Man of the Year

Man of the Year; political satire / drama, USA, 2006; D: Barry Levinson, S: Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black, David Alpay, Jeff Goldblum, Rick Roberts, Tina Fey

As a joke, comedian Tom Dobbs decides to run for the President of the United States. Even though he starts off giving serious speeches about social and economic problems, his staff, including Jack and Eddie, encourage him to do a comedy speech during a debate with Republican and Democratic candidates on a TV debate, and indeed, the audience loves it. Unexpectedly, Tom is elected President. However, a computer glitch from the Delacroy counting company declared Tom the winner by error, and the Delacroy employee Eleanor Green tries to contact Tom about it. Delacroy CEO tries to hush up the error by drugging Eleanor and runing her reputation. In the end, Tom goes to Saturday Night Live and declares that he was elected by an error, and thus hands over his Presidency before he was even inaugurated.

The third and final cooperation between director Barry Levinson and comedian Robin Williams, "Man of the Year" is a movie that starts off very good, but then a third into its runtime, it seems as if it becomes scared of its own story, and then abandons it without exploring all the rich potentials of it. The opening act shows a daring and unusual plot concept of a comedian, Tom Dobbs, running for the President of the United States, which would prove very similar to the later events involving Zelenskyy depicted in the comedy TV show "Servant of the People". Williams still has some great examples of one-liners and jokes in this first third, whether he is arguing with his campaign advisor ("It's like the comic who gets to play Carnegie Hall but shows up and plays the violin. It's not what they go to see." - "How many analogies do you have left?" - "How many does it take to make my point?"), through his comical rant during the TV debate ("You don't want an amendment to the Constitution on burning the flag. Make it out of asbestos!"), or when he senses that all the reporters are now looking for dirt from his past, so he goes full rampage and gives them all the details possible, open and direct ("When I was 21, I went to a prostitute and I was so bad, she had to give me a refund"). Bizarrely and perplexingly, after Tom is elected President some 40 minutes into the film, "Man of the Year" suddenly stops and wants to avoid the obvious continuation of the concept. And that is a cop-out. The rest of the movie switches to suddenly follow a crime subplot of an election employee Eleanor (Laura Linney) being a whistleblower becuase the company error in a recount made Tom appear to win the election, when that was not the case. The jokes suddenly disappear, and the movie betrays itself. Tom ultimately doesn't spend a day as a President, which is disappointing and incomplete. It is comparable to what "Mrs. Doubtfire" would have looked like if Williams' character would have disguised himself as a woman, did a test with his brother, and then decided give up on this plan and just spend the rest of the film in normal clothes as himself trying to win his kids back.

Grade:++

Weekend in Taipei

Weekend in Taipei; action, France / Taiwan, 2024; D: George Huang, S: Luke Evans, Gwei Lun-mei, Sung Kang, Wyatt Yang, Tuo Tsung-hua

Taipei. American Inspector John travels to the city on his vacation to try to secure evidence against the drug smuggler Kwang, who feigns to be a respectful businessman. Unexpectedly, he gets all the evidence he needs when Kwang's 12-year old son Raymond who sends Kwang's accounting ledger book to John's hotel room, in the form of his protest against Kwang's fishing of dolphins. Raymond and his mother Joey team up with John, and Joey reveals Raymond is actually John's child, since John had a relationship with her when he was the last time in Taipei. Kwang's criminals chase after the trio, trying to erase any evidence, but in the end, John is able to beat up and arrest Kwang. He then renews his relationship with Joey.

Even though many expected just a routine action flick, George Huang's "Weekend in Taipei" turned out to be a pleasant surprise: fast and dynamic pace with a lot of chase sequences were to be predicted, but humor, likeable characters and numerous original ideas were a welcomed bonus that enriched the movie. Co-written by Luc Besson, "Weekend in Taipei" has two outstanding, delicious moments in the opening act that ignite the interest: 1) dressed in the style of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Joey goes to a car salesman and demands to drive a Ferrari, takes her high heels and gloves off, and then uses that opportunity to drive so fast through the streets that the salesman is left traumatized. 2) fighting with criminals in a kitchen, undercover agent John suddenly tells them to stop for a minute because he needs a break (!), so he goes to the fridge to drink a bottle of water. In the middle of the great choreography of this fight, one henchman is pourred with cooking oil and set on fire, so he runs off and climbs into the nearby fish aquarium to jump into the water and extinguish the fire. This causes a great creative lift-off, but the rest of the film is rather standard and routine, never managing to reach that playful opening act. The comical moments help expand the character interactions, as Joey, Raymond and John form a new family while they fight and unite against the bad guy. Joey is played by the excellent actress Gwei Lun-mei who delivers a brilliant performance, whereas Taipei is a really photogenic city, especially in this gorgeous cinematography. The storyline tends to become stale in the final third, and the ending feels incomplete, yet the movie is overall a really good fun.

