Weekly Top Tens: Kids Movies That Make Me Cry

I never used to cry at the movies – except for kids movies. I guess I have become more emotionally unstable, and thus, I cry more at the movies now than I did before. There is something about the innocence of kids movies that sometimes gets me to break down at will. The most recent example is Where the Wild Things Are, but I found when I made up this list, there was a hell of a lot of titles I could choose from. So, despite the fact that it embarrasses the hell out of me, here are the kids movies that make me cry.

10. The Fox and the Hound (Ted Berman & Richard Rich, 1981)
This is one that I think dates to the fact that I saw it as a child, and have never been able to get to the end of this Disney classic and not cry. How can you not when you see the story of two innocent boyhood friends torn asunder simply because one is a fox and the other a hound? When poor Cooper, the hound, looks like he might be dead after that bear attack, and his friend Tod, the fox, goes over to him, I start whimpering. When the hunter raises his gun to kill Tod, and Cooper valiantly stands up and puts himself between the hunter and his friend, I lose it. A tale of innocence lost, and friendship that prevails despite the odds, The Fox and the Hound is one of my favorite Disney movies.

9. Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995)
I think the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, is actually a much better film – darker and more complex than the original – but it is this film that gets to me. A pig is brought to a farm where he sees sheepdogs working, and decides that he too wants to be one. He is good at his job, especially when he follows Maa (the matriarch of the sheeps) advice and asks the sheep politely to move. There are three moments in the film that get to me. The first is when Maa is killed in the wolf attack. The second is after Babe runs away because he finds out that humans eat pigs, but the farmer (James Cromwell) finds him, and sings and dances to regain his trust. And finally, although it has become a punchline now more than anything else, when Cromwell looks at Babe after the sheepdog trials and says “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do”. I defy you to watch the whole movie and get to that part and not break down. If you don’t, then you don’t have a heart.

8. Dumbo (Ben Sharpsteen, 1941)
Out of the Disney films of the 1940s, it is Bambi that people normally mention when talking about crying, but for me, it’s always been Dumbo that gets to me. After all, Bambi’s mother is shot offscreen, but Dumbo’s mother taken away from him in full view, and put in the “naughty elephant cage” for all to see. The moment that really gets to me is when Dumbo goes to visit his mother, and she hugs him with her trunk THROUGH THE BARS of her cage. Damn it, just thinking about that moment gets to me.

7. Watership Down (Martin Rosen, 1978)
Is Watership Down a kids movie? I know it’s an animated movie with rabbits, so I guess so, but sweet Jesus, this is one depressing movie! A group of rabbits flee their warren, because of a vision one of them has, but soon the only female rabbit is attacked and killed by a hawk. They move forward, seemingly find another suitable warren, only to discover that is run by a farmer who kills some rabbits for food. They move on again, find a paradise, but is soon infiltrated by a nearby warren, a totalitarian state that wants them to join, and when they refuse, prepare to do battle, causing an all out bloody war. What moment of Watership Down makes me cry? The better question, is what moment doesn’t!

6. The Lion King (Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff, 1994)
When the movie came out I was 13, so I was far too “cool” to watch a Dinsey animated film. When I finally caught up with it, nearly a decade later, I understood what all the fuss was about. The Lion King is probably the best Disney animated film after their resurrection in the late 1980s, and is surely the most emotionally draining. Who doesn’t cry during the moment when Mufasa is dangling over the cliff and reaches out for help from his brother Scar, only to be flung into a stampede of wildebeasts, who trample him to death. Out of all the Disney characters deaths – and there are a shocking number of these over the years – this is the one that leaves me in tears.

5. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009)
Out of all the films I have ever seen, Where the Wild Things Are is the best at examining the inner life of a child in turmoil, feeling guilt over his parents divorce, and confusion of his feelings of abandonment. The opening scenes, set in the real world, make you feel sorry for Max, the main character, and also reflect an childhood innocence most films don’t get right. When he enters his fantasy land, things are at first great, and then slowly start to get worse. If you don’t tear up a little when Max finally says goodbye to the Wild Things – and they all howl at the moon, then perhaps the emotional reunion with his mother will do the trick. If neither of these things do, that I can’t help you.

4. Up (Pete Docter, 2009)
If you can get through the first 20 minutes of Up and not cry, then you are stronger man than I am. The montage of Carl and his wife’s lives together – their meet cute beginning, their wedding, the miscarriage, the constant thwarting of their dreams, and her eventually death leaving Carl all alone, had be balling like a little girl. Then, at the end of the movie, when he goes through the photo album, and finally admits that there is a connection with the little boy who comes along on his journey, I started all over again. Damn you Pixar!

3. The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)
Best known for his work with Pixar, Brad Bird’s first theatrical movie was this classically animated tale set during the cold war, where a young boy befriends a robot from outer space. The two become inseparable, which is good for the little boy, who has no father in his life, and no real friends. However, a government agent becomes suspicious, and tries to get evidence of the outer space robot, and when he does, he sends the army in after him. The entire last act of the movie had me in tears. First, when the giant thinks the boy is dead, and goes on his rampage. Then, when the boy wakes up and stops him, only to realize that the cowardly agent has sent a nuclear missle to destroy the giant, even though it will destroy the entire town, and the giant says goodbye and flies off to sacrifice himself. The ending shot cheered me up a bit, so at least I was crying tears of happiness and not sadness at the end, but everything until then gets to me.

2. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
Okay, so if you don’t mist up a little during E.T. that I truly think that you are missing something essential that every human being should have. A movie about the pains of divorce, and its effects on children, becomes a story of true friendship and innocence lost, and found again. I cannot help but smile to think of little Drew Barrymore screaming when she first sees E.T., but it’s the finale, when Elliot thinks that E.T. is dead that gets me crying every time – even though I know that he’ll pull through. By the time he tells Elliot that “I’ll be right here”, I’ve been crying so much that I cannot possibly stop.

1. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
It is hard for me not to start crying just thinking about Wall-E, as there is so much beauty in this film. From it’s opening, wordless scene where lonely Wall-E goes about his day and dreams of having company, to his discovery of Eve, and their blossoming “romance”, the movie has me from the beginning. When they do their “dance” number outside the spaceship, it is one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen in the film. What really gets to me though is the finale, where Wall-E has sacrificed himself for humanity, and Eve brings him home and puts in a new motherboard, and Wall-E seems not to remember her. She tries to hold his hand, and he goes to pull away, and then, his hand closes around hers. Utterly beautiful. And it brings me to tears every damn time.

Weekly Top Tens: Ten Most Memorable Movie Coaches

This weekend, I watched The Damned United, the fine soccer movie from England with Michael Sheen giving an excellent performance as Brian Clough, legendary football manager. That film, while good, doesn’t make this list, but it did get me thinking about sports coaches in the movies. There are tons of them, and I’m sure that I am leaving off many people’s favorites, but so what? These are mine.

10. Kurt Russell in Miracle (2004)
I had to include a hockey coach on this list somewhere, and when your choices are Russell here and Emilo Estevez in The Mighty Ducks, you’d be stupid not to go with the former. Besides, Russell is actually excellent as real life coach Herb Brooks in Disney’s inspirational sports movie about the “Miracle on Ice” of 1980 – when the underdog Americans beat the Russians for the gold medal in Olympic hockey. What’s more, this is perhaps the only American movie in history (with all due respect to Slap Shot) that actually understands the way the game is played. While obviously being Canadian, and as such not really being all that invested in the “miracle” on display here, the film is quite good, and the main reason why is Russell’s performance. It’s one of his best.

