Meru (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Meru

There have been many cinematic stories about quests and man's hope to rival Nature.   "28 Hours" was a recent one. And in years past, there were "Deliverance," "Jeremiah Johnson," "Moby Dick" and countless others.

"Meru" is one documentary containing all of the  psychological elements found in an epic film, most notably ambition and obsession, or the wish to equal nature with a human footprint if only for a moment. This stirring documentary by climber Jimmy Chin is a kind of autobiography, detailing his journey in trying to reach The Shark's Fin, the most lethal peak in The Himalayas.

Chin endured great peril in trying to reach the mountain ridge as did head climber Conrad Anker and crew member Renan Ozturk who suffered a fractured skull in a ski accident.

This film is as terrifying in moments as a glacial version of "Jaws." The three mortal men struggle against huge walls of ice which are as intimidating as a gargantuan monolith by artist Richard Serra. Against these blinding white lanes, the men---muscles bulging---look like toiling carpenter ants--carrying their metal tools which look as insignificant as so many silver charms on a doll's wrist. Positioned upon the cosmos perhaps the tools are indeed vodou talismans to a frozen veve for safe passage.

At 25,000 feet, the trio spends weeks suspended on the side of a cliff, with only a tent to shield them. They endure frostbite and crises far worse.

Most intriguing is the family history presented. All three climbers seem obsessive. Conrad Anker wants to climb Meru in part to avenge his partner Alex who lost his life on a trek upwards. Jimmy Chin was badgered by his father into thinking he made a folly of his career. And Renan Ozturk broke his neck.

There is a moment in the film when the camera is accelerated. This shows the compulsive training that it takes to exist alongside Meru as Ozturk drags heavy tires with his waist and does scores of pushups and leg lifts. It is "Rocky" a la Stanley Kubrick.

Though the three rise up worthy of the challenge, the grail like endeavor demands a nearly soul-squelching cost.

The last shot of the ridge in black and purple like an illustration from Wagner or Frank Frazetta seems full of malice and evil, yet it is unfathomably beautiful, for just existing.

Though there have been countless films on the subject of mountain scaling, the narrative stands on its own for its awareness of sports obsession and the magnetic power of this icy juggernaut which consumes men, literally and spiritually. More arrestingly though, is the fact that both Chin and Ozturk crafted this film (as director and cinematographer respectively) at a time when they were very  nearly broken.

"Meru" is a wincing testament to Edmund Burke's Sublime. Underneath the film's otherworldly majesty, lies an unrequited love for a lethal juggernaut that inhabits mortal minds and a cautionary tale hinting of the Supernatural.

Write Ian at ianfree1@yahoo.com

Listen to Me, Marlon (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

Listen to Me, Marlon

Actor Marlon Brando was a force of nature and worked his entire life to constantly change  his earthly charismatic form, to keep his audience guessing in whatever project he chose. Uniformity, convention, and the routine were repugnant to him and even repulsive.

This chimerical quality of Brando is evident in the very first shot of the documentary "Listen to Me, Marlon" by  director Stevan Riley,  showing a digitalized image of the actor's talking facial features which were done by Scott Billups, an effects man and a friend of the actor, in the hopes of possibly and conceptually resurrecting his persona to star in posthumous films.

It is a wonderful and startling image that sums up the entire film to come. The head, unmistakably Brando's resembles both a Greek statue and a cyborg made of fractals or sand. This in itself is haunting, given the fact that in the film Brando says that his life will become "no more significant than sand." Seen in this way, Brando's head floating in space as a thespian satellite becomes the actor's killing joke, mocking us a bit, but also challenging us to the future and egging us on.

This marvelous and engaging film is told entirely in the actor's own voice from a cache of self hypnosis tapes that the actor repeatedly went to for catharsis and support, in addition to other taped reflections. Over the recordings, we see segments from the actor's life in formative career moments.

What might have been hum-drum in other hands is exuberant and full of motion here, having its own rhythm and syncopation with Brando's inimitable speech.

We learn of his hatred and fear for his violent father which was in itself an engine for dramatic progress. As a young man from Nebraska, he made it to New York, with "holes in his pockets and holes in his brain." He took to the street and studied people, attempting to guess their personalities, and how each person thought, merely from appearances.

He sought the muse of drama to get the affection he never received from his parents, but it proved a cruel surrogate.

Gradually, the film moves away from the Technicolor flora of Marlon Brando's "Guys and Dolls" to show an empty room cluttered with tapes, bongo drums and the digitized Brando face as a raving and isolated wraith from the future, a new age King Lear.

After the glare of"The Godfather" and the oranges of Tahiti faded, Brando became disenchanted with Hollywood for projecting very similar fare film after film and eliciting the predictable responses from audiences.

The whole reason he went into acting, he says, was to make something new with his own face as the stage. On fire by Civil Rights causes but then feeling claustrophobic and ridiculed, the actor isolates himself in limbo, between Tahiti and Mulholland Drive. The actor looks everywhere for tranquility.

He takes a role again with Coppola, this time as Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now".  And again, he is vehemently dissatisfied.

Good actors are liars to Brando. Lying is part and parcel to survival.

Throughout the film Brando is here in the flesh with a collage of colorful imagery. The mythic man voices his anger and frustration in using acting as an agent for change, both public and personal, but fears he is nothing but a serviceman making silly films, echoing his disembodied face that utters ,"all alone I be-weep my outcast state" from Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 as if on an endless loop.

The actor is forced from reclusion by his son being charged for murder. Later, his daughter commits suicide.

There is scarce little for Brando to do, except to melt into the liquid drips of technology, reborn as a Marlon Headroom. "Until next time, now...sleep..." The head utters in deadpan parallel to Kurtz's famous line, "The horror...the horror."

It is a heartbreaking exclamation to a great documentary, that also oddly works as wondrous fiction given the sheer scope of this artist's life and reflection.

Sad as his denouement was, the last utterance of "Listen to me, Marlon" has a glimmer of reconciliation and triumph. Perhaps the ultimate metamorphosis and truth that Marlon restlessly sought is to be found in this eerie, computer generated talking head.

Write Ian at ianfree1@yahoo.com

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Brockway)

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway


The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Napoleon Solo is at it again in Guy Ritchie's "The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ," based on the 1964 TV series. Although the film has the usual briefcase tipping and shadowy men slinking around dark corners of any spy film, Richie's take has a staccato and breezy style with some bits of dark humor  that create an amusing, if fleeting, romp.

Solo (Henry Cavill) is a criminal taken in by the CIA and made an agent. He has a person  of interest, so to speak, in the spirited Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander), the daughter of a scientist who was a fearsome villain but now is a US collaborator. Solo sticks close to Teller on orders to acquire intelligence on her Nazi relatives, most importantly, Teller's uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth).

As in the series, Solo is paired with Russian agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer).

In typical Guy Ritchie form, the film is dependably smooth and bubbly, sliding in a slick rhythm with lots of running back and forth. Solo resembles Don Draper: slicked hair, jutting chin and gray flannel eyes. He does most of the talking, about parties and how to get his man. Kuryakin is passive and slumbering, except when he gets mad and goes into a storm of rage. There is a compelling bit involving a watch.

Just when our eyes might glaze over from bits of intrigue and gadgetry as in countless Bond films, director Ritchie gives juice to this pedestrian tale of intrigue with his trademark sardonic wit. The life of a spy may proceed in due course but it is still a desperate world.

As stock as Solo and Kuryakin are, Gaby Teller is opaque, spunky and vivacious, not easy to read. When she talks of fashion she speaks with the tongue of an ocelot, full of secrets like actress Simone Simon from "The Cat People." The narrative goes by like a graphic novel in quick, easy bursts of action. The best scenes are the ones featuring close combat followed by a single nonchalant glance.

