Shadows and Dust: Robin Hood

In the foreground, French soldiers unload from boats onto the white sand beaches of England. In the distance, beyond the sheer cliff faces, at least a hundred Saxons ride hard to meet them, a torrent of thundering hooves pouring over the lush green grass. Ridley Scott captures all of this in a single majestic shot that is at least the most breathtaking image in Robin Hood and that might also be one of the most fantastic wide shots in the director’s entire career. It’s the kind of shot David Lean would have envied, the kind of shot that a back-in-the-day Werner Herzog would have harassed hundreds of extras in order to capture, the kind of shot that would be iconic if only the film were worthy of being iconized. Alas, it lasts all of three seconds. Blink and you might miss it. Scott’s Robin Hood is a film that’s overlong and underwhelming, that has romance but lacks heart and that exhaustively details the origins of its titular hero without ever giving him, you know, character. Yet the film’s biggest blunder might be that all-too-brief panorama, because without it we could have pretended that mediocrity was the movie’s only option.

Instead, mediocrity is what Robin Hood settles for. The film is too darn competent to be considered awful. There are scattered moments of catastrophe offset by moments worth cherishing, like that coastline shot described above, or the almost equally striking shot of King Richard the Lionheart’s boat heading up the Thames with a supportive flotilla of smaller boats scattered around it and a magnificent castle looming ahead (achieved with CGI, of course). Robin Hood is one of those movies that fills you with the sense that something truly worthwhile might be waiting right around the corner, and yet it’s uninspiring enough to keep you from being too disappointed when that tantalizing promise never arrives. A decade after Gladiator and five years removed from Kingdom of Heaven, this is Scott’s third sword-and-shield historical epic of his last nine feature films (and I use “epic” as loosely as I use “historical” in that description), and if he isn’t tired of this genre he at least seems uninspired by it. Robin Hood suggests a director who feels boxed in, perhaps by Gladiator’s critical acclaim and box office success, or maybe just by a limited imagination.

Excitingly Unoriginal: The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Though its MacGuffin-esque treasure quest creates mystery as to where Kim Ji-woon’s film is heading, there’s never any doubt about where this madcap western comes from. The influence of Sergio Leone is everywhere in The Good, The Bad, The Weird. From the film’s title, to its outlaw characters, to its inevitable eye-squinting three-man shootout, Kim announces his reverence for Leone’s spaghetti westerns with all the subtlety of an extreme close-up – which, of course, would be another Leone trademark. And yet while structurally Kim follows the Leone blueprint, spiritually he seems inspired by another filmmaker with a fondness for Leone: Quentin Tarantino. Until now, we’ve thought of Tarantino emulators as screenwriters or directors who try to mimic the writer/director’s much celebrated brand of pop-culture-obsessed dialogue. The Good, The Bad, The Weird reminds us that what really defines a Tarantino picture is its zestful affection for cinema itself.

Kim's film, like so much of Tarantino’s oeuvre, is an uninhibited celebration of the awesomeness of movies. It has spectacular shootouts, high-speed chases, thunderous explosions, galloping horses, a rumbling train, thrilling stunts, an energetic soundtrack, a ruthless baddy, a noble goody and a charismatic blundering goofball. All of that and more. But unlike so many modern American blockbusters, which are lazily assembled according to formula and yet have the balls to pretend they’re somehow original, Kim’s film unashamedly embraces all the ways it is a retread. If Iron Man 2 is akin to an American Idol contestant trying to create a “new” cool identity out of recycled music and lyrics, The Good, The Bad, The Weird is like a KISS tribute band, inviting the audience to rock in the here-and-now while simultaneously triggering memories of what it was like to experience this stuff for the first time. The key difference between a tired American blockbuster and this imitative Korean film isn’t a matter of authenticity or even self-awareness, it’s that Kim actually wants his film to serve as a conduit for our nostalgic flashback. To call The Good, The Bad, The Weird an imposter is to pay it a compliment.

The Conversations: "Minor" Hitchcock

Just in time for some weekend reading, the latest edition of The Conversations is live at The House Next Door. The title of this installment is “Minor Hitchcock,” and with Alfred Hitchcock “minor” is a very relative term. Though Ed Howard and I could have explored some of Hitchcock’s least-known works, instead we chose to focus on To Catch a Thief and Rope, two films that include enough of Hitchcock’s signature flourishes and themes to seem part of his celebrated oeuvre, yet two films that rarely get mentioned when folks provide a short list of Hitchcock’s classics. With good reason? You’ll have to read to find out, and then jump into the comments section to keep the discussion going. Our previous Easter edition of The Conversations received a tremendous response of thoughtful dialogue, and I’m hopeful we might see more of the same here, even if the topic might not be so controversial. So when you have time, please head on over to The House Next Door and join the conversation!

