The Geekscape Movie Club: Stander… discuss!

For those of you who have not joined our forums (shame on you), we have been running a Geekscape Movie Club for a while now. Every week a different forum member picks a movie for the rest of us to watch and then we discuss and much joy and merriment is had by all.

Well, the Movie Club will no longer be confined just to the forums. This is the first edition of the Movie Club Review. We will be doing this every week as a way to kick off discussion about that week’s movie.

If you’d like to join in on the discussion then become a member of Geekscape and suggest a movie in the Movie Club thread, and maybe one day we’ll be talking about your movie and you’ll get to be one of the cool kids. That is, until the next week when we start hanging out with our new friend and stop returning your phone calls.

A little info about us. I’m Brent Moore, better known as Keyser_Soze on the forums, and I started and do my best to run the movie club. I’m joined by Elizabeth Coffman, Margaret_Six on the forums, who’s here because, well, she lives close enough to watch movies with me. Also, her opinions are pretty good. I guess.

This is actually week 20 of the Geekscape Movie Club. You can find the discussion threads for the previous 19 movies in the forums if you’d like to catch up or add your own thoughts.

This week we are talking about Stander, the 2003 movie starring Thomas Jane and directed by Bronwen Hughes. This pick was brought to you by forum member Zensho!. So, without further ado, let’s get down to the discussion. Feel free to add your own opinions in the comments below.

Brent: So, we starting with Stander, starring Thomas Jane and directed by Bronwen Hughes. Hughes actually hasn’t actually directed a feature since this and has instead focused on television work.

Liz: That’s probably a good idea.

Brent: Whoa, was that a hint as to what you thought of the movie already?

Liz: No, absolutely not!

Brent: Hmm, ok. Well this is of course based on a true story of a South African police officer who gets sick of the system and decides to be a Robin Hood figure.

Liz: Kind of, he’s like a Robin Hood once in the movie.

Brent: Yeah, and then he buys mansions and lots of cool wigs. I think it’s interesting to note that this was directed by a female.

Liz: Especially given how masculine the film is.

Brent: Yeah, you could say it is an action movie and you don’t see too many female directors doing this kind of thing. The only other one I can think of would be Lexi Alexander who did Green Street Hooligans and is now doing the new Punisher movie.

Liz: I’ve never seen Green Street Hooligans. And is Punisher going to be with Thomas Jane again?

Brent: No, it’s with Ray Stevenson who was in the HBO series Rome. It kind of looks like ass.

Liz: Well, it’s a Punisher movie. What do you expect?

Brent: You know, I actually thought Thomas Jane was a good Punisher. He was just in a shitty Punisher movie.

Liz: I think he was a hot Punisher.

Brent: Speaking of him being hot, I think Stander is mostly about his ass. It’s certainly a focal point in the movie. It’s like how many times can we show Thomas Jane’s ass here?

Liz: I loved it. I wish I knew before I saw it though that you would see his dick flapping in the wind, because that happened a few times and it’s been like a trend for me in 2008 to watch movies that feature penises. But Thomas Jane’s ass is beautiful. He’s a God.

Brent: Did you see where Thomas Jane is campaigning to star in the Jonah Hex movie?

Liz: That’s awesome. There isn’t enough Jonah Hex in stuff. I remember seeing Jonah Hex in the JLA cartoon. I love it when they bring the little characters on there. They had Booster Gold on there once.

Brent: I think Thomas Jane would be a good Johah Hex. I like Thomas Jane and I think he gets a lot of undue shit. I think a lot of it has to do with the Punisher which I don’t think was his fault.

Liz: You can’t be mad at Thomas Jane for the Punisher. Thomas Jane is not a bad actor. He’s very good looking and as is evidenced by Stander, he can definitely hold a leading role. I think he just needs to choose his scripts a little more wisely.

Brent: And for being such a man’s man and such a hard ass kind of guy, he is really catering to the geek crowd a lot. He writes a comic book called Bad Planet, he’s campaigning to be in Jonah Hex, he was an integral part of the Punisher and wanted to make the second one a good film but dropped off because that didn’t look like it was going to be the case. And of course he just did The Mist which was based on a Stephen King story. So he’s really becoming kind of a genre king instead of just another action star, which is kind of cool.

Liz: Maybe he could be like the new Bruce Campbell. He’ll probably never reach that level of awesome though.

Brent: He doesn’t have the camp level I don’t think.

Liz: I don’t know. Did you see Stander?

Brent: Ha, ok let’s go ahead and talk about what we thought of Stander instead of beating around the bush any more. I’ll let you start since you obviously have things to say.

Liz: It’s awesome for me that the first movie we are doing for Geekscape is set in South Africa.

Brent: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How was Thomas Jane’s accent?

