Book Review: Buchanan Makes His Way Back from the Wilderness, Sort of

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This was oringally written in 2006.

An incisive critique from the right of Bush 43’s foreign policy is long overdue, and Buchanan manages it without too much unnecessary controversy.

Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency

By Patrick J. Buchanan.

(St. Martin’s Press, 264 pp., $24.95)

A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s Destiny

By Patrick J. Buchanan

(Regnery Publishing, 300 pp., $29.95)

In the 1990s, Pat Buchanan seemed to lose his way. A sharp and smart, if avowedly conservative, speechwriter for three presidents in the 1970s and 80s, Buchanan seemed to jump the rails as a polemicist during Bush 41. His social conservatism, perhaps without the binders a White House staff position put on his tongue, boiled over into ethnic and religious controversy. William Buckley acquiesced in calling him an anti-Semite for his controversial remarks on the value to Israel of the first Gulf War. At the 1992 Republican convention he gave his notorious primetime ‘culture war’ speech that probably cost Bush votes to Perot. And his abandonment of free trade early that decade cut his last tie with cosmopolitanism. His political and economic nationalisms melded into a somewhat disturbing American Firstism and flirtation with xenophobia. His 1996 and 2000 presidential bids were flops and his political views increasingly moved away him from respectable discourse. Smart, to be sure, but cranky.

But if the owl of Minerva brings enlightenment at dusk, then the threat Bush 43 represents to traditional conservatism has re-energized Buchanan at this late hour. In his newer work, Buchanan shows – in a way only a conservative who cares for these subtle distinctions can – how the current Bush administration is re-making the GOP and with it American conservativism. A ‘paleoconservative’ who wrote a preface to Barry Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative, Buchanan is badly out of step with the conservative activists of the Bush administration. He comes from the capital-C Conservative tradition in the sense of Burke, de Maistre, Disraeli, Metternich, Oakeshott, and in the U.S., Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and Robert Bork (many of who are named in the book). He combines an aristotelian concern for the possibilities of tyranny arising from state power (think Communism), with an augustinian sense that institutions (Church and Throne, or Church and Republic) are necessary to curb flawed mankind (think the 1960s). A devout Catholic, one imagines he believes in original sin. And while such pessimism may make his positive vision of America disturbingly strict, his deep roots in European Conservativism make him a unique critic of Bush’s big-government conservatism. Not quite the philosopher from the list above, imagine Buchanan as Burke’s bulldog for contemporary America.

The Rosetta stone for Buchanan’s work is American nationalism, the city on the hill – a Jeffersonian-Madisonian paradise of religious, independent-minded, rugged, free Americans. And this drives the three big criticism he poses of the Bush administration across these two books – an expansionist foreign policy which will terrify the rest of the world, while undermining republican freedoms and virtues at home; free-trade multilateralism which will de-industrialized the US and imbricate it in international laws and organizations that trump the Constitution; and big-government conservatism at home which balloons the budget deficit and saps rugged individualism.

Nothing so much as the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq war has ignited Buchanan in recent years. This is the best part of both books. Buchanan’s argument is two-fold. We face, in Chalmers Johnson’s great expression, ‘the sorrows of empire.’ First, terrorism, which Buchanan correctly identifies as a tactic, not an ideology, will be endemic if we seriously pursue global hegemony. This is not far-fetched; academic international relations theory has long expected other states and actors in world politics to balance the massive concentration of US power. Our democratic process and timid foreign policy goals have forestalled this. So terrorism, as the weapon of the weak, represents what little balancing there is. But if the US truly pursues a neo-imperial grand strategy, it is hardly overwrought to expect resistance in the form of more terror from alienated groups, with equally alienated states as sponsors. This is a good and interesting check to the wilsonianism of writers on the left and right speaking of the War on Terror as the first phase of ‘World War IV.’ Such language, and the long, nebulous conflict it entails, should give us all serious pause.

The second argument is more certifiably ‘paleocon.’ Buchanan makes a libertarian argument that American external interventionism undermines its ability to be a free society at home. In this, one truly sees Buchanan’s lineage with the Founding Fathers, and their 20th century exponents Robert Taft and Russell Kirk. He notes, correctly, that the expansion of the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Department, and government spending to fund ‘empire’ threaten domestic liberties. The Economist and human rights NGOs have made similar arguments since the Guantanamo detentions began. And certainly previous wars have tossed up constrictions of freedom we today reject – Japanese internment camps and the House UnAmerican Activities Subcommittee are probably the best known

Surely this argument is correct. But if concerns about domestic liberties feel disingenuous coming from the old right, they are. This is clever, but only because so few conservatives have shown the spine to defend due process against Bush’s imperial presidency. Still, Buchanan is a poor defender. He worked for the presidency synonymous with an imperial White House and was a strong supporter of the Cold War – which spawned a national security state so freedom-encroaching that a Republican president warned of the ‘military-industrial complex.’ Perhaps as a result, Buchanan flags here. He falls back on distant quotes from Madison about the cost of armies and Reagan’s famous ‘city on the hill.’ But it is hard to cast cold warrior Buchanan and the ACLU in the same camp defending us against the encroachments of an imperial executive.

From here it is an odd non-sequitur to the next target – global governance. In the wake of castigating the US government for seeking global hegemony, Buchanan contradicts himself by suggesting we are simultaneously oozing sovereignty to international organizations. This is the biggest logic failure in the books, and marks Buchanan more as a polemicist than philosopher. But it does introduce Buchanan’s most interesting claim in the book – that “free-trade fundamentalism” is eviscerating the industrial capacity necessary to maintain US superpowerdom. This is fascinating political economy; almost no one makes such claims any longer. It is certainly correct that globalization is reducing the competitiveness of American manufacture, but the neoclassical response, of course, is that the division of labor and international specialization improve living standards. Indeed Buchanan avoids mentioning the bonanza for poor American consumers that trade and Walmart have brought.

But unlike the Michael Moore left, Buchanan knows he cannot defend protectionism in the language of economics. Mercifully, Buchanan spares us the shoddy logic and false concern of labor unions and NGOs over the ‘oppression’ foreign investment wreaks in the developing world. To his credit, Buchanan takes a clear neomercantilist stance, supported by a smart argument pulled from historian Paul Kennedy. He rejects the absolute gains reaped by all from free trade, for the relative gains to be achieved, in America’s favor of course, by managed trade. His approach, so derided in the US, is actually not quite different from Asian developmentalist strategies.

Battling the Thomas Friedman approach head-on, Buchanan argues that no great power can hang on without an industrial base. His Kennedy-esque example is 19th century Britain, stumbling before rising German power. In case of conflict, a great power must retain the capacity to produce goods and arms. It must not fritter manufacture away through trade with less developed, cheap labor states, nor indulge in ethereal white collar and service professions that produce nothing tangible. Taking a page from Marx, Buchanan sees industrialism as the highest stage of economic development. An industrial base is the root of national power, and for this claim too, there is a long pedigree in both political economy and practice.

His answer then is to manage trade with the rest of the world to insure that the US gains relative to others in the transaction. Friedman and the globalizers see free trade binding the world together, so if China grows relatively faster, it is not that threatening. We are tying her into modernity and the global economy along the way, and reducing the likelihood of future conflict. Buchanan is more cynical (or perhaps the nationalist in him wants to be). Citing similar interdependence arguments made in Europe before WWI, he prefers relative gains and economic sovereignty. And this dovetails easily with the political nationalist’s resentment at international law and organizations. The WTO, which infringes on both America’s economic and political sovereignty, comes in for special criticism.

The proper answer to this logic is not an economic one, for Buchanan seems to realize he is sacrificing absolute gains. Rather it is historical and political. Historically, Buchanan seems trapped in the Industrial Revolution. Like the late Soviet Union, he seems baffled by Digital Revolution of our generation. He does not see that America’s vast intellectual, service, and financial centers also contain elements of power. If he is correct that Britain could not grow all the food or manufacture all the weapons it needed in WWI and II, it is also true that the City of London gave her the credit to borrow hugely from around the world. Or consider that America’s high innovation economy means our military increasingly uses lasers, satellites, plastics, aluminum and other tech composites. Buchanan, like Kennedy (who predicted that Japan and the Soviet Union would be major 21st century powers) overrates the necessity of an raw coal-and-steel style industrial base. He does not see, as Wesley Clarke has, that the US military is remaking war around our economy’s comparative advantage.