Grade:++

Fauda (Season 1)

Fauda; spy thriller series, Israel, 2015; D: Assaf Bernstein, S: Lior Raz, Hisham Sulliman, Shadi Mar'i, Laëtitia Eïdo, Tzachi Halevy

Israel. Doron would love to just enjoy his vineyard peacefully, but he is summoned to return back to the Israeli special secret unit Mista'arvim to help locate and eliminate Abu Ahmad, known as The Panther, a Hamas terrorist who was presumed dead, but is still alive. Doron and his team, led by Moreno, disguise themselves as Palestinians and speak Arabic to travel to the West Bank, mostly around Ramallah. The unit discovers Abu Ahmad as a guest in his brother's wedding, and in the ensuing chaos wounds him, but he is able to escape. Doron presents himself as a Palestinian to try to go on a date with Dr. Shirin who treats Abu Ahmad's injuries. While on a mission, Israeli agent Boaz is captured, but dies when the planned exchange for a Sheikh with the unit goes wrong. Doron enlists himself as a suicide bomber to reach Abu Ahmad, and thus the Israeli unit is able to track the terrorist unit that plans a terrorist attack with sarin in a synagogue. Walid, disillusioned with the way of the group, shoots and kills Abu Ahmad in his office.

Based allegedly on his own experiences, screenwriter and actor Lior Raz rightfully concluded that "Fauda" will attract a lot of international appeal based on the ever actual interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and indeed, the first season is engaging and slowly absorbing while presenting it all through the framing of a spy thriller. The action and chase sequences are routine, whereas most of the dialogues are disappointingly bland and standard, playing out like some soap opera (especially the subplot involving Doron's wife Gali cheating on him with his colleague Naor), yet the majority of the virtues are created through small observations and clever insights in the specific details of this milieu. For instance, in order to find the terrorist Abu Ahmad, the Israeli agents have to covertly inflitrate the West Bank, and thus spend a long time watching the mirror as they disguise themselves as Arab Palestinians (they apply darker skin make up; they hide tattoos on the skin using make up; an Israeli woman places a hijab over her head and later has glasses with a camera inside as she goes to a Palestinian public bath locker room). "Fauda" doesn't idealize nor presents black-and-white solutions, showing that some of Doron's unit's own conduct causes even more damage and problems, such as the sequence where Doron and his two men are revealed to be Israeli agents at a Palestinian wedding, the guests surround them, so Doron makes the disastrous decision to take the bride as a hostage / living shield, the groom inevitably wants to intervene and gets shot. Later on, to avenge her husband's death, the bride accepts to perpetrate a terrorist act in a Israeli night bar, reaching the full circle of violence. An interesting dialogue by Abu Ahmad is found in episode 1.11 where he reveals his plan to perpetrate a sarin terrorist attack which would force Israel to retaliate with "such war crimes that other Muslim countries will be forced to intervene, and will then destroy the Zionist entity". The suspense and the fight between various factions trying to outsmart each other are the virtues of this series, which is luckily concise enough to captivate the audiences.

