Bayside resident Mark Metcalf is an actor who has worked in movies, TV and on the stage. He is best known for his work in "Animal House," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Seinfeld."
In addition to his work on screen, Metcalf is involved with the Milwaukee International Film Festival, First Stage Children's Theater and a number of other projects, including the comedy Web site, comicwonder.com.
He also finds time to write about movies for OnMilwaukee.com. After a lengthy flight to Africa, Mark considers "Street Kings," "Definitely, Maybe" and "10000 B.C."
I just got back from a two-week trip to Tanzania. The way we did it, it is about a 28-hour trip on an airplane and in airports. That is with a long layover in Amsterdam. On trans-oceanic flights these days, unless you are flying one of those airlines that is cutting back so much that you have to bring your own chair, you have a very large choice of entertainment --- movies, TV, news, sports, or you can watch the progress of the plane on an assortment of maps.
That gets interesting at around the "We are beginning our descent" time in the trip. On most flights, each seat gets it's own screen so you can watch anything you want and on KLM we had a choice, literally, of more 100 movies. Everything from movies that are still in theatres, like "Street Kings" to classics like "Holiday."
STREET KINGS (2008)
"Street Kings" stars Keanu Reeves and Forrest Whitaker. James Ellroy, who also wrote the novel that inspired the great film "L.A. Confidential," wrote it. Although, with "L.A. Confidential," he had the also great Curtis Hanson looking over his shoulder as director. " L.A Confidential" is about the different shapes and sizes that brutality and corruption come in when you begin to get involved with the Los Angeles police department.
"Street Kings" is just brutal. Everything about it is bad, obvious and clumsily stupid. It was apparently inspired by the O. J. Simpson crime and the trial that followed, so maybe they intended it to be "bad, obvious, and clumsily stupid" like that crime and trial.
That is not a good way to make entertainment.
Someone once complained to Tennessee Williams that "The Glass Menagerie" was "sentimental." Mr. Williams responded that "it was not sentimental, but it was a description of sentimentality." There is a huge difference and the difference is the distance and the intelligence, and the artistry, of the creator.
To reiterate: "Street Kings" is brutal. It bludgeons you with violence, and not very creative violence, just fists and gunfire, over and over and over again. The plot has something to do with a corrupt cop who gets set up by his corrupt cop friends and decides to take them on, rather, take them out using the aforementioned fists and gunfire technique. I had to read the Cliff's Notes version of the plotline on IMDB to get it though.
Keanu Reeves gives his usual attractive piece of wood performance. In this case, he is just a 2 x 4 that the director uses to continually smash you over the head. At least in "The Matrix," he was more like an elegantly carved ebony walking stick. The Wachowski Brothers still beat you over the head with him but the pain was deeper, more direct. In this, it is just blunt and numbing. Forrest Whitaker almost redeems himself with one scene near the end when he is caught and cornered, and reveals himself to be a scared, cowardly weasel. However, he is a very good actor, a very good actor will always find at least one moment when he can do good work, and it will always get through even the worst kind of director and the most obvious and clumsy plotting.
"Definitely, Maybe" is sort of cute and charming. Abigail Breslin, from "Little Miss Sunshine," has a directness and honesty that make you want to watch her. She isn't too cute and doesn't play coy. She's not working off her looks. She's just trying to be awake to the moment and live through it.
When an actor does that it allows you to see their native intelligence and something of their true self, which is usually enough to make us want more. I still don't get Ryan Reynolds, but he is a little more at ease, not trying so hard, in this, and therefore he allows you to watch him live and think. Julius and I both especially liked Isla Fisher. She plays the middle of the three women that Reynolds's character may or may not have been meant to love. But we may have liked her because she is the cutest and spunkiest of the three. Cute and spunky work really well when you are 13 years old or remembering the world through the eyes of someone who is 13.
The plot hinges on that peculiar notion that there is one person out there for each of us and if fate or luck or, in this case, a really intuitive young girl are on our side we will find them and be happy for the rest of our lives. That's the notion that makes romantic comedies. That's the fantasy of love in the movies.
The plot of "Definitely, Maybe" concerns a Dad in the midst of a divorce who is asked by his daughter to explain his life and his history with love. He tells the story of the three women he had been involved with in such a way that the young girl has to figure out which woman in the story is her mother, the woman he finally married and is now divorcing.
The idea works nicely and it all takes place in New York City during the Clinton years and the Dad starts out as a political analyst and ends up in advertising so you get a nice perspective on The City throughout the 1990s. Julius wanted me to be sure you understood that it is sweet. Adam Brookes directed it. I worked with Adam in his first film, "Almost You," in 1985. He was also script supervisor on a film I helped produce and acted in called "Baby, It's You," directed by John Sayles. He is quite a good writer and an able director.
10000 B.C. (2008)
The last of the "movies on the plane" that I am going to write about is "10000 B.C." It's not the last of the ones we watched but, as I said it was a long flight, and mostly forgettable, as were the movies. "10000 B.C." is pretty good though. Julius is quite an authority on prehistoric times, especially the animals, and he thought the depiction, the CGI work, on the phororhacos, a.k.a. terror bird, the smilodon, a.k.a. saber toothed cat, and the wooly mammoth was very good. Although he does have trouble with the fact that the terror bird and the smilodon existed only in South America while there were no hominids, a.k.a. human type creatures, in South America at that time, nor were there any wooly mammoths.
The location of the film seems to be Africa because the journey of the Cro-Magnon type people who are the center of the film ends up in a vaguely Egyptian-like civilization. So you can see that they telescope time and they seem to be condensing space as well. I guess that they just don't care, and don't think anyone will have the scholarship to know that they are messing with history. But it is a little like having Abraham Lincoln drop in to have a drink with Winston Churchill on the way to the theatre that night.
But, as John Landis said about Blues Brothers when someone questioned the possibility of something actually happening, "It's not a documentary, Brian." So, in the interest of entertainment, who cares if Cro-Magnon man existed at the same time that a full-blown hominid civilization like the Egyptians did? And who cares if certain prehistoric animals roamed together or not. It's just a movie. Well, my 13-year-old son cares. But he still thought the story was, "OK." And the animals looked good, the details were right. However, he hated the ending, but if I told you why then I'd be spoiling it, wouldn't I?
I kind of liked it, thought it was exciting, liked some of the details about the development of language, and I liked seeing man develop from what we call a primitive hunter gatherer into a more advanced, but also a more brutal, slave owning, so called civilized creature. The price of progress, eh?
Mark Metcalf is an actor and owner of Libby Montana restaurant in Mequon. Still active in Milwaukee theater, he's best known for his roles as Neidermeyer in "Animal House" and as The Maestro on "Seinfeld."
Originally from New Jersey, Metcalf now lives in Bayside.
