bkdement Reviews

The Reagans (2003 TV Movie)

Terrific movie, totally SCREWED

[7/10 · 2 January 2005]

Well it's true enough that people decided not to watch this film, which is clear enough from reading their absurdly uninformed opinions about it.

There was an incredible spread of lies about this movie, all published based on a completely unrelated rough draft of an entirely different screenplay, which were quickly distributed via the internet to anyone who enjoys getting fired up. That's a lot of people, and yes, most of them host television shows with screaming people on them. Thanks to the internet, the "American People" did not choose not to support "The Reagans." No, they chose to be prey to brainwashing which was based on lies about a film which had not yet been completed, assembled in the editing room, or therefor seen by anyone including it's own director.

And it IS censorship which is caused by official segments of the Republican party organizing protests and threatening CBS, resulting in a fantastic film being dumped in the grand name of ignorance and hero worship. Apparently three hours of actual study is too much to ask of "the American people" these days.

I have seen this film several times, because out of curiosity I purchased a copy. Now of course we don't know what Nancy Reagan said during downtime at home when her husband was running for office. But if we had to limit our films and television shows to dialogue that can be 100% verified, then we are all doomed to watch nothing but "Survivor" and "The Surreal Life" for the rest of our lives.

Furthermore, anyone with a brain should know that no one, no not even Nancy Reagan, can be pleasant and happy all the time. You watch someone when they know they're in front of a camera and they will not necessarily show you the part of their personality that got them there. Truly objective and humane people would appreciate this film BECAUSE of the negative moments, and the positive ones. I would much rather watch a brilliantly-acted and produced film that seems to be balanced and believable than a live-action cartoon featuring Ronald Reagan as the protagonist.

People who are sick and dying deserve to be respected, surely. However, it must be understood that a film takes time and the producers of this movie certainly could not have decided to time the release of this one just before his death. Is anyone really crazy enough to believe that they had this in mind? Is there a stupider idea for a film director to have? Oh, I know, let's mutilate the reputation of the one of the most beloved American presidents in our history just as he's slowly dying of a dreaded disease. And let's not forget to also destroy the image of his wife Nancy, before airing our expose on Mother Theresa. Yup, that must've been their motivation.

It reminds me of everyone accusing Ellen DeGeneres of coming out in order to bolster her career....and look at all of the people who followed her lead because of the great effect it has on a person's career.

Titus (1999)

Missing the Point

[9/10 · 16 December 2004]

"The ideas that Julie has might to some executives seem very radical, and the play itself might be indigestible, when in the same moment they can do Armageddon 2, 3, 4 and 5 and blow all kinds of stuff up, and kill countless numbers of people! Yet chop off one hand, you rape one girl in a poetically powerful way where it actually hits - oh, no, sorry we don't do that kind of stuff. And we're certainly not going to you millions of dollars to do it." -Colm Feore, Marcus Andronicus, "Titus"

Shakespeare's tragedy Titus Andronicus is basically a formula for violence, in order for Shakespeare to gain popularity over his contemporaries. It also uses the overflow of violence to draw some pointed conclusions about the elegance and civilized society of ancient Rome. But never mind that, it's just needlessly violent...right? Of course it's violent - and "Titus" became perhaps his most popular play. But to criticize this film for being nothing but violent is to miss the point, and run the risk of hypocrisy. Feore was right in his little diatribe which I included above.

How many people were killed in Independence Day? Armageddon, anyone? Kill Bill? Kill Bill VOLUME TWO? Pulp Fiction? Batman? Hero? Spiderman? Catwoman? Just about any other Tarantino film? Gladiator? Die Hard? Terminator? Jurassic Park? Just about any big-budget film made since Gone With the Wind? There is needless violence in just about EVERY MOVIE MADE these days. And forget about television. The American Medical Association recently published a report claiming that children in the United States, living in a home with cable television or a VCR, typically witness around 32,000 murders and 40,000 attempted murders by the time they reach the age of 18.

How many of those deaths actually made us feel the desperateness and terror that would actually result from a violent death, of either someone we love or someone we just met moments before? How many of those films had a message that could not have been achieved without all the blood? For all the above films, the deaths involved were there to invigorate us because we've grown accustomed to watching violence, and our version of the Coloseum is now the "action" film genre. We think seeing someone torn in half by two dinosaurs (which were cloned from age-old DNA in order for all of to enjoy the violence as if there weren't enough instruments of violence still living) is really fun. We don't want to be repulsed by murder, which of course we ought to be, but we find it entertaining nonetheless. That's a little sick if you ask me, and THAT is the point of Julie Taymor's film version of "Titus."

"Titus" was directed by Julie Taymor, a brilliant stage director (and for whom this film is her first) worlds away from James Cameron, and about as far removed from Hollywood as you can get. Taymor is renowned for her stage direction, and based this film in part on her recent off-Broadway production of "Titus Andronicus. She also directed and designed the costumes for a musical you may have heard of, called "the Lion King," for which she she was awarded several Tony awards. So her unique and self-consciously absurd visual style, combining modern and ancient design elements in order to suggest that violence has been one of man's favorite past times throughout the ages, really shouldn't be that surprising.

But it is that style which points to the fact that this is not a typical Hollywood film. A typical Hollywood film would be a romantic comedy or a drama about drug abuse and sex. Producers have to take major risks on these films, because most people don't know that Shakespeare can be riveting, or even fun. It isn't better or more worthwhile than any other type of cinema, but it does happen to be one of the underdogs.

Taymor directed this picture with the obscenity of today's culture of violence firmly in mind. Why did the film begin with a deranged, yet oh-so-normal eight year old boy playing with menacing action figures, watching television and killing and destroying everything in sight? Seems out of place, right? Except his appetite for violence creates ratings for television producers which perpetuate the whole phenomenon. So in an abstract way, he conjured up the violence - which then becomes "Titus," and he's made an active participant for the remainder of the story. Perhaps if someone had taken Arnold Schwarzenegger into the Roman colloseum after he finished making "T2" he would've felt a little differently about his actions, too.

In other words, it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

PS -

As for the ridiculous notion that Shakespeare "reads better than it sounds," any ounce of credibility left in the angry critique of "Titus" which inspired this message was pretty much wholly obliterated by that comment. I suppose we have been force-fed infantile dialogue with more expletives than adjectives for too long, and have now decided to hate and reject screenplays that appear to be smarter than we are. Or smarter than we have been led to think we are...shouldn't we welcome the challenge of deciphering more mature language?