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DVD The Assassination of Richard Nixon
Sean Penn (looking rather Rupert Pupkin-like) is Samuel Bicke, whose life, circa 1974, has become unbearable. His wife (Naomi Watts) has left him, his dead-end sales job is killing him--even his best friend (Don Cheadle) has had enough. Bicke's a loser, but at least he's an honest one. Nixon, the epitome of dishonesty, becomes the locus of his rage, so Bicke devises a plan to eliminate him. Paul Schrader claims he finished writing Taxi Driver before the real-life Byck attempted to assassinate the president. Maybe so, but the similarities are hard to ignore (and "Bickle" sounds a lot like "Byck"). Niels Mueller (Tadpole) doesn't disguise the fact that his debut was inspired by the guy. If The Assassination of Richard Nixon doesn't hit Taxi Driver's (admittedly lofty) heights, it's still a discomfiting look at a man determined to leave his mark on the world, only to become a footnote. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Sean Penn is fast becoming the actor of his generation. What is so compelling about his performances is the fact that he is so utterly believeable in every role he plays. "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" sees him in the skin of a man whose life is falling down around his ears - not least because of his own shortcomings; his marriage has failed (he is separated from his wife [Naomi Watts]), his friendships are shaky, he and his brother are estranged and he walks away from jobs because of his "principles". He feels like the little man that the American Dream forgot. All of which serves to create the portrait of a man whose life is spiralling uncontrollably towards an equally unnoticeable end. Enter President Nixon; a man who, as Penn's boss tells us, got elected twice on the same promise. Nixon becomes the object of Penn's anger, his vitriol and his unstinting belief that the America he knows is built on the most immoral and unjust of foundations.
"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is a compelling portrait of one man's inept struggle against the system. Beautifully photographed, brilliantly acted, and utterly believable throughout (it is based on a true story)the film reaches its inevitable but surprisingly and oddly touching denouement in some style. A true classic in the making.
Recalls both Taxi Driver and Falling Down
Sean Penn is well cast as the increasingly disaffected salesman who's life at work, broken marriage and friendships are straining him to the breaking point. He begins as a sort of everyman struggling through the 70's while Richard Nixon is a constant backdrop on newscasts that are playing while His life is slowly unraveling. The connection to Nixon is established as Penn's character begins to see dishonesty and lies as the root of his troubles.
While not as socially aliented as Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver , Penn's character is more a cross btween him and Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down. Sort of a regular guy gone terribly wrong as the reaction to an endless series of indignities that he suffers.
Well acted and worth checking out.
Let's Go Over the Edge...
In this powerful film, Sean Penn plays Sam Bicke, a man whose pathetic attempt to assassinate Richard Nixon by flying an airliner into the White House was thwarted before the plane even left the ground. Before this explosion of helpless rage, we see Bicke, a seemingly quiet, almost autistic man, beset by constant loss and failure, relentlessly pushed towards the edge.
It is far too easy to see this film as one man's descent into madness, ignoring the world that made him into this. At the beginning, Bicke seems like a stiff, somewhat timid man who genuinely loves his family and believes in the American Dream. But in our system of late capitalism, lies and unctuous charm always trump morality. Bicke is forced to become a low-end salesman to survive, trading on lies to peddle furniture. Interesting how virtually all reviewers see Bicke as stupid and helpless because he lacks proficiency at lying, not that he is standing up for any sort of moral principle. How easy it is to heap derision on the little guy like Bicke, rather than the decrepit Godfather of Lies, Richard Nixon. It is Bicke's inability to play in this abhorrent system that leads to his loss of job, his family, and everything else he loves.
Of course, even had Bicke succeeded, Ford would be President a little sooner and the system would have lived on. But how very sad that they are so proficient at exterminating the good-- Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, etc.-- but the attempts to rid the world of evil always fail.
Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Four extremely beautiful people do extremely horrible things to one another in Closer, Mike Nichols' pungent adaptation of Patrick Marber's play that easily marks the Oscar-winning director's best work in years. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who specializes in portraits of strangers; Dan (Jude Law) is an obituary writer struggling to become a novelist; Alice (Natalie Portman) is an American stripper freshly arrived in London after a bad relationship; and Larry (Clive Owen) is a dermatologist who finds love under the most unlikely of circumstances. When their paths cross it's a dizzying supernova of emotions, as Nichols and Marber adroitly construct various scenes out of their lives that pair them again and again in various permutations of passion, heartbreak, anger,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mike Nichols DVD Release Date: Released the 29 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With Sideways, Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Storytelling) has become an unlikely but engaging romantic lead. Struggling novelist and wine connoisseur Miles (Giamatti) takes his best friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church, Wings) on a wine-tasting tour of California vineyards for a kind of extended bachelor party. Almost immediately, Jack's insatiable need to sow some wild oats before his marriage leads them into double-dates with a rambunctious wine pourer (Sandra Oh, Under the Tuscan Sun) and a recently divorced waitress (Virginia Madsen, The Hot Spot)--and Miles discovers a little hope that he hasn't let himself feel in a long time. Sideways is a modest but finely tuned film; with gentle compassion, it explores the failures, struggles, and... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Alexander Payne DVD Release Date: Released the 05 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Kevin Bacon gives one of the best, most nuanced performances of his career in The Woodsman, a daring and thought-provoking drama he co-produced with his wife, Kyra Sedgwick. In portraying a convicted pedophile named Walter, recently released from prison and struggling to rebuild his life, Bacon and writer-director Nicole Kassell (making her feature-film debut) do a remarkable job of exploring all facets of this troubling yet very human character, from his continuing criminal impulses to the despair he feels over having to conceal his horrible past. Sedgwick costars as the one woman who appears willing to accept Walter, secrets and all, and while The Woodsman takes a few regrettable shortcuts in illustrating Walter's quest for the good man he can be, the film deserves to be... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kevin Bacon - Kyra Sedgwick - Mos Def Director(s): Nicole Kassell DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leonardo DiCaprio - Cate Blanchett - Kate Beckinsale Director(s): Martin Scorsese DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction...