A "Mo" Farewell

Dear "Mo"-Readers,

It wasn't too long ago when John Zimmerman (a.k.a. Dr. John, but I like to call him JZ) started a "Virtual Lounge" for the Nassau University Medical Center's past residents, and offered me a column to post film reviews on a blog of my own. Twenty months and 160 movie reviews later, accompanied by a new Mo/JZ-devised movie-rating system (which seems to have been the most attractive part of the blog), and a 24-hour gracious technical support by JZ himself, "Mo-Blog" has been receiving more than 200 hits a week - not too many, but considering the blog has been devoid of any advertisements and has attracted visitors only through word-of-mouth, not too bad either.

When I started the blog, I wrote in my welcoming post that "... I'd rather summarize these "reviews" to small "commentaries", like Leonard Maltin-type reviews ..." When I was writing that sentence, I never knew I would be so fulfilled with writing the reviews and would get so engrossed in the word-play, that sometimes I would make Todd McCarthy or Roger Ebert-type reviews look like short commentaries. Considering that "Mojo" and "Say-it-ain't-so" movies are in continuous production (two great recent "Mojo" examples of which have been the wonderful Pirates of the Carribean sequel, and the gruesome but impressive The Devil's Rejects), it's obvious that there is never an end to the fun of praising or trashing movies. But on the other hand, this approach proves the vast amount of time I've been putting into each review, and considering the busy days coming up for me during the next year (which includes my radiology oral boards), I'm sad to say that I won't be able to continue my beloved hobby at this rate.

So to all you kind readers who supported me with your feedbacks and comments on my reviews, I wanted to whole-heartedly thank you for your positive attendance. Kudos goes to the one and only JZ, without whom this all would never have happened. If the opportunity ever comes up, I'll try to cover important works of world cinema every once in a while, and I hope to find the time to write my two cents on my favorite annual sections of "Mo-Blog": the year's top 10 list (published the week before the Oscar nominations are announced), and my Oscar winners predictions (posted a week before the ceremony). Check back during those weeks, in case my schedules have allowed me sufficient time to give you a dose of some more "Mo"-logorrhea.

Hope to hear from you bloggers and blog-lovers somewhere down the road. Life is too short, so let's all stick to the valuable principle of not wasting our time on bad movies. How do we recognize a bad movie? Well, just concentrate on the first five minutes - you will know.

To all you movie-lovers out there: May the Force be with you all.

Best Regards,
Mohsen Ghofrani

Superman Returns

Director: Bryan Singer. Cast: Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Marlon Brando, Parker Posey, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint. 154 min. 2006. Rated PG-13.

Now I know what my problem is: Spiderman 2 set the bar on superhero movies so high, any other superhero movie, no matter how dazzling the scenery is or how well-developed the characters are, will be considered subpar. The experience happened to me in the case of Batman Begins (a movie many comic book fans liked) last year, and now it has happened again in the case of Superman Returns this year.

While leaving the theatre after watching Superman Returns, I was wondering: did I just watch a movie about Superman? Or as one of my friends put it: What happened to all the "Superman stuff"? Where was the action, the exciting heroics, the mind-boggling escapades? Does Superman even occupy half the movie's screen-time? Following the character development path set by Spiderman 2, Superman Returns gets so involved with subplots and characters secondary to Superman himself, they probably should have called the movie Lois Lane Returns or Lex Luthor Returns.

At times there are chances where the characters start getting interesting, but those chances are shot down so fast, we don't see a willing on the director or screenwriter's part to take such a risk. For instance, Lois Lane has won a Pulitzer prize for writing the article "Why We Don't Need Superman". Ok, so why don't we need Superman? Never a hint. At the end of the movie, she starts writing an article. Yep, you got it write: "Why We Do Need Superman". So what happened? Which factors that motivated her to write the first article, have now changed to force such a drastic U-turn? But no, all we get is a Peeping Tom Superman, who goes to Lois Lane's home and with his x-ray eyes, takes a shot at voyeurism by watching her and her family's daily life through the walls. I guess that's a good reason why we don't need Superman.