9. Brian Glover in Kes (1970)
Brian Glover’s role in Kes is a supporting one, but one that I find absolutely unforgettable. He is the mean, harsh P.E. teacher at the heros school, he takes pleasure in tormenting his students, and is not above hurling insults at them like “fatty”. Glover’s cruel, mocking performance here is representative of almost all the adults in the young boy’s life, who finally finds an outlet for his pain and lonliness, when he trains a falcon. The movie itself is dark, and dire – there is no redemption to be found here – and one of directors Ken Loach’s best films. The entire film is great, but I’m not sure there is any scene more memorable than when Glover takes the boys out to play football. A great character was born here, and it probably remained Glover’s finest hour.

8. Walter Matthau in The Bad News Bears (1976)
Before Billy Bob Thornton took on the role of Morris Buttermaker in the remake, there was Walter Matthau who delivered such a wonderful, hilarious performance that no one could realistically follow up. An alcoholic asshole, and former minor league player, Buttermaker agrees to coach the Bears because it will mean a little extra money. They are made up of the worst players in the league, but gradually (and with the help of two new recruits), Buttermaker turns them into a real team, and becomes ultra competitive, before they all learn a lesson. Matthau’s foul mouthed, beer swilling coach is not the kind we normally see in a kids sports movie, but Matthau makes the role his own, and delivers one of his most memorable performances.

7. Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own
A League of Their Own is one of those movies I watched countless times as a kid, because it was (and remains) one of my mom’s favorite movies. It was, as far as I can remember, the first time I ever saw Tom Hanks on screen, and it remains lodged in my memory as one of my favorite performances. Actors love playing drunks, and Hanks does this incredibly well in this movie. Of course it helps that he has the movies two most memorable lines – when he says to the umpire “Anyone ever tell you that you look like a penis with a hat on” and later when he starts screaming “There’s no crying in baseball!” I love Hanks arc in this movie, which is similar to Matthau’s in The Bad News Bears, but is even a more touching. One of my favorite baseball movies, and a film I still have a hard time turning off when it comes on TV, and Hanks is a large part of my love for it.

6. Burgess Meredith in Rocky
Burgess Meredith takes on the clichéd role of the grizzled old timer coach in Rocky, and makes it one of the most memorable roles in the film and his career. An ex prize fighter himself – 50 years prior – Mickey pushes Rocky harder and harder in each scene, molding him into the kind of fighter he can be. Who doesn’t remember Meredith saying things like “You’re a bum, Rock. You’re a bum” or “You’re going eat lightin’ and you’re crap thunder!”. It’s true that Stallone has done nothing but weaken the reputation of the original film with all the sequels he has made over the years, but the original still stands on its own remarkably well. And Meredith’s Mickey is one of the reasons why.

5. Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday (1999)
Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday is the sports movie that most understands that football is a business first, and a sport second. The same is true for all professional sports really. People play them because they can make money. You make more money by winning more games, by being better than anyone else. If you could make just as much money losing, or even more money, no one would really care (just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs). Pacino plays veteran coach Tony D’Amato, of the ficitional Miami Sharks, who are having a poor season and are in danger of missing the playoffs. When both his first and second string quarterbacks are injured, he is forced to put in Willie Beaman (Jamie Foxx), who becomes a star, but will not listen to anyone – including D’Amato. Pacino gives one of his best late career performances here. His D’Amato is tired and angry and frustrated that he is losing control on his team, yet he still battles onward, and still manages to inspire his team with his speeches. It is a great role for Pacino, in an underrated film by Stone.

4. Gene Hackman in Hoosiers
In many ways, Hackman’s Norman Dale has become the prototypical sports movie coach. Coming from a checkered past as a coach – he was fired from his last job for striking a student – Dale moves to a small Indiana town to become a teacher and basketball coach. At first, the kids do not respond to him, and they lose games, and in a town as obsessed with basketball as this one, that’s a bad sign. Dale’s defensive style, and the hiring of the town drunk (Dennis Hopper) as his assistant, alienate the town, who want him gone, but when the star speaks up, the town listens. The team becomes unstoppable. Dale is a man who has had to deal with his demons, and overcome them, and has come to realize that winning is not the only important things. By doing so, he creates an environment where the kids are comfortable and do win. Hackman is a natural as a coach, and in Hoosiers, he creates one of the most memorable ones in movie history.

3. Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood’s Frankie Dunn is one of the most loyal boxing coaches in history. He plays the grizzled veteran who doesn’t like training girls, and turns it from a cliché into a fully realized character. Through the film, he grows to love Hilary Swank’s Maggie Fitzgerald, and looks to her as a replacement of his own daughter who wants nothing to do with him. He trains her hard, she gets better and better, and soon she is a star on the female boxing circuit. But everything changes when an injury comes along, and causes Frankie to make the toughest decision of his life. Million Dollar Baby starts out like a typical boxing movie, and then slowly grows more and more serious as it moves along. Eastwood gives one of his most fully realized performances ever, as a man who has pretty much given up on life, but then rediscovers it with zeal, only to be crushed once again. The kind of coach anyone would love to have – he cares about the athelete much more than about winning.

2. Pat Morita in The Karate Kid (1984)
I know that in many ways, Pat Morita’s Mr. Miyagi has become something of a joke in the 25 years since the movie has been released. But it only got that way because the movie that contains the character, and his performance, were so damned good in the first place. The seemingly peaeceful and serene Mr. Miyagi reveals his darker secrets to his student Daniel, and through repetitive tasks (“Wax on, wax off”), slowly teaches him karate skills that he can use in a tournament to beat his tormentors. In many ways, Mr. Miyagi was the best and worst thing that ever happened to Morita, who had the role of a lifetime and was never able to live it down. But the legacy continues on in just about every martial arts movie since. A great performance, and a great coach.

1. Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights (2004)
I picked Billy Bob Thornton in Friday Night Lights not because it was the best movie on this list, because it’s not. Or even because it is the best performance on this list, because it isn’t that either. The reason why I picked him in this movie is simply because I think that out of all the coaches I have ever seen in a movie, that Gary Gaines, played by Thornton, is the most realistic portrayal of a coach I have ever seen. Friday Night Lights is not just another underdog story of a team that rallies around its new coach, but a portrait of a town whose entire lives revolve around football. When Gaines arrives, he is everyone’s best friend, but when things go bad, the town lets him know that he really is just a visitor there. Gaines is used to this – he has been through the whole thing before, and will go through it again in the future. He depends on this to keep his family afloat. He is a great coach, he can give great speeches, but underneath it all is a fear that if things go wrong, he’ll be out of a job. Football is all he really knows, and if he gets fired, what the hell is he going to do?

Movie Review: The Burning Plain

The Burning Plain **
Directed By: Guillermo Arriaga.
Written By: Guillermo Arriaga.
Starring: Charlize Theron (Sylvia), Kim Basinger (Gina), Jennifer Lawrence (Mariana), José María Yazpik (Carlos), Joaquim de Almeida (Nick), Tessa Ia (Maria), Diego J. Torres (Cristobal), J.D. Pardo (Young Santiago), Danny Pino (Santiago), John Corbett (John).

The films written by Guillermo Arriaga have become increasingly predictable, and really rather silly, in their view of humanity stretching across national boundaries. What seemed original, and even daring, in Amores Perros and 21 Grams, has since become increasingly fractured and predictable in films like Babel and The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada – even if those films still were quite good. But with his debut directing effort, The Burning Plain, Arriaga has proven that he has taken his concepts as far as they can go, and it’s time to move on. Despite the fractured timeline of the narrative in this film, there is not a moment where you cannot see what is coming before it gets there. Arriaga’s sad sack blond white women, and the Mexicans that they simultaneously hurt and love in this film, is just more of the same from a writer who has run out of ideas.

