Movie Previews

Talk to Me – Jonathan Parker

Don Cheadle so stands out as 1960s’ D.C. disc jockey celebrity Petey Greene that we overlook the movie’s more unbelievable and maudlin moments.

An ex-con becomes a Washington, D.C., disc jockey celebrity in the involving and solidly entertaining bio-pic Talk to Me. Director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) tells a very straightforward chronological tale, supported by a lead performance from Don Cheadle so outstanding that we overlook the movie’s more unbelievable and maudlin moments.

Petey Greene (Cheadle) cut his deejay teeth working the microphone and spinning records at Virginia’s Lorton Prison. His charming fast-talking ways may have even allowed for his early release and return to the streets of his native D.C. There Greene pushes his way through the door of soul radio station WOL and demands that straight-laced program director Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) put him on the radio. Through sheer will and his connecting with Hughes, Greene gets his wish, creating controversy and growing an impressive audience. The partnership of Greene as star and Hughes as manager flourishes before ultimately breaking.

Talk to Me is based on the life of the real Petey Greene, yet much of it seems the stuff of tall tale. It hits its stride in dealing with the struggles to succeed and the changing face of celebrity during the 1960s and ‘70s. Indeed, in many ways Petey Greene foreshadowed today’s shock jocks. While Greene was certainly shocking, he also was telling it like it is, without a lot of bluster for bluster sake. That, at least is what the film leads to believe.

As a long-time resident of D.C., I was hoping for a little more D.C. history, as well as more ’60s and ’70s shots of neighborhood locales. Instead, this low-budget film had to rely on sets and back. Still, Talk to Me does a standup job of walking us through what surely was an intriguing part of a changing America and a changing D.C.

The film echoes a time when celebrity was often created and could thrive locally, whether by deejays or local bands or local TV personalities. Talk to Me directly takes on the plight of the regional radio star and the ability, inability or unwillingness to make it big nationally. The film says there was only one Petey Greene, but its subtext reminds us that there were surely Petey Greenes in cities across the country.

Good drama-comedy • R • 118 mins.

300 – Mark Burns

Smart, entertaining, well crafted and grandly stylized, the graphic novel based on the Battle of Thermopylae makes rousing cinema.

Spartans rage for freedom against the Persian empire in this grandly stylized Hoplites vs. Immortals glory film.

The manly men of Sparta are plodding through a spate of peace when emissaries of the Persian king Xerxes come riding into town bearing ill tidings. Offer tithings to their god-king, Xerxes commands, and submit to Persian rule. This ruffles the war brush of King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, the Phantom from Joel Schumacher’s 2004 Phantom of the Opera), who responds by marching out to the hot gates, a seaside mountain pass, with a host of 300 elite Spartans. There he makes a stand to be remembered for the ages as his small force of warriors and allied Greeks check Xerxes’ massive invading army.

The film, adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic novel, is based on the Battle of Thermopylae, perhaps the most storied battle of antiquity. In truth some 7,000 Greeks, led by 300 elite Spartans, did make a stand against a Persian army at least 150,000 strong (Herodotus claimed over five million) and ultimately spared Greece from Xerxes’ conquest.

In this tale, the odds are more like 300 vs. a million with uncounted token Arcadians thrown in behind Leonidas. Greek traitor Ephialtes is re-imagined as a Gollum-like hunchback. Xerxes and his heralds are the gods of glam in their glittery menace. Warty old priests consult an oracle atop a great stone spire, and the swarms of Immortals at Xerxes’ command are as mad wraiths. The conquering army lunges at the defenders with gnarled freaks and fantastically adorned exotic beasts plucked from the dark edge of antiquity’s maps. It’s a bold mix of history and fantasy, surprisingly loyal to truth given its rabid stylization. The Spartan struggle is given full respect, the warriors’ history elevated to myth in true Greek fashion.

Naturally, there can be no myth without heroic action, and the film delivers strong. The silly gesticulations of Brad Pitt in Troy are forgotten as Leonidas’ Hoplites form up in phalanx against the crashing hordes of Xerxes’ army.

To see the previews, one might gather that the film is naught but blood and battle cry. Granted, there’s much of both. They’re Sparta’s manliest men, after all. But surges of testosterone are broken by interjections of intelligent story.

Smart writing includes historical quips and runs with ballsy attitude. Sparta’s culture of strength and survivalism is driven home in recounting the king’s rites of passage. Once battle looms, a timely cleverness evolves within the story. At home, Queen Gorgo tries to win the council’s support while shady rival Theron decries her husband’s war as illegal. Even as this subplot unfolds, Leonidas rallies soldiers at the battlefront, touting the battle as a conflict of Greek reason and freedom versus Persian mysticism and oppression.

Similar nods mirror modern controversy, tempting conclusions of parallel without totally beating it into viewers’ heads. In doing so, the ancient tale is thrust into modern debate, lending relevance. That the story is so wholly developed and nimbly executed lends the movie real muscle.

Visually, the film’s a beauty. Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) has infused nearly every shot with some manner of digital tinkering, whether a painted sky or distorted nemeses. Wild seas, lavish skies and cold stone all speak to the Spartan warrior aesthetic even as the colorful hedonism of Xerxes’ tent speaks to his own excess. The characters are rendered monstrous by costume and effect alike, and it’s by these combined visuals that the tale ascends to mythic proportions.

All said, 300 makes for rousing cinema: smart, entertaining and well crafted. Politicals might perceive neocon fantasy, but whatever your angle it’s a great ride.

Great action film • R • 117 min.

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