Grade:+++

Avanti Popolo

Avanti Popolo; war drama / road movie, Israel, 1986; D: Rafi Bukai, S: Salim Dau, Suhel Haddad, Tuvia Gelber, Danny Segev

The last day of the Six-Day War. After they buried a dead companion and killed another one for wanting to continue to fight, two Egyptian soldiers, Haled and Gassan, walk by foot across the Sinai desert to reach the Suez canal. Along their way, they pass by a deserted Egyptian outpost and reach a UN Jeep with a dead UN observer in it, where they find whiskey. A British reporter arrives with Israeli soldiers, picks up Haled and Gassan in his van, but immediately throws them out after Gassan throws up on him. Haled is able to turn on the UN Jeep, but it gets stuck in the sand. The two get captured by Israeli soldiers who bring them along, but the next morning, the Israelis accidentaly walk into a minefield and die. Another group of Israeli soldiers shows up and starts chasing Haled and Gassan. Haled is shot first, while Gassan is shot at the Suez canal, as Egyptian soldiers exchange fire with Israeli soldiers.

A rare movie about the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, "Avanti Popolo" is unusal since it actually depicts the story shown from the perspective of two Egyptian soldiers, Haled and Gassan, and not from the Israeli perspective. The Egyptian soldiers were thus given a humane dimension, almost as three-dimensional characters. The episodic story is problematic, though, as it is structured as a road movie where they walk by foot across Sinai, and thus feels somewhat disjointed and random overall. Filmed in aesthetic locations with several good frames of sand dunes and moutains in the Sinai desert, "Avanti Popolo" is still more inspired cinematography-wise than narrative-wise, as it lacks a tighter narrative with a goal. One of the best episodes is when the Egyptian soldiers arrive at a Jeep with a dead UN observer, and Gassan, a struggling actor, finally opens up as the viewers discover a lot about him, whether it is his comment about the Swedish UN observer ("Even dead they look better than us!") or the irony of his first theater role ("I play a Jew! Shylock from the Merchant of Venice!"). Surprisingly, Israeli soldiers are depicted in worse light than the Egyptian protagonists, especially in the dark ending where a IDF unit just spots a wounded Israeli soldier and immediately starts shooting and chasing after Haled and Gassan, not even trying to listen to them that they were just helping the wounded IDF soldier who stumbled upon a minefield. The movie created the feeling of randomness and chaos of war, yet it still feels it needed a better and different storyframing than the one we got.

Grade:++

Saint Clara

Saint Clara; fantasy comedy, Israel, 1996; D: Ari Folman, Ori Sivan, S: Lucy Dubinchik, Halil Elohev, Yigal Naor, Johnny Peterson

Golda Meir school. Principal Tissona and his assistant Zvi are shocked that the entire class recieved a perfect 100% score at a test, and thus interogate students about this. They are unaware this is the work of student Clara (13) who is clairvoyant and can see the future. Students Tikel (13) and Rozy (13) are both in love with Clara, and thus argue. Clara proves her powers when she gives Tikel's dad a forecast of the lottery numbers, who thinks he won 4 million shekels, yet Clara's dad gave the info about the number to 300 other people from the factory, which greatly diminished the reward. Allegedly, Clara will lose her powers if she falls in love. She predicts an earthquake, which causes people to flee from the city. Alone in the streets, Tikel and Clara go see a movie in the theater, and as they kiss an earthquake strikes.

The feature length debut film by director Ari Folman (excellent "Waltz with Bashir"), who co-directed it with Ori Sivan, fantasy tween comedy "Saint Clara" is one of those movies that set-up a great premise, but then don't know what to do with it and get lost in meandering, isolated episodes which lead nowhere, yet is saved by an endearingly quirky sense for humor and stylish tone. The main problem is that the clairvoyant title heroine Clara (very good Lucy Dubinchik) is bizarrely underused, to the point that she is absent for almost half of the film and thus almost feels like a supporting character, and the narrative has no clear goal that leads it. However, there are numerous funny scenes, ideas and characters that keep "Saint Clara" consistently fresh. For instance, the dialogue between the students observing a seismographic station ("When there's an earthquake, the scientists are really happy. The seismograph draws Marilyn Monroe naked, and they determine the size of the quake by the size of her tits"); the way one of Clara's family members shows how to cut a cake into seven equal pieces (he uses a knife to cut it into eight slices, then takes one and throws it away out of the frame by saying: "Stalin", leaving only seven pieces); students riding on a bronze statue of Golda Meir by dragging it across the school hall; or the surreal scene of the students sitting on a couch in the middle of a swamp. The characters are so sympathetic that one wishes this was an even better film with a tighter storyline, yet it is still fun to watch it, as it symbolically depicts the tribulations of growing up.

Grade:++