‘Seabiscuit’ inspiring, emotional success

Don’t forget to bring tissues. That’s my advice if you choose to see

“Seabiscuit,” writer/director Gary Ross’ new film that chronicles the

true story of three underdogs who banded together with an undersize

horse, Seabiscuit, defied the odds and earned themselves the 1938

award for Horse of the Year. No film in recent memory has so deftly

pushed the emotional buttons of its audience. “Seabiscuit” doesn’t

have a cynical bone in its body and it makes a genuinely inspiring

comment on the triumph of the human spirit.

In a summer of mindless, would-be blockbusters that audiences have

wisely turned their backs on, it’s refreshing to see a movie place

its stock in characters. Viewers respond to people, not situations;

characters, not plot. When plot serves character, then a movie begins

to have a pulse. “Seabiscuit” eschews conventional structure and

bravely dedicates its first act to introducing you to its three main

characters: Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), Charles Howard (Jeff

Bridges) and Tom Smith (Chris Cooper.)

Pollard, a teenager when we meet him, watches the stock market

crash of 1929 destroy his family, reducing his intellectual father to

a peasant and causing the family to give Pollard up to a wealthier

man who’s willing to develop his jockeying skills. Pollard ends up

losing his vision in one eye after a tepid prize-fighting career.

Howard, a successful automobile entrepreneur, enters the

horseracing game to fill the void left by the tragic death of his

young son and the wife who left him soon after. Smith is a taciturn

“horse whisperer” who is more comfortable with animals than with

other people.

Then there’s Seabiscuit, a horse who was bred to race, but was

considered to small and wild to be tamed, and endured years of abuse

as an owner “tried to beat the wildness out of her.”

Although Ross tends to steam roll through these early scenes to

keep the pace moving, I must give him kudos for so efficiently

conveying such a huge amount of information with images. Ross doesn’t

rely on dialogue to do the heavy lifting.

I especially enjoyed Cooper’s early scenes that show the slow

invasion of technology and progress in the old west. At first, we see

Cooper’s character, Smith, wrangling horses on the open plains of the

old west, free and self-sufficient. Soon after, he encounters a

barbed wire fence that protects the new automobile highway that now

crisscrosses nature -- and you know his life will never be the same

again. Later, we see him on a train, poor and unemployed, forced into

a world where money determines status and the open country he loves

is being bought and sold in squares.

Ross renders his characters as puzzle pieces that slowly learn

they fit together. Pollard is without a father, Howard is without a

son -- slowly they come to know each other.

Some of the more breathtaking aspects of “Seabiscuit” are the

races themselves. They are, in my opinion, more suspenseful and

harrowing than watching Neo battle 100 agent Smiths in “The Matrix

Reloaded,” because you care about the characters.

Ross even knows how to play against expectation. He builds up the

tension at the beginning of a race sequence by showing a man about to

press the starting bell. When he does, you expect the race to jump

start, instead, Ross begins a montage of real black and white photos

depicting Americans sitting by their radios in 1938, riveted to details of the race. It’s a touching reminder that the story is true

and that it single-handedly transfixed and inspired a nation 65 years

ago. Finally, Ross gives you the race in all its frenetic glory.

“Seabiscuit” does have flaws. The dialogue is often painfully on

the nose. When Smith says, “You don’t throw away a life just because

it’s been banged up a little,” it’s effective. When it’s repeated a

few more times, it begins to feel like a sledgehammer.

I question a sequence that appears to suggest that Pollard senses

something tragic has happened to his beloved horse in another side of

the country. This is not a movie about emotional telepathy. And the

development of Howard’s second wife, Marcela (Elizabeth Banks), feels

like it was left on the cutting room floor. Banks gives a fine

performance, but as it stands, she falls flat and is a criminally

underused asset.

If not for the fact that “Seabiscuit” depicts events that actually

occurred, you would scarcely believe they could happen. This story of

Seabiscuit was a no-brainer, and has been given the treatment it

deserves.

* ALLEN MacDONALD, 30, is working toward his master’s degree in

screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

‘Lara Croft’ sequel is weak and lame

Considering how Hollywood has botched screenplays based on very

rich material (“Interview with a Vampire” and “Midnight in the Garden

of Good and Evil” are a couple that come to mind), what hope is there

for an engaging plot based on a video game, especially a second time

around?

