The Tillman Story, Cairo Time, The Spoilers, War Wagon

THE TILLMAN STORY is the perfect Labor Day Weekend film--something patriotic and thoughtful and surprising and sad--like the end of summer. This is a documentary about football hero Pat Tillman who gave up a great career in the National Football League in 2002 to join the armed forces going to Iraq and Afghanistan, where he did two tours of duty. He thought this was the right thing to do, but once there he realized that the war was misguided, and became rather critical about the political aspects. In 2004 he was killed by "friendly fire," and declared a hero by the Army, but slowly many aspects of his death became known to his family and there were many revealing instances where the facts were covered up by the Army and the Bush administration. If you think you know the story, you will be surprised, because so much was distorted and covered up and lied about. GRADE------ B+

Another film that played at the recent edition of SIFF is a very gentle mild "love story" of sorts, called CAIRO TIME and featuring Patricia Clarkson, who usually ends up in supporting roles. See her in great form in THE DYING GAUL, PIECES OF APRIL, and THE STATION AGENT, just to name 3 of my favorites. Her co-star is the city of Cairo, and she spends most of her time while waiting to be reunited with her husband, just strolling around the streets and viewing sights of this great city, discovering customs, traditions, moods and cultural importance. Occasionally she is accompanied by a friend of her husband who works in Cairo, and they develop a lovely though platonic relationship. Not much happens, and the feeling of time passing slowly for her is well presented. Cairo looks beautiful and exotic and mysterious. By the end, you will feel you have also been immersed in CAIRO TIME. GRADE-------B-

There is a long and impressive fight scene that ends THE SPOILERS (1942), and I guess that also ends the four other versions of the same story filmed in 1914, 1923, 1930 and 1955. The film is set in Nome Alaska where the gold rush has produced a lawless land where claim jumpers try to take over land worked by others for many months through the efforts of crooked lawyers and judges and violence. This one stars John Wayne and Harry Carey as the original owners of the land, and Randolph Scott as the evil lawyer, and Marlene Dietrich, wearing wildly stunning glitter gowns, is the saloon owner who is attracted to both of them. (And SURPRISE!!! She does NOT sing!) The story was engrossing, and there are a lot of funny lines with double entendres, some of the best from the actress playing the black maid of Dietrich, who is "tired of being mistaken for an Eskimo from Virginia." Fun. GRADE------- B

I realized fairly soon that we'd seen THE WAR WAGON less than a year ago, but it is just lively enough that we didn't bother turning it off. John Wayne plays a man just out of jail on good behaviour who is trying to get back land stolen from him during his jail time, and Kirk Douglas, at times dressed in a tight black leather pant suit (!) is the gunslinger who is hired to kill him, but instead goes to work with him to steal back the gold that has been mined on Wayne's property. There is a lot of tongue in cheek dialogue and fight scenes, and even though there is nothing here that you haven't seen before, it is an easy movie to watch. GRADE----B-