Obviously with Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) helming the project, the movie isn't devoid of good moments; but in retrospect, those good moments backfire to the movie's disadvantage. The opening credits, with John Williams' historical soundtrack and the credits accelerating into space, will raise your hair on end from excitement ... but those elements (together with archived footage of the voice and image of Marlon Brando as Jor-El), were taken from the original 1978 Richard Donner Superman; nothing new. Brandon Routh is an acceptable Superman, but Kevin Spacey dominates the screen so powerfully as Lex Luthor, Routh doesn't have a chance. It's very uplifting to watch Superman lift-up (no pun intended) an entire island, but hello? Isn't the island made of Kryptonite? How could Singer have missed such a huge narrative point?

I'm not saying I was bored during the movie, but I never got involved in the movie either. During the final scene of Spiderman 2, when Mary Jane tells Spiderman: "Go get 'em, tiger ...", I almost had tears in my eyes. Superman Returns didn't touch even lower levels of such emotional involvement.

So let's just give this one a So-so, and wait till next year to see what Spiderman 3 has in store for us ...

Mo says:

The Omen (2006)

Director: John Moore. Cast: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite, Mia Farrow, Micheal Gambon. 110 min. 2006. Rated R.

In 1998, the acclaimed filmmaker, Gus Van Sant, remade Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece, Psycho. Van Sant said his purpose for such an effort was to introduce Hitchcock's classic movie (in my opinion his best film ever) to today's generation. The result was a total mess. Van Sant went overboard during his attempt, and directed the movie as an exact shot-by-shot equivalent of Hitchcock's film, with new generation actors such as Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore and Anne Heche. With that approach, Van Sant proved that he had totally missed the point: that to present an updated version of a good film, you should focus on the points that made the movie memorable and give them a new look; not just switch the actors and offer the exact same product. As though such a mistake wasn't enough, Van Sant added insult to injury: he changed Hitchcock's beautiful black and white rendition to a boring color cinematography in his remake.

After that disaster, there has been a trend of attempts to remake horror classics, and each example (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror) has been worse than the one before. Until some producers discovered that June 6th 2006 (6/06/06) was coming up, and probably thought: why not remake The Omen? I have to give them credit for this one, because this time, they got it right.

No, the remake of The Omen is not better than the extremely entertaining original 1972 version - the one that made people around the world run for their lives when there was the slightest mention of the number 666. But it does a good job in introducing a true classic to a new generation, 30 years later. The director, newcomer John Moore, understands why the original Omen was so attractive, so in the remake, instead of presenting the exact same events, he offers the same concepts, but from a different narrative angle. We knew the bizarre deaths of the original movie weren't just accidents, but we could never explain the mechanism of how they happened. In the remake, a beggar throws a cigarette stub on the sidewalk where in a few a minutes gasoline will be flowing, or a red-robed figure runs across the background street a few minutes before Father Brennan is staked to the ground at the doorstep of a church. All are seemingly unrelated events to the gruesome deaths, but we know they must be somehow related to their mechanism. That was a strong point that made the original so eerie ... and so entertaining.

Honors should be given to the movie's casting director, because in this respect, The Omen fulfills. Liev Schreiber (who recently made his directorial debut with the intelligent Everything is Illuminated) definitely doesn't have the screen presence Gregory Peck once had in the same role, but he still manages to run the show in a decent manner. Julia Stiles, who was until recently a time-honored chick flick champion, proves that she can handle a serious role in which she ultimately gets killed by her own son (I mean, give her a break; that is serious business). But my highest regard goes to the supporting role players: Pete Postlethwaite is even more daunting than the actor who played his role in the original, David Thewlis' facial features are very close to David Warner's in the role of Jennings the doomed reporter, Michael Gambon portrays a superb Bugenhagan, and for the role of Mrs. Baylock, Damien's nanny, who could have been better than the one and only Mia Farrow, bearer of the devil's son in Rosemary's Baby?