Raiders and Rap: Straight Outta L.A.

Twenty-two years ago, a fledgling hip-hop group from a Los Angeles suburb synonymous with gang violence preceded the title track of its second album with a declaration: “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” These words – part promise, part threat – defined not only “Straight Outta Compton,” and the album of same name, but the entire angle of approach for N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitudes), the self-described lyric-spitting “gang” whose insuppressible hits, also including “Fuck the Police” and “Gangsta Gangsta,” helped shape the genre we now call “gangsta rap.” Lyrically, Straight Outta Compton was defined by its glorification of gun-toting violence and its eye-for-an-eye rallying cry against police brutality. Visually, though, the album was branded by the rap group’s signature style: black men clad in nearly all-black attire that was nondescript save for headwear that often bore the emblem of the hometown NFL franchise with a conveniently complementary color scheme. So it was that the Los Angeles Raiders became married to a music revolution, until their logo came to stand for a cultural identity as much as an athletic team.

Straight Outta L.A. is a documentary that looks back on the ways the Raiders both shaped and were shaped by the gangsta rap movement. The film is directed by Ice Cube, who as a founding member of N.W.A. and a long-time Raiders fan is something of an authority on both subjects. In this, the 14th release of ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series, sports and culture get equal time. Ice Cube’s contribution to the series is a personal film, part The Band That Wouldn’t Die, in which Barry Levinson explores the relationship between an NFL team and its fanbase, and part The U, in which Billy Corben details how the University of Miami and rap group 2 Live Crew symbiotically developed their hard-core reputations. It’s always a bit surprising to encounter 52 minutes of ESPN programming with scant athletic highlights – Rod Martin’s fourth-down tackle of John Riggins and Marcus Allen’s subsequent 74-yard touchdown run in Super Bowl XVIII are the only times the documentary pauses long enough to enjoy football as football – but that’s what makes the “30 for 30” series so frequently compelling. Ice Cube takes the Raiders’ come-and-go relationship with Los Angeles, a series of events now remembered almost exclusively as an example of team owner Al Davis’ curious handling of the franchise, and he flips it over, revealing a much more compelling story underneath.

Seeing is Believing: The 16th Man

Toward the goal posts the oblong ball flies, turning end over end. Hanging in the balance of the drop kick is a rugby match, a World Cup title and maybe, just maybe, the ability for whites and blacks to coexist peacefully in South Africa. The year is 1995. The location is Johannesburg. The venue is Ellis Park. In attendance is Nelson Mandela, who in his second year as South Africa’s first black president seeks to unite his divided country through sport. Does the ball go through the goal posts? Almost 15 years later, Desmond Tutu closes his eyes, imagines the ball in flight and exclaims “Yeah!” As he does so, an expression of profound satisfaction washes over his face. Is Tutu, the 1984 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, rejoicing over the massive social and political impact of that game-winning kick? Or is he simply celebrating the goal itself, as great moment in sport? There’s no way of knowing. That’s what makes Tutu’s reaction, captured in the documentary The 16th Man, so poignant.

The 16th Man is the latest release in ESPN Films’ “30 for 30” series, and it has the blessing and the curse of chronicling the same story of nation-healing through rugby that was recently dramatized in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus. On the positive side, our familiarity with Mandela’s politically risky endorsement of the Springboks rugby team, and their subsequent World Cup title run, allows us to have an immediate emotional bond with the documentary’s principal players, enabling the film to affect more deeply than it might have otherwise. On the negative side, however, the still fresh memory of Morgan Freeman’s Oscar nominated performance as Nelson Mandela casts a shadow over The 16th Man that it never escapes. Director Clifford Bestall utilizes archival footage of Mandela wherever possible, but there’s not enough of it to erase the nagging feeling that the documentary is sorely lacking the personality of the one person most central to its story. Whereas Invictus thrives by making Mandela accessible through Freeman’s performance, The 16th Man winds up treating Mandela like a distant, mostly inaccessible historical figure. It’s not an improvement.