Video review: "Life Itself"

The death of Roger Ebert more or less coincided with the death of film criticism as a viable vocation, and perhaps that’s part of the reason so many of the stubborn stragglers – me included – have dubbed “Life Itself” the best documentary of 2014. He was our irascible champion, wielding unprecedented power and influence, who helped bring an unabashed love of movies into America’s living rooms.

The film, directed by Steve James based on Ebert’s own book of the same title, is much like the man’s writing style: clear-eyed, unpretentious and incisive. It ably covers the rote autobiographical aspects of this Chicago son, his meteoric rise to prominence as the movie reviewer for the Sun-Times, and his ascension to iconic status as the co-host of the various iterations of the TV show he shared with his  partner/combatant, Gene Siskel.

But it also lays bare his complicated soul in unexpected ways. Ebert’s words are read by actor Stephen Stanton in an uncanny mimicry of the critic’s own voice. He talks about his struggles with alcoholism, egotism and professional jealousy.

“Life Itself” was made with the full cooperation of Ebert and his wife, Chaz, and James’ cameras follow the pair around during the final months of his life as Roger struggled with tremendous health issues, including his total loss of speech. The hospital scenes are emotionally tough to watch, as Ebert tries to carry on with his work and life despite crippling illness.

This film spotlights Ebert’s grace, but also his prodigious flaws, in a way that’s even-handed and illuminating. Few cinematic portraits of a famous person are so honest and indelible.

I think Roger would’ve loved this movie, but beyond that, I think you will, too.

Bonus features are merely OK. There are a handful of deleted scenes, an interview with director James, a tribute at the Sundance Film Festival and a television profile of the movie.

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Review: "Life Itself"

It is a supremely satisfying full cinematic circle that Steve James has directed the documentary about the great film critic Roger Ebert, based on his autobiography, "Life Itself." After all, it was Ebert and his partner-in-snark, Gene Siskel, who first championed James' documentary, "Hoop Dreams," 20 years ago, turning it from a little-known festival entry into one of the most seminal films of the modern age.

James would not have a career, or certainly not the career he's had, without Siskel and Ebert. For more than two decades they cajoled people into loving movies while warring with each other on their iconic television show, wherein films could live or die by their up-or-down judgment.

"Two thumbs up" was their (fiercely trademarked) journalistic blessing every Hollywood producer wanted to see on the poster of their flick, while "Two thumbs down" could mark the kiss of death. Ebert and Siskel, otherwise known as "the fat one" and "the bald one" to people who couldn't recall their names but nonetheless knew who they were, spread their passion for cinema from their Chicago empire across entire generations and geographies.

"The studios started out helping us, then hating us, then fearing us," one of the longtime producers of the show says.

This of course was back in the day when film reviewers wielded amorphous but actual power, when newspapers actively sought after and promoted local voices, when people couldn't wait to hear what "their" critic from their hometown paper had to say before plunking down cash for a ticket. Inter-city battles between critics like Ebert and Siskel were the hot sauce in the soup of a community's ongoing conversation about the arts.

Sadly, most cities today, even major metropolitan centers, cannot boast one full-time movie critic, let alone two.

"Life Itself" is a marvelous movie about a marvelous man, and one for whom James and his crew are not afraid to provide a warts-and-all portrayal. Since it's based on Ebert's own writings, many of his faults are enumerated by himself: he was an alcoholic, an egotist, womanizer and occasional bully.

But he was also a natural man of letters, the sort who could dash out a fully thought-through review in a half hour. Ridiculously prodigious -- he blogged tirelessly, penned travel books, a screenplay for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and even a cookbook -- the words flowed out of the burly, bespectacled Ebert like water.

James' documentary satisfyingly explores every angle of Ebert's life, from the professional to the personal, the public persona of the newspaper and TV star to the private things he kept hidden.

For any erstwhile student of Ebert's history, some of the material will already be well known -- such as how the Chicago Sun-Times plucked him, a cub reporter barely into his 20s who'd only been at the blue-collar tabloid a few months, to be the movie critic in 1967. This was at a time when reviewing films was seen as such an inconsequential endeavor that the rival Tribune used a revolving door of writers who all published under the same pen name.

A lot of the story, however, will be brand new and emotionally affecting to the general public, such as how low Ebert grew during his last few years, when cancer forced the removal of his jawbone and the loss of his speech, and thus his TV career. James filmed with Ebert and his wife, Chaz, for several months prior to his death in 2013, and the footage of his ordeal in hospitals and rehabilitation centers underlines his bravery in writing openly on his blog about his travails. (I felt tears welling as a nurse suctioned out his GI tube, his face wrenched in the effort to withstand it.)

Also surprising are testimonials from filmmakers, unknown ones but also giants like Werner Herzog, who talk about how Ebert's championing their work made a difference in their careers. Martin Scorsese (who is also a producer) says that he was essentially washed up in the 1980s, until Siskel and Ebert hosted a tribute to him at the Toronto Film Festival. He says it gave him the strength to go on -- nonetheless, they savaged his next effort, "The Color of Money," something Scorsese talks about without malice.

James also includes extended discussions on the rivalry between Ebert and Siskel, which brought out the best and worst in each man. Other notable critics, like Richard Corliss of Time magazine or the New York Times' A.O. Scott, weigh in with their thoughts on how Ebert's TV work and friendships with filmmakers affected his place in the professional pantheon.

(Full disclosure: like many established and aspiring movie critics, I enjoyed a correspondence with Ebert some years ago, when he gave me some career advice, and I had the pleasure of meeting him once in person.)

Finally, there is the tender story of Ebert's late-in-life romantic blossoming, marrying Chaz at the age of 50 and expanding his lifetime of bachelorhood into an instant extended multicultural family of children and grandchildren.

Love, laughter, tragic flaws, exotic locales, antagonists who become friends, losing the ability to speak but finding a voice -- Roger Ebert's life has all the ingredients for a great movie. And "Life Itself" is that movie.

Review: "Jack Reacher"

From what I understand, "Jack Reacher" is based on a series of books by Lee Child about a wandering ex-military badass who roams the countryside meting out justice with only the clothes on his back and a toothbrush to his name. Tom Cruise, handsome as ever after recently turning 50, looks like Reacher also has a small army of makeup artists and stylists to give him just the right zhuzh before every fight scene.

He's so smiley and smirky, he practically twinkles. It's one of those movies where whenever the hero walks into a room, every female stops what she's doing to stare at him, like a ribeye being waggled at the pack of solves from "The Grey."

It's a nice action star vehicle for Cruise, though the storytelling is often stolid to the point of stiffness. It plays out like a TV crime procedural with regular interruptions for combat, gradually ratcheting upward from hand-to-hand to assault rifles.

Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the adaptation, takes his own good time getting things rolling. But once the action gets pushed into high gear roughly midway through, it's a fast-paced thrill ride the rest of the way.

The story's a little zany and not particularly coherent. An ex-Army sniper named James Barr (Joseph Sikora) appears to suddenly snap one day and randomly shoot five strangers in front of the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium. A sharp local police detective named Emerson (David Oyelowo) manages to put the pieces together, including recovering a quarter with Barr's fingerprint out of a parking meter, and makes the arrest.

Before he's attacked by other prisoners and conveniently put into a coma, Barr scribbles "Find Jack Reacher" as his supposed confession.

Reacher, we soon learn, is a ghost. A top military policeman, he suddenly resigned after 20 years in the Army to roam the land, like Caine sans kung fu. He has no fixed address, owns no possessions other than his clothes and a few incidentals, and apparently gets by using his military pension for bus tickets and cheap hotel rooms.

There's a great scene where Emerson and his boss, District Attorney Rodin (Richard Jenkins), are discussing the mystery of Reacher. Usually in these sorts of movies we would immediately cut to a cool intro where we meet the guy they've been talking about doing something astonishingly cool. Instead, Reacher himself walks in the door right at that moment, offering his services.

He gets the brush-off, but Rodin's daughter Helen (Rosamund Pike), who's been appointed as the shooter's attorney, lures him in. It turns out Reacher investigated Barr a few years ago when they were both in the service, but couldn't quite pin the crime on him.

Now he wants a second crack ... until events reveal that Barr may not have been the assassin after all.

It's all confusing and uneven, having something to do with a mercenary corporation that moves from town to town, sucking up government contracts via bribes and intimidation. Soon you learn to stop worrying about the story and just enjoy watching Reacher dispatch his foes with cool, collected aplomb.