In rainy Oregon, a beautiful woman named Sylvia (Charlize Theron), who is the manager of an upscale restaurant, drowns in pain in booze, meaningless affairs and by cutting herself with a jagged rock, while a Mexican man follows her around. In sun burnt New Mexico, a bored housewife Gina (Kim Basinger) has an affair with a Mexican man Nick (Joaquin de Almeida) that led to their death when the trailer they met for their rendezvous blows up. Now their kids Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and Santiago (J.D. Pardo) meet to discuss their parents affair, as we flashback to what actually happened. In even more sun burnt Mexico, a daughter Maria (Tessa Ia) watches as her father’s crop dusting plane crashes, and leaves her without parents, as her mother ran off years ago. If you haven’t figured out the secrets of the movie by the end of this paragraph (which contains no more information than the trailer does), you probably do not watch many movies.

Arriaga tries to cover the predictability of his story by telling it in bits and pieces, not giving you the whole picture until well into the running time of the movie. This works sometimes – as it did brilliantly in 21 Grams, and to a lesser extent in Babel, although it should be said that director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu bares a great responsibility for that along with Arriaga – but here, with such a simple story, it simply serves to confuse and frustrate the audience.

A bigger problem maybe that the characters are all so dour and depressed throughout the entire movie. If this is a movie about the human experience, than shouldn’t there be some happiness somewhere in the film? And can’t any of the characters be more than one dimensional? I mean Charlize Theron is a talented actress, but when you give her nothing to do but walk around looking depressed, there isn’t much she can do with the role. Basinger is given even less to do, and as we slowly realize that she is just another of cinema’s “sexually repressed” middle aged women with a decent, but boring husband, I got bored and tuned out. Jennifer Lawrence is probably the best in the movie, because at least her character has some shifts and changes to her – and she’s the only character who feels truly alive. I get a sense that talented newcomer Ia could have done the same thing with Maria, if she had been given more of a chance.

It should be said that the movie is well made. Arriaga may not have the visual flair of Gonzalez Inarritu, but he has made a professional looking film. And the actors, for all the shortcomings of the screenplay, do what they can to salvage the movie. I just found I wasn’t too interested in these characters or their lives. The jumbled plot didn’t help much either. The Burning Plain is a movie that simply plays it too safe – and makes the mistake of believing itself to be profound and original, when really it is more of the same from a writer who is out of ideas.

Movie Review: Bronson

Bronson *** ½
Directed By: Nicolas Winding Refn.
Written By: Nicolas Winding Refn & Brock Norman Brock.
Starring: Tom Hardy (Charles Bronson), Matt King (Paul), Kelly Adams (Irene), Katy Barker (Julie), Edward Bennett-Coles (Brian), Amanda Burton (Mum), William Darke (Charles Bronson - Age 13), Andrew Forbes (Joe Peterson), James Lance (Phil), Juliet Oldfield (Alison), Hugh Ross (Uncle Jack), Joe Tucker (John White).

I fear that we have become a society of petulant children. You know the kids that act out because they crave attention, and do not care if it’s good attention or bad attention? That’s what we have become. We are surrounded by “celebrities” you I have no idea why they are celebrities. Paris Hilton? Nicole Ritchie? The Kardashians? Jon and Kate? The Octo Mom? Who the hell are these people and why they hell I am supposed to care about them? Do they have talent? Or are they just more willing than the next person to degrade themselves for a little bit of fame?

I know that it is odd to begin a review about the “most violent inmate in Britain” talking about vacuous celebrities, but it was the thought that stuck with me as I was watching Bronson. Born Michael Peterson, the main character in Bronson thinks he is destined for great things, and longs to make a name for himself. As a child, he got into fights, dropped out of school early, got married and had a kid, but never grew up. He gets arrested for a silly armed robbery, and turns his six year sentence into a pretty much a life sentence by his refusal to do anything but beat people up. True, he never did kill anyone, but when you’re constantly fighting in jail, does it really matter? During his brief (62 days) of freedom following years in jail, he changes his name to Charles Bronson. Why? If you cannot be famous being yourself, maybe adopting the fame of someone else will work.

