Wednesday, August 31, 2011
8/8 Viewing Journal
Nothing viewed this day, a development that comes in handy during a catch-up period like this. I just caught a TV promo for an upcoming family-targeted dolphin movie that revealed one thing the supreme acting deity Morgan Freeman can't do: make the exclamation "come on, fish!" sound anything but ridiculous. (The fact that it was directed towards a mammal doesn't help matters.) Just thought I'd share.
8/7 Viewing Journal (review of "Predators")
I remember talking to some people who caught the prequel/sequel/reboot/who-the-fuck-cares-at-the-end-of-the-day Predators (2010, Nimrod Antal) in its theatrical release who complained that a more-buffed-up-than-usual Adrien Brody copped a distractingly gravelly, guttural vocal tone for his anti-hero character. The thing is, those people are right in their descriptions of Brody's performance, but dead wrong in their judgment of it. Brody makes for an entirely credible and winning badass here, and unlike King Kong, which he seemed to get lost in (I'm still extremely fond of Peter Jackson's 2005 remake, in spite of Brody's bland contribution and the hilariously retrograde oogah-boogah Skull Island natives), this is a popcorn movie in which he makes some very interesting actorly choices, as if to forcefully remind viewers of his Oscar-winning status even in this shrug-inducing context. (I imagine the success of Midnight in Paris has rekindled some Brody love out there. "DALI!!")
Laurence Fishburne makes even stranger actorly choices in his extended cameo as a cuckoo-bananas survivor on the planet of the Predators. Other strong performance contributions are made by a steely, commandingly butch Alice Braga, and by Walton Goggins, who gets his biggest film showcase here after terrific TV work on The Shield and Justified.
There are other, very minor pleasures. The verdant jungle settings make this much less of an eyesore than the last Antal flick I saw, the typical-for-Screen-Gems, digitally-fuzzed-over Vacancy. A couple well-placed jolts and ferocious battle scenes keep the viewer alert enough.
But make no mistake: this is exactly what one would expect from a desperate, creatively bankrupt attempt to revitalize a franchise that should've been left to die years ago. Nothing more, nothing less. There is very little inspired dialogue aside from a few badass quips, and there are way too many scenes of characters skulking around aimlessly while wielding guns the size of suitcases. James Cameron made similar scenes crackle with tension in his sci-fi/action standard bearer Aliens, and I'd like to imagine Cameron watches a movie like Predators and weeps in frustration at what he has inadvertantly wrought. Grade: C+
Laurence Fishburne makes even stranger actorly choices in his extended cameo as a cuckoo-bananas survivor on the planet of the Predators. Other strong performance contributions are made by a steely, commandingly butch Alice Braga, and by Walton Goggins, who gets his biggest film showcase here after terrific TV work on The Shield and Justified.
There are other, very minor pleasures. The verdant jungle settings make this much less of an eyesore than the last Antal flick I saw, the typical-for-Screen-Gems, digitally-fuzzed-over Vacancy. A couple well-placed jolts and ferocious battle scenes keep the viewer alert enough.
But make no mistake: this is exactly what one would expect from a desperate, creatively bankrupt attempt to revitalize a franchise that should've been left to die years ago. Nothing more, nothing less. There is very little inspired dialogue aside from a few badass quips, and there are way too many scenes of characters skulking around aimlessly while wielding guns the size of suitcases. James Cameron made similar scenes crackle with tension in his sci-fi/action standard bearer Aliens, and I'd like to imagine Cameron watches a movie like Predators and weeps in frustration at what he has inadvertantly wrought. Grade: C+
8/6 Viewing Journal (reviews of "A Taste of Cherry" and "Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy")
Since writer-director Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, an insightful gem from earlier this year, skillfully married a high-concept premise with a series of adult, leisurely philosophical back-and-forths, I was delighted to discover that his Cannes Film Festival prize-winner A Taste of Cherry (1998, Abbas Kiarostami), the first of his older films I've caught up with, pulls off an identical balancing act. Now here's another auteur who will lead me to raise my eyebrow in anticipation when future work from him is announced in film-festival line-ups. (As can be expected, my eyebrow doctor loves it when festival line-ups are unveiled.)
The high concept is this: Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi), a man who hasn't yet reached old age, drives around the outskirts of Tehran asking various strangers if they will help him commit suicide. He has dug a grave for himself out in the wilderness, and he plans to swallow a large amount of sleeping pills and climb into the grave at nightfall. His instructions to every prospective assistant are as follows: the following morning, throw a rock at his body, and if he turns out to be alive, pull him out of the grave, but if he's dead, cover the grave with dirt.
Heavy stuff, to be sure, but also powerfully wise and moving due to Kiarostami's profound powers of perception. The filmmaker makes a passionate plea for the value of every human life on Earth, and Ershadi's performance adds welcome complication. He makes Mr. Badii hard-edged and stubborn, a real, flesh-and-blood creation who must earn the audience's interest in his survival instead of lazily inviting it right off the bat.
Kiarostami only errs in the film's wildly self-indulgent final moments, but he also seems to realize that the only right ending to the film is one that realizes that the multiple, eloquent arguments for embracing life that Mr. Badii encounters are far richer than any traditional narrative payoff ever could be. Grade: A-
Comedy is subjective, and I recall one critic I greatly admire who gave the anarchic Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996, Kelly Makin) (umpteenth viewing, second on the big screen) a damning "F" grade. (He smeared my favorite film of 2000, the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with the same grade. Grrr. Believe it or not, he's made some great calls too over the years.). But under Makin's inventive direction, Brain Candy stands in my mind as one of the flat-out funniest sketch-comedy extensions ever made, and by far the most visually sophisticated.
So, if you haven't seen it and wonder if you'll love or hate it, what should you expect from it going in? Well, a healthy amount of Dr. Strangelove's biting satire, a dose of mainstream-jostling, John Waters-style queer-positive subversion, and more than a few drops of the formal daring of film-comedy wizards such as the Coens and Wes Anderson. (I'd say the Coen film it most resembles is The Hudsucker Proxy, especially in the beautifully shot and cut, corporate-spoofing "red socks" sequence.) (Also, if you haven't seen it, it's about a pharmaceutical corporation, thus my oh-so-clever doctoral wording above.) More than anything, though, it reflects the very Canadian absurdity of sketch-comedy giants the Kids in the Hall. They specialize in the kind of gags that get funnier the more you think about them, which is rare to find these days. For example, when Dr. Chris Cooper (Kevin McDonald) checks in on batty, old patient Mrs. Hurdicure (Scott Thompson), who has taken an anti-depressant that is still in trials, she's being subjected to a test that requires her to swirl around in a zero-gravity, Lawnmower Man-type rig. What's most hilarious is reflecting on how nonsensical the touch is: how does the zero-gravity rig affect the anti-depressant's effects in any way, shape, or form? What did Cooper and his associates tell their superiors in order to secure funding for the rig? And so on.
