Movie & Video reviews

Ben Dugan

1/5/2006 - North Country (2005)

  Pam and I made it a double feature at the $3 movies on New Year's Day. We saw two films starring Charlize Theron. One was good, one was not. This film North Country was a depiction of the struggles women endured in the workplace at a Steel mine in Northern Minnesota in the early 1990s. The film is similar in tone to Norma Rae or Erin Brockovich. It also has a strong sense of  Silkwood in that a single company worker stands alone in her fight for employee rights; in this case, unwarranted sexual harassment. The acting is excellent by all members of the cast. North Country stars Charlize Theron, Francis McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Thomas Curtis, Sean Bean, and Sissy Spacek.

  Josey Aimes (Theron) has been beaten up by her husband one too many times and she is forced to take her two kids and move back home with her parents. Her father, Hank (Richard Jenkins), is less than thrilled to see them, but her mom, Alice (Sissy Spacek), welcomes them with open arms. After a few days, Josey learns from her friend, Glory (Frances McDormand), that the big Iron mine, where the majority of the town and her father works, is hiring. Josey needs the money--the mine pays six times what she makes as a hair salon shampoo woman--so she applies and instantly realizes that there is a big problem: sexual harassment is rampant. The other women will do nothing to stop it because they are fearful of retaliation and losing their jobs. Josie is finally pushed too far and turns to Bill White (Woody Harrelson), a former hockey player turned lawyer, to help her sue the mine.

  This movie is based on the case of Lois Jensen and her Landmark Case that changed Sexual Harassment Law. It is highly recommended for the cinematography and scenes involving heavy mining equipment. I toured the Henderson Mill near Parshall two years ago and it looked a lot like what you see in this movie. The Ball mills are absolutely enormous and constantly spinning. The exact ball mills are portrayed in this movie in the background. Quite the cinematic experience for Pam and I. We did not, however, enjoy the second Charlize Theron movie we went to see.

Aeon Flux (2005)

  This is the second film Pam and I attended on New Year's Day. The Charlize Theron double-feature. One of our co-audience members referred to this movie as a cheesy sci-fi movie and it turns out that he was right. This movie had about as much plot as The Island, which I reviewed earlier this year. It was completely silly and had no real plot that one could follow along with. It was an excuse to pit the bad guys against the good guys and the statement could be made that this film was not made for me or my generation. It was produced by MTV films that apparently feel that plot points are not essential in a film such as this. There were some interesting special effects and action sequences, but not enough to justify the price of a ticket (or rental). I left the theatre wanting my money back. Of course, we knew this going in, and only went for review purposes for this newspaper.

  Charlize Theron’s character was similar to Carrie Anne Moss’ as in the Matrix. Jumping and twisting and fighting with all kinds of different figures dressed in black. She had a few gadgets at her disposal for cool action sequences. Nothing stellar and nothing you haven’t seen before.

  So the final recommendation is if you want to see a non-sensical gunfight science fiction action fantasy flick then you may enjoy this one. It is fast paced and not too bad if you don’t take it too seriously. However, if you are more of the discerning type then you should avoid this one.

Dukes of Hazard (2005)

  “Sure thing Cooter, this one is as bad as they say.” This is another movie not designed to stimulate one's intellect. The acting is terrible and only has Daisy Duke’s (Jessica Simpson) one-liners (for preview purposes) that offer anything remotely tangible. Overall the film is lame and pointless. The orange car 01 General Lee has some good stunts, but those are not as good as the missed attempts shown at the end of the film. The plot is quite similar to the television series we all remember from many years ago. The Duke boys are up to no good and being chased by Boss Hogg (a miscast Burt Reynolds), Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrain, and Enos. Willie Nelson plays Uncle Jesse who sings the old Waylon Jennings “good ole boys” song at the end.

  This film is a real stinker and should be avoided. If you decide to rent it, and I know you will, you can’t say you weren’t warned.

History of Violence (2005)

  Here is another movie made in slow motion and not well done. There were many made this past year. Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen plays straight haired small town café owner Tom Stall. He averts a robbery and makes national news and is stalked by his old mob guys whom he betrayed in another life. This entire movie is slow and not well done. Other critics seem to have enjoyed this film but I found it to be nonsensical and just an excuse to stage gunfights and action scenes involving fistfights. Better utilize your money and rent a Star Trek movie instead.

