Stuart Townsend's
Battle In Seattle
Opens September 19, 2008
Written By: Stuart Townsend
Starring: Andre Benjamin; Woody Harrelson; Martin
Henderson; Ray Liotta; Connie Nielsen; Michelle
Rodriguez; Channing Tatum; and Charlize Theron.
Redwood Palms Pictures
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
Where have all
the demonstrations gone? While Battle in Seattle
has an epilogue stating that globally, more people
have protested the Iraq War than any other issue,
the war—unpopular though it be within the
United States—has not led to large-scale
protest marches. The presumption is that absent
a military draft, young people have no fear of
being called up to the Middle East. This is what
was so surprising about the major demonstrations
in Seattle, Washington, in late 1999 against the
entire system developed by the WTO, or World Trade
Organization. The WTO, which counts in its membership
countries representing ninety-five percent of
the world's trading countries, seems innocuous
enough. Nonetheless, critics have cited the inability
of the developing nations to have an equal say
in what gets free-traded, while multinational
corporations are making hay by undercutting local
producers from the poorer nations. Environmental
issues also abound, as countries destroy large
segments of their forests to meet the demands
of international commerce. Another issue is that
while Big Pharma, representing the large drug
corporations, has promised to make their drugs
free or at a cut rate to save lives in areas of
the globe that cannot afford them, little has
actually been accomplished to implement their
plan.
Yes, but, doesn't
all this sound abstract, something that college
youths would dutifully ask the professors, "Are
we responsible for this on the test?" Not
to the 10,000 or so protesters who gathered in
Seattle in late November-December of 1999 for
a peaceful protest that got out of hand when lunatic
fringes on the far left began breaking windows
of downtown stores for reasons that are obscure
to us in our theater seats.
Stuart Townsend
wisely made a docu-drama out of the incident,
sidelining a classic documentary which would have
brought out the usual array of dull talking heads.
In fact, to his credit, there are no talking heads
in Battle In Seattle, most of which is
filmed by Barry Ackroyd in Vancouver, with only
the last week of the filming taking place on location
in Washington's leading city.
Battle opens with Fernando Villena's
rapidly edited introduction to the history of
trade organizations from 1947 to 1999—too
quickly for allow the concepts to sink into audience
minds.
The film is anchored
by a charismatic performance from kiwi-born Martin
Henderson in the role of Jay, the group's leader.
Jay is most concerned that violence not take place,
that there be no action that would provoke the
police department and result in beatings of demonstrators
and mass arrests. As interested as Jay in keeping
the demonstration peaceful is the city's Mayor
Tobin (Ray Liotta), a worrier whose job evaluation
with the voters will depend in part on how he
handles the demonstrators. The mayor resists the
call of the governor (Tzi Ma), who wants to call
out the national guard and set a strict curfew.
When anarchist vandalize stores, including one
that finds the four-month-pregnant Ella (Charlize
Theron) behind the counter, the police respond
in full-scale riot gear and tear gas, the police,
acting in much the way they did during Vietnam
protests with theif inate belief that lousy, privileged,
commie students are the ones who riot. One cop
in fact causes major damage to Ella's developing
pregnancy to the concern of both her and her husband,
Dale (Woody Harrelson).
Battle also features a romance between Jay and
Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), because some love interest
must take place to up the entertainment ante.
It's nice to know
that there's still some energy in the protest
movement, especially since the issues are, as
stated above, would appear to be abstract to the
young people in the film who yell "The whole
world is watching." Apparently the kids in
Seattle knew, or at least they believed (contrary
to right-wing dogma) that human beings are the
cause of global warning, sweatshop conditions,
and the destruction of independent farms in the
Third World. No one seems to be demonstrating
to meet the opposite sex or to listen to rock
music as some did during the Vietnam War.
There are good
guys on the other side of the student lines, such
as Abassi (Isaach De Bankole), who speaks for
an African state, and Dr. Maric (Rade Sherbedzija),
who represents Doctors without Borders at the
conference and browbeats the members about the
African AIDS epidemic. An especially fine performance
comes from a veteran campaigner, Django (Andre
Benjamin), who does his best to keep up the groups'
spirits even when things look especially bad for
them in jail. The crew did a fine job merging
archival film from the 1999 events with the fictionalized
account, making a case that perhaps all documentaries
would be improved by the docudrama technique.
After all, it's the spirit of the actions that
count, not just the facts.
Rated R. 98 minutes.
© 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics
Online
Randall Miller's
Bottle Shock
Opens Friday, August 8, 2008
Written By: Randall
Miller
Starring: Alan
Rickman; Chris Pine; Bill Pullman; Rachael Taylor;
Freddy Rodriguez; Bradley Whitford; Eliza Dushku;
Dennis Farina; and Miguel Sandoval.
Freestyle Releasing
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
In these cynical
times which find the U.S. plagued by an endless
war, a weak dollar, rising unemployment and growing
inflation, and some clear divisions between Red
states and Blue states, sophisticated movie audiences
cannot be blamed for wanting to see crowd-pleasing
pictures with an IQ greater than 60. Such an audience
uplift movie launches in August of this year,
is based on a true incident, and may just be the
most nationalistic picture you'll see all year.
Bottle Shock does not relate to the out-of-sight
prices you'll have to pay for wine but to one
of the lesser known celebrations that took place
during our country's bicentennial. (The title
literally refers to the disturbance that could
ruin wine if shipped in airplane cargo sections.)
Just one year after the Vietnam War ended to few
Americans' satisfaction, the U.S. beat the French
in what might at least questionably be called
a sport. Bottle Shock also depicts the
enjoyable socking-it-to-you of a character that
is a virtual caricature of a snob in the style
of Maggie Smith's Lady Hester Random in Franco
Zeffirelli's Tea With Mussolini.
Sundance-premiered Bottle Shock takes
us back to 1976 when a California wine competed
with the product of vintners from France, the
country considered by oenophiles to have the world's
best grapes and the world's most fabulous food.
The thought that a Napa Valley vintner could stand
up to Frenchwine-makers in France was considered
laughable. But the film Bottle Shock
shows not only how this happened, but the ways
that the great victory might never have taken
place at all.
Randall Miller,
who wrote and directed the film, focuses his story
on a father-son relationship, as well as on the
virtues of the domestic grape. He centers his
character study on the owner of Chateau Montelena,
Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) and his less ambitious
son, Bo (Chris Pine). Jim was apparently doing
fine as a law partner in a real estate firm when
he decided he wanted a real job. With three loans
from a bank, he struggled to keep his winery afloat,
coming yea close to declaring bankruptcy and crawling
back to the law firm with his tail between his
legs. Meanwhile Gustavo (Freddy Rodriguez), far
more ambitious than Bo, works for Jim while he
dreams of starting his own vineyard.
The competition between the U.S. and France in
a sport that requires little more than the ability
to twist the wrist and spit expensive spirits
into silver containers is launched when Steven
Spurrier (Alan Rickman), a British expatriate
in Paris who is friendly with Maurice Cantavale
(Dennis Farina) and stuck with a failing wine
business, decides to promote his career by sponsoring
a contest between the two countries. But what's
a fictionalized true story without a romance?
Enter the hippie-ish, beautiful Sam Fulton (Rachael
Taylor) who signs on with Jim's company as an
intern while taking an understandable interest
in Bo—particularly considering that the
long-haired slacker resembles a younger Brad Pitt.
Director Miller
helms his story like an urbane thriller pitting
people whom the Brit and the French consider "hicks
from the sticks" with their Gallic cousins
across the pond who know quite a bit more about
food and wine—or so they thought. The pace
is slow at first. Miller takes time to develop
his characters, punctuating the uneasy relationship
between the aspiring dad and his lazy son who,
when tension builds between them go into a ring
with gloves and duke it out, each knocking the
other man down several times in round one. Randall
Miller, whose funky Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom
Dancing & Charm School deals with the
search by a recent widower for a dying man's lost
love at a school reunion, cuts back on that movie's
gooey sentiment in favor of a rousing finale,
which may not have the excitement of the recent
Tiger Woods victory but allows us to leave in
a good mood and without having to pick up our
brains at the box office on the way out.
An epilogue notes
that the bottle that beat the French is on display
"at the Smithsonian Institute" (by which
is probably meant the Smithsonian Institution).
The entire movie is exquisitely photographed by
Michael J. Ozier, whose shots of the vineyard
just thirty-seven miles outside San Francisco
is enough to motivate some of us to leave our
cubicles for good and get our jeans dirty in the
countryside. Postscriptum: As though conspiring
the keep the under-17 audience away from pictures
with soul, the MPAA rated this innocent movie
"R" while awarding a PG-13 to the egregiously
vulgar mediocrity, The Love Guru.
Rated R 106
minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member:
NY Film Critics Online
Julian Jarrold's
Brideshead Revisted
Opens July 25, 2008
Written
By: Andrew Davies; Jeremy Brock; from Evelyn Waugh's
novel.
Starring: Emma Thompson; Michael Gambon; Matthew
Goode; Ben Whishaw; Hayley Atwell; Stephen Merchant;
Greta Scacchi; Ed Stoppard; Jonathan Cake;and
Patrick Malahide.
Miramax Films
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
"The rich
are very different from you and me," said
F. Scott Fitzgerald, to which we can add by contrast
that emotions remain the same in every century,
across whole demographic strains. Evelyn Waugh's
masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited, illustrates
this point, the film adaptation by Julian Jarrold
flawlessly illustrating the way a wealthy, aristocratic
British family during the decades preceding World
War II spend their days, seeking pleasure yet
restrained by religious influences. What the viewer
must remember, though, is that the restraints
of the Catholic faith, to which Waugh converted,
must not be looked upon as a negative. The major
theme of the novel is that Divine Grace enters
into the lives of people when they open themselves
up to the Deity no matter how late in life the
conversion, a process sometimes called being "born
again."
The Evelyn Waugh
novel was given an eleven-episode treatment on
TV in 1981 under the direction of Charles Sturridge
and Michael Lindsay-Hogg with Jeremy Irons and
Anthony Andrews assuming the roles of the two
principal characters. Compressing the novel (now
available for just over ten bucks at Amazon) into
just over two hours required Julian Jarrold to
omit several minor characters from the tapestry,
concentrating particularly on the relationship
between young Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode, Match
Point and The Lookout) and Sebastian
Marchmain (Ben Whishaw, Perfume: The Story
of a Murderer), a friendship that began when
each entered Oxford University.
The current film
gets the treatment we've come to associate with
Merchant-Ivory productions, punctuating the privileges
of the very rich during the decades that the aristocracy
was to decline in Great Britain. Without sentimentality
or preaching, Brideshead Revisited, adapted
from the novel by Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones
Diary) and Jeremy Brock (The Last King
of Scotland), evokes the principal motifs:
The importance of Catholicism; nostalgia for the
age of English nobility; and the passionate, though
platonic, relationship between Charles Ryder and
Sebastian Flyte.
The story opens
on Charles Ryder, a British officer during World
War II who moves his men to a castle known as
Brideshead. He wistfully recounts his days among
the Marchmain family inhabiting what Charles considers
the most beautiful home he had ever seen. While
now a middle-aged, somewhat disillusioned fellow,
he was just a naïve freshman at Oxford when
he is introduced by Sebastian to an intimidating
crowd of students. His friendship with Sebastian
leads the latter's family to invite Charles to
spend the summer, whereupon he slowly develops
an affection for his friend's sister, Julia Flyte
(Hayley Atwell, Cassandra's Dream). Though
an atheist (an agnostic in the novel), he gains
the trust of Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), who
takes her Catholicism seriously, though her husband,
Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon) has moved to Venice
with another woman, Cara (Greta Scacchi) Charles's
atheism, however, makes him a poor match for Julia,
who has been ordered by Lady Marchmain to marry
a rich, boorish, Canadian businessman. Sebastian,
an alcoholic who will eventually move far from
his home to get away from his devout mother who
controls him through guilt, proves to be a handful
for both his family and Charles. As Charles's
bond with Julia becomes firmer, we in the audience
question the man's motives. Is he in love, or
is he (despite his newly acquired fame as a painter)
all too hungry for the trapping of aristocracy?
Filmed by Jess
Hall to evoke the incredible wealth and privileges
of the 20th century aristocracy in Britain, Brideshead
Revisited is both a compelling piece of cinematography
and a slow, painstaking look at the diverse fortunes
of the anointed. As one non-believer after another—including
to some extent Sebastian but more directly Sebastian's
father, and even Charles—becomes "born
again"—their dissolute lives become
more constructive in ways that should be seen
rather than revealed in a review. Brideshead
Revisited is smart, handsome film-making
without the usual summer panoply of special effects
and computer generative industry, a picture graced
by solid acting and a rich empathy with people
who find themselves through religion rather than
wealth.
Rated PG-13.
120 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member:
NY Film Critics Online
Felicity Jones as Cordelia
Flyte, Hayley Atwell as Julia Flyte,
Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain and Matthew Goode
as Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited.
Julian Jarrold's
Brideshead Revisted
Opens July 25, 2008
Written
By: Andrew Davies; Jeremy Brock; from Evelyn Waugh's
novel.
Starring: Emma Thompson; Michael Gambon; Matthew
Goode; Ben Whishaw; Hayley Atwell; Stephen Merchant;
Greta Scacchi; Ed Stoppard; Jonathan Cake;and
Patrick Malahide.
Reviewed by Julia
Sirmons
A film adaptation
of a literary classic is difficult at the best
of times. The situation is only complicated when
said classic has already been televised in an
epic, 13-hour mini-series starring a gaggle of
Britain's literary talents, the prospect becomes
even more daunting. Fortunately, director Julian
Jarrolds has had the testicular fortitude to attempt
a new version of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead
Revisited, resulting in a compelling and
innovative take on one of Britain's
finest and most nuanced pieces of literature.
Needless to say, when condensing a 30-page book
Page book (or an 11
hour miniseries) into a 2-hour, much will be lost
in translation. Certain plot points are excised,
several characters are reduced in significance,
but this is all in aid of Jarrolds' intent, which
is to shift the main focus of the story toward
the bizarre love triangle between seductively
charming siblings Julia (Hayley Atwell) and
Sebastian (I'm Not There's Ben Whishaw)
and their lesser-born, introspective friend Charles
Ryder (played by Matthew Goode; Goode strongly
resembles Jeremy Irons, who originated the role
in the miniseries.)
Obviously, this approach loses some of the epic
sweep and deeper political and philosophical concerns
of Waugh's vision. The book and original adaptation
can be viewed as a Canaletto canvas, with the
characters carefully and distantly through the
grand landscapes of Oxford, Venice, and the titular
stately homes, their emotions carefully (if barely)
in check. Jarrolds, on the other hand, has filmed
Brideshead as a Caravaggio, where the rich settings
are a backdrop for the desperate passionate grappling
and anguish of lovers trapped in murky waters.
This approach is aided immensely by powerful performances
by the three
leads. Atwell is positively dazzling as Julia,
a woman torn between a nature of vitality and
passion tempered by a sense of duty and devout
Catholic faith. As Sebastian, the outwardly vivacious
but deeply fragile and insecure gadabout, Whishaw
balances impish charm with heartbreaking pain
and fragility. Goode, the most enigmatic of the
trio, is something of an unsteady chameleon, but
with a great deal of emotion and compassion.
While this trio works beautifully together, the
standout performance in Brideshead is
Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain, Sebastian and
Julia's mother. Almost un recognizable in grey
set curls, Thompson doesn't shy away from the
staunch domineering, aspects of Marchmain's character,
but also brings moment of exquisite vulnerability
and uncertainty that makes her character much
more human.
With this new focus,
some of Waugh's intent falls by the wayside. There's
much mention of the film of the Marchmain-Flytes
being Catholic, but little demonstration of how
their faith guides their actions. Nevertheless,
this new angle on Waugh's complex story is teeming
over with romantic, lustful and tender, and the
social formalities that labor in vain to constrain
them. Gloriously set and
sumptuously costumes, it's a drama of emotion
and passion not to be
missed.
Aaron Eckhart in The
Dark Knight
Christopher
Nolan’s
The Dark Knight
Opens Friday, July 18, 2008
Starring:
Christian Bale; Heath Ledger; Aaron Eckhart; Michael
Caine; Maggie Gyllenhaal; Gary Oldman; and Morgan
Freeman.
Reviewed by Frank J. Avella
Christopher Nolan’s
The Dark Knight is easily the best action
film to be released so far this summer. I almost
hesitate to label it an action film because it
is smart, clever, dark and disturbing. Audiences
will probably not leave theatres feeling good
about their fellow man. They may leave pondering
certain moral and ethical issues the film brings
up (and, mercifully, does not necessarily answer)
and that is reason enough to celebrate!
Nolan, who helmed
the terrific Batman Begins, along with
his writer/brother Jonathan and David S. Goyer,
probe the gray and dig deep down into the grim
in order to hypothesize about the point where
hero becomes villain. Can anyone hold onto his
own code of ethics in a fickle and rush-to-judgment
society? Does power always corrupt? Why do heroes
matter so much to us? And if we knew the real
truth about those we are led to believe are models
of propriety, would we ever be able to believe
in anyone or anything?
Heavy? Sure. And
thank God for that!
The plot is deliberately
confusing and repeat viewings are encouraged.
Suffice to say that our caped crusader has his
work cut out for him this time around. The mob,
led by a smarmy Eric Roberts, is getting away
with murder and a new D.A.; Harvey Dent (the terrific
Aaron Eckhart) is on the scene to battle crime
in Gotham City. His girlfriend is Bruce Wayne’s
former squeeze, Rachel Dawes (a perfectly cast
Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes).
Batman is more
brooding and angst-ridden than usual and Christian
Bale has pain and suffering to spare. He’s
at a moral crossroads and the arrival of a new
and unpredictable threat tosses him into a confounding
tailspin. From American Psycho onward,
Bale proves he is one of the best and most fascinating
actors working today.
“The which
doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger.”
The Joker.
The threat arrives
in the form of the initially bumbling Joker (Heath
Ledger). But don’t let his first few scenes
fool you--this villain is vile and wicked. With
his mussy, stringy hair, repulsive yet beguiling
(white) face and badly painted smile to accentuate
his scars, this card (pun intended) believes in
chaos and anarchy. His evil cannot be predicted,
reasoned or controlled because he doesn’t
want anything other than to cause mayhem, destroy
and prove the malignant nature of man. As Michael
Caine’s wise Alfred puts it: “Some
men just want to watch the world burn.”
He doesn’t even want Batman dead. Quite
the contrary, he stares at him and freakily states,
“You complete me.”
If the Joker’s
reasons are buried in childhood trauma or abuse
we are never given his real story and Ledger’s
performance is the better for it. As a matter
of creepy fact, the Joker actually provides a
few horrific childhood scenarios, but we soon
realize that we can’t ever trust what he
says; he’s simply having a macabre laugh
at his victim’s expense, after all, he is
a sadistic fuck. He’s also a masochist.
It’s a mesmerizing, messy portrait, loaded
with mad nuances.
There has been
much posthumous Oscar speculation among critics,
prognosticators and Hollywoodites regarding Ledger’s
performance--and with good reason. It’s
an all-immersive, vanity-free portrayal and a
fitting swan song to a promising career cut tragically
short. Ledger should have won his gold dude for
Brokeback Mountain, so it would not be
surprising if his genius turn here gets him the
prize.
The look of the
film is stunning and spectacularly gloomy. All
tech credits are extraordinary.
The Dark Knight
proves a superhero film can be more than a cacophonous,
pyrotechnic, effects-driven video game. It can
have non-stop action, amazing effects and still
have an untidy, topsy-turvy plot and performances
that strive to be more than simply good and actually
achieve a kind of transcendence.
Heath Ledger in The
Dark Knight
Christopher
Nolan’s
The Dark Knight
Opens Friday, July 18, 2008
Written By: Jonathan Nolan; Christopher Nolan;
Story by Christopher Nolan; David S. Goyer from
characters in DC Comics. Batman created by Bob
Kane.
Starring:
Christian Bale; Heath Ledger; Aaron Eckhart; Michael
Caine; Maggie Gyllenhaal; Gary Oldman; and Morgan
Freeman.
Warner Bros.
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B-
It's difficult
to criticize a movie in which a fellow who is
considered "a White Knight," "the
best of us," goes by the first name "Harvey"—a
District Attorney who has locked up half of Gotham
(filmed by Wally Pfister in Chicago). The picture
is a mixed bag, one that might be summarized by
part of a terrific commercial that appeared years
back before trailers, in which one moviegoer is
pondering whether to attend a film that's "visually
arresting but ultimately pointless." Not
that The Dark Knight is pointless, but
on the other hand comes across as though it were
a series of trailers. Christopher Nolan who directs
from a script he co-write with his brother Jonathan
Nolan, appears to make a few moral points: that
even the best of us can turn rotten when pursuing
vengeance; that a caped crusader can be disliked
by much of the city he protects because he is
blamed indirectly for quite a few murders; that
you can't negotiate with a terrorist, because
(at least in this case), the demon has no interest
in money or power but only in fomenting as much
chaos as he can.
The Dark Knight
is graced by an astonishing performance from
Heath Ledger as The Joker, one scary fella who
covers up scars he received from his knife-wielding
dad with makeup that gives him a face covered
with white paint while leaving lips to be decked
out in dark red. If an Oscar can be awarded posthumously,
Mr. Ledger should be guaranteed at least a nomination
for portraying what will probably be this year's
most exciting portrayal of a villain. The movie
comes to life whenever he is on the screen, but
becomes pedestrian whenever Christian Bale, so
fearsome and authentic as Patrick Bateman in American
Psycho, enters the screen. Bale is a dull
Bruce Wayne and a less than awesome hero.
There are two fundamentally
distinct ways to judge the quality of this plot.
One group of moviegoers and critics are going
to find gems in its complexity, stating even that
the film deserves multiple viewings (at two and
one-half hours a pop) to figure out who's who
and what's what. Others will take an opposite
approach, holding that the story is so incoherent,
one might as well throw up his hands and consider
the film of value only because of some awesome
visual delights. I'll have to take that latter
point of view. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive,
or for that matter Christopher Nolan's Memento,
have trajectories which become clear by the second
or third viewing. The Dark Knight, by
contrast, throws together a pot pourri of criminals
and crime fighters that are nearly impossible
to sort out or make even comic-book sense of.
Additional screenings are likely to be fruitless.
Gotham is portrayed
as a city rife with police corruption, organized
crime, and one weird, psychopathic killer who
seems motivated to get revenge against the father
who scarred him for life. He takes out his anger
on an assortment of citizens. His chief nemesis
is the incorruptible (at least for a while) District
Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), but The
Joker is not eager to kill Batman. He considers
the caped crusader someone who "completes"
him, someone to play with to prove his skills
to the entire city. The Joker is an expert at
demolition: in one scene, he blows up a hospital
and buildings surrounding it, walking away laughing
to himself. When he gets the drop on an individual,
he licks his lips, slowly, calmly explaining to
his victims why he has become the psycho he is.
Every actor wants to play the bad guy, Heath Ledger
providing a textbook example--as the D.A., Bruce
Wayne, and Batman are dishwater-dull by contrast
(until one of them shows his dark side, thereby
helping to prove the maxim). The film can be interpreted
as an indictment of American foreign policy. In
one scene, a scientist sets up a system of wiretapping
that will allow Batman to spy on millions of Chicago's
citizens. In another, Batman mercilessly delivers
a beating to a prisoner, hoping to get information
about a kidnap victim's whereabouts.
There are faux
Batmans, bank robbers, Hong Kong businessmen,
all thrown into the mix helter-skelter along with
the usual array of car crashes, truck somersaults,
and a terrific-looking Batpod. There's even a
romantic triangle as Bruce Wayne's former squeeze,
Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal), has shifted her loyalties
to the district attorney—an unusual switch
considering that she once had the attention of
a billionaire playboy. Gary Oldman shows up regularly
with a restrained performance as a detective about
to become the city's police commissioner, Morgan
Freeman as a scientist, Michael Caine as Bruce
Wayne's lifelong butler Alfred.
If you thrill to
visual mayhem, try to see the picture on the IMAX
screen, which delivers the goods particularly
when Batman descends quickly from skyscrapers
or spreads out his bat-wings to fly across buildings.
By now, though, the usual visual thrills have
become a common-enough staple in blockbusters.
Ditto the thumping soundtracks, in this case provided
by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. What's
missing is a solid, coherent story, one that pares
down the numbers of subplots and subplots to subplots.
Rated PG-13. 152
minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member:
NY Film Critics nline
Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008
Written By: Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas
Jensen from Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire
Starring: Keira Knightley; Ralph Fiennes; Dominic
Cooper; Charlotte Rampling; Hayley Atwell; Georgia
King; Aidan McArdle; Simon McBurney; and Mercy
Fiennes Tiffin.
Paramount Vantage
Reviewed by Allison Ford
To be an
aristocratic woman in the 18th century, "You
must equip yourself with patience, fortitude,
and resignation," Georgiana Spencer's mother
advises her in The Duchess. The film,
starring Keira Knightley, tells the story of Georgiana,
the Duchess of Devonshire, a woman ahead of her
time, yet completely beholden to its strict and
stultifying social rules.
Georgiana of Devonshire
was known in her day for being flamboyantly fashionable,
intensely political, and true to her passions,
and as a result, almost everyone in Britain was
in love with her. The Duke is cold and ambivalent,
leading one character to remark that "The
Duke of Devonshire is the only man in England
not in love with his wife." The Duchess has
overtly feminist leanings, describing the powerless
plight of women in 1780's England. Georgiana was
married at 17 to a man she barely knew and whose
only desire was for a son and male heir. On her
wedding night, as her new husband callously strips
off her clothes, we see the corset marks embedded
into Georgiana's skin…an apt metaphor for
the life of a headstrong woman chafing at society's
constraints.
The Duchess
does not fall into the usual trap of period films.
The characters and the setting demand a certain
level of opulence, but the film is stronger than
other period dramas, and it doesn't substitute
good art direction for a good story. The costumes
and set only provide a context in which the story
plays out; they're not a character in their own
right. However, the film is visually engrossing,
with art and set direction that perfectly capture
the grandeur and frigidity of a historical turning
point.
Much is made in
the film of freedom, since the political backdrop
of Georgiana's story is the American and French
revolutions, as well as the abolitionist movement
in England. Georgiana spars with politicians,
opining that "One cannot be free in moderation,
just as one cannot be dead in moderation,"
she says. "One is either free, or not free."
That idea is one that permeates the movie, making
the statement that among all oppressed people,
it is women who are ultimately the least free
of all. Despite her popularity, Georgiana is not
free to marry a man of her own choosing, she is
not free to choose her own destiny, and she is
not even free to expel her husband's mistress
from the house.
Knightley is charming
and powerful as the Duchess; girlishly playful,
yet with a steely resolve. Ralph Fiennes is remarkable
as the Duke of Devonshire, and although his character
is the source of many of Georgiana's troubles,
the film never resorts to characterizing him a
villain. Ultimately, despite his moral depravity
and callousness, he, too, is simply a product
of his time. Their work together is brilliant
and fiery; their obvious physical and stylistic
differences reflect just how mismatched the real
Duke and Duchess were.
Despite her attempts
to follow her passions, Georgiana, too, is still
bound by the rules of society and the demands
of her position. Throughout the film, she rejects
traditional female roles and seeks to create an
independent identity for herself. In one transcendent
moment, she is given the choice between keeping
her lover and keeping her children. For a few
glorious and startling minutes, it seems that
she will actually choose her lover, Charles Grey,
a future prime minister, and hold onto the love
she has longed for. However, she eventually retreats
back home, destined to live out the rest of her
life in confinement. Georgiana chooses motherhood,
domesticity, and safety, all for the good of her
children. As she says to her husband, "It's
my life for theirs."
The Duchess
cannot be faulted for telling the story as it
happened, but a typical display of female self-abnegation
feels particularly empty at the end of a film
that glorifies rebellion. Her husband, the Duke,
shows signs of wanting a freer existence, as does
Georgiana's best friend and rival, Bess Foster.
All of the main characters have to leverage themselves
to get what they want – Bess whores herself
to the duke to regain custody of her children,
Georgiana gives up her lover for the sake of hers,
the Duke gives up freedom for a life of wealth
and privilege, and Charles Grey is forced to give
up Georgiana in order to pursue his political
career. As an audience, we want better for Georgiana,
a feisty and sympathetic heroine, and it is hard
to accept her choice to resume her unfulfilling
former life. Just when the imprints of the corset
were fading, she has cinched it tighter.
The Duchess
tells the fascinating story of a remarkable woman,
and its greatest achievement may be to make its
audience want to read the book on which it was
based, Amanda Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess
of Devonshire. The Duchess admirably
depicts an intriguing historical figure caught
between two worlds, and she elicits our admiration,
our jealousy, and ultimately, our pity.
Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008
Written By: Jeffrey
Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen from Amanda Foreman's
biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Starring: Keira Knightley; Ralph Fiennes; Dominic
Cooper; Charlotte Rampling; Hayley Atwell; Georgia
King; Aidan McArdle; Simon McBurney; and Mercy
Fiennes Tiffin.
Reviewed by Julia
Sirmons
When you see an
advert for the latest British period film, you
have a pretty good idea of what you’re in
for should you choose to shell out your ten clams.
Odds are good that, at some point, a symbolically
potent handkerchief will be dropped in slow motion
and a woman in a cape will be standing alone in
a desolate landscape, staring stoically ahead
and contemplating the tragedy of her existence.
To some extent,
this all holds true for The Duchess,
Saul Dibb’s biopic of Georgiana, Duchess
of Devonshire, adapted from Amanda Foreman’s
biography. All the traditional elements are here:
heaving bosoms, tightly laced corsets (much credit
is due to costume designer Michael O’Connor
and the hair and makeup department for creating
some of the most deliciously flamboyant dresses,
wiggery and hattery ever to grace the screen).There’s
also the common themes of the repressive consequences
of aristocratic obligation, the oppression of
women, and the British stiff-upper-lip standby
of sacrificing love for the abstract notions of
honor, duty, and children who are barely seen
and even less frequently heard.
At this point you’re
probably thinking, haven’t I’ve seen
this one already, only with Emma Thompson? But
with The Duchess, Dibb has managed to
skillfully subvert and the conventions of the
costume drama and breathe new life into a traditionally
staid and stuffy genre.
He’s got
the rather incredible real-life story of Georgiana
of Devonshire working in his favor: When your
heroine was a notorious gambler and fashion plate
who endured her brute of a husband and his live-in
mistress by engaging in electioneering, bedding
a future prime minister and bearing an illegitimate
child, you’re pretty safely out of the stuffy,
fiddling with teacups territory of many British
period pieces.
And as portrayed
by Keira Knightley, Georgiana is brought gloriously,
vivaciously to life. An actor who occasionally
comes across as staid or wan, Knightely here gives
free reign to the mishevious spark viewers saw
hints of in Bend it Like Beckham and
the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
To watch the barely restrained glee on her face
whilst delivering a quip, or even lasciviously
grabbing a goblet of wine or throwing the dice
is a thrilling, infectious delight. She also achieves
the necessary balance of melodramatic pathos and
nuanced emotion in the contrived moments of personal
conflict and struggle that the long, slightly
overblown script throws her way.
But much of the
credit belongs to Dibb, who gives us a fresh look
at life in 18th century England and some innovative
new ideas about how a period piece can be made.
He heightens the stereotypes of the genre for
comedic effect, giving us husband and wife sitting
at opposite ends of impossibly long tables, standoffs
in absurdly cavernous hallways, and farcical country
idylls with guns and dogs. But he’s also
smart enough to know that life back then wasn’t
all unmussed skirts and serene teas. He gets our
hands dirty with the political mudslinging, the
behind closed doors sexual antics, the bawdy theater,
and the truth behind just what a pain all those
corsets and wigs were. There’s a hilarious
and horrifying scene where Knightley experiences
a wardrobe malfunction (the specifics are too
fantastic to divulge) that will make any Regency
fetishists reconsider their next Halloween costume.
Georgiana was also
a close friend of playwright Richard
Sheridan (Aidan McArdle) and influential Whig
party politician Charles
Fox (Simon McBurney), and when Dibb shows
us the three of them conspiratorially gossiping
like a gaggle of sexy, impossibly witty fishwives,
it’s an absolute treat. This is real life;
these are people we like and want to meet.
Dibb also uses
film techniques more commonly associated with
more modern stories, which further help liven
up the movie. The use of titles, quick cuts, wickedly
funny shot—reverse shot sequences and extreme
flash forwards make The Duchess shockingly
entertaining. They also keep the long story moving
at a refreshingly fast clip; although it does
lag a bit in the film’s final tragic act.
The rest of the
cast provides excellent support for Knightley’s
star turn. Ralph Fiennes is wonderfully disturbing
as Georgiana’s baddie philandering husband.
His abominable cruelty and complete lack of charm
or sensitivity is accompanied by such a blasé,
twisted sense of humor that it’s difficult
not to love the mean old bastard. Hayley Atwell,
so impressive in Brideshead Revisited,
turns in another layered and nuanced performance
as Bess, the Duke’s mistress and Georgiana’s
closest friend. Playing Georgiana’s lover,
Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia) makes a most
excellent piece of 18th century beefcake. His
rugged, almost common good looks provide a sexy
foil to Knightley’s refined features, and
he imbues the role with the kind of fiery idealistic
political passion that you easily believe could
moisten aristocratic pantaloons.
If, like this reviewer,
you were raised on a diet of Merchant Ivory films,
The Duchess will provide you with an
extra special pleasure. If, on the other hand,
the thought of this kind of movie wants to make
you run in the direction of the nearest Michael
Bay feature, give The Duchess a try anyway.
You might find that bosom of yours can be made
to heave after all.
Saul Dibb's
The Duchess
Opens Friday, September 19, 2008
Written By: Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas
Jensen from Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire
Starring: Keira Knightley; Ralph Fiennes; Dominic
Cooper; Charlotte Rampling; Hayley Atwell; Georgia
King; Aidan McArdle; Simon McBurney; and Mercy
Fiennes Tiffin.
Paramount Vantage
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B
British monarchs
would not exactly have sung Kumbaya during their
reigns. Some were murderous, beginning when Alfred
the Great secured Wessex and took domination over
western Mercia. Our own country fought King George
III for independence. On the other hand, some
titled, powerful men were content to make love,
not war, incidents that would be recorded by the
press or whatever served as the gossip lines before
printing. Prince Charles' dalliance during his
marriage to Princess Diana is hardly unique: just
part and parcel of the customs of the nobility,
which is not altogether surprising when you consider
that marriages were commonly arranged between
people who may not even have met. Such was the
case involving the title character of Saul Dibb's
The Duchess, adapted by three scripters
from Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire. The biopic is filmed
by Gyula Pados sumptuously displaying the real
estate and costumes that graced the court of the
Duke of Devonshire—a man who'd probably
not blink an eye (if he were alive now) when witnessing
the butchery at work on Wall Street. Dibb considers
politics only in the conversations of the politically
astute, but does not actually display the revolutionary
events occurring outside the limited circles in
which the duke and duchess traveled.
Fair enough: Director
Dibb focuses on sexual politics rather than the
kind we in the U.S. are now inundated with on
TV and in the press; affairs of the bed rather
than those of state. A costume drama in the best
sense of the word, The Duchess is anchored
by a spot-on performance by the lovely Keira Knightley
(Atonement, Pride and Prejudice),
whose character, if alive in America today, would
doubtless be a Democrat drinking Chablis and dabbing
brie on her biscuits.
In 1774, Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling) sets
up a wedding between her sixteen-year-old daughter
Georgiana Spencer, and the fabulously wealthy
and powerful William Cavendish, a.k.a. the Duke
of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes). Though Georgiana
considers the duke to be cold to the point of
constipation, others may not have thought so,
given his liaisons. He is surprisingly unimpressed
by his new wife's beauty and brains, a woman he
considers of little use until she can produce
a male heir. When G, as her husband calls her,
develops a friendship with Lady Elizabeth Foster
(Hayley Atwell), she learns about the birds and
the bees from her new best friend, but not just
in theory. Her new enjoyment of her body encourages
Georgiana to seek a liaison of love, finding great
possibility in handsome, politically progressive
Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), who urges her to
give up her current partner and elope with him.
This would not be a bad idea at all, considering
that G's best friend has betrayed her with the
duke, but who wants to run away and abandon her
children?
While the film
is as gorgeous as its leading lady, who changes
costumes almost as many times as did Hillary Clinton
during the Democratic primaries, Dibb appears
so afraid of turning the festivities into soap
opera that he plays down the emotions, allowing
only a single outburst from the duke upon hearing
some thoughts of independence from the mind of
his wife. This kind of feminism, by the way, is
not a fairly recent American invention, beginning,
in fact, in ancient Greece as displayed in the
texts of such dramas as Medea and Lysistrata.)
Nor is the American Revolution worth more than
a quick mention though it began two years after
the nuptials of the duke and duchess. Dibb is
intent on keeping The Duchess within
the realm of costume drama, putting great attention
on Georgiana's three-foot-high wig, a hair style
that would make you change your seat if you were
sitting behind her at the cinema. Not only is
the story told in a political vacuum: more important,
we are not privy to the sources of G's great appeal
among the people. By contrast, now in the age
of media, we can easily understand Princess Diana's
popularity as we watch videos of her trips around
the world and of her service to the less fortunate.
Nonetheless, at
a time that more movies are being shown that were
filmed with hand-held cameras and a lack of respect
for the quality of the pictures, it's a pleasure
to feast our eyes on a production whose technical
effects are excellent. And mercifully, there are
no car chases.
Rated PG-13.
111 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member:
NY Film Critics Online
Isabel Coixet's
Elegy
Opens Friday, August 8, 2008
Written By: Nicholas Meyer,
from Philip Roth's novella "The Dying Animal"
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper,
Patricia Clarkson, Deborah Harry, Peter Sarsgaard
Samuel Goldwyn
Films
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: A-8
In his four-stanza
poem, Sailing to Byzantium—which
includes a verse to "a dying animal,"
also the title of a recent novella by Philip Roth—William
Butler Yeats describes both about the journey
taken by the speaker's soul around the time of
death and the process by which the artist transcends
his own mortality. Philip Roth, whose novella
forms the basis of film Elegy, is obsessed
with age, with mortality, and with the fading
of his own passions—all of which come across
in this remarkable movie by the Spanish director,
Isabel Coixet. Without passing judgment on a man
who might be roundly condemned by feminists today,
Coixet directs from a screenplay by Nicholas Meyer,
one which closely follows the trajectory of Roth's
book. Prestige films from literary sources are
a rare breed today: Elegy joins such
summer-released films as Julian Jarrold's Brideshead
Revisited as must-sees on any sophisticated
moviegoer's itinerary.
"That is no
country for old men…An aged man is but a
paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick, unless/
Soul clap its hands and sing…" So goes
some verses from Yeats's poem, and so evolves
the character David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), a charismatic
professor of literary criticism who uses his prestige
at a New York university (one that looks like
Columbia though the filming took place in Vancouver)
to bed several women three or four decades his
junior. He keeps his distance emotionally from
the women—something his best friend, squash
partner and Pulitzer-prize-winning poet George
(Dennis Hopper) urges him to do. Kepesh is floored
by the beauty of a Cuban-born student, Consuela
Castillo (Penelope Cruz); he senses that she must
be wooed before being won just like women in the
1950's, he correctly notes in discussing America's
Puritan heritage on the air. Kepesh is fascinated
by her beautiful breasts—which Ms Cruz generously
exhibits for us in the audience—so much
so that contrary to feminist beliefs today, Consuela
lauds him for his attentions therein. "Nobody
else loves my body as you do," she states
with love in her eyes. While Kepesh sets up a
sexual liaison with the young student, he maintains
a long-term, commitment-free affair with an older
woman, Carolyn (Patricia Clarkson), a sophisticated
businesswoman in her late forties who believes
that she is his only bed partner.
Philip Roth's obsession
with age and decline, punctuated by at least one
death in the story, evokes the title Elegy,
a mournful poem or lament for the dead. As an
older man who ponders his age almost daily, he
is certain that a youthful charmer will steal
his great love away. Jealousy demands that she
remain in touch with him regularly. "Stop
worrying about growing old," his friend George
advises, knowing that his counsel will not be
followed, "And think about growing up."
(Lots of us men should have such problems with
immaturity.)
Aside from its
theme of mortality and decline, Elegy
concerns itself with the impact on others of pure
physical beauty. David, by way of illustration,
simply cannot see beyond Consuela's body to understand
that this woman wants a man who can offer her
a future, and that David would be the one she
would choose. David's womanizing has an effect
on his son, Kenny Kepesh (Peter Sarsgaard), a
doctor who cannot forgive his dad's marital abandonment
and therefore remains loyal to his own wife though
he has fallen in love with another. In the film's
final scene, there has been an about face, one
which demonstrates Consuela's spirit to David
for the first time.
Jan Claude Larrieu
photographs the proceedings in Vancouver, which
stands in for New York, heightening director Coixet's
emphasis on the pain that complements the human
condition as well as its physical pleasures. The
music, both in the background and as pieces played
by David on the piano, are the antithesis of summer-movie
soundtracks—featuring works from Bach's
"Adagio from Concerto in D Minor" through
Vivaldi's "Vendro Con Mio Diletto" from
"Giutino" but not ignoring pop favorites
like Al Lerner's "Loneliness Ends with Love."
Acting is magnificent all-around with Dennis Hopper
supplying much of the humor as the principal's
sexual and spiritual adviser, Ben Kingsley's piercing
job particularly in a concluding scene that finds
him awash in tears, and Penelope Cruz's deft portrayal
as a woman of spectacular beauty, charm, and ultimate
vulnerability.
Rated R. 106 minutes.
© 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics
Online
Jason Todd Ipson's
Everybody Wants to be Italian
Opens September 5, 2008
Written By: Jason Todd
Ipson
Starring: Jay Jablonski; Cerina Vincent; John
Kapelos; John Enos; Richard Libertini; Marisa
Petroro; Dan Cortese; and Penny Marshall.
Roadside Attractions
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+
Says she, a veterinarian,
to a prospective boyfriend: "So do you like
animals?"
Replies he, the owner of a prosperous Boston establishment:
"Sure. I have a fish store."
This repartee is
one of the few gems in an otherwise recycled comedy
that may be trying to cash in on the unusual box
office success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
The 27-year-old proprietor, Jake (Jay Jablonski)
is courting Marisa (Cerina Vincent), a woman he
believes to be Italian. Advised by the sales help
in the shop that no Italian woman would consider
a man who is of another ethnic background, Jake,
who is of Polish stock, agrees to the pretense.
