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By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2001
NEW RELEASES
Traffic
(R) Director Steven Soderbergh dives headlong into international drug trading, examining each strata from Mexican "mules" to Washington politicians powerless over the trade.
Michael Douglas embodies the latter as the new U.S. drug czar whose daughter is an addict. Meanwhile, cops on both sides of the border (including Academy Award winner Benecio Del Toro) discover how vain their efforts are.
Catherine Zeta-Jones co-stars as a drug dealer's wife unaware of his profession and almost too eager to learn. Traffic is ambitious drama working on three social levels split between two cultures. Everything matters and everyone is worth caring about. One of the 10-best films of 2000.
First impressions: "Soderbergh doesn't pull any punches in trying to cram every possible scenario into these minidramas. . . (he) could make a feature-length film of any subplot that (Stephen) Gaghan's script compacts.
Instead, Soderbergh deftly juggles the stories, revealing just enough to answer some questions while raising new ones . . . Traffic recalls the driven, quasi-cinema verite of The French Connection, dissecting the drug industry while attaching human lives to crime statistics. It's vibrant storytelling from a filmmaker (Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich) currently on a roll."
Second thoughts: Oscar voters agreed, making Soderbergh the first dual nominee for best director in nearly 60 years, and a winner for this film.
Rental audience: Soderbergh's admirers; viewers who enjoy multi-character studies by Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Rent it if you enjoy: The French Connection, Boogie Nights.
(R) First-time director E. Elias Merhige poses a playful question for cinema historians: What if German director F.W. Murnau hired an honest-to-garlic vampire for the title role in his 1922 silent classic, Nosferatu?
Willem Dafoe earned a best supporting actor Academy Award nomination as actor Max Schreck, turning Merhige's flight of fancy into something more believable than it deserves. The performance and a moody, foreboding atmosphere based on Murnau's filmmaking style carry the film.
First impressions: "You watch this performance and wonder how Dafoe does it. The external tools are obvious: makeup to resemble Schreck's odd skull and rodent features, a confining frock keeping Dafoe eerily still except for skeletal hands and long fingernails clicking as he thinks. It's literally a pale imitation of the original. . . .
"Merhige cloaks his film with the same technique Murnau pioneered: exotic shadows and fog, slightly off-kilter camera angles and an enveloping sense of dread. The effect often overpowers Katz's comical asides in the script . . . The expert production standards can't mask the fact that, even at 90 minutes, Shadow of the Vampire is an idea extended too long. The inevitable bloodbath comes more slowly than sunrise . . . Merhige sets a fine tableau for Katz's inspired notion but never expands it beyond novelty."
Second thoughts: The novelty wore off midway through a second viewing.
Rental audience: Silent film buffs, Method acting students.
Rent it if you enjoy: Murnau's original Nosferatu, or Klaus Kinski's 1986 remake.
New and noteworthy for digital players
A fitting tribute to a film goddess
Marilyn Monroe: The Diamond Collection
What made Marilyn Monroe a star? Perhaps her beauty, but that quality isn't rare in Hollywood. Maybe her acting skill, although she was not particularly gifted or challenged by her roles. Yet, celebrity became her enemy companion, and tragedy is the best imagemaker in show business. Monroe had a little bit of everything except time.
The screen goddess was like the rest of us that way. In return, we made her timeless.
Everything that made Monroe an American icon is displayed in The Diamond Collection, a 5-disc tribute released on the eve of what would have been her 75th birthday.
Five of her best films are offered with crisp, widescreen remastering that makes Technicolor gleam again and monochrome sharp as ever. The selection smartly provides five facets of Monroe's sparkling screen personality.
Bus Stop, based on William Inge's play, is the darkest offering. Monroe proved to critics in 1956 that she was more than a sexpot with a wisely defined role as a saloon singer who becomes the object of a cowboy's affection. More wistful than usual, Monroe showed a maturity here that only surfaced again in The Misfits (1961).
