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October '08
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August '08
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"Okay" Debaters
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By Aaron 12/26/2007
The Great Debaters is based on the true story of Wiley College Texas’ 1935 National Championship debate team. Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington, who also directs) picks an unusual team of Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett), James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker, not Forest’s son), and Hamilton Burgess (Jermaine Williams). Tolson whips the team into shape and leads them through an undefeated tear of all the major African American Colleges of the 30’s. The last remaining challenge, and Tolson’s goal, is the white colleges and universities. Will they succeed at the Oklahoma State University? Will that punch their ticket to Cambridge to challenge Harvard? Perhaps I gave the movie away, but come on, most of the papers already told you that much. And Oprah produced the movie, so you can better believe you’re going to get a happy ending.
The movie was good enough – I should also say that I think that a lot of “true story” movies are pretty cliché. I mean, you take the average Hollywood script and change NOTHING because most stories that aren’t positive and uplifting never make it to the big screen. This movie was no different, but it was at least good at those things. It has two strong mentor characters in Forest Whitaker (underused) and Denzel Washington. The exciting young guns are great too as Parker, Smollett, and young Whitaker turn in great performances. I really hope that Parker and Whitaker especially keep making movies, because they have real potential, ironically filling roles their respective mentors (Washington and Forest) play now – they have that look and that charisma. Hell, Parker even has some of the emotion and sentimentality to pull off some of the roles hard-ass Denzel never could. You mix in your sympathetic geek, tall-handsome genius, smart-babe, some romance, some love-triangles and you have a nucleus for your movie. This movie does a good job with that nucleus, takes the time to develop most of the characters and their relationships, and is actually better when it sticks to formula then when it strays (like trying a subplot with the farmers’ union).
Now most of my faults with the movie have little to do with substance – the acting was good, the story was good, the thematic elements were strong, all that good stuff. But the movie was an Oprah flick, which is almost as bad as being a Disney flick. Meaning, certain things have to happen, and you know what those are. The predictability of it all was discussed above, so I won’t keep whining about that. Some important scenes also just did not make sense if you really stopped and thought about them. A key scene involving the farming sub-plot was particularly frustrating in that it was also seemingly useless.
For the most part I liked the debate scenes. I need to preface my comments by saying that I am currently a collegiate debater, so I take debate movies with a grain of salt and chalk most of them up to not truly knowing about debate but it usually doesn’t matter because they don’t pretend they know a lot. Now a movie that does…well…I’m a little harder on those movies. This movie clearly simplified the activity of debate, which worked for the most part. It was also good that the movie showed a lot of debate. It made the movie a little bit more exciting and let the actors really flex their muscles in action, which helped their characters outside of the debates too. I did have one bone to pick with this annoying “Denzel writes the arguments” B.S. I mean, not only was that pretty stupid, but it just did not even make sense, and it was kept alive as a recurring theme. Just think about it this way – if you’re in a debate where you know the topic beforehand and you’re only going to make four to five arguments, do you think, just possibly, that you would be fine thinking of argument without going to pieces? Especially considering all of the characters were geniuses who probably had IQ’s damn near off the scale. Oh well, that’s Hollywood for you.
Most of that was probably incessant rambling. I guess I can’t exactly figure out if I’m just bitter because the movie didn’t paint the crystal clear image of debate that I wanted, but the movie was good enough to earn a 7/10 saltystix.
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Bob’s October Movie Preview
By Bob 10/2/2008
 Now that we have gotten through the sludge of September movies, it’s time for some Oscar contenders, and movies that think they’re good but not. Halloween is also this month so there is bound to be a lot of random horror movies going on and of course a Saw film to soak in. Whatever happens though, I’m gonna guess that at least one of the following gets some nods come Oscar time. With that, my October Movie Preview:
Cops, Robbers, and Blah
10) Pride and Glory: October 24th
From the director of Miracle comes one of the most clichéd trailers of ALL TIME. Edward Norton as A COP. Colin Farrell as HIMSELF. What more could we want from a movie? I don’t know, and I will likely never find out because this is not one flick I will be seeing.
9) Max Payne: October 17th 
As I feverishly go through my mind trying to think of a video game adaptation that has actually been a good movie, I’m also reminded of all of the bad movies Marky Mark has made over the past ever (excluding The Departed and Boogie Nights of course). I would be shocked if there is anybody who is actually excited for this, as anybody who actually played the game has probably outgrown the genre.
8) Body of Lies: October 10th
Leonardo Dicaprio. Russell Crowe. Ridley Scott. Something about spies. The trailers really tell us nothing about this film except, “How am I supposed to run an operation when you’re running a side operation.” I don’t really know what that means, but Leo says it in the trailer. This film looks like another lame attempt by Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe to win Oscars. I’m not buying it.
7) Flash of Genius: October 3rd
Greg Kinnear stars as an man who invents the intermittent windshield wiper, and then has it stolen from him buy the major auto manufacturers. This just looks like a boring film that will get a lukewarm response. For some reason, however, it has been getting a huge level of marketing with television and even radio advertisements. I doubt people will buy it.
6) RocknRolla: October 10th
Guy Ritchie is back in the genre he knows best, and this appears to be an English gangster film much in the mold of Lock Stock and Snatch. We’ll see if he still has his stuff, but for now, I’ll just pop in my DVDs of the older films that I can trust, and look to be almost identical in plot to this one.
Movies that Intrigue Me
5) Changeling: October 24th 
Angelina Jolie stars in this Clint Eastwood film about a woman whose son goes missing and is returned with something different. Any film that Eastwood directs (that’s not Flags of our Fathers of course) is worth checking out, and this looks to be no different. It got solid reviews with it premiered at Cannes, and Angelina Jolie is ready for a solid role.
4) W.: October 17th
 A film that is certain to be the years most controversial, Oliver Stone directs this biopic about our current president. While I am sure Stone will exaggerate many of the details, there is no denying that he has put together an awesome cast including Josh Broling (as Bush), Elizibeth Banks (as First Lady Laura), James Cromwell (as his father H. W.), Richard Dreyfuss (as Cheney), Thadie Newton (as Condoleezza Rice) and others as the rest of his cabinet. Whatever happens in this film, it will certainly be interesting.
3) Synecdoche, New York: October 24th
A film that I have been awaiting since last year, this is Charlie Kauffman’s directorial debut. I have loved the films he has written (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Adaptation. ) and this should prove to be equally compelling. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a playwright who attempts to put on a production in a warehouse that includes a scale model of New York. It will probably boggle our minds, but that is Kauffman, isn’t it?
2) Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: October 3rd
Michael Cera and Kat Dennings star as the eponymous Nick and Norah who meet each other one night in New York and have adventures. Something about the trailer really brought this movie to my attention, probably the indie style that I love. Cera is always great, and Dennings was really cool in Charlie Bartlett, so I might make my way to a cinema this week to check it out.
1) Zach and Miri Make a Porno: October 31st 
Seth Rogen and Elizibeth Banks star as two best friends who decide to make a porno together. This is Kevin Smith’s first film since Clerks 2, and I can only hope that it matches that film in hilarity. The only thing I don’t understand, is why are they releasing this film on Halloween? I guess there is probably a Saw film being released anyways.
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