Werner Herzog, the great German movie director, turns up as an enigmatic baddy with only a single eye and only slightly more fingers. Herzog is a hoot relating the story of how he lost them, managing to be both goofy and chilling at the same moment. It's like a parody of an action-movie villain, and yet totally effective.

The action scenes are crisply edited, particularly a standout car chase sequence where Reacher is pursuing the bad guys, while in turn the police are pursuing him. As is obligatory in movies of this ilk, Reacher acquires a classic muscle car and then proceeds to slowly destroy it.

The final showdown at a mine pit is similarly well-executed, where Reacher gets an assist from an old Marine sergeant played by Robert Duvall. He and Cruise have a giddy repartee, and the pairing is winning.

I wish I could say the same for Pike, who spends the entire movie wearing a slightly startled expression, as if she can't believe she's starring in a movie with Tom Cruise.

"Jack Reacher" is kind of a trashy movie with A-list stars and production values. It ain't any great shakes, but for what it is, it does it effectively.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" (1972)

It's said that Werner Herzog wrote the screenplay for "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" in less than three days. I believe it, since this 1972 German film eschews narrative for hallucinatory images and long takes that plunge you into the whirlpool of the main character's madness.

It's less storytelling, and a visually disturbing fever dream.

Francis Ford Coppola was clearly influenced by this film when he made "Apocalypse Now" several years later. Thematically, the movies are similar in that they take place on a nightmarish river journey whose destination grows more figurative they further they get.

Herzog based the film on actual historical figures and events, but has acknowledged that the story is entirely fictitious. In 1560 Spanish adventurers led by Gonzalo Pizzaro search the Andes for the mythical city of gold, El Dorado. Mired in the thick jungle and unable to make progress, Pizzaro organizes an expedition of 40 men to sail downriver to find food or help. Pedro de Ursua is appointed to lead, with Don Lope de Aguirre as his second-in-command.

Aguirre clearly has greater ambitions than his superiors, and will not let anything stop them. When one of the rafts is caught in an eddy and the men slain by Indian arrows, Aguirre blows it up with a cannon rather than allow Ursua to waste time recovering the bodies for burial.

Soon Aguirre overthrows Ursua, who is shot but not slain in the mutiny, so he can continue the journey. He forces the election of Fernando de Guzman, a fat and lazy nobleman, as the new leader, intending to use him as a puppet. They declare their independence from Spain, establishing a new kingdom of El Dorado. In a surprise to Aguirre, Guzman grants Ursua clemency and allows him to live.

After their rafts are borne away by the rising river, they build a new, larger one to carry the entire expedition. Eventually they leave the rapids behind and find themselves slowly floating down the river with little to do. Guzman sits on an erstwhile throne decreeing all the land they see as part of their new kingdom. At one point he gleefully estimates their nation is six times the size of Spain -- despite the fact that they are too afraid of Indians to even go ashore.

Aguirre is played by Klaus Kinski, the volatile actor who would have a long collaboration with Herzog. The two clashed during filming, with Kinski wanting a raving mad portrayal, while the director wanted something more restrained and creepy. Herzog won the argument by simply waiting until Kinski's rages had subsided, and then filming the quieter takes.

It's an amazing performance, one of pure venom and unbridled ambition. In the film's remarkable closing scene, with all of his men and his own daughter slain by arrows, Aguirre stumbles around the raft, which has become overrun by hundreds of monkeys. He vows to mate with his daughter and start a new, pure royal bloodline, and to conquer not only this land but the colonies of Spain.

One interesting thing about Kinski's performance is that he always seems to be looking at the camera sideways. He's constantly turning and twisting his body and head, as if trying to present the most oblique angle possible to the camera.

Another aspect that adds to the film's hallucinatory quality is the blurring of languages and nationalities. You've got a largely German cast portraying Spaniards, so their dialogue is in German. Except the dialogue was actually spoken in English on the set, since it was the only common language on a very multicultural crew. So you've got Germans speaking English pretending to be Spanish. Plus, Kinski refused to re-dub his lines in German without considerably more money, so another actor was brought in to do his dialogue.

"Aguirre, The Wrath of God" remains an often mesmerizing tone poem, about man's folly and lust for wealth, power and fame.

3 stars out of four