Being in the minority that adores this comedy, I remember looking forward like few others were to Makin's follow-up, the Hugh Grant/James Caan vehicle Mickey Blue Eyes. Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly the kind of dud that usually gets dumped into an end-of-summer release-date slot. But even if Makin turns out to end her career as a one-hit wonder, I would still say: what a hit! Grade: A
The high concept is this: Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi), a man who hasn't yet reached old age, drives around the outskirts of Tehran asking various strangers if they will help him commit suicide. He has dug a grave for himself out in the wilderness, and he plans to swallow a large amount of sleeping pills and climb into the grave at nightfall. His instructions to every prospective assistant are as follows: the following morning, throw a rock at his body, and if he turns out to be alive, pull him out of the grave, but if he's dead, cover the grave with dirt.
Heavy stuff, to be sure, but also powerfully wise and moving due to Kiarostami's profound powers of perception. The filmmaker makes a passionate plea for the value of every human life on Earth, and Ershadi's performance adds welcome complication. He makes Mr. Badii hard-edged and stubborn, a real, flesh-and-blood creation who must earn the audience's interest in his survival instead of lazily inviting it right off the bat.
Kiarostami only errs in the film's wildly self-indulgent final moments, but he also seems to realize that the only right ending to the film is one that realizes that the multiple, eloquent arguments for embracing life that Mr. Badii encounters are far richer than any traditional narrative payoff ever could be. Grade: A-
Comedy is subjective, and I recall one critic I greatly admire who gave the anarchic Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996, Kelly Makin) (umpteenth viewing, second on the big screen) a damning "F" grade. (He smeared my favorite film of 2000, the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, with the same grade. Grrr. Believe it or not, he's made some great calls too over the years.). But under Makin's inventive direction, Brain Candy stands in my mind as one of the flat-out funniest sketch-comedy extensions ever made, and by far the most visually sophisticated.
So, if you haven't seen it and wonder if you'll love or hate it, what should you expect from it going in? Well, a healthy amount of Dr. Strangelove's biting satire, a dose of mainstream-jostling, John Waters-style queer-positive subversion, and more than a few drops of the formal daring of film-comedy wizards such as the Coens and Wes Anderson. (I'd say the Coen film it most resembles is The Hudsucker Proxy, especially in the beautifully shot and cut, corporate-spoofing "red socks" sequence.) (Also, if you haven't seen it, it's about a pharmaceutical corporation, thus my oh-so-clever doctoral wording above.) More than anything, though, it reflects the very Canadian absurdity of sketch-comedy giants the Kids in the Hall. They specialize in the kind of gags that get funnier the more you think about them, which is rare to find these days. For example, when Dr. Chris Cooper (Kevin McDonald) checks in on batty, old patient Mrs. Hurdicure (Scott Thompson), who has taken an anti-depressant that is still in trials, she's being subjected to a test that requires her to swirl around in a zero-gravity, Lawnmower Man-type rig. What's most hilarious is reflecting on how nonsensical the touch is: how does the zero-gravity rig affect the anti-depressant's effects in any way, shape, or form? What did Cooper and his associates tell their superiors in order to secure funding for the rig? And so on.
Being in the minority that adores this comedy, I remember looking forward like few others were to Makin's follow-up, the Hugh Grant/James Caan vehicle Mickey Blue Eyes. Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly the kind of dud that usually gets dumped into an end-of-summer release-date slot. But even if Makin turns out to end her career as a one-hit wonder, I would still say: what a hit! Grade: A
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
8/5 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "Batman Begins," and "The Dark Knight")
After the sluggish likes of Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens, it's a welcome change of pace to encounter a summer action blockbuster that moves with as much swift forward momentum and storytelling economy as Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt). This is definitely a case where a movie's unfortunate, unwieldy title thankfully does not serve as a reflection of the decidedly light-footed movie in question.
And director Wyatt, whose previous experience helming the British prison movie The Escapist makes him an inspired choice for the proceedings (there's a certain point around the halfway mark where Apes evolves into a prison movie of an unconventional sort), finds all sorts of creative ways to accentuate movement and pace, from his furious cross-cutting between scientist Will Rodman's (James Franco) pitch to his superiors for human trials on an Alzheimer's cure and the movie's first action scene (Bright Eyes' rampage) to the way his camera swirls and flies around to keep up with agile chimp Caesar (played by Andy Serkis in a motion-capture performance).
But, as anyone who's had the pleasure of meeting Caesar knows, Rise isn't just an empty display of kinetics. Franco and John Lithgow form an affecting bond as Will and his Alzheimer's-afflicted father, and Caesar's simultaneously rousing and tragic, well, rise makes for one of the summer's best and most fascinating character arcs. As Caesar, Serkis is wonderfully nuanced, though talk of an outside-of-the-box Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here is a case of stretching well-deserved praise a little too hyperbolically far. (I don't have any problem with vocal and/or motion-capture performances being nominated though, and I personally would've nominated Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo, Ed Asner in Up, and, more to the point, Zoe Saldana in Avatar in their respective years of consideration.)
A handful of clumsy performances and individual scenes keep Rise from approaching popcorn-movie greatness (for that, keep reading this very post!). Tom Felton, best known as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is just terrible as one of the chief villains, offering a hilariously mangled approximation of an American accent. Out of his marble mouth, the word "good" takes on an extra syllable (seriously, he adds a "y" in there somewhere). And a scene in which he and a group of buddies, apparently soused out of their minds after drinking a six-pack of Mirror Pond Pale Ale (!), abuse a group of caged chimps is too ineptly acted and staged to summon the intended outrage.
However, that's not to say the movie doesn't tremble with deeply felt outrage elsewhere. Suffice it to say, if you only see one film this summer that positions chimp abuse as a metaphor for the darker side of human nature, see Project Nim, but if Roadside Attractions' catastrophic (excuse for a) release of Nim kept it from playing in your city, by all means, see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Grade: B+
I remember shortly before the release of Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan) (eigth viewing, fifth on the big screen), writer-director Nolan cited epic maestro David Lean as a primary influence on his superhero origin story. I can pinpoint the exact moment in his film when that lofty comparison begins to make absolute sense: Bruce Wayne, after being trained to conquer his fear by dubious mentors the League of Shadows, returns to an underground cave where his phobia of bats first manifested itself. As an enormous swarm of bats begin to surround Bruce, who is scarcely less sick-in-the-head than Lean anti-heroes T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia) and Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai), he boldly stands still and allows the swarm to flutter against him. Nolan cuts to wider and wider shots of the bat-filled tableau, and the Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard score reaches its most operatic crescendo. To DC fanboys, this plays as "the birth of the Batcave," but for me, as with Lean's epics, the grandeur of the filmmaking and how it reflects the neurotic brand of heroism represented by the protagonist overwhelms rudimentary plot concerns.