The political answer is more troubling, but more important. Pursuing absolute gains, multilateralism, and cosmopolitanism are political strategies to achieve American security. They signal openness, flexibility, and warmth in an anarchic world. They mitigate anxiety, generate trust, and, today, are the likely reasons so few states balance American power. Yes, they are the reason we suffer surprise attacks like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, but they serve the medium-term interests of American power (as well as align with our values). Buchanan’s cramped, lonely vision of America would reduce these stocks of ‘soft power’ in the same way the Bush’s administration’s truculence has. On the economic merits, Buchanan’s strategic trade is simply wrong, but as a national security strategy, it is flawed at best.

The final major criticism of the Bush 43 neo-cons is the emergence of ‘big government conservatism.’ Liberals will find it comforting to know that someone on the right is still nervous about deficits, pork, and the growth of bureaucracy. As ex-leftists, neoconservatives do not resent government, so they don’t mind the New Deal or the Great Society. Again, Buchanan’s paleocon sympathies return, and for sheer peculiarity, it is fascinating to watch an admirer of Taft and Goldwater elaborate on the halcyon days of the gold standard! But much of the attack on the welfare state is pretty standard Reaganite stuff – end busing/affirmative action, balance the budget, reduce the role of the federal bureaucracy to the advantage of local communities (on education, for instance).

This would be even less remarkable were it to come from the conservatives in power. But it does not, hence it is Buchanan’s strongest claim of the abandonment of principle in the GOP. Even conservative think-tanks like Cato and Heritage, enjoying unprecedented access to power, have raised deep concern over the Bush administration’s predilection to borrow recklessly and fund new programming. Now in power, conservatives are enjoying funding their own pet programs – marriage and abstinence promotion, an FEC crack-down, the re-balancing, rather than abolition, of public television. Buchanan correctly notes the Gingrichian highpoint of small government conservatism, but cannot seem to reconcile himself to its popular failure. Americans want to retain the middle-class entitlements to which they are accustomed, but Bush 43 is unprepared to pay for.

Most of this is not beyond the pale. It is good to see Buchanan return to saner and sharper commentary. But old habits die hard. The books are stuffed with other critiques that sound like a TV pundit cutting loose. Indeed wandering from topic to topic is the major structural flaw of both books. He also indulges a few of the barbed one-liners that pull down his stature and make him so hot to handle. California is “Mexifornia;” America is “Mexamerica;” trade is making the US a “third world country.” And social science this is not. There are no citations; some of the authors he cites as authorities you’ve never heard of, and others (like Joseph Sobran, another Catholic paleocon) are really ideological allies.

That said, the books are entertaining, and designed for a basic reader with some free time. Don’t read with a pen; it is not worth it. But the state of conservative commentary today is terrible. Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, even Kristol have all sold their souls to the Bush administration. Fox News reads like RNC talking points. Even the Wall Street Journal and the National Review are not trying too hard anymore. Given the sorry, sycophantic state of conservative punditry, Buchanan’s work is a unique and piquant reminder that the right and the GOP needn’t be the same thing.

Movie Review: Terminator 3 – Ah-nuld Will Be Back…Again…And Again…

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Good news first: The latest installment in this beloved franchise is not lame. In fact, it is a pretty decent flick, if not really good. In the past few years, venerable franchises like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, the Matrix and Star Trek have embarrassed themselves. In returning to another late sequel of another much loved saga, viewers are wise to be cautious. But lovers of T2 won’t be crushed. Now let’s just hope that Mad Max 4 (?) and Indy 4 (2008) won’t be clunkers either.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the latest installment in the hugely popular Terminator series (T1, 1984; T2, 1991). The film’s very existence, however, is troublesome if you know the first two, because the second wraps up the story rather well. Like Godfather III, viewers may find this installment a bit unnecessary, and both are the ‘worst’ of their respective trilogies. T3 never really gets around the knotty problem of why T2 wasn’t the end of the road. But also like GIII, unfair comparison with its excellent predecessors should not undervalue the current effort.

T3 opens with John Connor (Nick Stahl), head of the future human resistance to the machines, living as an untraceable drifter (albeit one who never leaves southern California). Skynet, mankind’s machine opponent in the future, once more sends back a baddie Terminator to assassinate him (Kristanna Loken’s TX or Terminatrix), and the humans once again send an older model (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-101) to help him. This plot device, creative in the first movie, feels like a retread by now, so director Jonathan Mostow spruces things up by making the evil terminator ‘female’ (?) and giving her other targets besides Connor himself.

