catch a fire Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We're a few hours late with this report -- and when I say "we" I actually mean "me, Scott" -- but Sundance saps a whole lot of strength from even the most ardent movie freak. With apologies we I now offer you this week's big fat DVD titles ... and a few old-school pieces of ultra-cheese.

Catch a Fire -- Philip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence) goes political again and delivers a fast-paced and very efficient thriller that focuses on the ways in which governments often create the very enemies they're trying to thwart. (Governments are ironic that way.) Tim Robbins and Derek Luke contribute some very fine work. Extras include a multi-filmmaker commentary and a few deleted scenes.

Farce of the Penguins -- From what I've been hearing from reliable sources, this simplistic spoof is way too little way too late. But if you simply must see a movie in which Bob Saget, Samuel L. Jackson, Dane Cook, Jim Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz and the rest of the Friar's Club provide raunchy voice-over dialogue for a bunch of innocent penguins, hey, here's your dream come true. Extras include a Saget-track, deleted scenes, featurettes and a bunch of other penguin-related silliness.

Flyboys -- Big-budget derring-do war flick ... that dropped absolutely dead at the box office. (Budget: $60 million / Domestic Gross: $13 million) I've yet to see the movie myself, but I do look forward to giving it a fair shake -- even if that "running across the blimp" sequence looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic anime story. Extras include a Tony Bill / Dean Devlin audio commentary, more than a half-dozen featurettes and some deleted scenes.

Gymkata -- Yes! Mid-'80s kung fu wackiness combined with hardcore Mitch Gaylord gymnastical stuff! I swear this movie's funnier by accident than most comedies are on purpose. Extras include the knowledge that you now on Gymkata on DVD.

I stood where James Dean stood before he got "stuck" in Rebel Without a Cause. I know that it's been many years since his feet were there but just the idea is still exciting. I also turned into a huge geek after seeing Casino Royale at the famous Grumman's Chinese Theatre when I stuck my hands in Sid Caesar's. That's the fun part of living in Los Angeles; nearly everywhere has been used as a location for a film. It makes the city potent with history and lore and I simply love it. But more and more filming is done outside of California (Vancouver may be the new Hollywood) and this past year outside the United States.

This year filming in Europe and Africa was bountiful. Marie Antoinette and The Da Vinci Code were two that rolled camera in France and Catch a Fire and Blood Diamond are two out of many that were filmed in Africa. The Hollywood Reporter attributes it to filmmakers' rising interest in creating more complex films about the difficulties existing in our world (globalization for one) as well as tax incentives that are stealing filming from California.

It also is incredibly fun for everyone involved in the production to travel to new places. I wouldn't mind going to France, Africa or Vancouver -- especially if it were to make a film. But I wonder if all this traveling to the real Champs Élysées is making the sound stages at the Universal Studios back lots really dusty. ...

Do you prefer fact to fiction or fiction to fact? I think it's inevitable after watching any film based on real life individuals or happenings that you may find yourself fact checking choices made by the filmmakers. Did Johnny Cash really ask June Carter to marry him on stage like in Walk the Line? Yes, he did. But what if he didn't? Would you be annoyed or angry by the writer, director, and actor's choice to make the story more whimsical?

Variety did a little fact checking of their own on this year's films with notable historical references. The article rated films such as Catch a Fire, Pursuit of Happyness and The Last King of Scotland according to their historical relevance and gave a little synopsis of the filmmaker's "spin" on the story.

Almost all the films had a high rating according to factual validity although none scored a perfect ten. Why all the twisting of the truth to make an already good story better? Well first of all, most stories do not come with that tried and true "Hollywood Ending" that viewers love so much. A story, no matter how difficult it is throughout (Hotel Rwanda anybody?) ultimately needs to have an awe-inspiring ending -- leaving the audience member uplifted and with a sense of hope.

So which movies ranked the highest and the lowest? World Trade Center received a nine on the fact meter. The story is about two NYPD officers who survived after their extraordinary heroism following the attacks on 9/11. Writer Andrea Berloff had the upper hand though as she had direct accounts from the real life survivors; whereas Sofia Coppola couldn't have a word with Marie Antoinette. If she had a dialogue with the late queen she may have found out that Manolo Blahniks were not yet available at street markets and New Order wouldn't be arriving on the scene for a couple hundred more years -- but that doesn't mean the film is any less fun.

I say, write it well, direct it well, perform it well and then maybe I won't even care if it's fact or fiction.

Australian-born director Phillip Noyce has followed a fascinating career arc. In his home country, in addition to a handful of early films unseen by me, he turned out the amazing, crackerjack thriller, Dead Calm (1989), the story of three people and two boats in the open water. (Orson Welles started filming the same story as The Deep but shut down production when one of his lead actors died.) The film earned Noyce an invitation to Hollywood, where he received the usual treatment that most foreigners get: He was assigned the unwanted garbage that the locals wouldn't touch. He spent a decade churning out stuff like the Rutger Hauer flick Blind Fury (1989), Patriot Games (1992), Sliver (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), (God help us) The Saint (1997) and The Bone Collector (1999).

Phillip Noyce's political-apartheid thriller, Catch a Fire, tells the tale of real-life hero Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a foreman at an oil refinery, falsely accused of sabotage amid the political heat of the rise of the African National Congress (ANC). After he and his wife are interrogated and tortured at the hands of Nick Vos (Tim Robbins), a colonel in the Police Security Force, and his men, the previously apolitical Chamusso, who had always toed the line of apartheid, leaves his beloved family to fight against apartheid with the ANC. Noyce sat down with James Rocchi during the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss his film. You can download the video here ( 20MB, 9:49 minutes) or watch it over on Netscape.

Because I consistently adhere to my low expectation of upcoming releases, regardless of what season we're in or how much buzz/hype surrounds a film, I can't honestly say that I'm looking forward to any of this season's heavy hitters. Sure, there are new films from Scorsese, Eastwood, Almodovar, Aronofsky, Soderbergh and even my all-time favorite, Gilliam. However, I just can't begin to anticipate any of them, for fear they will disappoint me (which is more than likely, unfortunately). The one thing I can still depend on, though, is acting, and only when I can get a glimpse of the performances in whatever trailers are currently available. I will say that I have high hopes this fall for Matt Damon, Will Smith, Forrest Whitaker, Kate Winslet and Nicole Kidman, but I've compiled a short list of three movies and their respective actors that I look forward to watching the most:

• Catch a Fire (Derek Luke) - I can always enjoy Tim Robbins, and while checking out the trailer for Philip Noyce's new film I couldn't believe the actor's seemingly perfect grasp of the South African accent -- despite being a great actor, he's not always the best with dialects. Sharing the film with Robbins, though, is the under-appreciated Derek Luke, who after gaining great acclaim for Antwone Fisher nearly disappeared into forgettable films like Biker Boyz and Friday Night Lights. In Catch a Fire, which is set in 1980s South Africa, Luke plays the real-life Patrick Chamusso, an anti-apartheid hero who went from being apolitical to leaving his family and joining up with the African National Congress. Regardless of how good the movie is, I expect to be blown away by Luke's handling of the role.