And this repeat viewing reminds me of something else silly about certain fanboys: many complained that Begins' biggest shortcoming lay in the villains department, but that's ridiculously not the case. Cillian Murphy's deliciously off-kilter verbal cadences underline the Scarecrow's malevolent nerdiness, Tom Wilkinson's intentionally broad American accent (take that, Draco!) adds color to his mobster, and Liam Neeson's silky authority as a League of Shadows figurehead nicely compensates for some unfortunate facial hair. They're all terrific, though I wouldn't make a case for any of them giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation. Grade: A
I would, on the other hand, make a case for Heath Ledger giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation, in Begins follow-up The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan) (umpteenth viewing, fifth or sixth on the big screen). Also, his performance is one of the few in film history to approximate the thrilling rush of unpredictability more typically inherent to live theatre. There's much more to say about both his performance and the film itself, which I hope to get to in a later blog post. I'm not going in-depth now not just because I've fallen behind in blogging, but also because a proper tribute to Ledger's monumental performance would be both creatively rewarding and emotionally draining to write.
The film itself stands as the most queasily unrelenting popcorn movie ever unleashed on a surprised (but also, clearly thrilled) public. (See: my comment in my Bellflower review on moviegoer masochism.) It just does not stop until your last nerve is fried to jelly.
Its final couple minutes manage to trump Begins' batcave intro when it comes to delivering Lean-esque warped grandeur; it's honestly hard for me to breathe during the conclusion. Batman/Bruce makes a final choice that cements his status as the most simultaneously noble and clinically insane of all superheroes, while amped-up cross-cutting and Gordon's monologue (how good is Gary Oldman in this, by the way?) accompany him carrying out that selfless/nutsoid choice. Then, bam, the closing-credits title card smacks you upside the head. Then, finally, you exhale. Perfect. So perfect that I almost believe Nolan should've ended the series with it, but like anyone else, I'm counting the days until the July 2012 relase of The Dark Knight Rises. Grade: A
[Note: It seems to be an unspoken rule in the critical community never to use the "A+," and since I am but a freelancer, I won't challenge the orthodoxy. But I believe The Dark Knight would be fully and genuinely deserving of that grade.]
And director Wyatt, whose previous experience helming the British prison movie The Escapist makes him an inspired choice for the proceedings (there's a certain point around the halfway mark where Apes evolves into a prison movie of an unconventional sort), finds all sorts of creative ways to accentuate movement and pace, from his furious cross-cutting between scientist Will Rodman's (James Franco) pitch to his superiors for human trials on an Alzheimer's cure and the movie's first action scene (Bright Eyes' rampage) to the way his camera swirls and flies around to keep up with agile chimp Caesar (played by Andy Serkis in a motion-capture performance).
But, as anyone who's had the pleasure of meeting Caesar knows, Rise isn't just an empty display of kinetics. Franco and John Lithgow form an affecting bond as Will and his Alzheimer's-afflicted father, and Caesar's simultaneously rousing and tragic, well, rise makes for one of the summer's best and most fascinating character arcs. As Caesar, Serkis is wonderfully nuanced, though talk of an outside-of-the-box Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here is a case of stretching well-deserved praise a little too hyperbolically far. (I don't have any problem with vocal and/or motion-capture performances being nominated though, and I personally would've nominated Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo, Ed Asner in Up, and, more to the point, Zoe Saldana in Avatar in their respective years of consideration.)
A handful of clumsy performances and individual scenes keep Rise from approaching popcorn-movie greatness (for that, keep reading this very post!). Tom Felton, best known as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, is just terrible as one of the chief villains, offering a hilariously mangled approximation of an American accent. Out of his marble mouth, the word "good" takes on an extra syllable (seriously, he adds a "y" in there somewhere). And a scene in which he and a group of buddies, apparently soused out of their minds after drinking a six-pack of Mirror Pond Pale Ale (!), abuse a group of caged chimps is too ineptly acted and staged to summon the intended outrage.
However, that's not to say the movie doesn't tremble with deeply felt outrage elsewhere. Suffice it to say, if you only see one film this summer that positions chimp abuse as a metaphor for the darker side of human nature, see Project Nim, but if Roadside Attractions' catastrophic (excuse for a) release of Nim kept it from playing in your city, by all means, see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Grade: B+
I remember shortly before the release of Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan) (eigth viewing, fifth on the big screen), writer-director Nolan cited epic maestro David Lean as a primary influence on his superhero origin story. I can pinpoint the exact moment in his film when that lofty comparison begins to make absolute sense: Bruce Wayne, after being trained to conquer his fear by dubious mentors the League of Shadows, returns to an underground cave where his phobia of bats first manifested itself. As an enormous swarm of bats begin to surround Bruce, who is scarcely less sick-in-the-head than Lean anti-heroes T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia) and Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness in The Bridge on the River Kwai), he boldly stands still and allows the swarm to flutter against him. Nolan cuts to wider and wider shots of the bat-filled tableau, and the Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard score reaches its most operatic crescendo. To DC fanboys, this plays as "the birth of the Batcave," but for me, as with Lean's epics, the grandeur of the filmmaking and how it reflects the neurotic brand of heroism represented by the protagonist overwhelms rudimentary plot concerns.
And this repeat viewing reminds me of something else silly about certain fanboys: many complained that Begins' biggest shortcoming lay in the villains department, but that's ridiculously not the case. Cillian Murphy's deliciously off-kilter verbal cadences underline the Scarecrow's malevolent nerdiness, Tom Wilkinson's intentionally broad American accent (take that, Draco!) adds color to his mobster, and Liam Neeson's silky authority as a League of Shadows figurehead nicely compensates for some unfortunate facial hair. They're all terrific, though I wouldn't make a case for any of them giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation. Grade: A
I would, on the other hand, make a case for Heath Ledger giving the single best performance ever featured in a comic-book adaptation, in Begins follow-up The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan) (umpteenth viewing, fifth or sixth on the big screen). Also, his performance is one of the few in film history to approximate the thrilling rush of unpredictability more typically inherent to live theatre. There's much more to say about both his performance and the film itself, which I hope to get to in a later blog post. I'm not going in-depth now not just because I've fallen behind in blogging, but also because a proper tribute to Ledger's monumental performance would be both creatively rewarding and emotionally draining to write.
The film itself stands as the most queasily unrelenting popcorn movie ever unleashed on a surprised (but also, clearly thrilled) public. (See: my comment in my Bellflower review on moviegoer masochism.) It just does not stop until your last nerve is fried to jelly.
Its final couple minutes manage to trump Begins' batcave intro when it comes to delivering Lean-esque warped grandeur; it's honestly hard for me to breathe during the conclusion. Batman/Bruce makes a final choice that cements his status as the most simultaneously noble and clinically insane of all superheroes, while amped-up cross-cutting and Gordon's monologue (how good is Gary Oldman in this, by the way?) accompany him carrying out that selfless/nutsoid choice. Then, bam, the closing-credits title card smacks you upside the head. Then, finally, you exhale. Perfect. So perfect that I almost believe Nolan should've ended the series with it, but like anyone else, I'm counting the days until the July 2012 relase of The Dark Knight Rises. Grade: A
[Note: It seems to be an unspoken rule in the critical community never to use the "A+," and since I am but a freelancer, I won't challenge the orthodoxy. But I believe The Dark Knight would be fully and genuinely deserving of that grade.]
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Quick Update
Sorry, readers, for falling behind in my Viewing Journal updates. As I've segued this week from job-hunting to setting up work with a new freelance employer (good news, obviously), my brain has been fried by constant Kinko's trips, setting up macro-enabled format templates, and other such tasks. By Friday or Monday, I'll return to my regular cycle of balancing freelance work, job-hunting, and blog write-ups. So expect Viewing Journal updates to return with increased regularity around then, including reviews of box-office champ Rise of the Planet of the Apes, box-office failure (sigh) Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, and Abbas Kiarostami's Palme d'Or winner A Taste of Cherry. (Yes, my taste really is that wide-ranging, if I may say so without sounding immodest.)
Saturday, August 13, 2011
8/4 Viewing Journal
No movies to write up, but on this Thursday, an episode of Louie aired that caused the phrase "great Dane Cook performance" to shed its oxymoronic status, and an episode of Futurama aired featuring a flashback in which Dr. Zoidberg was young, beloved by his Planet Express colleagues, and rockin' a Fonzie-esque pompadour ("It was a different time!" the hapless doctor explains, nearly apologetically, in the present day). So all was right with the world, it seems in retrospect.
Friday, August 12, 2011
8/3 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Rango" and "Wild Target")
Revisiting Rango (2011, Gore Verbinski) (second viewing), I didn't get the same tequila-shot-esque buzz that I felt after seeing it the first time, but it wouldn't be just to lower my letter-grade rating of it. That's because only one element--writer John Logan's (The Aviator) ornate, Coen Brothers-influenced dialogue--actually felt weaker this time out on an objective level. (There's still no denying that Logan has done some clever work here--you gotta admire an animated movie that correctly and wittily uses the phrase "paradigm shift"--but it lacks the precision and detail that makes the Coens' dialogue surprising even on repeat viewings.) This is really just a case of being subjectively delighted by a mainstream, ostensibly child-targeted entertainment's loopy weirdness on initial viewing in a way that can't be duplicated in a DVD rewatching down the line.
Objectively, that loopy weirdness didn't go anywhere, and that's a very good thing. A Western riff that foregrounds its lizard protagonist's existential woes is a strange thing in and of itself, but director Verbinski and Logan don't stop there. They merrily inject some of Chinatown into the movie's DNA (and what makes it odd is that they don't just name-check the film noir classic in the lazy manner typical of DreamWorks Animation's lesser fare; they weave the Polanski film's portrait of water-industry corruption into the narrative and even make Ned Beatty's turtle villain a dead ringer for John Huston's Noah Cross) and pay homage to Clint Eastwood in the most surreal way imaginable.
Seeming to enjoy his freedom from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (only the second entry, Dead Man's Chest, felt fully liberated and goofy to me--yeah, I know I'm in the minority there), Verbinski does arguably his best visual work here; the deep-focus compositions successfully evoke obvious influence Sergio Leone. Verbinski's Pirates cohort Johnny Depp, who voices the heroic lizard, also responds well to the departure from Captain Jack Sparrow. His manic, rapid-fire verbal energy and occasional massive shifts in pitch (for example, when the lizard is play-acting different roles in his terrarium in the movie's opening scene) make this a voice-over performance worthy of comparison to his great, imaginative in-the-flesh work.
But, alas, my main quibble from first viewing still stands: the movie is overlong and narratively repetitive even at the normally-far-from-indulgent running time of 107 minutes. This is a problem that has reared its head in even Verbinski's good movies. I remember joking with a friend and colleague that studios should make it part of Verbinski's contract to never exceed 100 minutes.
Still, while Rango offers too much of a good thing, it's the rare animated movie that takes advantage of the form's potential to appeal to grown-ups, and at considerable commercial risk too. I recall the movie getting a "C+" CinemaScore grade from audiences, which is pretty dire considering that any animated movie that holds kids' attention scores in the "A"-range. Who can blame parents for walking into a movie expecting a Disney-esque diversion and then being angry when they walk out of it having to explain to tykes what ol' Noah Cross was up to in Chinatown? Grade: B+
If you've seen and enjoyed the shrewd '90s hitman comedy Grosse Pointe Blank, then there's really no reason to bother with the countless lame rip-offs that followed in its wake. Wild Target (2010, Jonathan Lynn) is one of those disposable carbon copies of Grosse Pointe, arriving nearly 15 years after that John Cusack vehicle, and with all the freshness of a bowl of mothball soup.
Too bad, because a good movie could've been built around the central trio of actors here. Extraordinary, deadpan British character actor Bill Nighy (who voices Rattlesnake Jake in Rango!) is perfectly cast as Victor, a hitman lacking any kind of social life, and sharp, lovely Emily Blunt is just as well-suited to the role of Rose, a woman whose anger at being targeted by Victor overwhelms her gratefulness over his decision not to kill her. It's impressive that Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series) is able to score laughs while pitted against two veteran co-stars, but he is indeed quite funny playing Tony, a stoner who becomes Victor's protege through a series of events too labored to be worth getting into.
In smaller roles, Martin Freeman (from the original BBC The Office), as a cartoonishly dentured killer, and Eileen Atkins, as Victor's ruthless mother, also register strongly.
But no amount of good acting can save a movie that stands around wanting to be hip and irreverent without any idea of how to go about accomplishing that goal. A subplot in which Victor can't figure out if he's attracted to Rose or Tony because his monk-like existence has caused some sexual confusion is inorganically tacked on and timidly executed. I'd be more forgiving of a movie in which the protagonist casually hooked up with both Blunt and Grint; they're both lookers, if Grint less conventionally so. But I suppose certain prospective ticket buyers would be scared away by such a movie, and not alienating ticket buyers is one of this pointless film's few discernible reasons for existence. Grade: C
Objectively, that loopy weirdness didn't go anywhere, and that's a very good thing. A Western riff that foregrounds its lizard protagonist's existential woes is a strange thing in and of itself, but director Verbinski and Logan don't stop there. They merrily inject some of Chinatown into the movie's DNA (and what makes it odd is that they don't just name-check the film noir classic in the lazy manner typical of DreamWorks Animation's lesser fare; they weave the Polanski film's portrait of water-industry corruption into the narrative and even make Ned Beatty's turtle villain a dead ringer for John Huston's Noah Cross) and pay homage to Clint Eastwood in the most surreal way imaginable.
Seeming to enjoy his freedom from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (only the second entry, Dead Man's Chest, felt fully liberated and goofy to me--yeah, I know I'm in the minority there), Verbinski does arguably his best visual work here; the deep-focus compositions successfully evoke obvious influence Sergio Leone. Verbinski's Pirates cohort Johnny Depp, who voices the heroic lizard, also responds well to the departure from Captain Jack Sparrow. His manic, rapid-fire verbal energy and occasional massive shifts in pitch (for example, when the lizard is play-acting different roles in his terrarium in the movie's opening scene) make this a voice-over performance worthy of comparison to his great, imaginative in-the-flesh work.
But, alas, my main quibble from first viewing still stands: the movie is overlong and narratively repetitive even at the normally-far-from-indulgent running time of 107 minutes. This is a problem that has reared its head in even Verbinski's good movies. I remember joking with a friend and colleague that studios should make it part of Verbinski's contract to never exceed 100 minutes.
Still, while Rango offers too much of a good thing, it's the rare animated movie that takes advantage of the form's potential to appeal to grown-ups, and at considerable commercial risk too. I recall the movie getting a "C+" CinemaScore grade from audiences, which is pretty dire considering that any animated movie that holds kids' attention scores in the "A"-range. Who can blame parents for walking into a movie expecting a Disney-esque diversion and then being angry when they walk out of it having to explain to tykes what ol' Noah Cross was up to in Chinatown? Grade: B+
If you've seen and enjoyed the shrewd '90s hitman comedy Grosse Pointe Blank, then there's really no reason to bother with the countless lame rip-offs that followed in its wake. Wild Target (2010, Jonathan Lynn) is one of those disposable carbon copies of Grosse Pointe, arriving nearly 15 years after that John Cusack vehicle, and with all the freshness of a bowl of mothball soup.
Too bad, because a good movie could've been built around the central trio of actors here. Extraordinary, deadpan British character actor Bill Nighy (who voices Rattlesnake Jake in Rango!) is perfectly cast as Victor, a hitman lacking any kind of social life, and sharp, lovely Emily Blunt is just as well-suited to the role of Rose, a woman whose anger at being targeted by Victor overwhelms her gratefulness over his decision not to kill her. It's impressive that Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series) is able to score laughs while pitted against two veteran co-stars, but he is indeed quite funny playing Tony, a stoner who becomes Victor's protege through a series of events too labored to be worth getting into.
In smaller roles, Martin Freeman (from the original BBC The Office), as a cartoonishly dentured killer, and Eileen Atkins, as Victor's ruthless mother, also register strongly.
But no amount of good acting can save a movie that stands around wanting to be hip and irreverent without any idea of how to go about accomplishing that goal. A subplot in which Victor can't figure out if he's attracted to Rose or Tony because his monk-like existence has caused some sexual confusion is inorganically tacked on and timidly executed. I'd be more forgiving of a movie in which the protagonist casually hooked up with both Blunt and Grint; they're both lookers, if Grint less conventionally so. But I suppose certain prospective ticket buyers would be scared away by such a movie, and not alienating ticket buyers is one of this pointless film's few discernible reasons for existence. Grade: C
8/2 Viewing Journal (review of "Bellflower")
Nearly perfect debut films are so hard to come by that it's easy to embrace a first-time effort like Bellflower (2011, Evan Glodell), which treads upon some awfully problematic territory but is so viscerally effective as a wild, gratifyingly unpredictable cinematic ride that it's impossible not to applaud the size of writer-director-star Glodell's cojones.
At this point, I feel the need to emphasize that both the vehicular and testicular metaphors in the sentence above are entirely apropos considering the film under study. Glodell's character, Woodrow, happens to possess two admittedly sweet cars--one that boasts a built-in whiskey dispenser near the passenger seat, and another flame-spewing black beast, dubbed Medusa, that Woodrow and best friend Aiden (Tyler Dawson), both Mad Max fanatics, fantasize will guide them through an inevitable-to-them apocalypse--which gearhead Glodell actually tooled and polished specifically for the film. Glodell's automotive fetish is not the most aggressively masculine element of Bellflower--far from it, actually--which is practically drenched in testosterone. The machismo is so overwhelming that viewers who don't support a conventional, exclusionary definition of manhood as being all about physical strength, action over thought, and culturally acceptable "dude" hobbies like pimping rides will likely have little interest in seeing the film more than once.
However, while the movie's brute-force assaultiveness may keep it from being rewatchable, that quality is also what makes it so bracing and audacious upon first viewing, especially for those entering the theatre with little foreknowledge of what they're in for. Glodell's mumblecore-by-way-of-Spike TV approach, which favors inarticulate, manly men, really shouldn't work, but his careful structuring of the near-Neanderthal-level dialogue, inventive visual design (the images look scuffed and super-saturated in a grindhouse-influenced style that really pops), and, most importantly, gift for shocking narrative curveballs turn what could've been just an empty cinematic grunt into a luridly involving work of art.
As an actor, Glodell is nothing special, but he does have a nice, low-key chemistry with Jessie Wiseman, who plays Milly, a blonde that Woodrow falls for after competing with her in a bar's cricket-eating contest (a fresh variation on the Meet Cute). It's spoiling little to say that Woodrow and Milly's romance isn't destined for a "happily ever after" conclusion, and once the relationship goes south, both Woodrow and the movie itself become crazily unhinged.
It wouldn't be fair to describe the movie's intentional plunge into derangement in any more detail than that, but it's worth noting that certain narrative directions it heads in have raised charges of misogyny from detractors. I can think of one grueling third-act scene in particular that finds Glodell perilously walking a tightrope above a pit of dehumanizing exploitation, but thankfully he doesn't falter. He's so clearly interested in exposing the hetero-male mind's reaction to a painful break-up that the film's rage-fueled excesses feel entirely justified.