There is a touch of the surreal as well. Often action in the foreground unfolds slowly, when  moments later, a fire suddenly occurs hinting at the matter of fact absurdity of life.

Slick and ephemeral "The Man From U.N.C.L.E. " may be, but some deadpan touches make a fitting tribute to this television-era dossier, almost bringing the glare of Robert Vaughn back in vogue.

Write Ian at ianfree1@yahoo.com

Week of Sept. 11 - 17 (Rhoades)

Tropic Overview

Thrills, Humor, and True Stories Fill Tropic Screens

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Film Critic, Cooke Communications

Doing nothing but watching reruns of “Law and Order” on TV? Avoid the brain rot of repetitive viewing. Get out and see a new film at the Tropic Cinema.

Well worth your time is “Meru,” a breathtaking documentary about three experienced climbers (Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk) attempting to scale the Shark's Fin on 21,000-foot-high Mount Meru in Northern India. But this true story comes off with all the nail-biting excitement of a feature film, with twists and turns and character development and cinematography that will take
your breath away. Arizona Republic calls it “thrilling, harrowing.” Newcity describes it as “achingly beautiful, eye-widening...” Kaplan vs. Kaplan says, “The film's combination of post-climb interviews and real-time footage provides the moviegoer with a unique perspective of these men. In a mere 90 minutes, we get to know them on a strangely personal level that other documentaries rarely achieve.”

Another nature outing is “A Walk in the Woods,” a somewhat-humorous film based on a true story. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte portray two inept (read: fat and out of shape) guys who set out to hike the Appalachian Trail, Georgia to Maine. A walk in the woods it’s not. SSG Syndicate calls it,
“Sensitive and scenic, it's an amiable amble with two crusty curmudgeons…” Aisle Seat describes it as “Grumpy Old Men in the wild.” And Truthdig tells us, “Everyone will have a reasonably good time without muddying their boots.”

A different kind of walkabout is found in “Mistress America,” an indie film by Noah Baumbach about two step-sisters-to-be (Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke) strolling around New York City in search of madcap adventure. Fort Wayne Weekly says, “If your taste in humor runs to the sophisticated, Mistress America is a decent late-summer bet.” Advocate calls it “funny and poignant.” And Detroit News terms it, “thoughtful and real while consistently riotous.”

Crazy is more scary in “The Gift,” a suspense thriller starring Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall as a couple who become concerned about a weirdo (director/co-star Joel Edgerton) who pops up from the
past.  Rip It Up says, “All in all, a very entertaining and disquieting psychological drama that

demonstrates that Edgerton certainly has (ahem) a gift.” And RealViews adds, “Clever and atmospheric, the film has enough twists to keep the average viewer guessing.”

A documentary of a different kind is “Listen to Me Marlon,” a compilation of private tape recording made over his lifetime by legendary Method actor Marlon Brando. This is about as personal a portrait

as you can get short of climbing into someone else’s skin. The Village Voice calls Stevan Riley’s doc “a masterpiece. And Boston Globe notes, “It's as if Riley has ushered us into the darkened chamber of the actor's memories, where Brando himself can whisper in our ear.”

If you want your adventure more tongue-in-cheek predictable, catch “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” a spy thriller based on the old TV show. This time around Henry Cavill ("Man of Steel") and Armie Hammer ("The Lone Ranger") co-star as Napoleon Solo and his reluctant Russian sidekick Illya

Kuryakin. Out to save the world, they rely on the assistance of an untrustworthy femme fatale (Alicia Vikander). Dark Horizon says, “It's a brisk, smart, fun action comedy that takes the premise of the 1964-68 TV series, replaces the dated campiness with effortless cool, and dresses it in slick '60s period detail that makes Mad Men look amateurish in comparison.” And Butaca Ancha calls this latest Guy Ritchie movie “a spectacle worth seeing.”

