Knight at the Movies - ARCHIVES
Happy Holidays?
Munich and Rumor Has It...
12-28-05 Knight at the Movies/Windy City Times column
by Richard Knight, Jr.
At the outset of Munich, Steven Spielberg’s new film, it’s 1972 and a group of friendly, unsuspecting Olympic
contenders out drinking past curfew help what looks like another group of athletes over the wall of the Olympic
village. Within seconds this group (actually a band of Palestinian terrorists) are breaking into the quarters of the
Israeli team. This brief exchange as the anonymous athletes demonstrate, as a sign of comradeship for what they
think are their friendly competitors, how to scale the wall – is the most chilling image in the film. We know that
within the next few moments the world will be changed forever. It is Spielberg’s contention (and that of his
screenwriter, Tony Kushner) that this single act of terrorism set into motion acts of retribution by both sides that
escalated to the 9/11 tragedy, war and horrors yet to come. Munich does its best to convince you of that – yet
nothing in the long, long film that follows conveys as much as that opening moment.
Does the movie make a compelling argument for its contention? Not really but then, how could a single movie
fathom the scope of the subject? And, obviously, because it’s a film about the murder of 11 Jewish innocents
written by a famed Jewish playwright and directed by the world’s most famous film director, who is famously
Jewish, it’s weighted toward the Jewish viewpoint. How could it not be? Kushner and Spielberg, to their credit, do
offer some balance and include scenes that present the Palestinian point of view as well.
The framing device for this argument by the filmmakers is the aftermath of the killings. Israel’s Prime Minister
Golda Meier (Lynn Cohen – galvanizing in her two scenes the way that Leigh Strasberg was as Hyman Roth in
Godfather Part II) meets with her cabinet who urge her to okay them to hire stealth assassins to go after the
Palestinians who have escaped retribution. “Today I hear with new ears” she says, agreeing to the plan.
A Mossad agent, Avner (Eric Bana – who looks and acts like a young DeNiro) is asked to head the team in a scene
that is very reminiscent of the one in Apocalypse, Now where Martin Sheen was asked to get rid of Colonel Kurtz
with “extreme prejudice.” Most of the rest of the film is taken up with Avner and his team tracking, planning and
executing these Palestinians. It’s really not much different from a score of similar espionage/action films (and not
nearly as good as many I could cite). And it keeps stopping to let the characters mull over and think and argue
with each other about what they’re doing. Naturally, as the killings increase, Avner begins to lose his sense of
humanity and seems to question what he is doing. Like the mafia, though, once you’re in, you’re in for life.
Spielberg and Kushner, again like Apocalypse, Now (this time Redux) add a long sequence with a French family
that sells information to the highest bidder on the whereabouts of killers and terrorists. This sequence is a much
needed respite in the executions as Avner lunches with this bourgeois group as they discuss the ethnics of the
family business. Interesting but essentially it’s another long unnecessary digression.
The film is shot in 70s style cinematography – it looks a lot like Dog Day Afternoon and Marathon Man – which
helps to distance us a bit. But if it had been paced and edited at the same length as those two superior thrillers,
Munich might have worked a lot better (it’s at least an hour too long to maintain much interest in the outcome).
Cutting several of the “thought provoking” scenes that stop the momentum (especially the most bizarre, where
Avner makes love to his wife while fantasizing about the massacre in Munich) would be a good start.
Spielberg the showman filmmaker obviously wants to stretch (look no further than A.I. for proof of that) but his
gift for action entertainment flies directly in the face of Kushner’s punishing, complex morality. Munich is a
collaboration that has breathtaking moments but fails as both grand entertainment and morality play.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Many movie stars have physical signatures. Crawford had her shoulder pads, Davis her eyes, Gable his mustache.
Jennifer Aniston has a permanent pout. And that hair. Oh, it just drives me crazy. Probably the way Veronica
Lake’s bangs did for some poor schlub movie reviewer back in the 40s. Aniston’s pout and that long hair crowding
the planes of her face like a nest of dead Medusa snakes are such a distraction for me that I can’t seem to get past
them. Like Renée Zellweger’s tiny eyes, Scarlett Johansson’s open mouthed stare or Helen Hunt’s squint, Aniston
is all Pout With Hair up there 50 feet high. How she escaped from the TV screen to movie theatres is symptomatic
for me of our celebrity obsessed culture. She is out of place (once again) and very much out of her league in
Rumor Has It..., Rob Reiner’s tart romantic dramedy that plays on the tantalizing idea that The Graduate was
based on a real family.
At least Reiner has surrounded Aniston with a cast of comedic experts. It saved the picture for me. Shirley
MacLaine as the real Mrs. Robinson blows Aniston off the screen with lines like “Come in, I’ll put on a pot of
Bourbon,” Kevin Costner scores with his effortless charm as the seductive seducer Benjamin Braddock and Mark
Ruffalo (in his 43rd romantic dramedy this year) is once again the sensitive hottie with a heart of gold. All these
characters and more (including hunk Steve Sandvoss who played a gay Mormon in Latter Days) swirl about the
Pout With Hair while she goes through an identity crisis of some sort and rattles off a lot of dialogue with a lot of
adjectives.
There’s something else that has been bugging me about these “dramedies.” Why are they so popular? What
happened to romantic comedies with strictly comedic situations that don’t force characters to grow up or have
commitment phobias? Where’s the adult romantic comedies that were funny and sunny and not so intent on
imparting “truth?” Why does a comedy have to force feed me one of life’s Big Lessons? All these “dramedies” are,
I think, a big turn off.
As for the Pout With Hair, I still think her finest big screen outing was as the whiny Valley Girl in the slasher camp
fest, Leprechaun. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll sign up for the next sequel. Luckier still – she’ll cut her hair off.
Luckiest – she’ll go back to TV and leave movies for the movie stars.
Munich and Rumor Has It...
12-28-05 Knight at the Movies/Windy City Times column
by Richard Knight, Jr.
At the outset of Munich, Steven Spielberg’s new film, it’s 1972 and a group of friendly, unsuspecting Olympic
contenders out drinking past curfew help what looks like another group of athletes over the wall of the Olympic
village. Within seconds this group (actually a band of Palestinian terrorists) are breaking into the quarters of the
Israeli team. This brief exchange as the anonymous athletes demonstrate, as a sign of comradeship for what they
think are their friendly competitors, how to scale the wall – is the most chilling image in the film. We know that
within the next few moments the world will be changed forever. It is Spielberg’s contention (and that of his
screenwriter, Tony Kushner) that this single act of terrorism set into motion acts of retribution by both sides that
escalated to the 9/11 tragedy, war and horrors yet to come. Munich does its best to convince you of that – yet
nothing in the long, long film that follows conveys as much as that opening moment.
Does the movie make a compelling argument for its contention? Not really but then, how could a single movie
fathom the scope of the subject? And, obviously, because it’s a film about the murder of 11 Jewish innocents
written by a famed Jewish playwright and directed by the world’s most famous film director, who is famously
Jewish, it’s weighted toward the Jewish viewpoint. How could it not be? Kushner and Spielberg, to their credit, do
offer some balance and include scenes that present the Palestinian point of view as well.
The framing device for this argument by the filmmakers is the aftermath of the killings. Israel’s Prime Minister
Golda Meier (Lynn Cohen – galvanizing in her two scenes the way that Leigh Strasberg was as Hyman Roth in
Godfather Part II) meets with her cabinet who urge her to okay them to hire stealth assassins to go after the
Palestinians who have escaped retribution. “Today I hear with new ears” she says, agreeing to the plan.
A Mossad agent, Avner (Eric Bana – who looks and acts like a young DeNiro) is asked to head the team in a scene
that is very reminiscent of the one in Apocalypse, Now where Martin Sheen was asked to get rid of Colonel Kurtz
with “extreme prejudice.” Most of the rest of the film is taken up with Avner and his team tracking, planning and
executing these Palestinians. It’s really not much different from a score of similar espionage/action films (and not
nearly as good as many I could cite). And it keeps stopping to let the characters mull over and think and argue
with each other about what they’re doing. Naturally, as the killings increase, Avner begins to lose his sense of
humanity and seems to question what he is doing. Like the mafia, though, once you’re in, you’re in for life.
Spielberg and Kushner, again like Apocalypse, Now (this time Redux) add a long sequence with a French family
that sells information to the highest bidder on the whereabouts of killers and terrorists. This sequence is a much
needed respite in the executions as Avner lunches with this bourgeois group as they discuss the ethnics of the
family business. Interesting but essentially it’s another long unnecessary digression.
The film is shot in 70s style cinematography – it looks a lot like Dog Day Afternoon and Marathon Man – which
helps to distance us a bit. But if it had been paced and edited at the same length as those two superior thrillers,
Munich might have worked a lot better (it’s at least an hour too long to maintain much interest in the outcome).
Cutting several of the “thought provoking” scenes that stop the momentum (especially the most bizarre, where
Avner makes love to his wife while fantasizing about the massacre in Munich) would be a good start.
Spielberg the showman filmmaker obviously wants to stretch (look no further than A.I. for proof of that) but his
gift for action entertainment flies directly in the face of Kushner’s punishing, complex morality. Munich is a
collaboration that has breathtaking moments but fails as both grand entertainment and morality play.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Many movie stars have physical signatures. Crawford had her shoulder pads, Davis her eyes, Gable his mustache.
Jennifer Aniston has a permanent pout. And that hair. Oh, it just drives me crazy. Probably the way Veronica
Lake’s bangs did for some poor schlub movie reviewer back in the 40s. Aniston’s pout and that long hair crowding
the planes of her face like a nest of dead Medusa snakes are such a distraction for me that I can’t seem to get past
them. Like Renée Zellweger’s tiny eyes, Scarlett Johansson’s open mouthed stare or Helen Hunt’s squint, Aniston
is all Pout With Hair up there 50 feet high. How she escaped from the TV screen to movie theatres is symptomatic
for me of our celebrity obsessed culture. She is out of place (once again) and very much out of her league in
Rumor Has It..., Rob Reiner’s tart romantic dramedy that plays on the tantalizing idea that The Graduate was
based on a real family.
At least Reiner has surrounded Aniston with a cast of comedic experts. It saved the picture for me. Shirley
MacLaine as the real Mrs. Robinson blows Aniston off the screen with lines like “Come in, I’ll put on a pot of
Bourbon,” Kevin Costner scores with his effortless charm as the seductive seducer Benjamin Braddock and Mark
Ruffalo (in his 43rd romantic dramedy this year) is once again the sensitive hottie with a heart of gold. All these
characters and more (including hunk Steve Sandvoss who played a gay Mormon in Latter Days) swirl about the
Pout With Hair while she goes through an identity crisis of some sort and rattles off a lot of dialogue with a lot of
adjectives.
There’s something else that has been bugging me about these “dramedies.” Why are they so popular? What
happened to romantic comedies with strictly comedic situations that don’t force characters to grow up or have
commitment phobias? Where’s the adult romantic comedies that were funny and sunny and not so intent on
imparting “truth?” Why does a comedy have to force feed me one of life’s Big Lessons? All these “dramedies” are,
I think, a big turn off.
As for the Pout With Hair, I still think her finest big screen outing was as the whiny Valley Girl in the slasher camp
fest, Leprechaun. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll sign up for the next sequel. Luckier still – she’ll cut her hair off.
Luckiest – she’ll go back to TV and leave movies for the movie stars.
Spielberg and Kushner grapple with BIG ISSUES, Rob Reiner's tart dramedy has promise
but needs a legitimate movie star to carry it
but needs a legitimate movie star to carry it
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