From there things quickly heat up as Schwarzenegger and Loken chase after Connor and one of his closest future lieutenants (Claire Danes’ Kate Brewster). The well-advertised action sequence with the crane truck occurs early in the movie (perhaps learning a lesson from Star Wars and Matrix Reloaded’s long expository tedium), and the action sequences after that are pretty serious stuff. The film purportedly cost $170 M, and as a summer action pic, it does not disappoint. F/X whiz Stan Winston was brought back again and does a great job recycling and reworking James Cameron’s (director of the first two) original visions of the Skynet machines.

The progress of the film’s narrative mirrors (rips off?) the second film. Once again the humans, assisted by Ah-nuld, are off to stop the nuclear armageddon of Judgment Day while under pursuit from a better terminator. The ending, however, is far more pessimistic than expected, (spoiler ahead) finding Connor and Brewster in an underground bunker to ride out the nuclear war. Indeed the most emotionally powerful scene of the film is the concluding image, from space, of ICBMs criss-crossing the atmosphere and the massive mushroom clouds of their impacts. That ending clearly sets up a sequel, and Schwarzenegger himself leaked on the Howard Stern Show last week, that he had agreed to T4 and T5, if he doesn’t run for office. Nonehtless, IMBD list T4 with a 2009 release date.

This is a solid film. As a summer action movie, it makes the grade of popcorn fun. The CGI is used to augment not replace real-life action, and it thankfully demurs from the contemporary trend of filming all action sequences as high-wire karate battles. There are no terminators on strings. In this ‘summer of sequels,’ it is better paced than the stop-start Matrix Reloaded, and the action and story are more ‘believable’ than the ridiculous X2, with its kung fu mutants so powerful that governments long ago would have eradicated them. And do I really need to tell you it is better than Legally Blonde or Charlie’s Angels 2?

As an installment in the franchise, it is also an achievement. It moves the story forward (where Star Wars I or Jurassic III barely do), and it creates tension and anticipation for the next chapter. It also pleasantly maintains the offbeat humor of T2, and clearly Mostow & co. studied the visuals and story of the predecessors to keep the films’ look synchronous. Mostow demonstrates real care, and it shows. I am hopeful however that an expanded DVD cut may improve its tie-in to the previous films.

There are several problems of course, including a plot-hole big enough to blast a terminator through. At the end of T2, the Cyberdyne plant (the company building the first machines) is destroyed, as are the materials of the terminators that warped back through time. In theory then, there should have been nothing left upon which Skynet would be built. But in T3, just 10 years later, Skynet is about to take over, and there is no mention of Cyberdyne. Huh? It is a shame that the military and Skynet scenes are so poorly fleshed out, because the erection of Skynet that T3 presumes radically de-values the action taken by the trio at the end of T2. Here is where a director’s cut may really help the continuing story.

This suggests another major change – in the series’ tone toward, for lack of a better word, predestination. Cameron, for all his love of machinery (Aliens, Titanic, The Abyss), has always had a humanist touch – directed action by committed humans can make a difference in the world. The mantra of the resistance in the earlier Terminator films was ‘there is no fate but what we make.’ In this film, Mostow drops that to stress that Judgment Day is ‘inevitable.’ Schwarzenegger’s robotic character even talks, a la Darth Vader, to John Connor about ‘your destiny.’ While perhaps necessary language to keep the story rolling for more sequels, it is a significant break with the tone and guarded optimism of Cameron’s work. In this one, humans are screwed, and there ain’t much we can do.

Perhaps the biggest issue fans will notice is the lack of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Edward Furlong as John, and Cameron in the director’s chair. There was great controversy over these changes, and many fans were deeply skeptical that without these returnees, the film would be little more than a cash-in on a popular icon or an effort to prop-up Schwarzenegger’s sagging appeal or gubernatorial ambitions. Why Cameron refused the sequel is a mystery. He has spoken not publicly on this. But without him, both Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn (the good guy from T1) refused to return. And Furlong’s absence has been variously ascribed to drug issues and his prickly attitude. Judging by Stahl’s flaccid performance, he was much easier to direct about.

The replacements work relatively well. Hamilton’s character is disposed of with little ado, perhaps too little. Stahl does a passable job as John. He seems genuinely burdened by the weight of the possible future, but his dialogue is flat and unimaginative (“sometimes things happen that just can’t be prevented” – yawn). Danes doesn’t get to do much either besides scream and run, like Hamilton did in T1. So…maybe she’ll come back in the next one as a pumped-up super mom smoking Marlboro Reds? Yeah!

Loken, as the antagonist, gets much more to do, but like Robert Patrick (the bad T-1000 terminator in T2) she doesn’t get to say much. She clearly models her stone-faced performance on his and does well enough. But with so little dialogue and few expressive movements, we notice, perhaps more than is fair, her attractive physical appearance. She is a former fashion model, and it is just hard to find that as menacing as the T-1000.

This issue is perhaps the greatest ‘sell-out’ of T3 to the logic of Hollywood in respect to its predecessors. There is no narrative requirement for a female terminator – or male, to be fair. And the ‘terminatrix’ could have looked like Janet Reno or Oprah Winfrey. Instead it is painfully clear that Mostow chose Loken for her striking good looks. He wisely chose to retain his credibility by avoiding an easy, full frontal nude shot of her, but her selection nonetheless betrays a ‘Seven of Nine’-style sell out to the teenage boy demographic. This continues a disappointing Hollywood trend to recruit female talent from the modeling business rather than acting schools. Instead of skilled actresses, who are perhaps attractive as well, the method now is to recruit models and then hope they can act – think Natasha Henstridge, Denise Richards, Naomi Campbell.

The heart of the film of course is Schwarzenegger. His terminator this time has more to do and say, and the stiff, awkward robot jokes still work. This is clearly Schwarzenegger’s signature role, and it is good to see him back in form after such clunkers as The End of Days or Batman and Robin. And it simply must be said that, at 55, he looks astonishing. Too much of the film, however, rests on him this time around. In the other films, there were meaningful human characters with strong actor performances to supplement the big guy. Sarah could have done a decent job with John on her own, for example, in T2, and Hamilton added that sense in her portrayal. This time around you have the impression Connor and Brewster would die immediately without the governator to guide them. This focus on Schwarzenegger’s terminator character may please those for whom that is the big appeal of the series, but it clearly impoverishes the wider narrative that the humans’ characterizations and arcs are so limpid this time through.

Recommendation: Casual Viewers: If you have seen the other films and thought they were passable fun, you will probably enjoy this one. Just take it as more summer movie entertainment. It will help a lot to have seen the first films though (there is surprisingly little re-cap in this one), so if you need to, rent them before you go back. If you are totally new to the franchise and don’t generally care for the sustained action genre, you will be bored. Die Hard Fans: You will see it no matter what I say, but I think you will like it. Mostow tries hard to capture the spirit of the first two, some 19 years after T1, and he does a better job than we expected. The narrative mostly works, and the action scenes are as big and bold as you want them. And you will be psyched for the next one. 3.5/5 STARS.

Movie Review: 28 Days Later

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This was originally written in 2008.

(Failed) Application Review of a Blu-ray Disc Review requested by http://www.dvdfile.com/

Twentieth Century Fox / 2002 / 113 Minutes / R Street Date: October 9, 2007

Think The Omega Man meets George Romero, but much better than that fusion suggests. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Sunshine) and screenwriter Alex Garland (Sunshine) bring a needed infusion of intelligence and genuinely disturbing violence to a genre whose last iteration before 28 Days was the silly Resident Evil.

The story is fairly straightforward. A group of animal rights activist release chimpanzees infected with a ‘rage’ virus. It quickly jumps to humans and then spreads rapidly throughout Britain. The ‘infected’ are extremely violent, and in one of great twists for the genre, they run, even when they are on fire. This makes them far more terrifying than most zombies on film. Kudos to Boyle for this innovation, and as a device it shows up in later zombie films like the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead and the Resident Evil sequels. Jim, the protagonist (Cillian Murphy – Red Eye, Sunshine), awakens in a hospital 28 days after the infection began. He had been in a coma and so survives. He wanders about deserted London bewildered, searching for someone. These are the most potent scenes in the film. Seeing an enormous city like London simply empty is a powerful, frightening image, especially in the wake of 9/11. That Boyle got the municipal government to help him shut down central sections of this huge city is a testament to his commitment to the final product on meager $8 million budget.

Further credit is due for intellectually and emotionally unnerving the viewer. A disease outbreak is a realistic premise. So the emptiness and loneliness of the metropolis is far more effective and upsetting than the ‘gotcha’ and ‘boo!’ sequences with a loud musical cue so common to horror films. This is intelligent horror. Shortly Jim meets the infected, and we see them maniacally chase him for the first time. He is then saved by two other survivors, one of whom is Celina (Naomi Harris, the vodoo witch in the Pirates 2 and 3). Jim then seeks out his parents, who have died. Their home is warm, comfortably middle class and familiar, which significantly ramps up the fright value of the infected’s attack within their home. Again Boyle uses reliably social imagery – a comfortable home – to disturb the viewer more believably than any psychopath carrying an ax. Jim and Celina then discover a father (Brendan Gleeson – Gangs of New York, Troy) and his daughter (Megan Harris).

A signal suggesting a cure for infection sets them on the road to an army base. Along the way, they incipient family enjoys a brief idyll in a green countryside, a nice breather for the audience, and suggestive of hope in the future. Everything falls apart when they arrive at the base. The soldiers are unruly and intend to rape Celina and the daughter in order to begin repopulation. Jim fights back, and the film slides, unfortunately, into an action mode at the end. Normal, bashful Jim too quickly becomes a lethal foe against trained soldiers. Gleeson’s character having died earlier, the trio escapes.

This is a smart film, particularly for a genre noted for stupidities like splitting up without flashlights to search for the killer. The premise is believable, and there is a delicious irony in showing animal rights activists, with which the audience may sympathize, setting off the pandemic. The group reacts in mostly believable ways to the situation. The violence, while severe and bloody, is not gratuitous. The infected are grotesque and highly violent, so the violence necessary to defeat them reflects that. Only the end really disappoints. The soldiers, accustomed to strict discipline, too quickly become rowdy hooligans, and Jim’s rapid mutation into a powerful killer is unbelievable. Boyle’s point is to parallel our own inhumanity to the infected, but honestly, I’d take the soldiers over the infected anyday. This just didn’t work well for me, nor did the rescue happy ending.

Video: How Does the Disc Look?

Yikes! If you own the DVD, you might rather invest in a good-upscaler instead of this disc. The differences will be negligible. The film was shot entirely (but for the last few minutes) on hand-held digital video, and it really shows. Boyle apparently even worsened the already hazy picture in post-production in order to achieve a ‘gritty urban realism,’ as he says in the commentary. This does not move me I must say. Grit, herky jerky camera angles, dropped frames, etc. strike me as gimmicky (Gladiator, Assault on Precinct 13 remake). Why develop better photography if you won’t use? If it this is the director’s intent, then so be it, but quite honestly it shouldn’t be. Image detail is little better than VHS in someplaces. Try to look at Jim’s face at 7:18., for example. Colors are punchier, one of BD’s big advantages over DVD, and high bit rate (37kps) reduces the most glaring artifacts (halos) of the DVD. But depth of perception isn’t much better. The image looks ‘flatter’ than most BDs. The aspect ratio is 1.85.

Audio: How does the disc sound?

The audio is a vast improvement over the video. Fox has included its typical DTS-HD MA track, an improvement over the DVD’s Dolby Digital. It is rich and full. The soundfield is well-used in scenes with gunfire and the rage of the infected, including good use of the LFE. The balance is solid, and dialogue very audible. Most impressive to me was the music by John Murphy. It is creepy, atmospheric, and fits well the film’s gloomy tone. Again, unlike many horror movies it lacks the cheap ‘gotcha’ music cues to make the audience jump. Instead the loneliness and gloom of this post-apocalyptic world is well conveyed in the steady, disturbing music. Spanish and French Dolby 5.1 track are included, as are subtitles in Spanish, Cantonese, and Korean. The commentary is in 2.0 Dolby Digital.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Fox has finally started included supplements on its BDs, and hopefully, with the conclusion of the format war, these will expand. The supplements are ported over from the DVD, plus an alternate dream sequence ending. They are not rendered in 16×9, 1080p, except for one alternate ending and the trailers. The commentary is quite good. Boyle and Garland provide lots of information, and to their credit, admit to plot holes, cheap effects, moments of bad writing, etc. This is not the usual cheerleading or bland technical commentaries (like the Star Wars commentaries, e.g.), nor was it rambling inanity à la Resident Evil. They are not drunk, bored, or silent for long stretches, and they even provide commentary on the deleted scenes and alternate endings. Well done. The deleted scenes are well presented, but clearly not cleaned up (as on the Star Wars discs). Good explanations for cutting them were provided, and none are really necessary or missed, but for the sequence on the medical train. This would have made a solid edition, and the commentators explain why it was cut. The alternate endings are pretty interesting and bleaker than the theatrical cut. Two include Jim’s death from a gunshot wound included in the theatrical cut. I found that more realistic than the current ‘happy ending,’ but again the directors explain why it was not chosen. Also included is a ‘radical alternate ending,’ that while interesting, is clearly infeasible. The dream ending is simply bizarre.

