The Social Network

Written at the time of the film's release...(although, here, outdated links have been deleted and more relevant ones have been inserted...and then, I'll post the thing on "Facebook"...which is so "Meta")

"Saving Facebook" ("Every Creation-Myth Needs a Devil")
or
"There's Somethin' Happenin' Here (What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear)"

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!" (The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1)

Maybe it is too early to make a movie about Facebook (out of MySpace and Friendster) and the ramifications of our Brave New World of cyber-relationships. Maybe it is a little too "street-corner sage" to predict The End of the World As We are Sorta Familiar With it (But Not Really...More Acquaintances, Really). But, it is interesting to see a story about the Frankenstein behind the Monster, if only to see how each reflects the other.

And even though we're secretly rooting for The Monster.

And, at this point in time, there isn't a better team to make The Social Network than Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. Sorkin, the mad savant behind some of the better TV shows of the past decade and a half, has always written about people and their "issues," and how personality impacts policy. Fincher has matured from an ILM tech (who was happy to fly cameras through coffee-maker grips**) to an intricate observer of societal pressures on the psyche. For the two of them to make this particular story is a Friend Invitation made in Hollywood Heaven.  "Accept" it. But, you can't "Ignore" it.

The movie begins with a date going badly between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, late of many movies with "...land" in the title) Harvard wall-flower, and Erica Albright (Rooney Mara—she'll play Lisbeth Salander opposite Daniel Craig in Fincher's big-budget version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), an acquaintance. Anyone familiar with the machine-gun dialogue that writer Sorkin is known for, had better duck for cover—or wait for this on DVD so you can...play...it...slooooowly—for he now has an automatic weapon for a word-processor, and a co-conspirator in Eisenberg who can milk every nuance out of a line, despite hyperventilating it at debate-competition speed. His Zuckerberg is a "no Dolby/no squelch" type of unreadable conscience, and Eisenberg plays it with a deadness behind the eyes that interprets the world as a problem, if not necessarily a challenge. He's a bit too candid for a first date, and she stomps off, which sends him on a mission, simultaneously trashing her on his blog (LiveJournal) and culling the pictures of every woman on campus to create a "Who's Hotter" web-competition that becomes so popular so instantly that it crashes Harvard's web-infrastructure.

He becomes both famous and infamous for the stunt, guaranteeing he'll never get a date in college, and attracting the wrath of the college's board, and the interest of two preppies attempting to create an exclusionary social network on the web. He goes them several steps better, making a system open to everyone on campus that trumps their attempts, and as it gains "friends," expands throughout the college system.

Hindsight is 20/20, and Sorkin constructs the film as a series of depositions after the fact (of Facebook's success) as everyone who thinks they've been burned by Zuckerberg testifies to his vague promises and dealings under the table.*** Of course, they have every right to sue—but they'd only sue if "The Facebook" was a success—and the underpinnings and double-dealings don't resemble a fight for satisfaction, or a Noble Quest, so much as resembling a snake eating its own tail. ****

Which brings us back to Frankenstein and his Monster. The film itself is expertly done—it is a complicated story of hidden motivations and the presentation of masks before public faces—and Sorkin and Fincher manage to navigate us through the maze of the story, even though one feels there is no cheese at the end. The experience is a bit hollow, which may be a part of the point.

Because the Facebook experience is hollow, as well. As hollow as Zuckerberg, as portrayed in this film, is. While it is nice that one has the opportunity to "re-connect" with old friends in a virtual environment and satisfy everyone's need to (as one friend commented on blogging) "talk about what you had for lunch," one wonders why one has to re-connect at all...especially if the relationship wasn't maintained in the first place. Not enough time in the world to meet? Because a "real" relationship takes time, takes effort, "gets messy?" Facebook provides the illusion of "staying in touch," without actually touching. Like Zuckerberg's abortive "date," a lot of time is spent broadcasting, but not interacting.

There are, of course, exceptions. But the fact of the matter is Facebook's cyber-community is not a "Brave New World" at all. Just the opposite. It provides a substitute in lieu of commitment. A panacea in a life thought to be full to bursting and without risk. The most precious commodity we can give is time—slices of our lives and our selves. Facebook is a pacifier—a mass-Hallmark card that we can spend a few heart-beats picking out, and send away without a thought and not even sweat the cost of a stamp.

It soon becomes a numbers game—a collection, like the celebration of the 1,000,000th friend portrayed in the film. But who are those million people?  Facebook doesn't know or care. It's just a number. A number of casual relationships, that may lead to something else, but probably won't. A collection, nice to look at, but more often, ignored. Trophies, and ones that don't need to be polished or buffed up.

It's a new world of blithely arrested development, in the image of its creator, where love and commitment do not compute, and the only thing close to it is "hope"—translatable as keystroke F5.

* Except for some dodgy freezing breath-work, the biggest special effect will be invisible to you until the closing credits.  Nice.

** Personally, I'd like to get back all those hours spent on "ZooWorld."

*** An image that kept coming to mind every time I thought of writing this review, where it would subsequently be published...on B/C-L's's Facebook page.

Mirror, Mirror

Don't Trust Anyone Over Four Feet
or
"No, Snow!  Don't Mess with Traditional Story-Telling!  It's Been Focus-Grouped, and It Works!!"

I approached Mirror Mirror with some trepidation. It's the sort of movie that curdles my gray matter—taking a traditional fairy-tale and updating it for modern audiences, with anachronisms, modern slang and catch-phrases, a fractured fairy-tale denying its origins and playing "hip." Also, it's a Julia Roberts vehicle and I don't "buy" Roberts in anything but comedic roles (which this one is).

But the other choice was to see Wrath of the Titans, for which I had no desire (Really? They're trying to make a franchise out of that one?) and so it was the "Snow White" knock-off, even though the prospect seemed rather Grimm.

It did have one thing going for it, however. Even though produced by Brett Ratner, it was being directed by an inspired choice—Tarsem, who vaulted from R.E.M. music videos to The Cell,* then rebounded with a fine film no one bothered to see, The Fall. I'd passed on his Immortals last year (though I plan to watch it on video sometime soon, now that it's out), but, as Tarsem can do some visionary work, he just might be able to pull it off.

It might well have been lame in any other hands, but the director's spectacular design sense, not only for sets and costumes, but also how to frame them for maximum effect is combined with a breezy comedy style that is never idle, and never hangs for a laugh, so that not only is the frame full, but the soundtrack as well, with one overhanging punch-line that crowds through before each cut.

And yes, it's anachronistic, with such a polyglot of styles that it goes beyond, say, Terry Gilliam-madness into a Moulin Rouge!-ish goofy slap-dashery in which nothing is sacred except the movie's own internal rules of play, stopping just short of the Python-line of anarchy.  There is no single accent in place to latch onto geographically, except for some Anglo-Saxonisms—indeed, Arnie Hammer's Prince Alcott of Valencia, is pure American, but does it with such Ivy-League bravado that you accept he's a prince.

And this variation of the story has just enough "Hamlet" mixed in—Ms. White (an Audrey Hepburn-esque Lily Collins—Phil's kid) is the daughter of The King (Sean Bean**), who is murdered (unbeknownst to all) by his new step-wife The Queen (Roberts), who then rules the Kingdom into the ground, while White awaits taking the throne on her 18th birthday (that is, if the Queen ever permits it). Instead, she spends it going out to see what's become of her Father's legacy and is distressed to learn there's no singing and dancing in the streets (as she remembers) but begging and poverty instead. This causes a political debate in the family, leading to Snow being banished by The Queen to be dispatched by her lackey Brighton (played with Costello-ish consternation by Nathan Lane).

Along the way, we meet the handsome Prince (Hammer, who is aggressively great here, better than his Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, and decidedly better than being cocooned in make-up for J. Edgar, one thinks though that he is doomed to play scions), who is accosted by highwaymen...who just happen to be The Seven politically incorrect Dwarves (Napoleon, Half-pint, Grub, Grimm, Wolf, Butcher, and...Chuck, played with gruff zeal distinctively, by Jordan Prentice,Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, Danny Woodburn, Sebastian Saraceno, Martin Klebba,and...Ronald Lee Clark, all threatening to steal the show, as well—"beats workin' in a mine," as one of them says).  Before long, everybody's path is crossed once or twice, along with swords and stars in lovers' eyes.

Thing is, in its cartoonish way, it works in live-action, as well as when Disney goes sassy these days with classic tales, and, given the edge by Tarsem's crack sense of timing and way of knowing no bounds in design and camera moves (and Alan Menken's Mickey-Mousing*** score doesn't hurt in that regard, either) the effect is somewhat the same.

Walked in loathing the idea and walked out kinda lovin' it. Pretty happy about that, given the Grimm prospects. Seems fair, if not the fairest of them all.