The Seven Year Itch is more like the Monroe people choose to remember. How could they forget, since a subway breeze lifting her skirt in this film is the essential Marilyn image? She played the new neighbor of a meek married man (Tom Ewell) who fantasizes about her. Director Billy Wilder made it snappy and sexy, and still Monroe conveyed the innocence of a woman who doesn't grasp what a dish she is.
Two musicals contrast Monroe the performer with Monroe the studio commodity. There's No Business Like Show Business is the latter, an 1954 assortment of Irving Berlin numbers mostly belted by Ethel Merman. Monroe was just an out-of-place ornament that refused to stop shining. On the other hand, the earlier release, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, finds a role worthy of her charms, as golddigger Lorelei Lee.
The same breathy allure, without songs but with pinpoint comic timing, is exhibited by the DVD set in How to Marry a Millionaire, a Champagne movie all the way.
The Diamond Collection also includes a documentary, Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days, and, most intriguing, the first extensive footage ever released from Monroe's final film, Something's Got to Give. The project was left incomplete when she died of a drug overdose in 1962. Nearly 40 minutes of scenes with Dean Martin completed before her death are linked together in a semblance of the original plot.
A recent, separate DVD release of Some Like It Hot with extras including an interview with co-star Tony Curtis and plenty of archive material is also recommended. The Diamond Collection, though, is a Monroe fan's best friend.
Videos worth another look
Squint Eastwood
The Man with No Name certainly made one for himself in Hollywood. Clint Eastwood rose from cheapola 1960s spaghetti Westerns to become a fine actor, Oscar-winning director and one of the most popular box office stars of all time.
Eastwood's 71st birthday is today, and he'll probably celebrate with a round of golf. Maybe at famed Pebble Beach Golf and Country Club, where he's part owner. Not bad for a guy who was told his squint and Adam's apple were too pronounced for him to be a movie star.
Make Eastwood's day by checking out any of these favorites from his career:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly -- His best collaboration with Sergio Leone, the man who made Eastwood an international star. Lee van Cleef and Eli Wallach made it tough deciding who's who in the title.
Coogan's Bluff -- Eastwood plays a Western cop on assignment in the Big Apple. This lean, mean movie later inspired the McCloud TV series starring Dennis Weaver.
Paint Your Wagon -- Eastwood sings! Not very well, but that's part of this bloated musical's charm. Another is a madcap performance by Lee Marvin as a gold miner staking his claim on Jean Seberg.
Kelly's Heroes -- The last good World War II comedy. Eastwood leads a dirty dozen or so soldiers behind enemy lines to steal Hitler's gold. Telly Savalas, Don Rickles and a stoned-out Donald Sutherland co-star.
Play Misty for Me -- Still a chiller. Eastwood plays panicked as a disc jockey stalked by a listener (Jessica Walter). Aside from its hip 1970s fashions, Eastwood's first directing job never seems outdated.
Dirty Harry -- Action movie that became a political statement during Nixon's law-and-order push. Nothing more dangerous than a vigilante with a badge.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot -- Energetic buddy caper with Eastwood and Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges trying to recover lost stolen loot.
Honkytonk Man -- A kind of gruff gentleness emerged in this tale of a tubercular country music singer making one last try to play the Grand Ole Opry. Audiences balked, but a filmmaker matured.
Tightrope -- Still tinkering with his screen persona. This time, in a much darker vein. Eastwood plays a New Orleans detective getting too close to a sordid serial murder case. Downbeat, but effective.
Unforgiven -- Eastwood's masterpiece, at least in the eyes of Oscar voters who gave this violent Western four statuettes including his best director prize. Gritty, elegaic and a personal anti-violence statement even when Gene Hackman's getting blown away.
In the Line of Fire -- Crackerjack thriller with Eastwood as a Secret Service agent pursuing a brilliant assassin (John Malkovich). On the other hand, there's always The Bridges of Madison County.