And the movie's increasingly violent second half is so propulsive and compellingly nuts that it's difficult to call it unpleasant even when it risks being just that. Bellflower serves as a reminder that moviegoing is an inherently masochistic pastime. It's a film that slaps you around quite a bit and leaves you thankful for the rough sensation. Grade: B+
At this point, I feel the need to emphasize that both the vehicular and testicular metaphors in the sentence above are entirely apropos considering the film under study. Glodell's character, Woodrow, happens to possess two admittedly sweet cars--one that boasts a built-in whiskey dispenser near the passenger seat, and another flame-spewing black beast, dubbed Medusa, that Woodrow and best friend Aiden (Tyler Dawson), both Mad Max fanatics, fantasize will guide them through an inevitable-to-them apocalypse--which gearhead Glodell actually tooled and polished specifically for the film. Glodell's automotive fetish is not the most aggressively masculine element of Bellflower--far from it, actually--which is practically drenched in testosterone. The machismo is so overwhelming that viewers who don't support a conventional, exclusionary definition of manhood as being all about physical strength, action over thought, and culturally acceptable "dude" hobbies like pimping rides will likely have little interest in seeing the film more than once.
However, while the movie's brute-force assaultiveness may keep it from being rewatchable, that quality is also what makes it so bracing and audacious upon first viewing, especially for those entering the theatre with little foreknowledge of what they're in for. Glodell's mumblecore-by-way-of-Spike TV approach, which favors inarticulate, manly men, really shouldn't work, but his careful structuring of the near-Neanderthal-level dialogue, inventive visual design (the images look scuffed and super-saturated in a grindhouse-influenced style that really pops), and, most importantly, gift for shocking narrative curveballs turn what could've been just an empty cinematic grunt into a luridly involving work of art.
As an actor, Glodell is nothing special, but he does have a nice, low-key chemistry with Jessie Wiseman, who plays Milly, a blonde that Woodrow falls for after competing with her in a bar's cricket-eating contest (a fresh variation on the Meet Cute). It's spoiling little to say that Woodrow and Milly's romance isn't destined for a "happily ever after" conclusion, and once the relationship goes south, both Woodrow and the movie itself become crazily unhinged.
It wouldn't be fair to describe the movie's intentional plunge into derangement in any more detail than that, but it's worth noting that certain narrative directions it heads in have raised charges of misogyny from detractors. I can think of one grueling third-act scene in particular that finds Glodell perilously walking a tightrope above a pit of dehumanizing exploitation, but thankfully he doesn't falter. He's so clearly interested in exposing the hetero-male mind's reaction to a painful break-up that the film's rage-fueled excesses feel entirely justified.
And the movie's increasingly violent second half is so propulsive and compellingly nuts that it's difficult to call it unpleasant even when it risks being just that. Bellflower serves as a reminder that moviegoing is an inherently masochistic pastime. It's a film that slaps you around quite a bit and leaves you thankful for the rough sensation. Grade: B+
Thursday, August 11, 2011
8/1 Viewing Journal (review of "The Night of the Hunter")
A dark children's fairy tale as scary and evocative as anything the Brothers Grimm ever dreamed up, The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) derives much of its sinister power from a truly unforgettable big-screen villain--Robert Mitchum's Harry Powell. A murderous ex-convict who hides his ugly nature behind a folksy smokescreen of Christian rhetoric, Mr. Powell insinuates himself with his former cellmate's newly widowed wife (Shelley Winters) in order to suss out the whereabouts of a stash of stolen money that the cellmate hid in an undisclosed location. Little does Mr. Powell know that the loot has been stuffed in a teddy bear the cellmate's two kids (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) tote around as if it was any old plaything.
Mitchum is utterly riveting in a showcase scene that has Mr. Powell regale susceptible new followers with a monologue explaining the religious meaning behind the "love" and "hate" tattoos that adorn his knuckles (as most film buffs know, Martin Scorsese would later pay homage to the tattoos in his remake of another Mitchum vehicle, Cape Fear), and he's downright vicious in moments that demand Mr. Powell remove his facade to show the child-stalking killer underneath.
However, director Laughton, an actor who famously never directed another film after this one, is just as integral in creating unease within the viewer. He and cinematographer Stanley Cortez create a shadowy atmosphere influenced by German Expressionist classics and visually audacious for a suggestive horror film of the '50s, or of any era, really. Certain images--a high-angle shot that looks down upon the two kids escaping downriver on a raft from the point-of-view of a spider nestling in his intricate web; Chapin's young character spotting Mr. Powell on horseback as a menacing silhouette against the morning's rising sun from his perch in a barn he and Bruce's character hide in--have a strange power, as if they're worming their way into your subconscious as soon as you glimpse them.
Though the character of Mr. Powell acts as a daring critique of religious hypocrisy, Laughton and writer James Agee are mature enough to realize that religious faith can be used to noble ends as well as devious ones. When the kids take shelter with a God-fearing old woman, Ms. Cooper (an iron-willed Lillian Gish), whose house is like a miniature orphanage, it's surprising how immediately Ms. Cooper registers as a force just as strong in her maternal protectiveness as Mr. Powell is in his bloodthirsty greed. The third-act stand-off between these two self-proclaimed servants of God cements The Night of the Hunter as a resonant, timeless fable of good vs. evil. Grade: A
Mitchum is utterly riveting in a showcase scene that has Mr. Powell regale susceptible new followers with a monologue explaining the religious meaning behind the "love" and "hate" tattoos that adorn his knuckles (as most film buffs know, Martin Scorsese would later pay homage to the tattoos in his remake of another Mitchum vehicle, Cape Fear), and he's downright vicious in moments that demand Mr. Powell remove his facade to show the child-stalking killer underneath.
However, director Laughton, an actor who famously never directed another film after this one, is just as integral in creating unease within the viewer. He and cinematographer Stanley Cortez create a shadowy atmosphere influenced by German Expressionist classics and visually audacious for a suggestive horror film of the '50s, or of any era, really. Certain images--a high-angle shot that looks down upon the two kids escaping downriver on a raft from the point-of-view of a spider nestling in his intricate web; Chapin's young character spotting Mr. Powell on horseback as a menacing silhouette against the morning's rising sun from his perch in a barn he and Bruce's character hide in--have a strange power, as if they're worming their way into your subconscious as soon as you glimpse them.
Though the character of Mr. Powell acts as a daring critique of religious hypocrisy, Laughton and writer James Agee are mature enough to realize that religious faith can be used to noble ends as well as devious ones. When the kids take shelter with a God-fearing old woman, Ms. Cooper (an iron-willed Lillian Gish), whose house is like a miniature orphanage, it's surprising how immediately Ms. Cooper registers as a force just as strong in her maternal protectiveness as Mr. Powell is in his bloodthirsty greed. The third-act stand-off between these two self-proclaimed servants of God cements The Night of the Hunter as a resonant, timeless fable of good vs. evil. Grade: A
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
7/31 Viewing Journal (review of "Cowboys & Aliens")
The key to what made Iron Man such a great summer-movie surprise a few years ago wasn't its effects-filled action set pieces, although director Jon Favreau handled those with aplomb, but how the character-driven scenes between the requisite explosions really breathed in a loose, witty way. Favreau allowed star and MVP Robert Downey Jr., along with a first-rate supporting cast, so much room to banter that the viewer could be forgiven for thinking at times that what was unfolding onscreen wasn't a superhero flick but a relaxed and exquisitely acted ensemble comedy.