Bronson, the movie, is pretty much a one man show for actor Tom Hardy, who rips into his role with a ferocity and fearlessness that you rarely see in the movies. He is in pretty much every scene in the film, and he commands your attention no matter what he is doing. Often, he imagines himself on a stage, delivering a monologue about his life, dressed up in full face paint to an adoring crowd that isn’t actually there. He’s not delusional, as he knows it is a fantasy, but in his own mind he is much more famous than he is in reality. In prison, he is a legend, everywhere else he is failure. This is why he continually sabotages himself when he gets an opportunity to be released. He doesn’t want out of jail.

The film was co-written and director by Nicolas Winding Refn, and while the film’s visual and aural look and feel definitely owe a debt to Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the film is masterfully directed in its own right. Refn borrows Kubrick’s tactic of marrying the violence with classical music, and does so more effectively than anyone since Kubrick did. But the musical cue that sticks with me the most happens during Bronson’s stay at a mental hospital, during a dance where they play The Pet Shop Boys “It’s a Sin”. It’s here where the movie takes on a life of its own, and marries its realism and surrealism together to great effective. It is a haunting scene. Refn’s visual style seems to want to isolate Bronson throughout the movie. Even when not in jail, he is shot either behind bars, or with the darkness on the edge of the screen closing in on him. On stage, he is the pretty much the only thing lit up. These scenes ratchet up the surrealism of the movie, and recall the sad scenes in Scorsese’s brilliant The King of Comedy, where Pupkin practices his standup to an adoring audience of no one.

But the star of the show is Hardy. There are other characters in the movie, but I find it hard to come up with anything to say about them, because Hardy completely dominates every scene, as he is supposed to. Without an actor of his physicality and presence, his alternating charm, humor and scariness, the whole movie would have devolved into an exercise in style and little else. But he makes Bronson into a real person. A sad, pathetic person, true, but a person nonetheless. All he wants to do is cling to the little bit of “fame” that he has. If he wasn’t a psychopath, it would almost be sad.

DVD Releases: October 20, 2009

Lots to chose from this week, but I have a feeling that the film that most people are going to rent – seeing as how it’s the highest grossing film of the year, which depresses the hell out of me by the way, is also one of the worst of the year. Instead, why not try being adventuresome and picking up one of the smaller titles this week. Please, just do me that favor!

Cheri **
What was supposed to be Michelle Pfeiffer’s big comeback role to win her an Oscar turned into a tame, unfunny period comedy about a older woman (Pfeiffer) who is essentially a prostitute who moves from one rich man to another, breaking her first rule by falling in love. Not only that, but the man she falls for is much younger than she is (played by Rupert Friend), and the son of an associate (Kathy Bates). This is a surprisingly sloppily made film, considering the director is the great Stephen Frears, but the even bigger problem is that we feel no connection between the two lovers at the center of the movie. While the film is enjoyable in fits and starts, it never really goes anywhere. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/06/movie-review-cheri.html

Dead Snow ***
Nazi Zombies. That is all I needed to know to make this movie a must see film. And while I may have been a little disappointed that they didn’t do MORE with the Nazi zombies angle (really, they didn’t need to be Nazis), this is still a highly entertaining homage to the horror movies of the 1980s – particularly the Evil Dead series. Hilarious, bloody as hell and thoroughly entertaining, Dead Snow is a must for fans of the genre. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/09/movie-review-dead-snow.html

The Stoning Of Soraya M. ***
A woman is stoned to death in Iran following the fall of the Shah, and the rise of the fundamentalists. The only woman in the small town where it happened who seems to care is the woman’s aunt (Shoreh Aghdashloo), who pulls aside a Western reporter (Jim Cavizel) and tells her the story, so he can share it with the world. The film has its problems – notably that all the characters in the movie are either completely innocent, absolute monsters or gutless cowards, with no other sides to them – and the ending feels too triumphant given what happens in the movie. But the central story is powerful, and the stoning sequence one of the most shocking, and prolonger, acts of violence in any movie this year. While this is not a great movie, it is an important one. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/08/movie-review-stoning-of-soraya-m.html