Liz: Jane had the least thick accent. Everyone else had this amazing thick Boer accent and a really think Afrikaan accent. I think he tried to speak as little as possible, but I give an A for effort. I saw in an interview he did that he had to go through a lot of accent coaches for the role, but his accent was just ok. Everyone else was amazing. His supporting cast was so believable. I love how historically accurate the movie was too. I thought the first 25 minutes of the movie was phenomenal. The credit sequence was beautiful with all of the flying shots going over Houghton, which is the neighborhood I lived in, and then going into Soweto which is the Southwest Township. It’s historically significant in Joburg. For those that don’t know, my Dad actually lives in Joburg right now and I graduated high school from the American International School in Johannesburg. It was really cool to see all that stuff. But yea, his accent was kind of weak especially since the Afrikaaner accent has to be really thick. I was actually debating in the beginning whether he was even supposed to be an Afrikaaner or if he was British. At the end of the movie when calls his Dad…

Brent: When he is impersonating the house servant?

Liz: Yeah, that was the worst South African Bantu accent I’ve ever heard. I laughed really hard though because Yebo means hello, yes…. It’s one of those words that means a bunch of things. It’s almost as versatile as fuck, and I really loved the fact that he used it.

Brent: That’s funny because from an outsider’s perspective and not knowing the proper accent, I thought he was doing a great job.

Liz: Ha, well accent aside I think Jane actually did very good. The first 25 minutes of the movie are great. Watching come down the street of the township and doing the Toyi Toyi, which is what they are doing when they stomp on one foot and then the other and then do the chant, during the riot scene was gorgeous. I’ve seen lot’s of archival footage of the apartheid and particularly the riots and it was just beautifully done. After that though when the movie becomes more of a bank robbery movie I didn’t like it as much. I wish they had included more of him not liking the Apartheid. It would have been more interesting to see that portrayal of a heist movie with a good cause. For that to only be a very small aspect of what could have been a very moving picture made me sad.

I think it’s beautifully shot. You really have to give Bronwen Hughes an A for effort. I love the colors and the way it’s shot, especially during the riot scene. It also had an excellent cast. I loved Ashley Taylor. His performance was so subtly awesome and think a lot of people will overlook that. I also loved that they used the word amandla. That was a very important word during the Apartheid and it means power. There is a great documentary about protest music during that time called Amandla that you should definitely check out if you want to learn more about the Apartheid.

You know, overall I’ve said all these great things about the movie but at the end of the day it was kind of unremarkable. Some wonderful things went into it but the end result is just another movie.

Brent: I actually feel really similar. I’m just looking at it from a film perspective and from a genre perspective because I don’t have that South African background. To me the beginning, while good, felt a little aimless. I wasn’t invested in the Apartheid aspect because I didn’t grow up in the times but once it fell into the more conventional role of a heist movie, I was on board. That’s when the film picked up for me. At that point it became a very enjoyable movie go watch.

I think Jane did a great job. He’s a very charismatic guy and seeing him rob bank after bank with the confidence that he had was very fun. I also liked that it was a heist movie not about one big heist but a bunch of small heists.

Liz: It reminded me of Catch Me If You Can and I really enjoyed that aspect. I’m not saying I didn’t like the heist stuff, it just didn’t have the same significance to me as the beginning.

Brent: Well of course, you have that personal background. But yeah, at the end of the day I watched it and enjoyed it but you’re right, it was a bit unremarkable. Once it settled into being a movie about the rise and fall of these robbers, it became very conventional and you could kind of see where it was going. It followed a familiar path. Everything in it is good, or at least adequate, but it’s not the kind of movie that will stick with you. I have no desire to see it again.

Liz: I think that if they could have honed to movie and made everything as good as that riot scene, this would have been Oscar material. That scene was Oscar material. I enjoy a fun Hollywood movie as much as anyone else but don’t tease me with a strong political moving film and then give me a typical heist movie. Like, you know going into Blood Diamond that you are going to see a political movie that will make you upset. You go see Ocean’s 11 and you know you are getting a fun heist movie. You can’t put those two together.

Brent: I kind of agree with you but I have the opposite take on it. I didn’t like Blood Diamond at all, but I really liked Ocean’s 11. So in this one the movie started for me when they got to the heist stuff. That’s when I was entertained.

So, in closing, good movie. Check it out if you’re interested but if you want a movie about the Apartheid you can do better elsewhere and if you really want a good heist movie you are probably better off with Catch Me If You Can or Ocean’s 11.

Liz: Catch Me If You Can is one of my favorite movies of all time. Great heist movie.

Brent: Better than Stander.

So that’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with Django. Remember to join the forums and give us your thoughts on Stander or any past Movie Club pick.