Victor Salva, the man who directed "Powder" and "Jeepers Creepers," is a convicted pedophile. This isn't speculation, this is fact. I refuse to pay to see any movie that Victor Salva is involved in, and that's my right. I won't support a movie made by a convicted pedophile, and I'm not gonna apologize for that. For similar reasons, I won't spend my money on a movie made by Roman Polanski. In case you don't know, Roman Polanski was convicted of statutory rape after he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl. Personally, I think that "statutory rape" is a weak conviction considering that nowadays, it's what happens when a 19-year old guy has consensual sex with his 16-year old girlfriend. When Roman Polanski had sex with the 13-year old girl, it wasn't consensual. He drugged her to knock her out, then he had sex with her. Big difference. Anyway, Polanski fled to Europe to avoid his prison term, and hasn't been back to the United States since 1978. To his credit, he doesn't deny what he did. He was quoted as saying in Esquire magazine, "There was no plot against me. There was no set-up. It was all my fault. I think my wrongdoing was far greater than Bill Clinton's." But that doesn't make it okay.
The 13-year old victim, now an adult, has forgiven Polanski. She has publicly stated that if Roman Polanski was to return to the U.S., she would be fine with it. She doesn't care to see Polanski get arrested, she just wants to put it all behind her. But again, that doesn't make it okay. That doesn't change what Polanski's intention was at the time. That doesn't change the fact that Roman Polanski took a 13-year old girl to his friend's house (that friend was actor Jack Nicholson, who wasn't home at the time), drugged her, and while she was out of commission, had sex with her. The guy is sick. So because of that, Roman Polanski is another man whose movies I refuse to give my money to. And it's a shame, 'cause he's a great filmmaker. He made "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby," that one being my favorite of his films. But I stick to my guns, and as much as I'd love to buy the "Rosemary's Baby" DVD, I gotta wait till I find it at the used DVD store, so I can buy it without worrying about the money going into Polanski's pockets.
But then there was a problem. Roman Polanski's latest film, "The Pianist," was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture. Uh-oh. Not good. I make it a habit to see every movie nominated for Best Picture before Oscar night. This year, I'd seen all the movies nominated for Best Picture except for two: "Chicago" and "The Pianist." I wasn't thrilled about having to see "Chicago," but I figured I'd deal with it. With "The Pianist," I was sure it would be a good movie, but I didn't wanna spend my money on it. I had to be true to my little protest. Still, I had to see it. It was my duty! So earlier today, I walked up to the ticket window, said "one for 'Daredevil'," paid for a ticket to see "Daredevil," and casually walked into the theater showing "The Pianist." Problem solved.
"The Pianist" really is very good. It's different from most other films having to do with the Holocaust, though. The story centers primarily on one person, and that person isn't a hero. He isn't very brave, nor is he very strong, and he doesn't use his intelligence to outsmart the enemy. This movie is simply about a man trying to survive. He's a witness to the horrors of the Nazis, and we follow him seeing what he sees and hearing what he hears. We follow him on his journey to escape certain death, as the world around him falls apart.
The movie is very sad, and it makes you wonder why so many spoiled people bitch about how bad this country is. Yeah, the United States has plenty of problems, but if you truly hate this country, why stay? Leave! Right now, there's a huge national debate over whether or not our country should go to war with Iraq. Some say that we need to in order to end terrorism and prevent Saddam Hussein from building weapons of mass destruction, but others believe that it's about oil, and President George W. Bush, who's part of a family that made billions in oil, wants to conquer Iraq to control their oil supply. I honestly don't know what the truth is, but as usual, the opinions go down party lines. Republicans support anything Bush says, so if he says we need to go to war, then we need to go to war. Democrats say the opposite. They say we shouldn't go to war, let the U.N. do their thing, and in the meantime, we need to find a diplomatic way to fix this. It makes me wonder what would happen if it was Bill Clinton in the White House, and he wanted to go to war with Iraq. Would Democrats suddenly say we should definitely go to war, that we need to topple Saddam's evil reign? Would Republicans say that we can't go to war, that Clinton is just trying to distract the media from focusing on his sex life? I say yeah. If it was a Democrat in office, Republican and Democrat citizens would suddenly change their tune. Not all, but most would. As for me, I don't know where I stand. Maybe we should go to war, but maybe we shouldn't. I'm a registered voter, but I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat, I'm independent. I guess that's why I'm so indecisive, because I don't have anyone else thinking for me. I DO know this, though: Saddam Hussein is an evil human being, a man who slaughters his own people, and something needs to be done about that. He's just a notch or two below Adolf Hitler in the evil meter, and I think it's fair to say that the world is a better place without Hitler in it. There are a few out there who would disagree with me, such as Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and those types, but most everyone else is glad he's dead. The world could also do without Saddam Hussein. Who would disagree with that?
Wow, that's the first time I've ever waxed political on this web site. I feel like Susan Sarandon on Oscar night! Ugh, I don't wanna be like that! I hate when celebrities preach their political views at inappropriate times, like during award shows. I don't think that Fred Durst would be "in agreeance" with me, but I'm only saying how I feel, and it's okay to disagree.
This is ridiculous, I need to get back to the review.
"The Pianist" has a large cast, but the movie is really about one person, a pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman. This is his story, and he's played in this movie by Adrien Brody, who lost a lotta weight for the film. I remember seeing Adrien Brody in Spike Lee's film, "Summer of Sam," and I remember him in "The Thin Red Line." In "The Pianist," Brody actually exceeded my already lofty expectations. He's phenomenal, and his Oscar nomination for Best Actor is well deserved. He's gonna have serious competition considering that he's going against Nicolas Cage ("Adaptation"), Daniel Day-Lewis ("Gangs of New York"), and Jack Nicholson ("About Schmidt"), but if Adrien Brody wins, it won't be a fluke. He's really, really good in this movie. Everything about his performance is great, and he deserves every accolade he receives.
Like I said before, this film was directed by Roman Polanski, and even though he's a sick freak, I've gotta give credit where it's due. Polanski does a fantastic job with this film, and once again, he's made a great movie (it's been a while). Roman Polanski's mother actually died in a gas chamber in one of the concentration camps, and he said that only his own death would bring closure. He lived during the Holocaust, so I imagine he drew from his personal life when it came time to direct this film.
Wanna know one more really disturbing thing involving Roman Polanski? This one has nothing bad to do with some gross thing he did, though. A year after the release of "Rosemary's Baby," Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who was 8 months pregnant with their child, was brutally murdered by Charles Manson's gang. Some friends who were in the house at the time were also killed. Actually, "slaughtered" is probably the more appropriate term. Polanski was out of the country making a movie at the time. This was a while before the rape I mentioned earlier.
The guy who wrote "The Pianist" is Ronald Harwood. I'm not familiar with his earlier work, but I know that he's written a lot of scripts, and all of them seem like serious, grim stuff. He adapted the screenplay from the autobiography by Wladyslaw Szpilman. I wonder if that book is still in circulation, 'cause I might wanna read it.
"The Pianist" is a great movie that suffers from being too long and too slow at times, but it's still a powerful film that has an amazing leading performance by Adrien Brody. Roman Polanski will always be a rapist to me, but even rapists can be talented filmmakers.
Scale of 1-10: 8