44 Days of Paranoia #30: Nixon (dir by Oliver Stone)

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For our latest entry in the 44 Days of Paranoia, we take a look at Oliver Stone’s 1995 presidential biopic, Nixon.

Nixon tells the life story of our 37th President, Richard Nixon. The only President to ever resign in order to avoid being impeached, Nixon remains a controversial figure to this day. As portrayed in this film, Nixon (played by Anthony Hopkins) was an insecure, friendless child who was dominated by his ultra religious mother (Mary Steenburgen) and who lived in the shadow of his charismatic older brother (Tony Goldwyn). After he graduated college, Nixon married Pat (Joan Allen), entered politics, made a name for himself as an anti-communist, and eventually ended up winning the U.S. presidency. The film tells us that, regardless of his success, Nixon remained a paranoid and desperately lonely man who eventually allowed the sycophants on his staff (including James Woods) to break the law in an attempt to destroy enemies both real and imagined. Along the way, Nixon deals with a shady businessman (Larry Hagman), who expects to be rewarded for supporting Nixon’s political career, and has an odd confrontation with a young anti-war protester who has figured out that Nixon doesn’t have half the power that everyone assumes he does.

Considering that his last few films have been W., Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and Savages, I think it’s understandable that I’m often stunned to discover that, at one point in the distant past, Oliver Stone actually was a worthwhile director. JFK, for instance, is effective propaganda. Nixon, which feels a lot like an unofficial sequel to JFK, is a much messier film than JFK but — as opposed to something like Savages — it’s still watchable and occasionally even thought-provoking. Thanks to Hopkins’ performance and, it must be admitted, Stone’s surprisingly even-handed approach to the character, Nixon challenges our assumptions about one of the most infamous and villified figures in American history. It forces us to decide for ourselves whether Nixon was a monster or a victim of circumstances that spiraled out of his control. If you need proof of the effectiveness of the film’s approach, just compare Stone’s work on Nixon with his work on his next Presidential biography, the far less effective W.

(I should admit, however, that I’m a political history nerd and therefore, this film was specifically designed to appeal to me. For me, half the fun of Nixon was being able to go, “Oh, that’s supposed to be Nelson Rockefeller!”)

If I had to compare the experience of watching Nixon to anything, I would compare it to taking 10 capsules of Dexedrine and then staying up for five days straight without eating. The film zooms from scene-to-scene, switching film stocks almost at random while jumping in and out of time, and not worrying too much about establishing any sort of narrative consistency. Surprisingly nuanced domestic scenes between Anthony Hopkins and Joan Allen are followed by over-the-top scenes where Bob Hoskins lustily stares at a White House guard or Sam Waterston’s eyes briefly turn completely black as he discusses the existence of evil. When Nixon gives his acceptance speech to the Republican Convention, the Republican delegates are briefly replaced by images of a world on fire. Familiar actors wander through the film, most of them only popping up for a scene or two and then vanishing. The end result is a film that both engages and exhausts the viewer, a hallucinatory journey through Stone’s version of American history.

Nixon is a mess but it’s a fascinating mess.

Other Entries In The 44 Days of Paranoia

44 Days of Paranoia #6: JFK (dir by Oliver Stone)

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When I first decided to do this series of reviews of conspiracy-themed films, I knew that I would eventually have to review the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK.

JFK is one of those films that continues to divide audiences. Those who think that John F. Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy tend to love this film and are given to describing JFK as being “one of the most important films ever made.” Those who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin dismiss Stone’s film as being left-wing propaganda. Just check out the message board at the imdb if you need evidence of just how worked up people get over this film and its subject matter.

It seems that very few of the people who criticize or praise JFK ever review it as a work of cinema. Instead, they focus on the film’s politics. If I criticize the film for wasting the talents of Sissy Spacek or featuring one of Kevin Costner’s least interesting performances then I’m running the risk of having to deal with angry conspiracy theorists telling me that I need to open my eyes to the reality of American history. On the other hand, if I praise Tommy Lee Jones’s wonderfully decadent turn as one of the film’s conspirators, chances are that someone is going to accuse me of being a naive leftist.