For the inviting first 30 minutes of Cowboys & Aliens (2011, Jon Favreau), Favreau seems to be taking a similar approach to this graphic-novel-inspired postmodern merging of the old-school oater with high-tech sci-fi. Like any classic Western, Cowboys & Aliens fills its cast with a couple of reliable above-the-title movie stars and an impressive roster of character actors enlisted to play assorted townsfolk. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford play, respectively, a mysterious badass with a piece of extraterrestrial hardware clamped around his wrist and a ruthless cattle baron who dominates the small town of Absolution, while the supporting cast populating Absolution includes Sam Rockwell as a meek saloon keeper, Adam Beach as a Native American working as the cattle baron's right-hand man, Keith Carradine as sherriff, Clancy Brown as a preacher, and Paul Dano (in the wormy James Spader Jr. mode we first got a glimpse of in There Will Be Blood) as the cattle baron's n'er-do-well alcoholic son. It's quite a line-up, and for a while, Favreau is content to let the actors ease into their archetypal characters and play around in what amounts to a lighthearted Old West romp. As in Iron Man, Favreau's strength is in getting out of the way of an accomplished cast and allowing room for unexpected humor to flourish (the juxtaposition of Craig's deadpan brutishness with Dano's trembly insecurity is the source of the best laughs). This strategy, along with handsome widescreen cinematography from d.p. Matthew Libatique, ensures that the first half-hour of Cowboys ambles along very pleasantly.
But then Favreau inexplicably changes his strategy a quarter of the way into the movie and decides to just get out of the way of a generic, horribly unimaginative screenplay credited to five (!) writers. Needless to say, this proves to be a considerably less rewarding creative approach (and I use the term "creative" loosely here). After aliens attack Absolution and kidnap a handful of its citizens, the rest of the town's denizens mount their horses and brave the rocky wilderness in order to find the aliens and rescue the captives. At the point when everyone leaves Absolution, I would strongly advise viewers to simply leave the theatre and mentally devise their own narrative course for the remaining 90 minutes. They would be nearly guaranteed to come up with more novel ideas than this film's army of screenwriters were able to, and as a bonus, they would have avoided an hour and a half of dull, aimless summer moviemaking by commitee.
The humor and liveliness really do seep out of the film once the actors get on horseback. The remainder of the movie joylessly rotates narratively unmotivated action scenes, grim chunks of exposition and backstory, and convenient yet insulting-to-the-audience narrative coincidences in an increasingly numbing cycle.
The action climax is at least somewhat noteworthy for providing plenty of cowboy-vs.-alien hand-to-hand brawling, which most recent alien-invasion movies, from Independence Day to War of the Worlds, have been either too timid or too high-minded to deliver. But that's about it for excitement. Even the aliens themselves disappoint with their derivative physical appearance. Why is that the creature designers behind this, Cloverfield, and Super 8 think that human-like leg and arm muscles make aliens fun and creepy to look at? I have no idea, but at least the tiresome second and third acts of Cowboys & Aliens can claim to be "muscular" in some superficial way. Grade: C
For the inviting first 30 minutes of Cowboys & Aliens (2011, Jon Favreau), Favreau seems to be taking a similar approach to this graphic-novel-inspired postmodern merging of the old-school oater with high-tech sci-fi. Like any classic Western, Cowboys & Aliens fills its cast with a couple of reliable above-the-title movie stars and an impressive roster of character actors enlisted to play assorted townsfolk. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford play, respectively, a mysterious badass with a piece of extraterrestrial hardware clamped around his wrist and a ruthless cattle baron who dominates the small town of Absolution, while the supporting cast populating Absolution includes Sam Rockwell as a meek saloon keeper, Adam Beach as a Native American working as the cattle baron's right-hand man, Keith Carradine as sherriff, Clancy Brown as a preacher, and Paul Dano (in the wormy James Spader Jr. mode we first got a glimpse of in There Will Be Blood) as the cattle baron's n'er-do-well alcoholic son. It's quite a line-up, and for a while, Favreau is content to let the actors ease into their archetypal characters and play around in what amounts to a lighthearted Old West romp. As in Iron Man, Favreau's strength is in getting out of the way of an accomplished cast and allowing room for unexpected humor to flourish (the juxtaposition of Craig's deadpan brutishness with Dano's trembly insecurity is the source of the best laughs). This strategy, along with handsome widescreen cinematography from d.p. Matthew Libatique, ensures that the first half-hour of Cowboys ambles along very pleasantly.
But then Favreau inexplicably changes his strategy a quarter of the way into the movie and decides to just get out of the way of a generic, horribly unimaginative screenplay credited to five (!) writers. Needless to say, this proves to be a considerably less rewarding creative approach (and I use the term "creative" loosely here). After aliens attack Absolution and kidnap a handful of its citizens, the rest of the town's denizens mount their horses and brave the rocky wilderness in order to find the aliens and rescue the captives. At the point when everyone leaves Absolution, I would strongly advise viewers to simply leave the theatre and mentally devise their own narrative course for the remaining 90 minutes. They would be nearly guaranteed to come up with more novel ideas than this film's army of screenwriters were able to, and as a bonus, they would have avoided an hour and a half of dull, aimless summer moviemaking by commitee.
The humor and liveliness really do seep out of the film once the actors get on horseback. The remainder of the movie joylessly rotates narratively unmotivated action scenes, grim chunks of exposition and backstory, and convenient yet insulting-to-the-audience narrative coincidences in an increasingly numbing cycle.
The action climax is at least somewhat noteworthy for providing plenty of cowboy-vs.-alien hand-to-hand brawling, which most recent alien-invasion movies, from Independence Day to War of the Worlds, have been either too timid or too high-minded to deliver. But that's about it for excitement. Even the aliens themselves disappoint with their derivative physical appearance. Why is that the creature designers behind this, Cloverfield, and Super 8 think that human-like leg and arm muscles make aliens fun and creepy to look at? I have no idea, but at least the tiresome second and third acts of Cowboys & Aliens can claim to be "muscular" in some superficial way. Grade: C
Sunday, August 7, 2011
7/30 Viewing Journal (review of "The Myth of the American Sleepover")
The multi-character ensemble structure and last-day-of-summer-for-a-group-of-high-schoolers set-up of writer-director David Robert Mitchell's riveting, remarkably assured feature debut The Myth of the American Sleepover (2011, David Robert Mitchell) may recall Richard Linklater's unforgettable Dazed and Confused, but Mitchell's stylistic approach doesn't really resemble the scruffy, Altman-esque satire clouded by bong smoke of Linklater's teen-movie touchstone. Instead, the potent blend of Mitchell's visually disciplined formalism and the subtle behavioral naturalism of his young cast make The Myth of the American Sleepover feel more akin to the gorgeous, emotionally sincere first two films of similarly tri-monikered writer-director David Gordon Green (George Washington and All the Real Girls) and to Peter Sollett's low-key charmer Raising Victor Vargas.
