September 21, 2016 The Skanner Page 7 Arts & Entertainment FILM REVIEW: Joseph Gordon-Levitt FILM REVIEW: ‘The Magnii cent Seven’ a Worthy Overhaul of Kurosawa Classic Plays Infamous Whistleblower in Reverential ‘Snowden’ By Kam Williams For The Skanner News D ‘Snowden’ repositions a supposed traitor as an altruistic hero of the highest order By Kam Williams For The Skanner News E arlier this year, the i lm Citizen- four won the Academy Award in the Best Documentary category. But given how the movie made less than $4 million worldwide, one might reasonably conclude that the details of Edward Snowden’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) dump of National Se- curity Agency documents remains substantially unknown. This is ostensibly the thinking of three-time Oscar-winner Oliver Stone (for “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July”) in turning the story into a cloak-and-dagger drama about the NSA whistleblower-turned-fugitive’s leak of classii ed information before going into hiding from the U.S. gov- ernment. The movie unfolds in June of 2013 in the Hong Kong hotel room where Snowden met with journalists Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and Ewen Macaskill (Tom Wilkinson) along with Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo), the eventual director of “Citizenfour.” We learn that following four days of interviews, Greenwald published his i rst story in the British daily newspaper, The Guardian. The Pu- litzer Prize-winning series related in stunning detail the extent of NSA surveillance of American citizens in direct contradiction of a recent deni- al uttered under oath to Congress by James Clapper, the nation’s Director of National Intelligence. Because the articles identii ed Snowden as the source of the infor- mation, he immediately became the subject of an intense international manhunt. He somehow managed to slip through the dragnet and boarded a commercial airliner bound for Mos- cow, despite the fact that his passport had been revoked and the U.S. had requested his extradition from Hong Kong. Upon landing in Russia, Edward was awarded temporary asylum and he has languished there ever since. Lucky for him, this movie has revived interest in his case, inspiring him to recently make a public appeal for clemency. But a presidential pardon is unlikely to be forthcoming, even though Presi- dent Obama considered the apprehen- sion of the “29-year-old hacker” a very low priority back in June of ‘13. So to- day, Snowden remains a fugitive from justice charged in absentia with thet , espionage and conversion of govern- ment property. Via a variety of empathetic l ash- backs, we are informed by the i lm that Edward was a high school drop- out who suf ers from epilepsy. He also enjoys a very loving, enduring rela- tionship with Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley), the loyal girlfriend who fol- lowed him from Virginia to Hawaii to Moscow. More importantly, the movie establishes Edward as so patriotic he was willing to jeopardize his future to sound the alarm about the surrep- titious NSA’s widespread violations of our Constitutional rights. Congrats to Oliver Stone for crat ing a reverential biopic which convincing- ly repositions a supposed traitor as an altruistic hero of the highest order. Excellent HHH 1/2 Rated R irected by the legendary Akira Kurosawa in 1954, “Seven Samurai” was a groundbreaking i lm which had a pro- found inl uence on the evolution of cinema for generations to come. Superi cially, that sem- inal work merely reads like a martial arts epic This incarnation of “The Magnii cent Seven” does feature a few set in 16th Century Ja- variations on the original pan. Yet, over the years, it has spawned a cot- are a politically-correct, rainbow coa- tage industry of knockof s trading in lition rel ecting every ethnicity. the picture’s novel narrative revolving Otherwise, the essence of the origi- around a rag-tag team of sell ess he- nal plot remains intact. As the i lm un- roes recruited in service of some lot y folds, we i nd the folks in the frontier goal. settlement of Rose Creek living in fear In 1960, “Seven Samurai” was remade of Bartholomew Bogue and his gang of as “The Magnii cent Seven,” a sprawl- marauders. Bogue is your stereotyp- ing Western co-starring Steve Mc- ical, bloodthirsty villain, straight out Queen, Yul Brynner, Charles Bronson, of central casting, played to perfection Eli Wallach, Robert Vaughn and James by Peter Sarsgaard. Coburn. Today, that classic has been It is established early on just how refreshed by Antoine Fuqua in an out- low the diabolical Bogue will stoop to ing reuniting the director with Denzel achieve his evil ends, between murder- Washington following successful col- ing an innocent woman and burning laborations on The Equalizer (2014) the church to the ground. That makes and Training Day (2001) for which the the arrival of bounty hunter Sam Chi- latter won an Academy Award. solm (Washington) all the more wel- This incarnation of “The Magnii - come by the time the exasperated and cent Seven” does feature a few varia- intimidated local yokels are at their tions on the theme. For example, the collective wit’s end. picture’s dastardly bad guy is now an They also have no idea that Chisolm avaricious white man intent on seiz- isn’t merely motivated by altruism but ing a mining town’s gold instead of a has his own revenge-fueled reason to Mexican bandito simply staging a se- tangle with Bogue. Regardless, once ries of border raids. And the good guys enlisted to engage the greedy gringo See SEVEN on page 11