Then again, perhaps that reaction is to be expected. Oliver Stone is one of our most political and least subtle filmmakers. His movies are specifically designed to challenge the status quo. For that reason, it’s not surprising to discover that Stone considers JFK to be the best of all of his films.

JFK is based (rather loosely, some claim) on the true story of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner) and how, in 1967, he charged businessman Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones) with being a part of a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. Shaw was eventually acquitted and both Jim Garrison and his investigation remain controversial to this day.

JFK courts controversy immediately with its portrayal of Jim Garrison. I’ve read several accounts of the Garrison investigation and the one thing that they all seem to agree on is that Jim Garrison was a flamboyant, bigger-than-life figure who enjoyed publicity. Even among those who believe that Garrison uncovered some valuable evidence as a result of his investigation, there is a good deal of ambiguity about Garrison’s motives. However, in Stone’s film, Jim Garrison is played by Kevin Costner and is portrayed as being an incorruptible, all-American idealist. It’s not that Costner gives a bad performance. Instead, it’s just a rather uninteresting one, especially when one compares Costner’s Garrison to some of the stories about the real-life Garrison.

However, as the film unfolds, it becomes obvious that Stone is using Costner’s blandness to the film’s advantage. Over the course of three hours, JFK slowly peels back layers of secrecy and cover-ups and reveals the shadow world that, according to Stone, lurks underneath everyday reality. Costner’s Garrison might not be interesting but he is a stable presence. He anchors the film, giving us someone to relate to while the film itself grows more and more bizarre.

While Costner’s might give the least interesting performance of his career in this film, the same cannot be said of the rest of the cast. JFK is full of familiar faces, many of whom are only on-screen for a few minutes but all of which play an important role in creating Stone’s shadow universe. Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Michael Rooker, Donald Sutherland, and Tommy Lee Jones; they all have small roles but every single one of them makes an undeniable impression. Whether you agree with the film’s conclusions are not, it’s impossible not to enjoy JFK for the chance to spot a bunch of familiar faces giving memorably bizarre performances.

But ultimately, its impossible to review JFK without considering the film’s conclusions. JFK makes the case that John F. Kennedy was killed as the result of a massive right-wing conspiracy that involved the military, business interests, the CIA, the FBI, anti-Castro Cubans, and the mafia. By the end of the film, the question becomes less who killed JFK and more who didn’t kill JFK.

Myself, I’m not going to claim to be enough of an expert on the Kennedy assassination to argue whether JFK is accurate or if it’s just propaganda. However, as a film reviewer, I can say that it’s a very well-made and powerful film but it’s also one of those films that works better the first time you see it than the second time.

The first time you see it, the film overwhelms you. It leaves you convinced that yes, there was a conspiracy and yes, everyone was involved and yes, Jim Garrison was right! It convinces you so thoroughly that you end up using exclamation points, just to make sure everyone knows how convinced you are.

However, with each subsequent time that you view JFK, you became a bit more aware of just how manipulative and one-sided it truly is. You become a bit more aware of the technique underneath the outrage and, if you’re a smart film watcher, you remember that JFK is a recreation as opposed to being a historical document. You become more and more aware that Stone approached the material with a destination in mind and, like any good director, he has specifically shaped the material to make sure that you reach that destination at the end of the journey.

That was certainly my experience with JFK. I first saw it in high school and it convinced me that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy. Then, when I was in college, I watched it for a second time and, though I still believed the film’s conclusions, I also found myself much more aware of how the film’s length and Stone’s direction were designed to beat the audience into submission. When I saw the film a third time, I found myself resenting the film’s manipulative nature and, as a result, I found it a lot more difficult to accept Stone’s conclusions.

However, when I rewatched the film last night for this review, I was surprised to discover that JFK actually holds up pretty well. It’s still way too long (and, unlike a lot of other reviewers, I am not impressed by the droning speech that Costner delivers at the end of film) and Stone’s lack of subtlety does backfire on a few occasions. However, perhaps because I was finally watching the film as entertainment as opposed to judging the film on its political or historical merits, I discovered that JFK is a watchable and entertaining film, one that does a pretty good job of making Stone’s case. If nothing else, it’s worth watching just for the chance to see the wonderfully snarky performances of Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Oldman.