After viewing “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life,” I

conclude the producers and writers of this dud must have found no

useable content related to the game itself and instead appropriated

elements of several well-known adventure, spy and martial arts

movies. It’s worth noting the attributed writers of this mess are

associated with such bombs as “Judge Dredd” and “Hudson Hawk.” They

are not improving with practice.

The thin plot line centers on the discovery of a temple built by

Alexander the Great. Buried beneath the sea centuries ago, the temple

is breached by an earthquake as the film opens. Treasure hunters,

including Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), rush to the site.

Croft finds a glowing orb that is immediately stolen from her by

murderous rival scavengers. As is revealed later, the orb turns out

to be a map to the Cradle of Life, the resting place of Pandora’s

box. The mere fact the audience is supposed to make this leap in

logic is indicative of the lameness of the plot.

Pandora’s box is coveted by the requisite “mad” scientist, Nobel

Prize-winner Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds) who plans to market the

relic to international terrorists. Reiss’ plan is for the plague

contained in the box to wipe out most of the earth’s population while

he decides who survives by judiciously dispensing the antidote to

people “worthy” of being saved.

One positive element of the film is Jolie’s portrayal of Croft, a

combination Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Indiana Jones and Bruce Lee.

Jolie comes across as sufficiently upper crust and more than handles

the physical demands of the part. Croft turns up in the most

challenging situations amusingly dressed in the proper designer

apparel with no luggage in evidence.

Gerard Butler plays Terry Sheridan, a former British commando

turned traitor who is sprung from prison to accompany Croft on this

adventure. Sheridan is supposed to be some kind of romantic interest,

but the character as written has no appeal for someone of Croft’s

breeding and station.

“Lara Croft II” is really let down by ridiculous action sequences

and surprisingly bad special effects. Anyone would die a hundred

times over if subjected to the number of punches, kicks, falls,

explosions and bullets from which Croft emerges relatively unscathed.

Jolie supposedly performs many of her own stunts, and her physicality

is admirable. Unfortunately, her hard work is wasted in mostly hard

to believe, cartoon-like confrontations with the bad guys.

There are many summer action movies better than “Lara Croft II,”

including “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Terminator 3.” If you only

want to see one or possibly two such films this summer, I suggest

skipping this one.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife,

Elizabeth.

“Blonde 2” will make you pull your hair out

Reese Witherspoon returns as brainy bombshell Elle Woods in the

comedy “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde.” Having conquered

Harvard, Elle is now a rising young lawyer at a great firm, balancing

her demanding career with preparations for her wedding to the man of

her dreams.

Unfortunately, Witherspoon’s eyes can’t gleam as brightly as her

teeth over the harebrained plot and poor script by novice scribe Kate

Kondell. Any meaningful or at least interesting issues (adoptee

rights, animal testing and even homosexual pets) get glossed over in

favor of what at times becomes more “pet movie” than a “Reese

vehicle.”

While planning her wedding, Elle hires a private investigator to

discover the location of her dog Bruiser’s birthmother, so that,

logically, she can invite her to the wedding (I guess she didn’t care

about the father.) Adult adoptees would applaud Hollywood for taking

notice of their rights, if they weren’t also being insulted in the

same regard by having their issues represented by a rat-sized canine.

Once Elle’s investigator comes through with the impossible and

ludicrous task, she discovers that Bruiser’s mom is a test animal for

cosmetics. Outraged, Elle goes to Washington to take matters into her

own French-manicured hands. The film also stars Bob Newhart, Sally

Field, Luke Wilson, Bruce McGill, Dana Ivey, Jennifer Coolidge,

Alanna Ubach, Jessica Cauffiel and Regina King.

Suffering from the same condition that befalls most sequels,

“Blonde 2” is derivative, rehashing bits and pieces of the original

to produce an occasional laugh. The ease in which Elle gets a bill

accepted is meant to be inspiring, and perhaps it will be to a

handful of young observers/future politicians, but the unrealistic

simplicity that this film embraces, for me, was maddening.

One bright spot was seeing Field and Newhart. However, the words

they were forced to say were either vastly predictable or mundane.

Director, Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (Kissing Jessica Stein) can’t be

faulted for trying. Technically, the film moves along at a

justifiable pace and amuses, though the first 30 minutes of the film

are seemingly wasted justifying Elle’s going to Washington.

Unfortunately for itself, it is the second film and not the first.

Audiences with fair memories of the first film will be bored of

this retread. The only thing missing from this desperate search for

laughs were bloopers during the credits.

* RAY BUFFER, 33, is a professional singer, actor and voice-over

artist.