And for the best action film of the summer, there’s “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,” fifth in this franchise also based on an old TV show. The draw in this spy tale is Tom Cruise doing his own stunts and Rebecca Ferguson in a strong role as a disavowed British agent. Indie London calls it “a

blockbuster that expertly combines exhilarating visual thrills with the kind of intricate storyline that requires viewers to pay attention. It also treads a nice line between the drama and the humor.” SF Weekly agrees that “the introduction of British agent Ilsa Faust to the mix suggests that this may be one of the only ongoing spy concerns that actually know how to use female characters.”  And International Business Times says the film “is able to truly wow in several fleeting scenes of espionage and huzzah moments.”

See, lots to choose from. An antidote to television reruns.

srhoades@aol.com

A Walk In The Woods (Rhoades)

Front Row at the Movies

Redford and Nolte Take a Bumbling “Walk In the Woods”

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

William McGuire Bryson is best known for his humorous travel books. Having spent most of his adult life in England, he and his wife returned to his native New Hampshire in 1995. Bored, he decided to hike the Appalachian Trail.

With his wife insisting that he take along a friend for safety, he wound up with an old acquaintance, “a crude, overweight recovering alcoholic,” Just great. Less than 25% of those who start hiking the

trail in Georgia ever make it all way through Maine.

No spoilers here about how this mismatched duo did in their quest. But Bryson wrote a book about it, titled “A Walk In the Woods.”

Now Robert Redford and Nick Nolte are starring in a movie based on the book -- also titled “A Walk in the Woods.” This week you can join them on this trek at the Tropic Cinema without even getting a blister on your foot.

In his late 40s at the time of this walkabout, the bearded and somewhat chubby Bill Bryson bears little resemblance to still-handsome nearly 80-year-old Robert Redford.

It’s hard to judge how well Nick Nolte resembles Bryson’s hiking companion, because “Stephen Katz” is a pseudonym. When Redford first optioned the book, he’d hoped his old buddy Paul Newman would again be his co-star. But Nolte has a more authentically dilapidated look.

Why this book? “I don’t know when I’ve read a book that I laughed so loud,” says Redford. “Also, it’s a chance to take a look at the country ... The backdrop is pretty terrific, if you stop to think of all the visuals that are possible as they go along that trail.”

“A Walk In the Woods” was filmed mostly in Amicalola Falls State Park in Dawsonville, Georgia.  The Appalachian Trail begins in that park.

Despite his age, Redford seems eager to prove his vitality. Two years ago he took on the physically demanding role of a sailor lost at sea in “All Is Lost.” Now this.

Being Redford’s film, of course it premiered at Sundance Film Festival this past January.

Don’t expect it to be quite as introspective as Reese Witherspoon’s “Wild,” a film based on Cheryl Strayed’s solo hike along the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. “A Walk In the Woods” is a buddy film, an almost-funny comedy about two out-of-shape guys bumbling along the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail. Truth is, it’s closer to that Weather Channel TV show, “Fat Guys In the Woods.”

srhoades@aol.com

Listen To Me Marlon (Rhoades)

Front Row at the Movies

Brando Speaks to You in “Listen to Me Marlon”

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Whether you admire the sexy and primal Marlon Brando of “A Streetcar Named Desire” or the bloated and powerful Brando in “The Godfather,” you’ll agree that he was one of America’s most

formidable actors.

A little-known secret: In 2002 he hosted a ten-day acting class attended by some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. A scheme to raise money to pay for his Tahitian island, it was filmed but never released.

Turns out, Marlon Brando also taped a lot of his personal life -- “at home, in business meetings, during hypnosis, in therapy, and during press interviews.” These too were kept private.

Till now.

A new documentary called “Listen to Me Marlon” has stitched together a number of these previously unreleased audiotapes, along with a potpourri of visual images, to provide a fly-on-the-wall insider look at the great actor. You can catch it at the Tropic Cinema.