Perhaps the best thing that I can say about JFK is that its the type of film that will inspire smart people to do their own research and come to their own conclusions, which may or may not be the same conclusions that Oliver Stone reaches.

And, honestly, isn’t that the most that we can ask of any film?

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Savages (dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past 5 months, every time I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve seen the trailer for Oliver Stone’s new film, Savages. It’s a pretty exciting trailer, featuring sex, violence, and Taylor Kitsch’s abs. Despite Oliver Stone’s recent track record of making preachy, boring films, that trailer got a lot of people excited about the prospect of seeing Savages.

Well, the film has been released, I’ve seen it, and you know what? Sometimes, trailers lie.

Savages is the story of Chon, Ben, and O. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) sell the greatest weed in the world and O (Blake Lively) is the woman who loves both of them at the same time. O, by the way, is short for Ophelia and she narrates the film in such a monotonous style that I have to admit that I was shocked to discover that she actually knew she was named after Hamlet’s doomed girlfriend. Chon is a violent former Navy SEAL while Ben is a laid-back buddhist who wants to get out of the drug business so he can devote his time to environmental activism. (Zzzzzzzzzz….)

Ben’s marijuana becomes so legendary that soon, a Mexican drug cartel led by Salma Hayek decides that both Ben and Chon are going to work exclusively for them. Ben and Chon refuse so Hayek sends Benicio Del Toro to kidnap O and hold her hostage until Ben and Chon come around. Ben and Chon, however, have plans of their own…

On the positive side, Hayek, Del Toro, and John Travolta (playing a corrupt DEA agent) all give excellent performances that would seem to indicate that they — as opposed to everyone else involved with Savages — understand that they’re appearing in an expensive B-movie. They openly devour every piece of scenery in the film and have a fun time wringing every ounce of melodrama out of their pulpy dialogue. These three actors are fun to watch and it’s a shame that the same can’t be said for the other half of the film’s main cast.

Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast in the role of O but she dropped out of Savages so that she could star in The Hunger Games. The role was recast with Blake Lively, who looks like she could be Jennifer Lawrence’s older sister but who, as an actress, has never exhibited the type of wounded determination that has become Lawrence’s trademark. As played by Lively, O is such a passive character that it’s difficult to really care that much about whether she survives or doesn’t. Instead of being a strong, independent woman who is unashamed of her lifestyle, O just comes across as a spoiled and vapid pawn, a possession who is traded between the film’s various players. It doesn’t help that Lively delivers her heavy-handed narration in a flat monotone that makes her come across less like a hard-boiled survivor and more like a spoiled rich girl trying to sound jaded. Every time I heard her refer to Chon and Ben as being “my guys,” I just wanted to scream at the screen, “No, you stupid bitch, you belong to them! They don’t belong to you!”

As for “her guys,” Taylor Kitsch is believable as a killer but not as a stoner. (Kitsch’s character comes across as if he’s been snorting cocaine as opposed to smoking weed.) Aaron Johnson, meanwhile, is a very believable stoner but he’s a lot less believable once his character becomes a killer. Unfortunately, neither Kitch nor Johnson show much in the way of charisma in this film and that’s a shame because both of them have shown in the past that they are capable of giving good performances. (Seriously, just check out Aaron Johnson’s performance in the criminally underrated John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy.) With neither Chon nor Ben being all that interesting, the film ultimately becomes a rather empty display of style.

And there’s no denying it — Savages has got style to burn. Oliver Stone shows here that — despite such anemic recent films as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — he still knows how to film an explosion. Unfortunately, there’s not much going on beneath all of that style and the end result is a film that mostly succeeds in making both sex and violence boring.

6 Trailers For A Sunday

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi! I apologize for being a day late with this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers. In the future, I may just start regularly posting these on Sunday morning as opposed to Saturday. But that’s something that can be decided in the future. For the present, the trailers are the only thing that matters…

1) Witchboard (1986)

This trailer is short but effective. The guy with the beard scares me every time.

2) Jennifer (1978)

Guess which earlier movie inspired this one?

3) Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)

When you’ve got a named like Dr. Terror, you might as well get a house of horrors.

