Legends of the Fall (1994)

Legends of the Fall is one of those films that I kept hearing about, but somehow never saw even though it's over a decade old. Through the magic of DVD's, this deficit was easy enough to fix. The star studded cast includes Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn and Julia Ormond.

This is an epic kind of film, the kind that Hollywood only rarely embarks on these days in this era of sequels, and lower budget fluff (the last film I saw that was truly epic was this one from a while ago). Legends of the Fall takes place mostly in Montana, around the beginning of the twentieth century, which is an interesting time historically as America is assuming her place on the world stage as a serious player, and the industrial revolution is finishing up as the next era is beginning.

Anyway, enough history. The film follows the tale of three brothers, their father, a woman, and some American Indian ranch hands. The father is Colonel William Ludlow, played by Anthony Hopkins giving a masterful performance that makes the film worth watching just for that. He's a retired officer from the Western Indian Wars, and one day chooses to toss his saber and make a home in the wilderness of the American West by the Rocky Mountains of Montana with his three sons. The youngest son, Tristan is partially raised by the American Indian ranch hand, One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis) who is far more part of the extended family than hired help. The conflict occurs early on when son Samuel returns from back East with a potential fianceè to meet the family, Susannah Fincannon (Ormond). While I thought she was coming for a week or two, she moves in for the winter. The three boys, against the severest objections of their veteran father, then decide to join the fight in World War I, and Samuel pays the ultimate price. The two sons return home, but they clearly bear the scars of battle. What makes matters worse is that they both fall in love with Samuel's fianceè, Susannah.

What follows is a tale that is both timeless and classic. As time passes, we see the changes in America first hand impacting the family, and in turn their relationships. The film is also done so well that the characters have a very real sense about them, with layers of complexity and nuance developing them into real figures, and not just actors.

The character of Tristan is quite well developed. While he is not an American Indian, he ends up being a "half breed" of sorts by virtue that One Stab was his surrogate father. Whenever adversity strikes, he goes back to this Indian heritage and training, and becomes the warrior brave- whether it is appropriate or not. He also makes an interesting contrast to another character, Isabel Two. While she is of mixed ancestry, and was raised more as an American Indian culturally, the Colonel educates her in academics, which is the enantiomer of Tristan (ok, I'll admit that I've been waiting for years to use that word and it finally fits somewhere). It is any wonder that these two characters are attracted to each other as they dovetail perfectly in their upbringing.

Legends of the Fall is one of those epic films that most will enjoy, and everybody should see at least once. It works on many levels, including character, costume, scenery, cinematography, and some really great performances by some of Hollywood's best. If you haven't had the opportunity to see it, it's well worth seeking out on disc.

Overall Grade: A+

Reviewed by Jonas

Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

This week's other third parter is Ocean's Thirteen. Once again, after all the hype that these Ocean films get, not much can live up to it. I also didn't really go for the first two, but I figured I'd give it one more try.

George Clooney once again plays Danny Ocean, a mastermind of the casino heist. Never mind that he made off with tons of loot in the first two films; this time it's to avenge how Willie Bank (Al Pacino) wronged his friend in a casino development deal. Bank is building the ultimate Vegas casino, something to even trump the over the top Wynn. Of course, the obvious solution is to just take Bank out the back and rough him up. Naah, then we wouldn't have any film. Instead, Danny Ocean enlists the aid of his old crew including Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, and Don Cheadle (of note, Julia Roberts didn't return this time around, but I'm not sure she really worked in these films anyway) with an elaborate plot to drain Bank's bank. Even going so far as to enlist outside consultants, they come up with plan to get a bunch of whales into the casino, betting large, and then for the house to lose at all their games simultaneously. Oh, and because they don't need the money, they're not even going to win anything out of this (they do get some jewels later, but it's an afterthought).

So, does the Ocean crew deliver the goods this time around? Well, unlike the other outings, I liked Thirteen better than the last two. I think that this time around the plot had some more substance, was better developed, and I actually wanted to see how it finished. With so much simultaneous star power, the acting was solid throughout. The scenes of the Vegas strip were well done, and they did convey the excitement and vibrancy that permeates that town. One criticism is that there were still too many scenes that dragged on, especially without any dialogue, and I had to use the fast forward button to muddle through.

My other criticism is that in their effort to get this to look like an older movie shot on film, at least on the DVD through my LCD HDTV, it was overdone. To my eye, they had added some type of film effect filter, and it turned up the grain a little too much, and made it look lower quality than the base video likely was. Also, it was plenty overdone in the first scenes, but they had pretty much ditched it by the end. Trying to get the video to look retro and classic is one thing, but this ended up being a distraction, and should have at least been consistent throughout.

I can't say that I'm waiting to see Ocean's Fourteen, but at least Ocean's Thirteen was ok.

Overall Grade: B

Reviewed by Jonas

Babel (2006)

From the title, and the trailer, I was expecting Babel to be a modern day reinterpretation of the Old Testament tale of the Tower of Babel where languages divided the workers. However, this wasn't quite what the movie was.

The base story is that Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett are off in Morocco on a vacation of some sort with their children left with their Mexican maid. A family of local goat herders in Morocco acquire a rifle to defend the herd from the ravenous jackals. When the boys decide on a little extra target practice, the tour bus gets hit by the bullet. Blanchett's character ends up with a bullet in her- more on that later. We then follow the couple as they seek medical care in a desolate desert, and counter to that the Moroccan authorities search for the shooter. So far so good.

Kind of like the film Magnolia, we have some other stories that intertwine this base story. One subplot follows the Mexican maid taking the couple's children south of the border to attend a family wedding. All right, at least this fits into the plot somehow. However, the last subplot involves a precocious deaf Japanese teenager, and here estranged relationship with her father in light of the recent loss of her mother. While it does finally tie into the main plot, it is cursory at best, and adds almost nothing to the film. It really slows down the pace of the plot to a standstill, and should have been mostly edited out instead of having scenes drag on- even with the remote punched up to 8x! Seriously, there is just too much distraction going on from the main plot.

Once again, I take issue with the injury, the treatment, and how the medical issues progress. Above, I've pasted in the image of where the bullet entered Blanchett's character. Later on, they do confirm that her clavicle was fractured from the trauma. It is a left supracavicular penetrating trauma. If one were choosing a location to be shot, this is not the place to request.

To the left, I've pasted in the relevant anatomy. We can see that of great concern would the sublavian vessels- the artery is in red, and the vein in yellow. Both run just underneath the clavicle. Also remember that a bullet will cause a cone of injury, and unlike a knife, injure surrounding tissue. From the site of entry of the bullet, Blanchett's character would have bled to death quite quickly. There is also, not pictured in the diagram another important structure known as the left lung. When a bullet enters the chest (pleural cavity), it will almost always cause a tension pneumothorax, which is another rapidly fatal cause of trauma death. Between the subclavian vessels causing exsanguination, and the lung collapsing, there would not be time to wander around the desert like depicted in the film. Oh, and a vet (no less) sewing up the skin from the outside would do nothing to temporize things, and would make the pneumothorax worse. All right, I feel better after explaining that there is no way she was walking out of any hospital looking fine.

So what's the final verdict? While the base plot in Morocco is riddled with implausible "medicalese" issues, at least it held my attention. The rest, including the side trips to Mexico, and even worse, Japan, needed some more diligent pruning. I'm aware Babel got nominated for a bunch of awards, I'm still recommending that you pass this one by.

Overall Grade: B-

Read another opinion of this film here.