risk.

Haneke makes his intentions clear in the opening scene; opera music plays in the SUV of a married couple with their adolescent son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) sitting contentedly in the back seat. They tow a boat, and the husband, George (Tim Roth), tries to guess which Vivaldi song his wife Ann (Watts) has put in the CD player. Suddenly, the most satanic wail of heavy metal anti-music interrupts the action like a tidal wave, care of John Zorn. Garish red lettering announces “Funny Games” with screen credits rolling in a hue you might associate with the Hammer “Dracula” films of the ’60s. We see the family’s calm faces like bugs under a microscope, thanks to the alienating music that baptizes the audience into an upset state of being. Already, Haneke has begun to objectify the family that will be humiliated and tortured for the remainder of the movie. Before the film is over, you will feel dirty in a way you never have.

George pulls up in front of a large gated mansion, and Ann yells through the iron gate to her friends Fred and Eva, who appear to be playing in their front yard with two white-clad teen boys standing nearby. Ann asks Fred to come help them put their boat in the water. Fred’s response is delayed. What could be bothering their rich friends inside the comfort of their luxurious compound?

Haneke’s compositions are formal in ways similar to filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski. You can sense the rigor with which every long and medium shot is executed. It is a frigid distance, drained of humor. Inside the lake house, the camera soaks up the interior elements, inviting the audience to take inventory of the white-walled home. Cozy living room, check. Golf clubs, bicycle and dog, check.

Ann stocks the fridge while George greets a stiffly mannered Fred with his teenaged friend Paul (Michael Pitt) dressed in white shorts, shirt and gloves — like some kind of germ-fearing tennis player. Alone in the house, Ann is interrupted by Paul’s similarly dressed friend Peter (Brady Corbet) asking for four eggs for the neighbor. Ann accommodates but Peter drops the eggs and asks for more, ever so politely. On the surface, Peter and Paul are polite to a fault. But their actions belie an illogical pretense beyond their smirking yet respectful words.

Paul sends Ann on a search for the newly missing family dog, and turns directly to the camera and shares a wink with the audience. It’s the first of several opportunities Haneke takes to check in with the audience from the bad guy’s point of view. The director lets the viewer in on the manipulation he is committing via a standard “thriller” plotline. He wants you to know, question, and accept that you are a product of the way you have learned a certain taste for a brand of violence that can look completely differently if the filmmaker so intends. “Funny Games” is a one of a kind movie that I would not advise anyone to see unless they understand that the highest compliment they could pay the filmmaker would be to walk out on the film. One thing’s for sure; if you see “Funny Games,” you will never forget it. CV

‘The Bank Job’

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“The Bank Job” is good old-fashioned bank heist movie that’s based on a 1971 London robbery in which a Lloyds Bank vault was emptied while the city slept. Jason Statham plays Terry Leather, a petty criminal turned family man who jumps at the chance to take a surge in income when his childhood friend Martine Love (Saffron Burrows) hatches a bank job that’s too good to be true. Leather gathers together his old mates for the task of tunneling into the bank’s safety deposit vault without knowing Love’s interest in the cryptic photographic contents of one specific box. Director Roger Donaldson (“Cocktail”) does a good job of capturing swinging London of the early ’70s, while ratcheting up suspense in a story that exposes the layers of political scandal behind one of the biggest bank heists ever committed.

Statham built his career as the go-to-Brit-gangster on Guy Ritchie’s iconic “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” so there’s a tendency to anticipate “The Bank Job” as a more crude punch-up picture than it is. Statham has evolved as an actor, even within the low ceiling of his typecast character, and brings a level of humility to his role. Leather has a family to provide for, and he trusts his ability to gauge his actions off of the deceptively attractive Love, whose knack for keeping secrets is more transparent than she imagines. Early on, Love is taken away by police for smuggling drugs before being rescued by her MI5 lover Tim Everett (Richard Lintern) to recruit a team of thieves from her old East End neighborhood to execute a tacitly government-endorsed heist in exchange for keeping her out of jail.