4) The Hand (1981)

Continuing on a theme that was introduced in the previous trailer, this film is apparently about a disembodied hand creating mayhem. It was directed by Oliver Stone who later gave the world Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

5) Death Smiles At Murder (1973)

This film is from the infamous Joe D’Amato and apparently, it features a cameo from Klaus Kinski. That’s how you know it’s good. Plus, I love the title.

6) Evil Toons (1990)

Wow, this looks terrible, doesn’t it? Still, I have to include it because it’s just such a purely grindhouse trailer, featuring everything from a gimmick to a somewhat reputable actor who obviously was having trouble paying his rent back in 1990.

A Quickie with Lisa Marie: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, words escape even me.

I’ve been trying for about three days now to figure out how to explain why Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is one of the most disappointing films of 2010. Notice I didn’t use the term “worst film.” There’s enough in the movie that works (Michael Douglas is fun to watch as Gordon Gekko and there’s a handful of scenes that perfectly capture the modern atmosphere of financial panic) to keep it from being a truly awful movie. But just because the movie isn’t awful, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any good.

Oh, Wall Street — how did you fail? Let me count the ways.

1) Michael Douglas gives a great performance but he actually has less screen time here than he did in the original Wall Street. Yes, it’s fun to watch Gekko claw his way back up to the top but, once you take those scenes out of the equation, you still have about 1oo minutes of non-Gekko material to slog through.

2) Instead most of the screen time goes to Shia LeBouf. Let me repeat that — most of the screen time goes to Shia LeBouf. In this film, Shia plays a cocky young financial genius. Let me repeat that. In this film, Shia LeBouf plays a genius. Back before Shia became the human face of the Transformers franchise, I’ll admit that I thought he was kinda cute in his geeky, awkward way. However, in Wall Street, his character isn’t supposed to be geeky or awkward. He’s supposed to be some sort of financial genius.

3) We’re also supposed to automatically sympathize with Shia LeBouf’s character because, while he’s a part of the system that created the recession, he’s also dedicated to funding some sort of green energy project. Much like James Cameron in Avatar, Oliver Stone trots out a simplistic environmental theme here and expects to be praised just for mentioning it. The message is: “Love my film or Mother Earth gets it.”

4) The film’s plot: Shia LeBouf’s mentor and boss — played by Frank Langella — commits suicide after being run out of business by evil millionaire Josh Brolin. So, Shia takes a job working with Brolin. Meanwhile, Shia is also engaged to the daughter of Gordon Gekko. This leads to him taking Gekko on as a mentor. Shia apparently wants to take Brolin down. Or does he? Unfortunately, LeBouf doesn’t seem to know for sure and that comes across in his performance. As a result, the majority of the film is about as exciting as watching anyone else go to work.

5) Josh Brolin’s the villain here. We know he’s a villain because everyone else in the film keeps insisting he’s the villain and Brolin plays the role as if he’s auditioning for a role in the next James Cameron film. Which is to say, Brolin gives a dull and lifeless performance.

6) The little guy who is creating this alternate source of energy that Shia is so obsessed with? The little guy is played by Austin Pendleton who, I swear to God, is one of the most annoying character actors ever. Seriously, Pendleton, stop fucking smiling all the time!

7) Having seen both this and the original Wall Street, I can now say that I have no idea how the stock market works and I really don’t care to learn. I just want everyone to stop yelling and throwing paper all over the place. Seriously, Stone tries to make the “market” scenes exciting here but, once you get over the fact that Stone knows how to use a zoom lens, they’re pretty dull. Lucio Fulci and Jean Rollin — they would have found a cool way to film those scenes. Stone just resorts to the same old tricks.

8) That little smiley face looks so cute with his sunglasses on.

9) As with the original Wall Street, this is yet another film about little boys and their daddy issues. Which father figure will Shia choose? Meanwhile, Shia’s mother (a grating performance from Susan Sarandon) and his girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) are portrayed as total fools. Mulligan, after her performance in An Education, especially deserve better than to be stuck playing some sexist fantasy of a human being. Sarandon is blamed for the housing collapse while Mulligan’s character is cheated out of a fortune towards the end of the film. The message here, I guess, is don’t let women have money because we’ll just fuck everything up. I love how I can always count on “progressive” filmmakers to prove themselves to be a bunch of pigs at heart.

