Issue Date: June 4, 2006
DVD Insider
Unique perspectives
DVDs are chock-full of audio commentaries. But you'll only read these nuggets here as our handpicked insiders share their expertise on new titles by two famed directors.
Go to top
Advantage Woody
A tennis lifer scrutinizes Woody Allen's suspense-drama "Match Point."
THE PLOT: Former tennis pro Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) becomes a London tennis instructor and finds himself surrounded by power, wealth and temptation. He risks everything for Nola (Scarlett Johansson), the beautiful American fiancée of his student Tom (Matthew Goode), and when Chris finds himself in over his head, a shotgun replaces the tennis racket as his weapon of choice.
Insider's credentials: Bill Mountford is the director of tennis at the USTA National Tennis Center, the country's largest public tennis facility and home to the U.S. Open. During the Open, Mountford and his staff oversee player operations, which can include booking practice courts, escorting players to match courts and managing the locker rooms. (Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick both have specific lockers they request every year.)
OVERVIEW: "Tennis pros have a reputation for racing off with pretty girls -- in the club environment, anyway. But the closest I've been to [any kind of real drama like in the movie] was in 1990: I was playing in a tournament on the satellite circuit in Israel, and Erik Menendez [of the Menendez brothers, who were convicted of murdering their parents] was playing, and all of a sudden he was extradited."
* Scene 1: Welcome to London -- Chris gives Tom his first lesson. Tom says, "I haven't picked up a racket in bloody ages."
"Tennis is a highly technical sport. If it doesn't look like you can hit the ball, there are some believability issues. It's like an old Western where the actor looks uncomfortable on a horse, and he's supposed to be a cowboy. When Chris handled the racket, he looked less competent than Tom. If you're a former touring pro, there's a way you walk with the racket; it's like an extension of your arm."
* Scene 7: Confidence -- Chris runs into Nola, an aspiring actress, before her audition. He tells her he used to get tense before big matches and asks if she ever tried yoga.
"Some tennis players do yoga. Before matches not so much, because you hold the poses for several minutes in some cases, and it's not ideal to elongate your muscles. But at the end of the day, I think Chris was just trying to pick her up. He would have said anything."
-- Melanie D.G. Kaplan
Go to top
Cycle of violence
A former CIA agent says "Munich" got the moral murk of espionage just right.
THE PLOT: Steven Spielberg's latest Oscar-nominated film was "inspired by real events." A group of Israeli undercover operatives, headed by a young agent named Avner (Eric Bana), track down and assassinate Palestinian terrorist leaders suspected of murdering 11 members of the Israeli national team at the 1972 Olympics.
Insider's credentials: Lindsay Moran was a CIA case officer and covert operative from 1998 to 2003. Her memoir of her experiences, Blowing My Cover: My Life As a CIA Spy, is available in paperback.
OVERVIEW: "Unlike movies like Spy Game or The Recruit, which can be highly entertaining, Munich examines the painful toll that violence and vengeance exact on those who commit them."
* Scene 6: Innocent Lives -- An attempt to blow up a target almost goes awry when the intended victim's young daughter accidentally gets in the way.
"I found this scene very realistic. In most movies, the spy is a glamorous James Bond figure, and if he has to assassinate someone, he does a clean job. In fact, agents are everyday, nondescript people with faults and frailties, and when they have a mission, nine out of 10 times something goes wrong."
* Scene 6: Innocent Lives -- Avner and his wife, Daphna (Ayelet Zurer), have a baby.
"The way Avner is torn between his family and his mission really struck a chord with me, as did a later scene where we see Avner staring longingly through a store window at a picture-perfect kitchen. I remember being undercover in Macedonia (before becoming a mother) and looking with envy at people who had happy home lives."
* Scene 19: Choices -- Avner's ambivalence about his mission leaves him feeling estranged from his country.
"When I was a spy, I knew I was in a dirty business. Even if you don't assassinate people, you have to deal with people who are confused or vulnerable, and you have to take advantage of them, and it isn't nice. And that wears on a person. In the beginning, Avner didn't have moral qualms about his mission. By the end, he'd become sloppy and ruthless and less effective, and he was wondering if he was doing any good. That was believable."
-- Jamie Malanowski
|