For 30 years the British government exercised a “D-Notice” gag order on the press to contain details surrounding the so-called “walky-talky bank job,” for which no suspects were ever indicted. The heist got its name from the intrusion of a ham radio operator who listened in on a conversation between a lookout and the robbers as they bagged over 30 million pounds worth of cash and jewelry. But what gives “The Bank Job” its zing is the reason the House of Parliament ordered its MI5 officers to quietly arrange the robbery to obtain incriminating sex photos taken of an unnamed royal princess by a radical black extremist leader called Michael X (Peter De Jersey). The photos of a Parliament judge engaging in bondage sex acts only add to the necessity for a cover-up.

Donaldson adds an appropriate layer of campy sexiness with some obligatory nudity, and the use of songs like T-Rex’s “Bang a Gong,” to inform the free love aspect of the era. The British powers were so distressed about the photos getting out that they sent one of their own daughters, Gale Benson (Hattie Morahan), to act as a spy by shacking up with Michael X at his home in Trinidad to look for clues. However, the government’s plan was derailed by the inclusion of a police bribe ledger kept in one of the security boxes by local crime kingpin Lew Vogel (David Suchet). Intent on regaining the ledger, Vogel enacts his own post-robbery investigation that ups the ante on the government’s involvement.

Screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais have successfully endeavored to bring color to a gray area of British history by including the story’s equal parts of humor, drama and tragedy that spanned from the empty pockets of a bunch of working class blokes to the corridors of British power. “The Bank Job” takes liberties with historic truth, but probably far less than were taken at the time of the infamous Baker Street crime. This might make the Downing Street Memos look tame, but there’s a lot more humor here. CV

‘Semi-Pro’

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Will Ferrell loiters in the comfort of his signature punch-drunk delivery of outrageous lines and sight gags in a ’70s era parody that extends the funk vibe of Judd Apatow’s summer comedy “Superbad.” In Flint, Mich., Jackie Moon (Ferrell) is an R&B singer, basketball team owner, team player and promoter for the Flint Tropics, a team playing under the rules of the American Basketball Association.

The movie opens to the strains of Ferrell crooning “We’re naked and we’re humping sexy” from a Jackie Moon song called “Love Me Sexy,” written with lyrics stolen from Moon’s deceased mother. The song’s humorous effect expands as Moon sings it to a sparse coliseum crowd with an infectious glee. Intent on winning the Tropics a place among teams merging into the NBA, the afro-haired Moon hires Monix (Woody Harrelson), a former benchwarmer for the champion Boston Celtics, to lead the Tropics to victory in their last season. In spite of its fractured sketch comedy design, “Semi-Pro” provides a requisite number of Saturday Night Live-type laughs to keep audiences satisfied.

Screenwriter Scot Armstrong (“Old School”) keeps the comedy visual and the language profane in a movie you won’t be seeing on your next commercial airline flight. Ferrell has, by osmosis with screenwriters, branded his dry underplayed slapstick spaz attacks. The aging frat boy character that he created in Armstrong’s “Old School” has gone from a bedeviled racecar driver (“Talladega Nights”) to a sexually challenged championship ice skater (“Blades of Glory”), to a do-it-all basketball player in an economically challenged city of Flint, circa 1976.

There’s a blue-collar theme that runs under the ’70s era setting, and carries a sense of America’s current recession and weak dollar. Monix takes the job with Moon’s team in exchange for a washing machine and to be near his ex-girlfriend Lynn (Maura Tierney). The romantic subplot serves as a perfunctory placeholder that never jibes with the zany comedy situations. Harrelson is distinctly unfunny opposite Ferrell because he never catches up to the comic timing around him, and Tierney looks great but never gets to establish her character’s straight-man charm. Harrelson’s casting is a flaw that begs questions about which other cast members might have handled the role better.

Ferrell has become the Bill Murray of his day. He’s a staple Indiewood actor for a type of self-effacing comedy that’s dependable for its lack of cynicism. You know that his movies will feel slender, but you’ll get your money’s worth of laughs. “Semi-Pro” isn’t an earnest comedy like “Knocked Up,” but it mocks the modern age of political correctness with a passion that comes through especially in irreverent supporting performances from Andre Benjamin, Jackie Earle Haley, Will Arnett and Andrew Daly, who plays a suggestible television sportscaster. Nostalgia for the bad old days of the ’70s in America can only mean one thing; the 21st century still hasn’t found its footing. CV

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