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen *
Director Michael Bay takes everything he did in the original Transformers and makes it bigger, louder and dumber in the sequel. This is a film with action sequences so chaotic that it was impossible for me to tell from one scene to the next what the hell was happening. Who had a story so brainless, yet so complicated, that I got tired of trying to figure it all out and simply let the film wash over me. It was a thoroughly miserable movie going experience, and the fact that it is the highest grossing film of the year is simply depressing. Call me a snob if you want to, but this is one of the worst films of the year. And this is coming from some who really enjoyed the first one. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/06/movie-review-transformers-revenge-of.html

Whatever Works *** ½
Woody Allen and Larry David are natural born collaborators, and this underrated comedy is absolutely hilarious. David plays a professor, who divorces his wife, quits his job and makes out a meager living in New York teaching chess to idiots, all the while decrying who everyone in the world is nowhere near as smart as he is. Then he meets Evan Rachel Wood, a young beauty up from the South to make her way as an actress – and she is the personification of everything he hates – so of course they fall in love. Things just get stranger from there. This is one of Woody’s best and funniest comedies in recent years – with great work by David, Wood and Patricia Clarkson - and also another in his string of “atheist” movies – which of course means I loved it. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/06/movie-review-whatever-works.html

Movie Review: The Damned United

The Damned United ***
Directed By: Tom Hooper.
Written By: Peter Morgan based on the book by David Peace.
Starring: Michael Sheen (Brian Clough), Timothy Spall (Peter Taylor), Colm Meaney (Don Revie), Jim Broadbent (Sam Longson), Stephen Graham (Billy Bremner), Peter McDonald (Johnny Giles).

Michael Sheen excels at playing real life characters. Whether it is Tony Blair in The Queen and The Deal, David Frost in Frost/Nixon or now Brian Clough in The Damned United, Sheen is able to capture real life characters on film just about perfectly. He inhabits his characters, who are all quite different, and disappears into the role. Whenever I see him in another type of movie – like in the god awful Underworld: Rise of the Lycans earlier this year where he played a werewolf – something seems off about him. Perhaps he needs something to base his performances on to be effective. But whatever the reason, he has become to go to British actor when it comes to biopics.

I doubt most North American audiences are going to know who Brian Clough is. I certainly didn’t know before I watched the movie. He is a football (in our world, soccer) manager in England who took a lowly Division II team and in a few short years turned them into Division I champions. He was outspoken and brash, and pissed off a lot of people, but he got results. Along with his faithful sidekick Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), there seemed like nothing he couldn’t do. Then he spoke out one too many times and got fired. But no big deal. It is not long before Leeds United, the biggest name in England football comes calling on him to be there manager. Taylor wants nothing to do with it, but Clough cannot resist.

You see, Clough has always hated Leeds United. It dates back several years when his then still lowly team drew a match with Leeds in the FA Cup, and Clough spent days making sure everything was perfect for them, and their legendary manager, Don Revie (Colm Meaney). Then Leeds got there, played dirty and won, and Revie snubs Clough by not shaking his hand. From then on, everything Clough does is designed to show up Leeds United and Revie himself. They two have a very public war of words in the press.

To say that Clough is unprepared for the Leeds job would be an understatement. He assumes he’ll be able to waltz in, tell the team to stop playing dirty, and then the wins will simply take care of themselves. Taylor was always more of the nitty gritty detail man, while Clough was the visionary. What he walks into though is a team that doesn’t want him there, doesn’t listen to him, and does everything they can to undermine him. It is a recipe for disaster.