And did I forget to mention the casting genius for the role of Damien himself? Here I have to admit that the remake surpasses the original. In the 1976 movie, Damien was just a cute little boy, and only Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack forced us to think he was evil. In the remake, probably again to wisely avoid the chances of the movie becoming an exact replica of the original, the filmmakers have sidestepped the famous creepy operatic soundtrack (even though it was probably the original's most popular component), and instead have presented us with a boy who makes you sure that if the devil has a child, that's what he looks like (as though I've seen him myself). Overall, all I can say is ... beautiful casting decisions.

An element that was not used as much in the original Omen, is the use of shock shots. I'm not completely against the use of shocks in a horror movie, as long as they're not implemented merely to compensate for the required adrenaline rush of an otherwise boring horror film; which unfortunately has become the usual in today's horror genre. Some recent movies that made genuine use of shocks were What Lies Beneath and The Ring, and I counted at least five very well processed shocks in the remake of The Omen; the most famous being the shock where Mrs. Baylock jumps on Thorn after he sees the "666" birthmark under Damien's hair.

The remake of The Omen will probably not be remembered as a great memorable movie as the original was; after all, it's still a remake, and without the surprise value of the original. But that's not the point. The filmmakers set out to update a classic horror film, and they have reached their goal. Therefore, the remake is a success.

Mo says:

Hostel

Director: Eli Roth. Cast: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Eythor Gudjonsson. 94 min. 2005. Unrated.

In Tarantino's masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, with all its comedic moments, there is a very eerie sequence, which bothered me for quite a while after watching the movie. Bruce Willis (as Butch the runaway boxer) is trying to hide from Ving Rhames (as Marsellus Wallace the cold-blooded gangster), who is in dead pursuit. Accidentally, they both end up in an obscure store on the streets of LA, and for no reason whatsoever, the store-owner overcomes and gags them both, and takes them to the basement to rape them. He succeeds halfway through, but is avenged by one of his two prisoners before he completes his nefarious act.

But the whole concept of going clueless into a store, and having such horrid acts bestowed upon you for absolutely no reason, is not a very easily digestable concept. Now, take that notion, and expand it to a full-length feature film; that would be a genuine horror movie. In this case, the result is Hostel (again produced by Tarantino).

Three American and Norwegian young tourist friends embark on a mission of carnal desires in the Netherlands. There, a passerby informs them that the peak of what they are looking for awaits them in a small Slavian village. The three whole-heartedly take his offer with true appreciation, and soon find themselves on a train to the village. After getting off the train at the station, there is a moment when they look around at the empty station, and at each other: Where the hell are we? What have we gotten ourselves into? If there ever was a moment in movie history of being "lost in translation" in another country, this was it.

Sure enough, they find the village, and the hotel/hostel, and what they were promised comes true: they experience pleasures in the hotel that makes them wish they could stay there for the rest of their life. Well, there wish is granted, because they do stay there for the rest of their ... short life. After a the first night, one by one they are inebriated, and taken to a torture house, where among other unlucky victims, they meet their fate. Only the third young tourist, apparently the smartest of the batch, finds a way out of the torture house to safety.

Don't worry; I haven't spoiled anything for you, because it doesn't matter whether the third tourist gets out of the hellhole or not. The major question is: Why are innocent people being tortured in that location? What is the purpose of such atrocious conduct? When the tourist discovers the reason during the movie's final moments, it is such a shocking revelation, you may lose some sleep over it. Not because of how gruesome and unimaginably cruel the picture is, but because it's believable. The possibilities of such a center existing are very real.

The most crucial narrative point of the story is its occurrence in a former Yugoslavian republic. After the horror stories we've heard of the atrocities committed against the Bosnians during their genocide in the 90s, it is quite possible for such a torture house to be run by the citizens of that particular country. This statement may sound politically incorrect, but I tend to assume that Tarantino was well aware of such vicious acts by the Serbs when he accepted to oversee the production of Hostel and approved of the story setting to be placed in the former Yugoslavia. People in that particular land have committed some of the most heinous crimes imaginable against humans on a mass level, and if a movie stereotypes them as such, the most benign statement I can make is: well ... too bad. It is very much expected.

