Movies This Week, The Duchess, Towelhead, Eagle Eye, Appaloosa, and more…

 

Ricky Gervais, British comedian and star of “Ghost Town”, on Nelson Mandela: “He hasn’t re-offended. Shows you prison does work!”, and Anne Frank: “No sequel? Lazy.”

 

Movies This Week. The Duchess, Towelhead, Eagle Eye, Appaloosa. Portions of my reviews:

 

The Duchess (YES)

 

Knightley’s star magic is her ability to express unhappiness as an erotic tonic.

 

Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire’s (Keira Knightley), life story is so decadent you can hardly believe it isn’t a tale of a modern marriage, albeit a very rich and famous one. 

 

Lady Georgiana Spencer is seventeen years old when she is chosen to be the wife of the much older Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes).

 

Like Princess Diana, the Duchess has only one task, one responsibility, and one reason for being chosen for such a privileged life. She must produce a male heir (and will get a huge bonus per her marriage contract). Is that so hard? Let’s face facts, it’s a 50-50 chance for a male baby. But, as King Henry VIII found out, the stress

of producing a male heir can diminish a woman’s chances.

 

Stress throughout pregnancy renders women more likely to give birth to a girl child rather than a boy. A recent study found a link between everyday stress and a baby’s sex. It was found that women who were stressed during pregnancy were five per cent more likely to have girls as compared to those deemed relaxed. Women in Western nations generally give birth to more boys than girls, with 105 boys typically born for every 100 girls. Previous research has shown that the number of boys being born goes down following major political and social upheaval.

 

In the past, it was the fault of a woman if she gave birth to a male child. Certainly the Duke thought so. However, with his wealth, and the fact that Georgiana was so

young and had at least two decades of childbearing years ahead of her, why was he so prickly all the time?

 

Georgiana does produce two girls and has several stillborns and miscarriages. The Duke is beside himself with grief. With her husband completely uninterested in her, Georgiana finds solace in influencing politics and becoming a fashion icon. With no one to entertain her or keep her company, Georgiana befriends Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwell). Her cheating husband has forbidden her to see their three boys and she is financially destitute.

 

Georgiana takes Elizabeth into their household. Elizabeth quickly may have seduced Georgiana and then accepts the Duke’s invitation to become his mistress and live permanently with them.

 

Georgiana can do nothing but accept the arrangement. When she finally delivers a male heir, she takes up with a young politician, Charles Gray (Dominic Cooper). Yet, there is a double standard and the Duke will not permit Georgiana to have a lover. Was the Duke faithful to Elizabeth? An endnote suggests he was and that is truly a conundrum. Something about the Duke is clearly missing, or did he just get old and feeble?

 

The story is fascinating and engaging. Like Princess Diana, Georgiana had the title, the status, and the glorious privilege, but she wanted the love of her husband. He was not capable of giving her what she wanted and the public’s adoration of her was not a satisfactory substitute.

 

 

 

 

Towelhead  (YES)

 

Shocking, then powerful. Screenwriter (adapting the novel by Alicia Erian) and director Alan Ball knows what is going on in your household or your neighbor’s house.

 

In a study done recently, from 34% to 65% of girls aged 5 years had ideas about dieting. And here are the statistics from Body Wars: Making Peace with Women's Bodies: 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner, 45% of boys and girls in grades 3-6 want to be thinner, 37% have already dieted, 51% of 9-10 year old girls feel better about themselves when dieting, 9% of 9 year olds have vomited to lose weight and, the #1 wish of girls 11-17 years old is to lose weight.

 

Female children are under enormous pressure to be sexual, provocative, and alluring. There are bras for 8-year-old girls and, I assume, bras for toddlers.

 

With Hollywood starlets and A-list actresses going “commando”, which actress hasn’t been photographed getting out of a car showing off her hairless genitals?, having any public hair is an international fashion high crime. For men as well, most notably, gay icon David Beckham in that Calvin Klein advert and W photo spread, it is not surprising that 13-year-old Arab-American Jasira (19-year-old Summer Bishil) feels embarrassed by her hairiness. Jasira should have a better relationship with her American blond mother Gail (Maria Bello), but it is her mother’s younger boyfriend who gets to shave the hair creeping out of Jasira’s bathing suit.

 

When Gail finds out, Jasira is shipped off to Houston to live with her Lebanese father, Rifat (the mesmerizing Peter Macdissi). It’s the 1980’s and Bush the First is getting ready to attack Iraq. Rifat, who has just moved into an upper-class white neighborhood, feels compelled to loudly express his total Americanization while holding fast to his Lebanese moral roots when it comes to his daughter.

 

The entire cast is fantastic but it is Macdissi who has created a unique, fully- realized character. He is perfect. This is the perfect supporting role. You want more of him. You sympathize with Rifat since he is clearly struggling to assimilate. It’s hard to do, with everyone thinking he is a Saddam loyalist. In a terrific, wordless litany of expression, when Rifat’s neighbor Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart) raises an American flag, he takes it as an insult. He raises an American flag on his front lawn.

 

Mr. Vuoso! How absolutely brave of Eckhart to take this role. It’s a shocking character and Eckhart does not sneak in one moment of redemption. Mr. Vuoso, an Army reservist with a nasty 10 year-old and 50’s era wife, takes a sudden interest in Jasira when he catches her reading skin magazines with his son. Jasira tells him that

looking at the nude photos of women gives her orgasms. We know that drives him crazy with desire. You have been warned.