The music video in the End Credits, which shows how Tarsem throws things 

in from left field, as in this "Bollywood" style sequence.

*
Another example of Tarsem's work—a cheeky gladiator themed Pepsi commercial, 

featuring Enrique Eglesias, Beyonce, Britney Spears and Pink, with the music of Queen.

** Is there something in Sean Bean's contracts that stipulates that any character he plays not make it to the last reel? The last movie I saw where one of his characters survived was The Martian.

*** © Disney Corporation. I use this in the musical definition of the term (not in its "common, inferior" usage) where the music follows the action on-screen precisely, as in notes that follow foot-steps, say. And now this joke is a bit ironic as, this year, Mr. Mouse is in the public domain. So, now, I can make that animated cartoon of "Maus" starring Mickey.

J. Edgar

The F.B.I. (Love) Story
or
"What Determines a Man's Legacy is Sometimes That Which Isn't Seen"

J. Edgar Hoover ruled the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 45 years under the Department of Justice. Over the course of his tenure, he made the FBI his personal weapon in defending the nation from threats as he saw them, even as they changed form—from Bolshevik radicals to hayseed bootleggers and bank robbers to Communists to Civil Rights Activists to his very bosses. He did this unsubtly and unequivocally with press-trumpeted raids and whispered-about secret files that, if it didn't make him (as the phrase goes) "the most powerful man in the country," he was certainly the most feared. It was always assumed that Hoover had "the goods" on everyone, and guaranteed his long-held government post with weapons in manila files.

When he died (in office), Hoover's mug had the well-known face of a haggard bulldog—keeping secrets is something that can age you rapidly—and keeping secrets is something Hoover did best. Not only those of others, but his own.  Rumors swirled about the nature of his relationship with FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson—that they were secretly gay lovers rather than "gentleman cops," that Hoover was a cross-dresser, and that the reason Hoover didn't pursue the gangsters of La Cosa Nostra in the '40's and '50's was because of compromising photographs in the hands of Meyer Lansky. Nothing has ever been confirmed. It's all just rumor, the smirking kind that the powerful get (but there's never any proof).

Which is why news of a Hoover bio-pic, written by Dustin Lance Black and directed by Clint Eastwood seemed so intriguing. Eastwood isn't afraid to take chances, turning cliches on their ear and Black's clear-eyed script for Milk garnered an Oscar. Their film J. Edgar promised "red meat," of the kind that could be delightfully and salaciously chewed.

And the two men have taken chances...but not with the result you would think.  Rather than being a rant or skreed, J. Edgar is actually a sympathetic look at the FBI director and his peccadilloes and shortcomings. There's nothing hysterical (save for one fist-fight that breaks out between Leonardo DiCaprio's Hoover and Armie Hammer's Tolson) in script or direction, but it offers a look at a severely closeted man who had to be in the times he lived and with the mantle he carried. Ambitious, yes. Paranoid, certainly. Vain and glory-hunting, without a doubt. Hoover craved the spotlight and his role in being "Head G-Man," while at the same time operating in the shadows, single-mindedly hoarding the secrets of others, while keeping his own is the height of ironies. At the same time that he espoused the Bureau ethic for red-blooded American males as agents, one wonders if it is done for appearances' sake, a beard that would mask his own leanings while also serving as a "hiding-in-plain-sight" revelation of his own taste in men.

Black and Eastwood conduct the story-telling in flashback, as Hoover in his latter years, decides to set the record straight, dictating his memoirs to an amusingly rotating number of agent-stenographers who disappear as soon as a point is questioned, or a weakness revealed. The story is a white-wash, reflecting the man's "official" view of the Bureau's history in a mix of incident and myth. At many times, J.Edgar is a bit reminiscent of Citizen Kane, with its fracturing point-of-view, shifting perspective, and ironic commentary on some of the incidents.*

It also shares Kane's sense of the unattainable summation of a life. C.F. Kane's had little to do with "Rosebud," just as Hoover's gay leanings was a small part of his whole story. It began with a controlling mother (Judi Dench), determined to keep young John Edgar from becoming a drunk like his father. Groomed to become "the most powerful man in the country," Mother Hoover controls her son's life to make him the image of the perfect son, diction lessons to force past a stammer, impeccable grooming, and the enforcement of all of her prejudices. And the nullification of any behavior less than manly. He is made in the image of his Mother's "perfect son," even though that image may be completely counter to reality. It sets him on a lifelong course of fighting her battles, never really being his own man, as much as posing in the presentation he wanted to project. A performance. An act. Myth and lies.