The elements of Tarantino's work are scattered throughout the movie. Some are as simple as showing people watching a Slavian-dubbed version of Pulp Fiction, and others are more subtle, such as violence happening off the frame and leaving the rest to the viewer's imagination (as happened in the famous ear-cutting scene of Reservoir Dogs - which in the case of Hostel, the same approach is taken during an Achilles tendon cutting scene).

Tarantino amazes me again and again at how many different approaches he provides to the concept of "violence" in movies. In Pulp Fiction, he gave it a comedic form; and in Sin City (another Tarantino-produced project), it was portrayed as cartoonish concept. Now in Hostel, he mixes it with gore and an extremely troubling horror story. In Hostel, we're not dealing with sadistic, manipulative and brainless gore as we did in the Saw movies; we're dealing with true horror, and one of the best horror movies ever made.

That being said, there's no question that I'll be eagerly waiting to see what other innovative face Tarantino will be giving to violence in the future.

Mo says:

Poseidon

Director: Wolfgang Petersen. Cast: Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Richard Dreyfuss, Emmy Rossum, Kevin Dillon. 99 min. 2006. Rated PG-13.

There's a saying that Hollywood corrupts great talents. This was probably never more true than the case of Wolfgang Peterson. A look at the short list of movies he's directed for the big screen is all you need to reach this conclusion. Das Boot (The Boat), one of his early movies, is probably the best anti-war war-movie ever made, and I've rarely seen a film deal with the innocence of childhood as good as The Neverending Story. These were both made in Germany. But then he moved to the US, and his first major American film was In the Line of Fire. Attractive story, but still mainstream Hollywood fanfare. Outbreak and Air Force One, were entertaining enough (even though the latter had garage-size plausibility holes). The Perfect Storm might have had some good scenery, but the story element was lagging. Troy was just utter garbage.

So now he comes with Poseidon, a remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure. In my opinion, the 70's story of a monstrous cruise ship that capsizes after being hit by a rogue tidal wave, and the small group of survivors who try to find their way to safety, was one of the best disaster movies of all time. But Poseidon is another example of Petersen's downward trend, and proves how he has become a slave to the Hollywood studio system - a system based on keeping the lowest common denominator of viewers happy, and avoiding all risks. The way Petersen plays everything safe in his movie, is just plain abhorring. The movie has only one villain who could make things a bit interesting, but he dies during the first half hour. Two major characters in the group of survivors are Hispanics, but they get killed off before the movie is even halfway through - probably because a studio executive said: "Now we've got a business to run ... who needs them?". And characters miraculously keep popping up with professional skills along the way: "Don't worry, I used to be a fireman ..." or: "Don't worry, I know how ships work ..." or: "Don't worry, I used to be a professional swimmer in high school!" And there's never a shortage of "Look, a hatch!" to get our heroes out of trouble.

But the most disgusting risk-avoiding element of Poseidon, is how it contorts the original movie's ending and weasels its way out of the story's biggest risk. The sheer beauty of the original was that ... yes, the main hero dies at the end. The scene showing Gene Hackman, the movie's superstar, falling into the fire in the hull below was what made the 1972 movie so memorable. But if you're making a movie in 2006, and the studio executives are breathing down your neck, there's no way your going to take that risk. What if there's a retard in the audience, who can only digest a happy ending? Never fear. Here's how today's screenwriters solve the problem all too conveniently: They create two main heroes! Both Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell are there to save the day, but one dies a tragic (well, actually comical) death at the end, and the other lives to the audience's delight. That wasn't too hard, was it?

Ok, ok, the movie does have some exciting sequences, and again Petersen doesn't fail to fulfill in terms of visual effects and scenery. There's even an homage to Titanic, the greatest cruise ship disaster movie of all time: on the ship, under the name "Poseidon" is written "Southampton" (either all doomed cruise ships in history leave from Southampton, or I'm never going to board a ship that departs from Southampton in my life). There was enough (however bogus) material to keep me going for the full length of the movie, but if you're looking for something deeper, I recommend watching the original Poseidon Adventure again.

Mo says: