Author: Jason Apuzzo

Jason Apuzzo is co-Editor of Libertas Film Magazine.

LFM Reviews Draft Day

By Joe Bendel. Nobody wants to draft the next Ryan Leaf or JaMarcus Russell, but they often look like sure things at the time. Of course, nobody ever understood the Knicks’ Frédéric Weis debacle, especially when Artest was still available. Granted, that is a basketball digression, from 1999, but the point is we still are not ready to forgive and forget. The stakes are consequently high for Cleveland’s GM when he makes a costly trade for the number one pick. He had better choose wisely, but the clock is ticking throughout Ivan Reitman’s Draft Day, which opens today pretty much everywhere.

Sonny Weaver basically has one season left to turn things around. He largely inherited the current team, but he did little to endear himself to fans when he fired their legendary head coach, who also happened to be his father, now deceased. With the owner pressuring him to make a big move, he reluctantly agrees to a deal, trading away their next three years of first round drafts for the upcoming number one pick. (Ironically, it is your 2014 Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks who have that coveted #1 spot.)

Weaver quickly develops buyer’s remorse, but the trade is done. Everyone assumes he will opt for the presumptive number pick, Bo Callahan, the Heisman winning quarterback from Wisconsin. His owner is delighted with the prospects of a marquee player like Callahan, but Weaver cannot shake the Leafy vibe he gets from him. Further complicating matters, Weaver’s front office colleague and not so secret lover has just informed him she is pregnant.

You really have to hand it to Kevin Costner. After some pretty lean years, he has clawed his way back to leading man status in major Hollywood releases. Going back to the sports well obviously makes sense in theory and it works ably enough again in practice. Since it is all about wheeling and dealing, Draft Day is bound to be compared to Moneyball and not unfairly so. The truth is there is something oddly cinematic about watching the respective GMs’ hard bargaining, firing off lines like: “that offer already expired, it’s a different world than it was thirty seconds ago.”

Frankly, the only sports action we see are the teams’ research tapes and there are no surprises there, because Weaver will explicitly tell them to show the footage of Callahan getting sacked. Still, there is something very sporting about Draft Day’s persistent faith in next season.

From "Draft Day."

Without question, Costner is the film’s lynchpin and he still has what it takes. He convincingly gives Weaver darker shades than his Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and Tin Cup characters, but he remains undeniably charismatic. While they do not burn down the joint with their passion, he and Jennifer Garner develop some relatively likable and believable romantic chemistry together. Denis Leary and Frank Langella both do their shtick as the Browns’ head coach and owner, respectively, but it is the latter veteran thesp who really gives the film some sly zip. Football fanatics will also dig the scores of real life NFL cameos, mostly notably including Jim Brown (as far as old school cineastes are concerned).

Reitman keeps it all moving along briskly, capitalizing on the draft’s constantly ticking clock. While it ends up somewhere not wholly unexpected, getting there is a surprisingly satisfying trip. A well conceived and nicely executed comeback star vehicle, Draft Day is easily recommended for fans of football or Costner rom-dramedies. It opens today (4/11) across the country, including the AMC Loews Lincoln Square in New York.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on April 11th, 2014 at 9:21pm.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post: The Ultimate Southern California Movie: Criterion Restores It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to Its Full Glory

[Editor’s note: the post below appeared yesterday at The Huffington Post.]

By Jason Apuzzo. Sunny southern California rarely gets its due at the movies. Ever since the 1940s, when film noir classics like Double Indemnity and The Big Sleep depicted Los Angeles as a dark urban labyrinth, you might get the feeling that southern California has remained in a permanent Blade Runner nightfall of neon signs, wet streets and detectives pulling fedoras down over their eyes. A world of call girls and corrupt police, of murder and car crashes; a bleak landscape of paparazzi and Black Dahlias, of washed-up actresses and sleazy district attorneys who wear too much aftershave.

It’s a shadowy, sexy and malevolent vision — except that it’s not really the day-to-day SoCal that longtime residents know and (mostly) love. Actually, the place is a lot brighter and more cheerful than that. And a lot goofier.

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From "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

For one thing, southern California is actually huge, wide-open and flat — with endless horizons, whether of the Palm Springs or Redondo Beach variety — instead of the cramped, angular spaces you typically find in crime thrillers. And it’s got color — lots of color, from the saturated blues of the ocean and sky, to the lurid red-and-gold Fatburger signs on Pacific Coast Highway. Whoever dreamt up southern California was clearly dreaming it in 65mm Ultra Panavision Technicolor.

And contrary to popular belief, most people in southern California don’t pack guns or talk like they just stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel, diverting as that would be. Most SoCal residents are sedate, middle-class people with just a hint of craziness to them — that quiet spark that drove them long ago to pack up and leave the East Coast/Midwest/Deep South to pursue their pot of gold right here in the Golden State.

And this brings us to It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The wonderful folks at Criterion, who are forever saving our cinematic heritage from the ravages of time and neglect, have recently outdone themselves in producing a five-disc set (two Blu-rays + three DVDs) of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, all built around a pristine 4K transfer of the film and a newly restored 197-minute ‘roadshow’ version of the movie not seen in 50 years. (See a video on the restoration at the bottom of this post.)

And this new, authoritative version of director Stanley Kramer’s beloved epic comedy makes one thing abundantly clear: that It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is the ultimate southern California movie.

For those unfamiliar with the film, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World depicts a pack of otherwise unremarkable southern Californians unleashed in a frenzy of greed when they learn that a stash of $350,000 in stolen money is waiting for them, ready to be dug-up in a park at Santa Rosita Beach (in real life, Portuguese Bend in Rancho Palos Verdes). Unable to come up with an equitable way of sharing the loot, the group breaks up into separate teams, frantically racing toward their hidden treasure by land and air — comedian Jonathan Winters even rides a girl’s bicycle for a while — all while the Santa Rosita Police, led by Spencer Tracy, tracks their progress.

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From "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

So it’s off to the races, as airplanes smash through billboards (and even a restaurant at one point), cars roar off cliffs and bridges, an entire gas station is demolished, cast members are flung through the air by an out-of-control fire ladder, and every major speed law in southern California is broken. And although the wild conclusion of the film — a Hitchcockian visual effects extravaganza filmed in downtown Long Beach — leaves none of the avaricious group satisfied with their financial arrangement, it does leave everyone with smiles on their faces. (You’ll have to see the movie to find out what that means.)

And that’s really it. The premise of Mad, Mad World — greed — couldn’t be simpler, but it’s enough to power a non-stop, three-plus-hour chase from Yucca Valley to Santa Clarita to Malibu, all filled with dangerous stunts and comic gags performed by the greatest comedians of their time: Milton Berle, the recently passed Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Ethel Merman, Peter Falk and Jim Backus, just to name a few. Mad, Mad World also features spot cameos from the likes of Jimmy Durante, Jack Benny, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, Carl Reiner, The Three Stooges and more comedy talent than you can shake a stick at. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post: The Ultimate Southern California Movie: Criterion Restores It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to Its Full Glory

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Young Man on the Run: Catching Up with Shia LaBeouf and Charlie Countryman

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today at The Huffington Post.]

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. Shia LaBeouf can’t keep still.

That’s what stands out when you meet the voluble 27 year-old star of the new indie thriller-romance Charlie Countryman, which opens in limited theatrical release and on VOD this Friday, November 15th. The hustling young man we’ve gotten to know in the Transformers and Indiana Jones movies – the fast-talking, nebbishy tough guy with a big heart, always improvising, always on the move – is very much the same guy in person.

Charlie Countryman premiered at Sundance earlier this year (back when it was called The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman), where we talked to LaBeouf, co-star Evan Rachel Wood, and director Fredrik Bond at the film’s press day.

Govindini Murty and Shia LaBoeuf at Sundance 2013.

Charlie Countryman takes LaBeouf in a direction familiar to anyone who remembers him playing impulsive teenager Sam Witwicky in 2007’s Transformers: that of a sentimental hot-head on a hopeless quest for a girl, comedically improvising his way into and out of one scrape after another.

“It’s not a humongous departure from my real life,” LaBeouf said at the press day. “This is a guy who thinks with his heart, rather than his mind … and who doesn’t show a lot of caution toward consequences, which isn’t far from who I am.”

Charlie Countryman follows LaBeouf on a wild, hallucinogenic vision-quest through post-communist Bucharest as he pursues a world-weary femme fatale cellist named Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood), while battling over her with a pair of unhinged Euro-mobsters (Mads Mikkelsen and Til Schweiger). Infused with heart-on-your-sleeve sentimentality by director Fredrik Bond, the film is both a coming-of-age story for Charlie and a picaresque, ‘everyman’-style thriller reminiscent of the novels of Eric Ambler (The Mask of Dimitrios, Journey into Fear).

Rounding out the film’s impressive cast are Rupert Grint as one of Charlie’s drug-crazed buddies, Vincent D’Onofrio as Charlie’s depressive brother, and Melissa Leo as Charlie’s hippyish mother – with LaBeouf’s Indiana Jones co-star John Hurt providing narration.

Charlie Countryman‘s biggest star, however, may be Bucharest itself – which the film presents as an exotic, old world blend of high culture and low-life gangsterism, still adjusting to the post-Cold War world. LaBeouf’s nocturnal adventures in Bucharest – a darkly glamorous city that somehow seems trapped in a 1990s time warp – often feel like an MTV version of Joseph Cotton’s nighttime journeys through crime-ridden, post-War Vienna in Carol Reed’s The Third Man.

Shia LaBeouf and Jason Apuzzo at Sundance 2013.

LaBeouf lights up on the subject of Bucharest, gesticulating and going into one of his typical, animated riffs. “I arrived quite ignorant, you know – I’m an ignorant American,” he quips. “I haven’t really done much traveling beyond my work life. I never really picked up a Romanian book, or decided to study Romanian.

“But you get there, and you hear about [former Romanian communist leader Nicolae] Ceaușescu, you get to the [Revolution] Square, you see where the blood fell, talk to these people – you know, some people who still want communism, who are upset that it’s gone – and you don’t quite understand what that‘s about …

“I’ve heard people say that we have dated villains [in Charlie Countryman] – that’s because … Romania is dated – it’s 10 years behind. They’re still playing the ‘Thong Song’ in clubs,” he cracks. “It’s no joke, so this is part of the world of these dudes [the film’s gangster villains]. It’s not artificial – this is what we ran into.

“And it’s very sexy,” he smiles. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Young Man on the Run: Catching Up with Shia LaBeouf and Charlie Countryman

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post: Putting Computers in Their Place: Computer Chess & The Nerd Origins of Today’s Technopoly


[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today at The Huffington Post.]

By Jason Apuzzo. Computers need to be put in their place. They really do.

That’s why I’ve been looking forward to the DVD release this week of Andrew Bujalski’s cult Sundance hit Computer Chess. Computer Chess finally spills the beans about where these little monsters came from in the first place.

Every time I pick up a newspaper these days – I’m one of the twelve people left who still read physical newspapers – I read about how computers are spying on us, destroying jobs, or infuriating health insurance customers. Like a hungry Rottweiler off its leash, computers are getting out of control and tearing up the neighborhood.

If you believe what you read, computers are also in the process of wrecking the book publishing and music industries, eliminating celluloid photography – and just this week computers claimed their latest victim, one near and dear to my heart: the local video store, as Blockbuster finally succumbed to laptops, smartphones and tablets as the preferred ways of renting all those movies you couldn’t afford to see (or were too embarrassed to see) when they were in theaters.

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The demise of the American video store.

No more video stores – who would’ve believed it, even just ten years ago? That means no more pimply teenagers to recommend midnight horror movies to me (“Sir, I definitely recommend C.H.U.D. over TerrorVision“), no more aimless browsing or listening to neighbors argue over which Steven Seagal movie to rent, no more cheap licorice sticks at the checkout counter.

I never thought I’d miss those things so much – but suddenly I do. And it’s all because of our ‘friend’ the computer. Computers are becoming like the Yankees during the ’90s: gobbling up everybody else’s talent, then telling us how good it is for baseball.

The propaganda over the wonders that computers supposedly bring to our lives is getting out of hand. In the very least, it’s out of proportion to the destruction computers are simultaneously causing – that ‘disruptive’ effect Silicon Valley gurus salivate over, like vampires at a blood drive.

So as Twitter – the company currently reducing our public discourse to snarky, 140-character outbursts – celebrates its gaudy IPO right now, I’d like to recommend a new movie out on DVD this week that casts digital technology in a very different light: Computer Chess. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo at The Huffington Post: Putting Computers in Their Place: Computer Chess & The Nerd Origins of Today’s Technopoly

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: A Look Behind Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies, One of The Best Sci-Fi Shows in Years

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies has unexpectedly become one of the best sci-fi TV shows in years – a dark, gritty and emotional look at an American society struggling to survive after an apocalyptic alien invasion.

The show’s third season debuts on TNT this Sunday, June 9th on Father’s Day, which is appropriate, given the show’s focus on fathers and their responsibility toward their children. The series has already been a ratings bonanza for TNT – Falling Skies was last summer’s top-rated drama on basic cable – and having seen the first five episodes of the upcoming season, we can tell you that Season 3 looks to be an even bigger hit.

So why would the success of Falling Skies be unexpected, especially given the involvement of executive producer Steven Spielberg and series creator Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan)? Possibly because when the show first debuted in the summer of 2011 – the long, hot sci-fi summer that gave us Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens – the idea of another movie or TV show about alien invasion seemed redundant.

And after getting their tails (or robot parts) kicked on-screen in recent years by Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise and the U.S. military, you’d think aliens would know better than to invade by now, anyway.

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A story of a father and his sons.

Starring Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood, Falling Skies (Season 2 of which arrived this week on Blu-ray) has carved out its own niche, however, largely by doing basic things well – telling a classic American story of the fight for freedom, and of families struggling to stay together in wartime. And with its populist vibe and focus on civic duty, Falling Skies is also the sci-fi show for audiences who don’t usually watch sci-fi. Indeed, the series often feels inspired as much by American Westerns as by science fiction.

And, of course, there’s always the magic touch of Steven Spielberg.

“Steven Spielberg is the master of science fiction, and of drama,” Noah Wyle told us recently at Zoic Studios in Culver City, where Falling Skies‘ visual effects were being completed. Series showrunner and writer Remi Aubuchon agreed: “Steven actually is very involved in our show … he certainly reads all the scripts and watches all the dailies, and he’s intricately involved in the design of the creatures and the cool things.”

Season 3 of Falling Skies picks up where the previous two seasons left off, with former history professor Tom Mason (Wyle) and his extended family trying to pick up the pieces of civil society in the wake of a devastating alien attack. Like some grizzled, bearded patriarch out of the old West – and now serving as the acting President of the United States – Mason tries to hold it all together, as his provisional government in South Carolina forges a dubious alliance with a new alien species encountered at the end of last season.

On the home front, Mason also welcomes an unusual new daughter into the world, born to Dr. Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood), his longtime lover and the show’s emotional center. Meanwhile, Mason’s son Hal (Drew Roy) struggles to keep himself from being used by enemy aliens as a spy, all while juggling the two edgy blondes in his life (Sarah Sanguin Carter and Jessy Schram) – one of whom just happens to be the enemy aliens’ new commander.

Such is family life in Falling Skies. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: A Look Behind Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies, One of The Best Sci-Fi Shows in Years

The Other China: LFM Reviews Three Sisters

By Joe Bendel. It looks like shepherding and dung collecting are the only forms of work available in tiny Xi Yang Tang village. Yet, somehow ten year old Yingying seems to do more than her fair share. The eldest of three sisters, she very definitely lives in the Other China, far removed from go-go Shanghai and the meddling Communist Party policy makers. Wang Bing documents six months of their hardscrabble existence in the simply titled Three Sisters, which opens this Friday at the Anthology Film Archives.

As the eldest, Yingying naturally assumes responsibility for her younger siblings: six year old Zhenzhen and four year old Fenfen. Their mother deserted long ago and their father is often absent, fruitlessly looking for work in the nearest urban center. Aside from meals served by a resentful aunt, they practically live like Dickensian street urchins.

Eventually, Yingying’s grandfather asserts his patriarchal authority. Believing he has arranged work for his recently returned son, he decides the two youngest will leave with their father in the city and Yingying will live with him in the village. She will go to school and he will pay her pocket money for her work in the fields. Initially, this looks like a good opportunity for her, both in terms of socialization and future opportunities. However, it soon becomes clear that tending the flock takes precedence over her studies. The results are heartbreaking.

Frankly, she ought to be subject to child labor laws, but she lives in rural China. For obvious reasons, Wang never places political considerations front and center. Yet, the implications are conspicuously obvious and explicitly stated at the annual feast Yingying attends with her grandfather. It is there that the village headman explains that the national government is intent on collecting the health insurance premiums they cannot afford. They are also determined to continue with euphemistically titled “rural development” programs to replace the villagers’ current mud-floored homes with prohibitively expensive new units. They’re from the party—they’re here to help.

From "Three Sisters."

Audiences of Three Sisters are guaranteed to feel maddeningly helpless. Yingying is a good kid who deserves better than her lot in life, but what can viewers do? This is China, the new global superpower, to whom our elected leaders have largely mortgaged our own futures. Nonetheless, Wang’s expose of shocking rural inequality is thorough and compelling.

Three Sisters unquestionable serves as an indictment of the government’s unfilled promises, but as a work of cinema it is profoundly intimate. Granted, patrons accustomed to multiplex fare will find the quiet pace and two and a half hour running time challenging. Yet, the simple power of Yingying’s story ought to hit anyone of good conscience on a deeply human level. Recommended for China watchers looking for a stiff shot of reality, Three Sisters opens this Friday (5/10) in New York at the Anthology Film Archives.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on May 6th, 2013 at 8:58pm.