 

 

 

 

Eagle Eye  (NO)

 

Who keeps is cramming Shia LaBeouf (pictured, his mug shot) down our throats? Does Steven Spielberg have Puppet Master Syndrome? Does he have certain people under seven year exclusive contracts? Hasn’t anyone learned anything from the career of Ben Affleck? A muscular PR machine is out there trying to bamboozle us in believing (a) LaBeouf is a serious actor, (b) he’s a Wild One rebel, and (c) he’s the Second Coming of James Dean.

 

As Kevin McCarthy screamed in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”: “Don’t go to sleep! You’ll wake up believing Shia LaBeouf is an actor!” “Eagle Eye” cribs the HAL 9000, because Shia’s fans never heard of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and the movie puts us all on Discovery One under the surveillance of Eagle Eye.

 

The back story is simple. Secretary of Defense Geoff Callister is given a statistical probability regarding hitting a high value Afghan terrorist target. Going against the program’s advice, the bomb hits triggering threats of major terrorism attacks on the U.S. The super-secret program is furious its advice was ignored.

 

In Chicago, Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf), 23, who works at a Copy Cabana shop, is estranged from his parents and barely making his tenement rent. Jerry is the black sheep of the family. Jerry is a proud rebel who does go back home for the funeral of his identical twin brother, Ethan, the “good twin” who was in the Air Force and died in a car accident.

 

Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) is a scatterbrain single mom getting her 8-year-old son, Sam, off on a music field trip to Washington, D.C. He’s going to play trumpet with his school band at the Kennedy Center.

 

Jerry and Rachel’s lives collide when they both are called and given strict instructions to follow. Bad things happen when they hesitate. People die, bombs go off, damage is done. Godzilla was at least clumsy, this disembodied voice doesn’t even have a sense of humor.

 

To motivate Jerry, there is suddenly $750,000 is his checking account and a cache of bombs, stinger missiles and fertilizer in his apartment. He’s being set up. The FBI arrests him. The Voice sets him free. Rachel’s motivation is her son. If she doesn’t obediently follow directions, her son will die in a Voice-activated train crash on the way to D.C.

 

We accept that cameras are following us everywhere and technology is tracking us. Only lazy people who kill their wives, husbands, and children forget that their computer’s hard drive stores all website visits. So, my advice is, if you are planning on doing research on murder, do it at a library.

 

To help us protect our freedom, Homeland Security is testing a new machine, the MALINTENT, that is going to search our bodies at airports looking for non-verbal cues that predict whether one of us means to harm our fellow passengers.

 

The MALINTENT system (pictured) recognizes, defines and measures seven primary emotions and emotional cues that are reflected in contractions of facial muscles. The machine measures minute muscle movements in the face for clues to mood and intention.

 

If it will speed up the 3 hours spent at the airport before boarding a plane, Americans will support it. But, what about sports events and stadium concerts?

 

I know that if I am ever in a situation like Rachel and Jerry’s, I’d be saying, “Yes, Ma’am, I’m on my way”; or, if I was taken hostage in a Ugandan jungle, I’d volunteer to carry the water.

 

 

 

Appaloosa (NO)

 

Squinting Zellweger ruins it. I liked the hats. “Appaloosa” could have been a terrific Western but the co-producer, director, co-writer, and star failed at casting the pivotal female role. I’m not sure about the stated legal adage that the outcome of a trial is determined with selecting the jury, but with a movie, only when

there is a serious miscasting can you tell that the adage, “casting is everything”, is a fact.

 

It is 1882 and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) and Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) have been traveling around the West hiring themselves out to bring law and order to towns incapable of doing it. In the town of Appaloosa, they tell the fat, old, scared politicos that for a price, and a contract allowing Cole to be the sole purveyor of law and punishment, they will clean up the town of its number one troublemaker, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons).

 

Bragg runs a 20-man gang and is being sought for killing three men. The town’s leaders agree to Cole’s terms. Then  the newly widowed Allison French (Renée Zellweger) turns up with one dollar to her name and some piano playing skill. You have to be a tough broad to come to a new town not knowing anyone. French is not frontier-weary but a puckered-up, eye-squinting, prim and proper lady.

 

Zellweger’s Allison is so unappealing that when she’s on screen, you hope a stray bullet hits her – it is after all the wild, lawless west – and Cole and Hitch would get down to business in bringing Bragg to justice.

 

As co-writer, director, and one of the three producers, Harris is to blame for casting Zellweger and giving her such a poorly-written role. Zellweger is miscast because she has no hard edge to show that her Allison will do anything to survive. Zellweger, I don’t care about her Academy Award, doesn’t have the acting depth to convey to the audience a complicated character with dimensions. Especially not one with a killer’s instinct.

 

As a Western, director Harris has done an admirable job and he does give balance to all his male characters. As a director, he likes them and it shows. Zellweger, I am certain of it, cannot be directed. Why didn’t Harris just cut away her role? If he was so concerned about a suggestion of a gay friendship between Cole and Hitch, he could have given Cole another squaw. If “Appaloosa” fails at the box office, it is Zellweger’s fault.