Lord of War (2005)

  This is another $3 movie and ranks as one of the worst of 2005. I had thought that Nicholas Cage might make this movie work but it was the weatherman movie he made this year that I was thinking of. This film did not work at all. It was slow and pointless. Pam and I made it through most of the movie and walked out. You started to ask yourself why you were watching this movie in the first place. It was that bad.

Batman Begins

Review by Travis Lavan 

  How often do you get a second chance? 

  How many times have you failed a test, wrecked a car or forgotten to pay your taxes for three years in a row?

  These are all things that could potentially ruin your life, and when they happen it can easily seem like the end of the road. But how many people get to make such huge mistakes and still get a second chance – a clean slate? Imagine that you got to earn yourself a 1.0 GPA your freshman year of college. You got to wrap a Camaro SS around a light pole in your high school parking lot. In each case, all is forgiven.

  And of course, you got to make nice with Uncle Sam and forget all about the $3500 in back taxes that slipped your mind from 2001-2004.

  These things, of course, do not happen in real life, but thankfully the movies are not real life and sometimes--just sometimes--this level of redemption is afforded to a movie franchise.

  Not that there was anything wrong with Batman, at first. Michael Keaton may have been a strange choice to play a conflicted billionaire whose hatred for evil drives him to dress as a bat but somehow it all worked out. Tim Burton’s Batman films were stylish, dark and fun, like most of his other work.

  Then it happened: Joel Schumacher was given the reins and Batman became a campy, homoerotic nightmare. Bruce Wayne suddenly seemed more comfortable around Jim Carrey than he did around Nicole Kidman, and the Bat-Suit became, shall we say, just a little too anatomically precise. We will speak no more of this.

  Let’s also not talk about Alicia Silverstone. In fact, nobody’s talking about Alicia Silverstone any more. Batman Forever may have fatally wounded her movie career, and it certainly helped take Chris O’Donnell off the A-List.

  Yes, the last eight years have been Dark Times for the Dark Knight, but the years of waiting, hoping and praying have paid off for those of us who knew all along that the legacy of Batman could be saved.

  Batman Begins spends almost an hour on setup, which is something that usually bogs down a film (anybody remember Gangs of New York?), but here it is something that is indicative of a desire to reinvent the Batman franchise from the ground up.

  So, Batman Begins spends a great deal of time filling us in on how and why a man like Bruce Wayne would do what he did and become what he did. It is tempting to say that a man who inherits an empire worth billions could spend his time more wisely than as Batman; but when you consider the fact that his vast wealth was gained purely as a result of his parents' murder–to which Bruce was a young witness–you can see how Wayne might have come to be who he is.

  Perhaps his juvenile sense of rage and guilt were compounded by the idea that his life of privilege is nothing more than a morbid curse, designed to forever remind him of a childhood tragedy he was powerless to avoid.

  I’d say that would upset just about anyone.

  One of the most compelling aspects of the new Batman is its humanity – Wayne is perpetually torn between a thirst for revenge and his earnest desire for justice. To help himself discern the difference, he chooses at an early age to learn how to understand evil by living in its shadow, and spends seven years living as a hoodlum on the streets of Asia.

  He initially heads abroad with revenge in his heart but returns having tempered it with a sense of compassion, which guides his actions thereafter and prevents him from giving in to his desire to simply destroy everything evil.

  Now, Wayne wants to set an example for the citizens of Gotham City. Granted, it is in a totally insane way, but this is the tragic beauty of Bruce Wayne, and has always been the dark allure of Wayne’s alter ego: Batman is an individual driven by unimaginable rage to unthinkable lengths, but there is always a line he’s never willing to cross because inside Batman is always Bruce Wayne and inside Bruce Wayne is still an idealistic young man who wants the world to be a good place.

  I’ve avoided describing the story to any extent by design. You know the score – Super-Villain with a Mysterious Link to the Hero’s past arrives in town to destroy the city. Hero confronts him, love interest is imperiled and large tracts of urban jungle are destroyed in the process of saving the girl and incidentally, the city.

  Just see the movie. We now live in the Golden Age of the superhero film, and Batman Begins is perhaps the best example of the genre so far. This is a movie that is filled with energy, emotion, heart, but don‘t worry--there’s plenty of action--but it is entirely story driven and hardly the main focus of the film.

  Batman Begins never wants for intelligence or action and they’re so well intertwined here that you’re not likely to notice the difference. What you will notice is that it is once again good to be a superhero in America, and that Christian Bale is the first actor in a long time that can hold his head high and proudly proclaim: 

“I’m Batman.”