Michael Sheen delivers an excellent performance as Clough. Brass, loud, arrogant, with a Northern accent, Clough remains a fascinating character throughout, even if the film sometimes feels a little too by the numbers. Writer Peter Morgan (who also wrote The Queen and Frost/Nixon) and director Tom Hooper flash back and forth in time to show both Clough’s rise in the ranks of English football as manager of Darby, and his fall as manager of Leeds United. Through it all, they concentrate on the relationships in the film – particularly the marriage type aspect of the relationship between Clough and Taylor, and the rivalry between Clough and Revie. While it is a fascinating movie, at times it feels a little too clichéd. Also, I felt that there was a darker story lurking somewhere beneath the surface of this film, that they just didn’t want to delve into. I learned later of course that there was, but the story they tell is still quite interesting. I didn’t so much like the end title cards though, that celebrates Clough and Taylor, and deride Revie, but what are you going to do?

The Damned United is a well made and very entertaining movie – even for someone like me, who despises soccer. That it is as good as it is due to Sheen’s wonderful performance, and the fascinating character he plays. It doesn’t matter what sport he coaches, Brian Clough would be an entertaining, interesting person.

Movie Review: Good Hair

Good Hair ***
Directed By: Jeff Stilson.
Written By: Lance Crouther & Chris Rock & Chuck Sklar & Jeff Stilson & Paul Marchand.

Did you know that the chemicals that black women (and Al Sharpton) put in their hair can make a soda can clear in an hour, and completely eat through it in 4? These are cans designed to hold, which they say have so much acid in them, they make a good household cleaner. (I learned later that modern products now use a different chemical, that is less dangerous, but the point still holds – women used to use this chemical on their hair). Did you know that a weave, even a cheap one, costs more than $1,000 – and that’s BEFORE you’ve actually paid for the hair that they will be stitching into your head? If I realized anything while watching the documentary Good Hair, it’s that when my wife goes to the salon for her quarterly styling, and drops $200, I should be thankful that it cost so little!

Chris Rock is at the center of Good Hair, a film he says he wanted to make because his 4 year old daughter asked him why she didn’t have “good hair”. Rock sets out to find out why exactly it is that black women spend so much time and money making their hair do things that it was not meant to do, and what exactly good hair is. His film may start out about hair, but I was surprised by how many different areas it ends up covering.

Rock’s strength as an interviewer are twofold. First, he never really judges his subjects, just makes them feel comfortable and relaxed enough to share with him details that normally, they share with almost no one. Second, he is hilarious. Rock is quick witted, and never misses an opportunity to throw in a barbed one liner, but because he does so with a smile on his face, and perfect delivery, no one gets really offended. They simply laugh along with him.

Rock is certainly not saying that what all these women are doing to their hair is wrong. He simply wants to explore why they feel the need to do it all. Why do black women seem to go out of their way to make their hair do things that it was not naturally meant to do? Well, why does anyone? Trust me, I have a lot of female friends, and have often been the only guy in a roomful of women, and no matter what race they are, women can go on and on and on about their hairstyles, agonizing over the smallest changes they make to it. Men typically pick a haircut early in their life and stick with it until they die or go bald – whichever comes first. But women seem to like to change their hair constantly. Such is life.

Rock is at his best when he veers away from the celebrities and covers something like the Atlanta hair show, where its centre piece if a styling competition between four hair dressers, which is more theater than hair dressing. There is not a lot of hair being cut in this competition, but boy is it ever entertaining. But the single best scene in the movie may come when Rock goes into a barbershop and talks to a group of black men about black women’s hair. The revelations he uncovers there are the type of thing that is rarely discussed.

Of course, there are limits to what you should do with your hair. It is stupid to spend $1,000 on a weave when you don’t have money to spend on food. But then, it’s stupid to spend $1,000 on anything when you don’t have for food in your house – unless of course, it’s food. But the women he talks to in the film – all intelligent and well spoken whether they are actresses, writers, doctors, singers or video vixens – say they do it because it makes them feel better about themselves. This is true of the women who use relaxers, who have weaves or have their “natural” hair. And if you have the money to do, why not? As rapper Ice T says at the very end of the movie women need to do what makes them feel good about their hair because if not “they will make the lives of every fucker around them miserable”. Well said Ice T, well said.