This month, New-Line Cinema organized early screenings of their Academy Awards hopeful 13 Days. 'Q-Brick' had the wonderful pleasure of attending one of these screenings and give us his opinion on the Cuban Missile Crisis drama. We also have a review of Boesman and Lena, an indie film playing in certain US Cities now. Expect reviews of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in Monday's issue of this column.
13 Days Review
"I'm old enough to remember the final weeks of October in 1962 as dramatically retold in the new film 13 Days. It became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis... ensnaring the Kennedy White House and pushing the world to brink of nuclear war. At the time, we were living next door to a large Naval Base on the Gulf Coast of Texas. I have vivid memories of watching the evening news on an autumn night and wondering why all the fuss. The situation became crystal clear when my father told my mom that we might have to pack up and leave. 'If the Russians launch those missiles,' he warned, 'the Naval Air Station will be one of the first targets.' That's probably why this film resonates so much for me.
For those who don't remember, 13 Days recounts in a very factual manner, how the Soviets deployed nuclear missiles on the ground in the jungles of Cuba in 1962. We were literally staring down the barrel of a nuclear firing squad. The Pentagon and White House scrambled to disarm the missiles and send them back to the USSR, hopefully without firing a shot.
Director Roger Donaldson and screenwriter David Self frame the action around the three pivotal players in the crisis: the president's political chief Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner), John Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy (Steven Culp ). Of the three actors, Culp bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Bobby Kennedy. But it is Greenwood who really brings authority to his role as JFK. Costner offers us his patented stoic presence and manages that curious Massachusetts accent that the Kennedy clan introduced to us. Though Costner is one of the film's producers, he deferred his quota of longing close-ups, allowing a really fine cast and a solid screenplay to tell this, by now, well-known story.
Thanks to the book by Ernest May and Philip Zekow, which are based on audio tapes from that time, the film makers have a unique opportunity of revealing history when it almost ended. I don't know how much liberty that Donaldson and Self took with the source material but everything on-screen rings true. Donaldson balances heavy war room debates with almost documentary-like action outside the White House. And though 13 Days is a bit long at two hours and twenty minutes, it's a very satisfying film full of revealing moments. I was impressed that it managed to evoke suspense... even though we all know how it ends. We didn't blow up the world. At least not yet."
(Review sent in by 'Q-Brick'.)
Boesman and Lena Review
"Hollyfeld, here. A few weeks ago, I attended an advance screening of Boesman and Lena, featuring Danny Glover and the radiant Angela Bassett as the title characters. This film is the final effort of the once-blacklisted director John Berry, who died shortly after the film was shot, and this will most certainly be a selling point for its ad campaign. It will need the boost, because it is not the most commercial film under the sun.
I say that not because Boesman and Lena is bad, and not because it is particularly ground-breaking or experimental. Rather, I say this because, quite frankly not very much happens in the film. Actually, on second thought let me rephrase that. Not much happens externally in the film. All of the most important action takes place inside the characters' minds as they change and learn about themselves, each other, where they have come from, and where they are. Adapted from a play by South African Athol Fugard (an playwright whom I must confess complete unfamiliarity), Boesman and Lena is about a homeless husband and wife (portrayed by Glover and Bassett) who have recently been removed from their shanty town and are finding a new place to live. I learned afterwards that this movie was very closely adapted from the play, and it shows. Aside from brief glimpses into the main character's pasts, the characters never leave a very small, swampy area, and have little to do but talk. However, it must be said that to the film's credit, it never seemed like a simple series of static shots, like so many other smallish films. (Clerks comes to mind, but I do not believe that this statement is to that film's detriment.) The swampland always looks interesting, and sometimes even beautiful, but in any film with only three characters (that's right - three), the most important element of the film is the performances and the writing.
I find it difficult to talk about the performances because of one simple thing - I had a hard time buying Danny Glover and Angela Bassett as husband and wife. While their individual performances are effective (and, in the case of the always wonderful Angela Bassett, stunning - the production company should particularly push for an Oscar nomination, here), my previous experiences with the actors made their relationship hard to swallow at times. At the times when I could set this thought aside, they were both better than they have been in quite a while, which admittedly speaks better for Bassett than it does for Glover.
As I said before, this is not a particularly commercially-minded movie, but this was obviously never a concern for the filmmakers. (I have a hard time believing that John Berry read a play about suffering and displacement in apartheid South Africa and said, 'Ooh! This'll be a blockbuster!') It is a simple yet challenging film, one which brings up important questions about male-female relationships, and why we inflict pain on others. I strongly suggest seeking this film out when it hits your town. Although it starts out slowly, it is definitely a worthy movie-going experience.
On a related note, Angela Bassett was present after the film to participate in a Q&A session. She was pleasant and eloquent and let it drop that she was being offered the role of Rosa Parks in a new TV movie, and had yet to decide whether or not to take it. Here's hoping."
(Review sent in by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)
Stay tuned...
That's all folks...
DeadPool
