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OPEN THE
TO THE MOST SENSUAL ,
ORIGINAL MOVIE OF THE SUMMER!
Peter Travers
EXTRAORDINARY IN EVERY WAY!
“
Tiny men brave big water in Riding Giants
This is Kim Basinger’s finest work. Jeff Bridges, one
of the best actors on the planet, gives an indelible
portrait. One for the don’t miss list!”
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© 2004 FOCUS FEATURES, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Singular surf pioneer
Jeff Clark rides a big
wave at Maverick’s,
a reef break south of
San Francisco.
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COLLATERAL (R)
11:10 AM
7:10
1:00
8:10
2:10
10:00
4:00
11:00
LITTLE BLACK BOOK (PG-13)
1:30
4:40
7:20
10:10
I, ROBOT (PG-13)
12:00
2:40
5:20
8:00
10:40
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY (PG-13)
11:40 AM
2:20
5:00
7:50
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (R)
1:20
4:30
7:30
11:20
PRINCESS DIARIES 2 (G)
11:00 AM
1:40
4:20
7:00
9:50
SPIDERMAN 2 (PG-13)
12:50
3:50
6:50
9:40
YU-GI-OH! (PG)
11:30 AM
1:50
4:10
6:40
THE VILLAGE (PG-13)
11:20 AM
2:00
4:50
7:40
10:30
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9:30
ALIENS VS PREDATOR (PG-13)
4 SWEET WEEKS
AND RUNNING
NAPOLEON STILL RULES!
, Sean Smith and Devin Gordon
“...OUR PICK TO BE
THE SEASON’S SLEEPER.”
“YOU’LL LAUGH TILL IT HURTS.”
Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
“This is the funniest movie of the year.”
Kurt Loder, MTV.com
“WONDERFULLY
ORIGINAL.”
Leah Rozen, PEOPLE
“ An EPIC...”
Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE
”
APeterMASTERPIECE.
Keough, THE BOSTON PHOENIX
“
“Magnificent. Napoleon Dynamite
is one of the most winning movie
creations in years.”
Stephen Hunter, THE WASHINGTON POST
www.foxsearchlight.com
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BROOK HIGHLAND 10 PATTON CREEK 15
30 birmingham weekly august 12 - august 19, 2004
by Scot Lockman
There’s an abundance of large
water on display in Riding Giants,
the new surfing documentary from
director Stacy Peralta. Waves three
stories tall crash down on a rocky,
remote piece of California shore 25
miles south of San Francisco; oncea-century swells assault Makaha,
Hawaii, the birthplace of big-wave
surfing, in 1969; explosions of
water reach 60 feet into the sky off
Hawaii’s North Shore before coming
to troubled rest on rough lava cliffs.
About the only figures that loom
larger than these tidal products
are the men who, beginning in the
1950s, began throwing themselves
in the way of big waves, their lives
balanced on 11-foot-long surfboards
specially designed to latch onto
those walls of outsized H2O.
Peralta, a former skateboarder
who directed (and featured
prominently in) 2001’s Dogtown and
Z-Boys, a documentary exploring
the birth of modern skateboarding
in the late 1970s, paints the history
of big wave surfing in solid, broad,
uncomplicated strokes. In a little
under two minutes, he traces the
birth of stand-up surfing in Hawaii,
circa the fourth century A.D.,
through the sport’s brief suppression by Calvinist missionaries in
the 1820s, into its 20th century
repopularization by world swimming champion and Hawaii native
Duke Kahanamoku, and from there
to its adoption by California’s
beach-dwellers in the 1920s.
Big wave surfing, though, came
into its own in the late 1950s, when
an Associated Press photograph of
three surfers riding an enormous
wave off Makaha — the likes of
which no American surfer had
ever encounter on the right or left
coast — served as a magnet for a
small group of thrill-seekers who
proceeded to ditch the continental
United States in favor of the brave
new world of Hawaiian big surf.
Pennyless, forced to dive (for fish,
crabs, turtles) or steal for food, they
spent whole days, day after day, in
the water, happily divorced from the
standards and expectations of 1950s
workaday American life.
Peralta has the good sense to sit
back and let his access to prime
footage of immense waves and
talkative surfing greats do his talking for him. Gradually, three distinct
personalities emerge: Greg “The
Bull” Noll, the first superstar surfer
and one of the pioneers responsible
for opening up Hawaii’s much-feared
Waimea Bay, who, for 20 years after
dropping into a storm-fed 30-footer
off Makaha in 1969, was responsible
for the largest wave ever ridden;
Jeff Clark, who surfed Maverick’s,
the violent (and until early 1992,
unknown) reef break south of San
Francisco, solo for 15 years, his
accomplishments unnoted by the
surfing world; and Laird Hamilton,
stepson of surfing legend Billy
Hamilton, stunt double for a surfing
James Bond in Die Another Day, the
innovator of tow-in surfing and the
man widely acknowledged as the
best big wave surfer in the world.
Of the three, Noll — who, shortly
after his record-setting ride in 1969,
retired from big wave riding, closed
his 20,000-square-foot surfboard factory and moved to a mobile home
in Alaska — is the most imminently
quotable, his words as distinctive as
his surfing style and the black-andwhite, jailhouse-striped swim trunks
that distinguished him from the
increasing number of big wave seekers who began flocking to Hawaii
in the wake of Gidget. Equally blunt
and romantic, Noll sums up the big
wave surfer’s relationship with the
water: “Waimea was my gal. I mean,
I surfed with this beautiful woman
who allowed me to get away with
shit as long as I didn’t act too outrageously towards her.”
Jeff Clark doesn’t possess the
same gruff flamboyance as Noll,
but his singleminded assault on
Maverick’s is perhaps even more
indicative of what drives the big
wave surfer, or what motivates
any obsessive, really. The lone
surfer at Maverick’s for 15 years,
Clark’s exploits were unchronicled,
unnoticed, unobserved by his peers,
yet he kept returning, risking life
and limb for no purpose other than
the thrill and focus provided by
riding seemingly unrideable waves.
The same goes for Laird Hamilton,
whose pursuit of enormous, 60-foottall waves off the coast of Hawaii
— a pursuit which eventually led
to a revolution within the sport
— extend beyond the merely adventuresome and provide, he says, an
ultimate reason for his existence.
I don’t disbelieve him. The definition between man and wave, the
connection that ties them together,
the board as unifier – you can throw
all the symbols and existential metaphors you want to at surfing, at the
wave, at the man riding the wave,
and the simplicity of the sport will
trump them all. The wet persists.
screening room
Riding Giants
★★★★ out of 4
Directed Stacy Perlata.
Starring Greg Noll, Jeff Clark & Laird Hamilton.
Jesus Christ, super-scarred
Mel Gibson’s bloody, violent The Passion of the Christ
screeningroom
you need and more power to you,
no lie.
So, The Passion of the Christ:
Let’s for a minute just forget
I’m speaking of the movie, not the
about all the front-page newspaper
faith, though for what I imagine
stories and the endless pre-release
are a good number of people the
stories on national and local news
two are inextricably intertwined,
programs and Billy Graham’s tears
inseparable, and to critique one is
and Pope John Paul II’s encomiums
to critique the other. I’m not. The
and Jim Caviezel getting struck
movie is just as nasty and violent
by lightning and the charges
as you’ve heard, maybe even more
(founded? unfounded?) of antiso, and Mel Gibson’s desire to
Semitism and all those questions
present an unfettered accounting of
of historical accuracy and all the
the brutalities visited upon Jesus of
foofarrah about the Holy Spirit
Nazareth in the final 12 hours of his
working through Mel Gibson and
life is successful in ways that tranjust, you know, settle down for a
scend the subject matter. Never
moment and not get worked up
mind the repeated beatings; the
(and you, yeah, you: hold off for a
floggings; the crucifixion, the stagsecond or three before you dash
gering, drawn-out, torturous march
off an impassioned defense of a
through Jerusalem to
Calvary; the brutality
Almost unbearably
extends beyond the
story and you suffer
literal and violent, the
along with Jesus,
movie removes the coats senses battered by
James Debney’s clatof gloss the centuries
tering, clanging score,
have attached to the
by the crude, bludstory of Jesus
geoning arrangement
and development of
scenes. Oppression is
movie you haven’t seen yet) and
everywhere, and Gibson — whose
talk about The Passion of the Christ
previous directorial work in The
— you know, that movie, the one
Man Without a Face and Braveheart
everyone’s been talking about now
suggests that he has quite a thing
for what seems like years, the one
for misunderstood heroes and
you maybe purchased advance
undeserved torture — isn’t afraid
tickets for a couple weeks back
to wallow in it.
because of some or all of those
Gibson (and co-screenwriter
aforementioned unspeakable reaBenedict Fitzgerald) built his
sons or maybe just because you’re
story from the gospels of Mata believer and that’s all the reason
thew, Mark, Luke and John, and
by Scot Lockman
one of his stated
intentions was to
present a literal
translation of the
events contained
therein. Working
with the great
cinematographer
Caleb Deschanel,
Gibson’s visual
sense is literal, too
— a rough-hewn,
lumbering thing
that insists on the
reality of the situation. (Anything
else would just
get in the way of
the story, maybe
soften its impact.)
Yet how does one
account for the
sudden appearance of fantastical
elements within
the movie — for
the children with
the faces of beasts
who hound Judas
through the streets
of Jerusalem, or
the hooded albino
Satan (Rosalinda
Celentano) who
haunts the path
of Jesus (Jim
Caviezel) from the
Garden of Gethsemane, where he is
betrayed by Judas
and arrested, to
Calvary, where
he is crucified? These two worlds
don’t mesh within the movie, and
the reality Gibson has been so careful to build suffers for the introduction of his otherworldly symbols.
Is there room to act in a movie
like this? The innumerable lacerations that cover the body of Jesus
overwhelm anything Caviezel might
have to give. The high priests
who urge Jesus on to death are
stretched thin, utterly divorced
from any context that explains their
motivations, made into cartoon
Jim Caviezel as the passionate Jesus Christ
Jews. The only performance of
any depth goes, apparently, in the
face of historical record; Pontius
Pilate (Hristo Shopov), the Roman
governor of Judea, is presented as
infinitely soul-searching, a tortured,
somewhat ineffective, benevolently
distanced ruler torn between
the demands of the high priests
and the threat of an uprising led
by Jesus’ followers. (Question: If
they’re so dangerous and so many,
where are they? Very few people
in Jerusalem seem to be for Jesus,
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FOR RATING REASONS, GO TO:
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ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE
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STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27!
26 birmingham weekly february 26 - march 4, 2004
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so where is the danger he posed to
the status quo?)
Yet, the question in the end is,
does the movie achieve what it set
out to do? I’d say yes, but whether
or not that success is something
to enjoy or simply endure depends
entirely on one’s belief systems.
Almost unbearably literal and
violent, the movie removes the
coats of gloss the centuries have
attached to the story of Jesus. And,
whether or not you believe, the
movie’s message — underlined, in
bold letters, thrown down with a
mixture of defiance and submission
to the marketplace — is that faith
is difficult and that sacrifice isn’t
pretty. Make of that what you will;
Mel Gibson certainly did.
E-mail: [email protected]
movie review
The Passion of
the Christ
★★ 1/2 out of 4
Directed by Mel Gibson
Starring Jim Caviezel, Monica Belluci, Maia Morgenstern, Hristo Shopov
MMDs
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Puppets attack in Team America: World Police
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by Scot Lockman
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34 birmingham weekly october 14 - october 21, 2004
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s filthy,
funny Team America: World Police is a
walking, talking cliché, and it’s all the
better for it. A send-up of the modern
action movie, a dumbheaded assault
on bigmouthed Hollywood liberals
who pretend to know stuff about
things, a paean to American military
might and a critique of the suits
currently exercising it, the movie’s
more than equipped to offend plenty
of people who most definitely need
offending, right and left wingers alike.
That these proceedings — which
follow a superhero group known as
Team America in their battle against
global terrorism and a very Cartman-like Kim Jung Il — are enacted
by marionettes is a bonus; that these
marionettes curse, fight and make
hot, multi-positional monkeylove is
lagniappe. Forthwith, then, are six
reasons why Team America is better
than spending the evening picking lint
out of your lover’s bellybutton.
It’s funny! I mean, sure, there’s
some clinkers in there, but what
comedy doesn’t have them? Better
to concentrate on the jokes that do
go over, and there are plenty of them
here. Most are built on the clichés of
modern action movies: the squawling
Muslim-in-anguish soundtracks, the
mass-produced character motivations,
the thudding inspirational speeches,
the barely repressed homoerotic
boy’s-club atmospherics, and so on.
The rest rely on a studied use of the
f-word and references to secretive,
moderately expensive sexual practices
sandwiched between the words
“Jesus” and “Christ.”
It’s musical! If you’re a sucker for
musicals — and I’m not talking about
the reprehensible Chicago — then the
imminently downloadable soundtrack
is to die for. The secret is this: Though
the lyrics of the songs are written
as comedy, they are delivered in as
straight a manner as possible, making
them EVEN FUNNIER. From the Toby
Keithian agit-country of “Freedom Isn’t
Free” (it costs $1.05, understand?) to
the Loggins-swipe of “America, Fuck
Yeah!” to Kim Jung Il’s oddly touching
“I’m Ronery,” Team America: World
Police has at least one number that
could, quite possibly, appeal to some
sort of human being somewhere.
Maybe. Guaranteed!
It’s action-packed! If, like me,
you’ve grown inured to what passes
for action sequences in the films of
Michael Bay, Simon West, et. al., then
watching those same sequences as
performed by marionettes will make
what’s old seem new again. Should
director Trey Parker ever find himself
cut off from the South Park cash cow,
The many marionettes that comprise the titular Team America curse,
fight and make multi-positional monkeylove when they’re not
combating terrorism.
he could easily find work at the helm
of the average action movie; the actors
who populate such movies are at least
twice as wooden as the expressive
protagonists of Team America, and
as a writer (with Matt Stone and Pam
Brady) he has an uncanny feel for the
upbeat fascism that fuels such films.
It’s righteously juvenile and offensive! Team America may be the most
cheerfully scatological moving picture
I’ve seen since the South Park episode
in which one Eric Cartman gives Ben
Affleck a handjob in the front seat of a
car. Should you be so prudish as to not
find animated instances of pedophilia
amusing, the movie’s many offenses
are at least confined to the adult world:
I noted one act of sodomy; several
attempts by one puppet to inveigle
another into performing an act of
sodomy; a severe dedication to harsh,
inflammatory language; a gross insensitivity to any celebrity not named Trey
Parker or Matt Stone; a number of
casual and ironic instances of racism
and a one-night stand between two
puppets that is reckless in its depiction of the sexual act. You should, of
course, bring your youngest children
so they can explain why you’re not
laughing; if you do not own children
of your own, you should borrow or
kidnap some for the duration of your
evening at the movies.
It’s prettier than one of them pictures what you might find mounted on
the wall in some fancy-type museum!
But seriously. Team America is that
vaunted breath of fresh air in the stale
— yet visually rich — atmosphere that
has come to characterize the world
of animated film. It looks like nothing
I’ve ever seen before, and how often
can you (and by you, I mean I) say
that? The vibrantly colored, intricately
detailed sets toe the line between real-
ity and exaggeration to great effect;
if puppets were possessed of life and
civilization, then I know that this is
what their puppet-world would look
like and I sort of wish I lived there.
It’s totally political, (wo)man! If you
watch Team America, know someone
else who has done the same, are
predisposed to discuss the political
content of movies, and find yourself
in the vicinity of a water cooler, then
you are virtually assured of at least
one water cooler-based argument or
conversation about the movie’s politics! Though these views are explicitly
stated in the movie using a unique
metaphor involving the tallywhacker,
the hoo-ha and the unblinking brown
eye, I have no recourse but to speak
in plainer language. Put succinctly, the
political philosophy of Team America
translates thusly: The belligerent,
stereotypically masculine tendencies
of America, while at times regrettably
unable to acknowledge mistakes,
remains a potent force for good in
a world that has proved, again and
again, all too willing to turn a blind eye
to unimaginable crimes. All too sadly,
this line of thought makes as much, if
not more, sense than anything either
presidential candidate has said at any
point in the last three months.
The choice, then, is yours: Lint or
laughter. This movie or one absolutely
unlike it. Choose well; the fate of puppets everywhere may depend on it.
Write to [email protected].
screening room
Team America:
World Police (R)
★★★★ out of 4 stars
Directed by Trey Parker.