It is a story soaked in ironies: the man who kept secrets on everybody, but the biggest being his own; the investigator who saw no harm in exposing other's private lives, while keeping an iron grip on his own; the policeman who targeted and made war on many enemies, the primary one being himself. Black and Eastwood present a case for sympathy, even empathy, for a man who shaped, and was shaped, by his times, who rose through the ranks of power in society, to not be shunned by it, and who searched for verifiable fact while living in denial, and closeted by the bureau of his own making.

Hoover and Tolson at their regular table at The Stork Club.

* Not to mention that DiCaprio's "old-man" make-up makes him look more like the aged Charles Foster Kane than the jowly Hoover (still, it's better than the never convincing make-up that Hammer sports as an aging Tolson), and the shots of Hoover witnessing the Inaugural parades of Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon are shot from the same angle as the "newsreel" shot of Kane in a balcony appearance with Adolph Hitler.

Death on the Nile (2022)

Too Heiress Human

or

"It's Nor Just a River in Egypt, Honey..."
 

We talked about the John Guillermin version of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" last year in anticipation of this year's release. The story's not one of Dame Agatha's best and is the weakest part of the film, which relies heavily on trying to repeat the success of the earlier all-star Murder on the Orient Express, but with fewer A-listers and an eye to luring the older audiences who flocked to Murder... with older stars like Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, and Peter Ustinov.

 

Well, now Kenneth Branagh follows up his version of Murder on the Orient Express with his version of Death on the Nile (given this route, can Evil Under the Sun be next?), which fixes some things from the earlier version—mostly performance—adds a little tension with a limited time-frame, as well as giving Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh and his mustache again) more of an emotional reason to solve the murder, rather than merely see justice done and the puzzle solved. It has already been well established in the Branagh version of Christie's world that Poirot prefers a tidier world, but, evidently, that is not enough.

Nor is it enough, apparently, that Poirot has a particularly fussy mustache—more than Ms. Christie implied and it was obsessed over in many reviews of Branagh's Murder—now we must know why it is. Necessary? No. But, at least in the opening black and white sequence which shows a particularly glorious and tragic day in Poirot's WWI service, we get to meet Catherine, whose history was hinted at in the previous Murder... Again, none of this is Christie's creation, but if it keeps Branagh engaged, then scripter Michael Green can play with the elements all he wants.

And play he does. Eliminating book characters, substituting others and swapping attributes from one character to another. The basic mystery is the same—a person is murdered on a closed stage—a ship going down the Nile—and no one goes missing and the obvious person with a motive has an airtight, can't-get-by-it alibi, and Poirot must find the killer before the ship docks and they disembark, the culprit possibly to go loose. The only thing helping in determining "whodunnit" is that two of the suspects are also murdered before the issue is solved. Process of elimination had to occur somewhere.

This is it in very general, non-spoilery turns, because the way Branagh and Green set it up, surprises come early and often, whether you've read the book or seen the earlier versions, and they're done in quite inventive ways that would have put Dame Agatha in a dead faint. It is for sure that she would not have approved of the steamy, sweaty dance sequences that open the film proper, not would she have approved of turning one of the passengers from a gossipy (and drunk) romance novelist to an African-American blues chanteuse* (Sophie Okonedo). The socialist on the boat is no longer a radical, but a member of the upper class (Jennifer Saunders), and there are no kleptomaniacs this time, but there is no longer a jewel thief being pursued by a friend and fellow-passenger of Poirot.

That role gets substituted by Poirot pal Bouc (Tom Bateman), back from the Murder... film, and this time accompanied by his mother Euphemia (Annette Bening), who just happens to be a friend of the family on the celebratory but doomed boat trip; in fact, everybody has some relation with the happy couple—they being Linnett and Simon Doyle (Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer), she being the heiress of the super-rich Ridgeway family. 

So, why is Poirot there? Well, that's one of those spoilery secrets unique to this version—although I can say that the happy Doyle's have asked Poirot for his assistance, as they are being stalked by Simon's former fiance Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), who it seems can't let go. They think she's off her nut, and things get dangerous when Simon and Linnett escape being crushed at Abu Simbel. The thing is: "Jackie" hasn't arranged to smuggle herself on the boat yet and crash the party.