More than a second-hand bio, this is Brando in Brando’s own words. Recorded over the course of his lifetime, you get Marlon’s personal insights about his films (he was ashamed of “The Countess From Hong Kong”), about his family (he regretted that he didn’t do more to save his troubled son who served 10 years for murdering his sister’s husband), about his relationships (17 children by 15 women).

Here there are no interviews, no talking heads -- just Brando’s voice talking to you (well, maybe at times to himself).

Documentarian Stevan Riley produced “Listen to Me Marlon” with the full cooperation of Brando’s Estate. Will you learn more about the world’s greatest Method actor? Yes. But you’ll still walk out of the theater shaking your head over the colossal burnout that bridged Stanley Kowalski and Don Vito Corleone.

Next, show us those videotapes from his ten-day acting workshop.

srhoades@aol.com

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (Rhoades)

Front Row at the Movies

“Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Has Suave New Cast

Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

Forget about all those movie spy organizations like Impossible Mission Force, S.H.I.E.L.D., CONTROL, SPECTRE, and The Ministry.

Make way for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, That’s U.N.C.L.E., for short.

Napoleon Solo and his Ukrainian sidekick Illya Kuryakin are U.N.C.L.E.’s two best agents, in case you don’t remember the TV show that ran from 1964 to 1968. It starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.

Now for the movie version of  “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” we have Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. This 007 wannabe is currently playing at the Tropic Cinema.

You will recognize Cavill as the latest Superman. Hammer was The Lone Ranger. Now they team up as those suave, sophisticated spies Solo and Kuryakin.

Back in the ‘60s there were 105 episodes of the TV series. Eight feature-length motion pictures were cobbled together from episodes of the show.

Surprisingly, this new movie reboot has a fairly threadbare plot: Solo and Kuryakin’s mission is to stop a mysterious international criminal organization bent on destabilizing the world through a proliferation of nuclear weapons. You’d think that out of 105 TV episodes there would be more creative ideas to draw from.

Director Guy Richie co-wrote the script with Lionel Wigram (best known as an executive producer of the “Harry Potter” films), so he has no one to blame but himself.

Nonetheless Richie makes the best of it. After all, he’s a pro, having given us “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and those entertaining “Sherlock Holmes” films starring Robert Downey, Jr. And you can count on him telling the story with style.

Here two former adversaries are forced to work together to stop a terrorist organization with Nazi ties. These cardboard villains, led by fashion-plate Victoria Vinciguerra (Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki), have built an A-bomb.

Set in 1963, we get a revisionist look at the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which has to be put on hold in order to avert this threat of a worldwide nuclear catastrophe.

The boys try to infiltrate the terrorists through the daughter of a missing East German scientist. However, it turns out Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander, the Swedish actress who starred in “Ex Machina”) isn’t so easy to find herself. But when she turns up, she’s a handful.

There follows gunplay, explosions, car chases, speeding boats, racing off-road vehicles, rappelling down a cable, and fistfights … although much of the fighting is between former enemies Solo and Kuryakin. Frenemies, as Cavill call them.

Robert Vaughn, the original Napoleon Solo, says, “In the 40 years since the show went off the air, every year somebody has said they were going to make a new The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie and no one ever did until this one, so it was quite surprising.”

As for Henry Cavill filling his old shoes, Vaughn says, “He’s an attractive actor. I’ve seen him wearing the Superman suit.” Here, clothing-wise, it’s more like “Mad Men” with violence.

Vaughn adds, “The main thing he has to have to make the character work is a sense of humor. That’s what we always said … no matter how dire the situations were, the humor was the thing that helped us prevail.”

Henry Cavill gets that. His website proclaims, “Solo is an action hero who is as bemused as he is formidable. And Cavill, with his elegant sexiness and habit of fighting bad guys while wearing impeccable suits, evokes the nonchalance of Cary Grant in the classic ‘North by Northwest.’”

Well that … or a page from GQ Magazine.


srhoades@aol.com