The other supplements are less useful. A music video (6 min.) by Jacknife Lee is included. A compilation of film scenes set to bland repetitive rock, I found it more promotional than good. Trailers include two for the film, plus the sequel, Sunshine, Alien vs. Predator, and From Hell. The storyboards (2 mins.), production picture gallery (18 mins.), plus an on-set polaroid photogallery (4mins.) are mildly interesting, and again to Boyle’s credit, he narrates them, but they bored me after awhile. Finally comes the requisite making of (24 mins.), a rather bizarre piece. The first half has nothing to do with production but is a collection of scientists and ‘futurists’ telling us how infectious diseases are far more prevalent than we think, and that a pandemic like the one is film is around the corner. Even Boyle, to his discredit, joins in. Not since the Black Death have we seen anything like the scale of death found in this film. I found this exploitative and rather ridiculous. The second half is actually the making of. It is reasonably thorough, although I dislike these because they deconstruct the effects that undermine my willing suspension of disbelief. I’d rather think the zombies were real than watch them get made up.

Final Thoughts

I am not a great fan of the zombie genre, so the running, psychotic zombies was not treason. Genre aficionados will disagree. Rather I found it intelligent, reasonably believable horror, a genuine rarity. The performances are solid, and the low celebrity profile of the actors increases the realism. The music is powerful and fitting. The script is smart; the dialogue and character action believable. The video is hard to recommend, but its poor quality reflects directorial choice, not a BD failure. But the audio is excellent, and the supplements, especially the commentaries, show care. They are not just promo fluff. Recommended for those who don’t already own the DVD.

Buy Guide Video: 5/10 Audio: 8/10 Extras: 3/5 ROM: 0/5 Value: 4/5 for non-owners of the DVD; 2/5 for owners

Movie Review: The Godfather

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CAPA Makes an Offer You Can’t Refuse

One of the joys of summer for cinephiles in Columbus must be the Summer Movie Series of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. (For the schedule, go to http://www.capa.com/movies/schedule.html). For 34 years, CAPA has been running old classics in the wonderfully atmospheric Ohio Theatre. If you have ever wondered what movie-going once was – before the bubble gum overdrive of the contemporary multiplex – this is probably your best shot here in Columbus. Borrowing from the original presentation (back in the 1920s) of movies as a part of a larger show, CAPA enlivens the event with piano music, a spoken introduction, a cartoon, some previews and an intermission. Contemporary movie-goers may find all this distracting and slow-paced, but it does harken back to an earlier manner of film presentation, and that is fun in itself. Before multiplexes and movie ‘theaters,’ films were presented in opera houses and ‘movie palaces.’ Kudos to CAPA for trying to hang onto to some of that.

The best film of this year’s series is The Godfather (only Dr. Zhivago comes close). As most readers of The Other Paper have probably already seen this film, and several times at that, I’ll keep the synopsis short and focus on convincing you to go see this titan one more time.

The story of course is well known. In the late 1940s, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) rules a powerful, politically well-connected mafia family in New York City. He is a family-man, however, and most of the tension in the film is generated by the admirably close family loyalties of the characters contrasted with the violent illegality of their daily lives. Deeply dividing the mafia families in New York is the question of the burgeoning trade in narcotics, and the fallout includes an attempt on the Don’s life. This brings one of the Don’s sons, Michael (Al Pacino), who had stood outside the family business, back in. Michael is capable and sympathetic (a war hero even), but when he joins the family business, we quickly see his lethalness. Much of the emotional impact of the film comes from following his narrative arc – from affable and promising young man to silent, homicidal mafia kingpin.

The rest of the movie is a working out of Michael’s rise under the shadow of his father’s assassination attempt and the inter-mafia family violence of the rising drug trade. First time viewers may be surprised that, despite the title, Brando actually has relatively little screen time and is not Don for most of the film. The story is less about Vito than the passage of power from Vito to Michael and its impact on ‘la famiglia.’ I will stop here for first-time viewers, but the denouement is justly famous.

The film is, as we all know, a landmark. It was ranked number two out of the top 100 American movies in the 20th century by the American Film Institute (Citizen Kane of course was number 1). It garnered 11 Academy Award nominations and won (only!) three. It is even the number one ‘user-rated’ film on IMDB.com! Almost any list of world or American cinema inevitably includes in its top 10.

But you say you know this already and want to know why you should go back again?

1. The script. Perhaps one reason for the film’s great vigor is the basis of its script in the excellent eponymous novel by Mario Puzo. Puzo, a professional writer (not a Hollywood hack) with purported contacts to Cosa Nostra. He brings more narrative gravity to this mob story than other good mob movies with original scripts like Donnie Brasco or Scorsese’s various efforts. Rather than re-invent the wheel, director Francis Ford Coppola wisely stepped aside to let Puzo write the screenplays for all three Godfather films. Indeed, the may be one of the few films superior to its original novel (the Exorcist also comes to mind).

2. The narrative. The story is deep, complex and rich. Good films – like good books – can withstand and reward repeated viewings, and bring you back to uncover more detail. Coppola and Puzo particularly deserve credit for identifying the drug trade as a deeply dividing traditional organized crime in the United States. As John Gotti, arguably the last don, protested on his arrest, the Cosa Nostra had some sense of proportion or “rules” (Gotti’s own term). During the film, Brando counsels one supplicant to justice instead of vengeance, and the assembled dons of the families agree that the drug trade is to be controlled. Yet as the FBI slowly eradicated the mafiosi in the 60s and 70s, into the vacuum stepped less restrained street gangs, directed by extremely vicious Latin American syndicates in the 1980s and well-connected ‘New Russians’ in the 1990s. The Godfather is a window into a world of ‘temperate’ organized crime that scarcely exists anymore and prompts us to wonder if we might not be better off with them than what followed. The film has the required length to let us meet each character and develop an empathy with them. Such a film about the Cosa Nostra works because we care about the characters and are crushed that they live so violently. A story about gangbangers is less powerful, because while they too live violently, we don’t care much about them anyway.

3. The performances. James Caan, Al Pacino and Robert Duvall were all nominated against one another for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1973. Brando of course took the Best Actor Award (famous for the faux-reception speech). And in general, Coppola does an astonishing job wringing good performances from his large ensemble cast. Even Talia Shire (Rocky’s girlfriend) and those long-lost folks playing Tessio, Carlo, Clemenza, Salazo, etc. do a great job. This is not a modern, celebrity-driven vehicle. Coppola actually sublimates the egos of his cast to the requirements of the film and so improves their performances. For those who study the technique of film-making, this is a case study in solid performances across a major ensemble cast.

So is there anything wrong with the movie? One might quibble with the ‘action’ sequences. When Sonny (James Caan) beats up Carlo, you can tell his punches aren’t connecting. Similarly when Sonny (spoiler ahead) is assassinated, its hard to believe he would have survived the first few rounds to make it out of the car (for the awful death scene). But these are trivial concerns, raised by the age of CGI F/X. Perhaps a more significant narrative problem is the likely aftermath (spoiler ahead) of the closing massacre. Its hard to imagine a slaughter of that magnitude would not have brought down the combined vengeance of the remnants of all the families, as well as major police investigations. I generally find in the films, that the Corleones murder with greater impunity than is realistic, but we’ll have to trust Puzo.

Recommendation: First-time viewers: This is a no-brainer, it’s so good. But wait to see it at CAPA in widescreen and not just on DVD. Repeat Viewers: If you haven’t seen it in awhile or ever in the theater, this is an excellent opportunity. A film of this quality can withstand and reward multiple viewings, and chances to catch it in a theater are rare. Die-hard fans: So, like me, you own the DVD collection and can quote lines from all three films. Well, then just take a friend or go to see it one more time to support our friends at CAPA. 5/5 stars.