The production is lush, and perhaps too much so. The vista is given the full CGI treatment where everything looks so picture-postcard perfect that it feels like it was photographed in Egypt's uncanny valley—there doesn't even appear to be dust in the air, no grit (unusual in a desert environment), no one even sweats in the heat (certainly as much as they do on the dance floor), and there is a distinct difference between underwater shots of the Nile being dragged for clues, and the shots below the boat suggesting the carnivorous nature of life below the surface—there's plenty to show it on the ship, so the pixelated watery detours are completely unnecessary. And the film has a fetish for the Gilded Age right down to the glistening silverware and the sheen on a champagne bottle, lit as carefully as the stars.

And they're good, by the way. Branagh has some moments to flex his acting muscles with both comedy and tragedy masks. Gadot and Hammer are terrific (rumors to the contrary) and Emma Mackey's jilted fiancee simmers to a broil without the full-on hissy-fits that Mia Farrow brought to the 1978 version. Letitia Wright gets to play some drama, instead of playing "the sprite" (and she's great at it), Okonedo pleasantly threatening, Russell Brand just fine without relying on comedy, Jennifer Saunders delightfully brassy along with Dawn French, and Annette Bening a highlight, probably better than is called for.

Branagh direction is a bit stagey and geometric, keeping in mind a proscenium arch throughout as if the curtain just lifted. And the geometry extends to some almost too-perfect tracking shots that would make you suspect Wes Anderson was directing (if you didn't know any better). That being said, his version of a John Woo Mexican standoff lacks the tension that one should expect, except to wonder why there are so many guns allowed during international travel. Maybe it's movies like this that convinced the cruise lines to ban them.

In fact, the movie is a bit like a cruise trip—superficially opulent, until you realize you're stuck on a boat with people you don't like, and you swear to never do it again. But, then there's the lure to get away. Death on the Nile gets away with a lot.

* Dame Agatha was never afraid to use the "n-word" and in fact one of her most famous works contained the word in the title, before it was changed to something equally racist (in today's terms) at the hands of the publisher's, lest sales were hurt. (And you thought "cancel culture" was a new thing? It's been around as long as evolution).

Disney's The Lone Ranger

Written at the time of the film's release....

...A Cloud of Dust...
or
Depp in the Heart of Texas

The last time "The Lone Ranger" hit the big screen (1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger, directed by cinematographer William A Fraker), it hit with a resounding thud. It's not that the story wasn't any good, or that the basic idea isn't ripe for story-telling—it's just that the movie was dull, dull, dull, even as it was trying to be more "politically correct," giving John Reid's "Indian companion," Tonto, a bit more respect and hewing a little closer to a generically Native culture.

That was then. This is now.  John Ford made the first modern Western in Stagecoach.  Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah made the "post-modern" Western in the 60's. Then, after post-modernism came death. People stopped making Westerns entirely, with hold-outs like Eastwood and Costner and Kasdan and Harris, the tropes of the genre falling into use in, cop movies and martial arts and space fantasy films. But the form stayed pretty much dead and buried. Given the history of the form, and with its emphasis on the spirit world, resurrection of dead men, and its manic quality (especially as its de rigeur for the creatures these days) maybe Gore Verbinski's film of The Lone Ranger (now Disney's) is the first zombie Western.

It fits.* One of the themes galloping through this one is that "nature is out of balance," what with the "Wild" West being invaded by iron horses, the presence of "spirit horses," villains who will eat the hearts of their victims and manically carnivorous jack-rabbits out on the plains. Zombies, okay. But it's a bit of a Frankenstein monster, as well, made up of parts of what has gone before. The final credits say that it was filmed "from Moab to Monument Valley," mostly Utah, and its true, with shots in Zion, Arches National Park, and the Monuments (looking slightly different from the time John Ford filmed them—the calved spires seem to have been digitally erased—although Verbinski has taken a lot of Ford's specific angles several times in the film). 

Verbinski's The Lone Ranger on the left; Ford's The Searchers on the right

But it seems like Nature isn't the only one with the problem. The Lone Ranger is a Western out of balance, tipping from side to side and waving its arms frantically while standing on a line between olde Westerns and the post-modern varieties, with full-stops at the Leone era** and the silent era of comedic Westerns, specifically Buster Keaton's The General (not technically a Western, but go with me here) in the film's final bursts of energy. The movie veers from queasy nastiness to whimsy to outright comedy and slapstick, without taking a break for water. The villains are played absolutely straight, from Tom Wilkinson's rail baron to his nasty co-hort, Butch Cavendish (a greasily unrecognizable David Fichtner), while the heroes are bumblers with good intentions, like Armie Hammer's rube of a Ranger,*** and top-billed (above the character and movie title) Johnny Depp's bizarre take on Tonto—well, it's bizarre for Tonto, but not for Depp, as this "Indian companion" would line up well with his other pasty-faced odd-balls like Edward Scissorhands and Barnabas Collins. And, in action, his Tonto acts more like the Sam character in Benny & Joon, there's some Chaplin, but a lot of Buster Keaton in his stone-faced, article-challenged Tonto (the make-up for which is inspired by a painting by Kirby Sattler entitled "I Am Crow," which is neither authentic or historically accurate, but it looks distinctive, which suits Depp's purposes, I suppose). 

