I attended a press & industry screening¹ of this documentary about Daniel Ellsberg, a government official who, during the Vietnam War, leaked some top secret Pentagon documents (the “Pentagon Papers”) that proved that the war was based on government lies. Americans probably know the history of the event, but ignorant Canadian that I am, I was not familiar with it. So on one level, I enjoyed the movie as a history lesson. But what really drove the film for me was Ellsberg’s personality. (He narrates the film and is seen throughout in the typical talking head interviews.) When he speaks, you can tell that he’s absolutely committed to doing the right thing. More than that, he followed his words with actions—actions that put his own freedom at risk. I have great respect for this, and I think that he is a true hero.

On the negative side, I thought they overdid the portrayal of Nixon as a bad, bad man. The repeated use of sound clips of Nixon saying vulgar and awful things almost came off as unintentionally funny because it was so on the nose. (E.g. someone in an interview would say something like, “Surely, the government would not do XYZ.” Then it would cut to a tape of Nixon saying “By God, we better goddamn do XYZ to those sons of bitches.“) I would have preferred a little more subtlety. Minor criticisms aside, this was a very fascinating doc.

3.5 out of 5

The Warrior and the Wolf was a Chinese historical drama. The titular warrior hides out in a village during a break in the battle and meets a woman in the village and they develop a relationship. “The wolf” could metaphorically refer to any number of things and is open to interpretation, so I won’t give anything away by discussing it.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. While I found the basic plot satisfying, and the visuals nice to look at (especially one special effects shot of a desert sandstorm), there were some issues with the film that prevented me from really getting into it. First, I had a problem with the introduction in the first 20 minutes or so. It attempts to give the background of the war and the warrior’s involvement in said war in a non-linear way. It jumps back and forth in time and I had a hard time following what the current storyline was. I don’t have a problem with non-linear storytelling, but to use it to establish the foundation for the rest of the film didn’t work, and it affected the experience for the remainder.

The other big problem I had was with the relationship between the warrior and the village woman. It reminded me of the flashback sequence in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which was my least favourite part of that film). Boy meets girl, boy holds girl captive, boy rapes girl, girl inexplicably comes to love boy. Obviously within that culture and in that historical time period, gender roles were different, but I just couldn’t believe in that relationship.

At the end of the film, there was a Q & A session with the director and main cast. Someone asked a question regarding how the two stars of the film (Maggie Q and Joe Odagiri) and the director (Tian Zhuang Zhuang), who all speak a different native language, dealt with the communication barrier on set. The gist of their answers was that it wasn’t a barrier, and that the energy and the emotion of the film was understood by all, regardless of language. A nice sentiment, but unfortunately, I don’t think this energy translated to the screen. In the end, I think the movie felt like a series of well-done scenes, but didn’t come together into a coherent whole.

2.5 out of 5

I was catching up on some Ebert & Roeper shows via their podcast… A couple weeks ago, they reviewed Into the Blue. Richard Roeper gave it a thumbs down for all the expected reasons: ridiculous plot, mindless action scenes, etc. Ebert, on the other hand, gave it a thumbs up, to Roeper’s astonishment. He began his justification of his recommendation thusly (I’m paraphrasing here):

“Jessica Alba is a pretty girl. She’s pretty in this movie. So that’s a thumbs up.”

Can’t argue with that, Roger Ebert. Of course, he tried to give other reasons for liking the movie, but it was altogether unconvincing. I propose that Ebert & Roeper introduce a “thumb down, penis up” rating for just this purpose.