However the movie does not really spend much energy
on the prevarication, but centers on a young man
who is caught between the love he still feels
for Isabella (Marisa Petroro), a woman who dumped
him eight years ago and who is now married with
three kids, and his feeling for Marisa, who is
the more eligible prospect at age thirty-three.
If you believe
a veterinarian would hook up with a fishmonger,
you have a fertile imagination and could conceivably
go for the story. However, there is no comparison
between Everybody Wants To Be Italian and
another film about an unlikely couple, Knocked
Up. You can always suspend disbelief, especially
if you're dealing with a comedy. But Italian
comes up far short of Judd Apatow's picture in
the laughs department, principally because Jason
Todd Ipson's tale is dated, recycled, and repetitive.
The trajectory followed is more or less this:
the principal character continues to court his
old sweetheart while headed into a new relationship
with a more eligible woman. The principal character
goes back to the fish store after each date or
meeting with this new person, and is advised by
the people on his staff on how to deal with her
and with women in general. Principal character
goes on another date with Marisa, then returns
to the store to get the same advice: déjà
vu all over again.
Some of the conversation
that would make anyone of a certain age think
that this movie was made in the repressed 1950's
includes the counsel of Marisa's older neighbor
who tells the 33-year-old that the way to a woman's
heart is through her stomach. "Papa"
(Richard Libertini), comes out with the opinion
that you've got to make a woman feel special.
Would you believe that two of the other salt-of-the-earth
clerks in the fish store are going to night school—one
studying psychology, which allows him to tell
Jake what Freud would say in each situation, while
the other is taking up English literature which
he proves by using words like "metaphor"
and "simile?" Or that Jake would tell
his prospective girlfriend that she is not a doctor,
but rather a veterinarian, and not allow her to
order in a restaurant, instead giving the waiter
the choices for both of them?
As the story runs
in circles—dates followed by counseling
sessions in the fish store—you couldn't
be blamed for thinking that this looks like a
TV serial, something like Frazier or
Cheers, but at the same time a far cry
from the quality of those shows.
Rated R. 105 minutes.
© 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics
Online
Irena Salina's
Flow
Opens September 12, 2008
Written
by Irena Salina
Starring: Peter Gleick; Maude Barlow; Ashok Gadgil;
Erik D. Olson; William E. Marks; Wenonah Hauter;
Shri Rajendra Singh; Jim Schultz; and others.
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Reviewed for New York Cool by Harvey Karten
Grade: B
If you're in the
mood for a fight, go right up to a resident of
New Orleans and tell him, "What the world
needs now is lots of water."
Strange thing about
H20. Seventy percent of the world is water, and
there are shortages of clean aqua and one billion
of our neighbors in poor countries do not have
access. The reason is in part that only one half
of one percent of the world's blue gold is drinkable.
So when you look at the Atlantic, the Pacific
and the Indian oceans, just remember Samuel Taylor
Coleridge's quote through the mouth of the ancient
mariner, "Water, water, everywhere, nor any
drop to drink." We all know about the oil
crisis: the premium prices we pay here in the
U.S. and the exorbitant fees that the Europeans
have to shell out at the pump. But according to
Irena Salina, who directs the documentary Flow,
the increasing power that multinational corporations
have has resulted in a diminishing supply of clean
water mostly in poverty-stricken areas in countries
like Lesotho, Bolivia, South Africa and India—which
countries are featured for a large proportion
of the doc—and that ultimately not only
will we in the wealthy U.S. face a shortage, but
some of us right now are taking showers that allow
all sorts of gunk to slither through our pores.
Forget about Freddy Krueger: this picture is scarier.
Here's yet another film on the political left,
one that blames, oh, not the United States as
such, but multinational corporations like Coca-Cola—which
is draining water from South America for processing
the black sludge.
Flow opens
with a quote from WH Auden, who said, "All
that we are not stares back at what we are."
Ooops, wrong quote. Auden said, "Thousands
have lived without love; none without water."
True enough, though the film does not state that
we human beings can live for perhaps two months
without love, but for maybe four days without
food or water. When you're practically dying of
thirst, you're going to pay more for a liter of
water than for a carful of oil.
But I digress.
The talking heads in Flow are easy to
take because director Salina does not have them
sitting in a chair talking to some faceless interviewer—though
let's not sell interrogators short: they can always
ask interesting questions like, "Sarah Palin,
can you tell us why you do not own a passport?"
Some of the shots
are visceral, most particularly one of some water
in a Bolivian stream that feeds into Lake Titicaca
(our favorite name back in Middle School), which
runs red, not blue or clear, thanks to the action
at the nearby slaughterhouse. One of the world's
most sacred spots catches the interest of photographer
Pablo de Selva, who shares lenses with the director:
that spot is the Ganges River, whose holy liquid
is dropped into the mouths of newborns and when
someone dies, their ashes are floated out in the
river to assure passage to a better life later
on.
Corporations wear
the black hats in Flow. Thanks to the
big multinationals, water—which we repeatedly
hear from the speakers should be the free property
of all--is gobbled out not only by Coke but by
manufacturers of bottled water, eighteen brands
of which are owned by Nestles. Interesting, isn't
it, that there is only one person in the United
States in charge of regulating the industry to
try to catch the one-third of bottled brands containing
arsenic, and maybe some old lace? Go to http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp
to find out what you didn't want to know about
the bottles you imbibe. (If arsenic does not get
you, you might get hit from some of the 116,000
human-made chemicals finding their way into the
public water systems which maybe thirty percent
of bottled water brands do not filter out.)
There's a shortage
of humor in the doc, which all the more punctuates
the relief of a quick Penn and Teller skit wherein
folks in a fancy restaurant pay seven bucks for
a bottle of tap water with a fancy French name
(that means "tap water") and who insist
that it tastes much better than the stuff they
wash their cars with.
Each of us owns
our own body, including the seventy percent that
is water. Unfortunately you won't find people
making $1 a day in India or Bolivia or South Africa
and scores of other countries who can afford to
pay three days' wages for a liter of Poland Spring.
Is everything hopeless? Maybe not. Socially conscious
people are waging war against the greedy, in one
case filing a suit to enjoin Coca Coca from draining
the water in Michigan. After the district judge
handed down an injunction, Coke appealed and won
the right to continue th