The movie runs on two parallel tracks of revenge—the Ranger, John Reid's, and Tonto's—as the two end up joining forces to deal with the guys who ambushed the Ranger's brother and posse, and the guys who wiped out Tonto's village, for which he feels responsible. It's a little late in the game to plead weariness of the revenge scenario—it seems like every movie hero has to have a personal grudge as a pilot light, rather than to "do what they gotta do" through some sense of altruism. Possibly that heroic quality is passé or considered foolish in today's culture, or maybe there's no sense of audience involvement if it isn't seen why the protagonists stand up for what's right.

But, it spends most of its running time moseying through origin stories and the whittling away at the uneasy alliance between Reid and Tonto. Then, once things get going, there's an extended chase sequence featuring the two trains involved in the driving of the golden spike uniting the nation's railways, an "Indiana Jones" type of marathon that explores everything that you can possibly do with two trains running on occasionally parallel tracks (when did they find time to lay all that extra track, one wonders?). The sequence would make the silent comedians gape, and propelled by variations of "The William Tell Overture," provides a lot of entertainment.  It's fun for quite awhile and Verbinski constructs some Rube Goldbergian scenarios that are, once or twice, ingenious.

But, instead of coming at the nick of time, it comes a might too late.  The focus there at the end comes after a lot of wandering aimlessly through the desert, looking for something to do. Granted, its not as dull as the 80's attempt to put the spurs to the franchise, and in parts its entertaining, if one isn't looking for native axes to grind**** or is approaching the material with an already jaundiced eye. One wonders if it was worth doing, or whether "The Lone Ranger" should be allowed to pass into legend, a relic of the thrilling days of yesteryear.

My favorite appearance of Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as

The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Kind of reminds me of how the movie plays them.*****

* Yeah, but one can see that as a strain running through Verbinski's work, especially considering the "Pirates" movies and Rango, where folks are coming back from the dead, or at least the crossing back from whatever spirit-world seems to fit the project.

** Composer Hans Zimmer does a lot of riffing off Ennio Morricone, the most notes taken from For a Few Dollars More (with its tinkling chime contrasting with a heavy-handed forward momentum theme), but also in the comedic grace notes that follow Tonto's shenanigans with a punctuating trill that Leone used for Eastwood's "Man with No Name" in A Fistful of Dollars.

*** Hammer is introduced like Jimmy Stewart's Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the "duded" pilgrim who stands out far too much in the rough West, in a suit so formal he's mistaken for a missionary...by a missionary. It's one of his better performances, showing that he's at his best, comedically, despite (and maybe because of) his blandly handsome looks, in a way that's similar to Cary Elwes. 

**** Most of the talk is focused on Depp and his "white-face" portrayal of Tonto and how authentic it is (not very), which with the existing suspicions people have of the character as demeaned and inferior, has been mostly negative, because, like skin color, its very easy to see and remark upon with what one thinks of as authority. One wonders if such a rehabilitation is possible, given the character's man-servant past, like Robinson Crusoe's "Friday," or The Green Hornet's "Kato" (although it certainly helped if Bruce Lee was in the role, bringing the character up several notches just on ability and charisma—should we mention that Brit "The Green Hornet" Reid is a descendant of The Lone Ranger?), and whether its even worth it to right the past's wrongs. The alternative is to stay in place, and be content—although grousing—with the way things were and just leave it aside.  I think it says something that Depp thought Tonto was the more interesting character to play, as for authentic...is anything Depp does very authentic?  Short answer: No. As for the whole racial thing, I thought the best line was Depp's Tonto griping about the ranger being a "stupid white man," and the Chinese railroad workers grinning and nodding in agreement at him—he's just another American...to them. Now, that's some funny ethnic humor there.

**** It also is inherently racist as it paints Tonto in a bad light, obviously Natives are gluttonous. (*cough*)