10) Charlie Sheen shows up for a really awkward cameo. He’s supposed to be playing his Bud Fox character from the original film but, watching his performance, you get the feeling that Charlie doesn’t remember being in the original film. Showing up at a charity dinner with a separate date on either ar, Bud Fox is presented as being just as corrupt as Gordon Gekko. Michael Douglas, quite frankly, looked somewhat embarrassed by the whole scene. However, as awkward as the scene was, it did manage to perfectly capture the theme of this movie:

Eventually, even Bud Fox will grow up to be Charlie Sheen.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Wall Street (dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, me and my friend Jeff were planning on seeing Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. However, there was one problem — I’d never seen the original Wall Street. Though I owned the movie on DVD, I’d never actually bothered to sit down to watch it. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that this was the movie that won Michael Douglas an Oscar. I knew that Douglas played a character named Gordon Gekko who, at one point in the film, delivered the line, “Greed is good.” Who hasn’t seen that clip?

So, yesterday, before leaving to see the sequel (which I’ll be reviewing in the near future), I sat down and watched the original. I discovered that there’s a reason why everyone remembers Gordon Gekko’s little “Greed is good” speech. It’s literally the only memorable part of the entire movie.

Wall Street tells the tale of Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a young stock broker who becomes a protegé to an intense and amoral businessman named Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Gekko specializes in taking over other companies and putting people out of work. He wants to take over an airline that employs Bud’s father. Bud’s father is played by Martin Sheen and he’s such a self-righteous, judgmental, blue-collar asshole that you find yourself hoping that Gekko does put him out of work. Anyway, Bud engages in insider trading (which is apparently a crime though I’m not sure as the film seems to assume that everyone already understands how the stock market works) yet then finds his conscience awakened when Gekko’s greed threatens his dad’s job. Yes, this is yet another one of those laughably masculine films in which an overage boy has to pick a father figure.

I guess we’re supposed to care about whether or not he picks the right father but seriously, Bud Fox is such a dull character and Charlie Sheen is so miscast that I found myself wondering when the film’s real hero was going to show up. I had some hope when James Spader popped up in a supporting role but no, the lead character here is Bud Fox and he’s played by Charlie Sheen.

Not surprisingly, this is pretty much a male-dominated film. There’s only two notable female characters in the film. Darryl Hannah plays a ditz and Sean Young plays a bitch and neither one gets a chance to even have fun with the stereotypes. However, we all know that this film is really just about Gordon Gekko plunking his twanger over money and Bud Fox jackin’ the beanstalk to Gekko.

However, once you see Michael Douglas’s performance as Gordon Gekko, it’s a bit easier to understand why he causes Bud to walk Willie the One-Eyed Wonder Worm. Douglas truly is amazing in this role. In fact, Douglas is so charismatic in the role that it actually hurts the movie. It’s hard to take much pleasure in listening to Martin Sheen talk about how much he loves his union when you realize that all he’s doing is taking up time that could have been devoted to Michael Douglas fucking over poor people. I don’t know if a bad film can ever be truly redeemed by just one good performance but Douglas definitely makes Wall Street — with all of its awkward moralizing and sexist (and sexual) confusion — worth seeing.

As little as I thought of Wall Street, I still found myself excited about seeing the sequel. Why? Because I knew Michael Douglas was coming back and Martin Sheen wasn’t. Perhaps, I thought, this sequel will simply focus on Gekko being an over-the-top, charming viper instead of forcing us to sit through a repeat of the first film’s heavy-handed moralizing and simplistic political posturing. Of course, I was wrong but that’s another review for another day.

Oh, one last note: Oliver Stone’s direction is far better than his script. I once read an old review from Pauline Kael in which she said that Oliver Stone directed “as if someone held a gun to his head and shouted, ‘Go!'” and this is certainly the case with Wall Street. That said, I still find it hard to stay interested in any scene that features stock brokers screaming at each other and tossing around little bits of paper. Seriously, how does the Stock Market work? Whenever I see any footage from the New York stock exchange, it just looks incredibly silly.