Like those preceding films, Sleepover is genuinely interested in depicting teenagers who fumble through their thoughts, desires, and regrets with believable awkwardness. These young characters are never armed with sitcom-ready quips to tease their peers with, and they're all the more compelling for that. And even more than Green or Sollett, Mitchell roots his portrait of adolescent longing in a largely undefined time and place, the better to relate the film to anyone of any age's experiences growing up. There are brief glimpses of a Michigan license plate and of a SpongeBob Squarepants doll, but those are the only signifiers of setting and era in a film that really could be taking place in any middle-class American suburb.
Mitchell and editor Julio Perez IV deftly weave back and forth between several teen characters' narrative threads so that each acquires an equal amount of dramatic weight. There's adventurous Maggie (Claire Sloma), who flirts with an older boy at a lakeside shindig; freshman Rob (Marlon Morton), who's determined to track down a blonde beauty he earlier semi-stalked at a grocery store; Scott (Brett Jacobsen), a college student pondering dropping out of his studies to remain closer to the twins (Nikita and Jade Ramsey) he harbored a joint crush on in high school; and Claudia (Amanda Bauer), who shakes up the girls' sleepover party after discovering (via a friend's diary entry!) that her boyfriend cheated on her.
The movie is driven by the palpable hormonal buzz of teenage erotic longing, which Mitchell renders with near-tangible force (the sweaty summer climate similarly seems to emanate from the screen). At the same time, Mitchell never stoops to the prurient sensationalism typical of director Larry Clark's (Kids) work, even when Rob braves a trip to a make-out maze shrouded in eerie darkness. But the overpowering sense of romantic and sexual yearning, along with Mitchell's keenly etched characterizations and the creamy, otherworldly visual glow that Mitchell creates with the assistance of director of photography James Laxton, makes Sleepover a uniquely tense and enveloping cinematic experience in spite of its modesty.
Reviews have wisely singled out the spunky Sloma (who gets a beguiling mid-film dance number all to herself) as a cast standout, but she's hardly the only one. Bauer makes the most out of Claudia's increasingly inebriated outrage, and Morton brings a surprising intensity to Rob's romantic ardor; he's like Ralph Fiennes trapped in the body of Anton Yelchin.
It's unfortunate that The Myth of the American Sleepover has yet to find much of an audience. It's likely that the gradually seductive pacing may be too demanding for young audiences weaned on teen movies fueled by gross-out gags and trendy pop songs, and the movie's honest enough to arrive at small-scale revelations instead of the grand statements some teen-targeted Hollywood fare aspires to. However, one would hope anyone lucky enough to catch this film will walk out of the theatre saying, "I've been there." Grade: A-
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm friends with the aforementioned editor, Julio, and I've been fortunate enough to chat with writer-director Mitchell on a few non-professionally-related occasions. I remember when talking with Mitchell at Julio's Memorial Day party this year, I was impressed that what he had seen theatrically that holiday weekend was Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Hitchcock's Vertigo, the latter of which screened at repertory theatre the Egyptian. It speaks well of a young filmmaker that this was his cinematic diet on a weekend where everybody seemed to be in a mad rush to see fucking The Hangover Part II. Now that I've finally seen Sleepover, I can attest to Mitchell's cineaste taste, and his in-person down-to-earth sincerity, translating successfully to the finished film. As with my Where the Road Meets the Sun review, take this review with whatever amount of salt you see fit.]
Like those preceding films, Sleepover is genuinely interested in depicting teenagers who fumble through their thoughts, desires, and regrets with believable awkwardness. These young characters are never armed with sitcom-ready quips to tease their peers with, and they're all the more compelling for that. And even more than Green or Sollett, Mitchell roots his portrait of adolescent longing in a largely undefined time and place, the better to relate the film to anyone of any age's experiences growing up. There are brief glimpses of a Michigan license plate and of a SpongeBob Squarepants doll, but those are the only signifiers of setting and era in a film that really could be taking place in any middle-class American suburb.
Mitchell and editor Julio Perez IV deftly weave back and forth between several teen characters' narrative threads so that each acquires an equal amount of dramatic weight. There's adventurous Maggie (Claire Sloma), who flirts with an older boy at a lakeside shindig; freshman Rob (Marlon Morton), who's determined to track down a blonde beauty he earlier semi-stalked at a grocery store; Scott (Brett Jacobsen), a college student pondering dropping out of his studies to remain closer to the twins (Nikita and Jade Ramsey) he harbored a joint crush on in high school; and Claudia (Amanda Bauer), who shakes up the girls' sleepover party after discovering (via a friend's diary entry!) that her boyfriend cheated on her.
The movie is driven by the palpable hormonal buzz of teenage erotic longing, which Mitchell renders with near-tangible force (the sweaty summer climate similarly seems to emanate from the screen). At the same time, Mitchell never stoops to the prurient sensationalism typical of director Larry Clark's (Kids) work, even when Rob braves a trip to a make-out maze shrouded in eerie darkness. But the overpowering sense of romantic and sexual yearning, along with Mitchell's keenly etched characterizations and the creamy, otherworldly visual glow that Mitchell creates with the assistance of director of photography James Laxton, makes Sleepover a uniquely tense and enveloping cinematic experience in spite of its modesty.
Reviews have wisely singled out the spunky Sloma (who gets a beguiling mid-film dance number all to herself) as a cast standout, but she's hardly the only one. Bauer makes the most out of Claudia's increasingly inebriated outrage, and Morton brings a surprising intensity to Rob's romantic ardor; he's like Ralph Fiennes trapped in the body of Anton Yelchin.
It's unfortunate that The Myth of the American Sleepover has yet to find much of an audience. It's likely that the gradually seductive pacing may be too demanding for young audiences weaned on teen movies fueled by gross-out gags and trendy pop songs, and the movie's honest enough to arrive at small-scale revelations instead of the grand statements some teen-targeted Hollywood fare aspires to. However, one would hope anyone lucky enough to catch this film will walk out of the theatre saying, "I've been there." Grade: A-
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm friends with the aforementioned editor, Julio, and I've been fortunate enough to chat with writer-director Mitchell on a few non-professionally-related occasions. I remember when talking with Mitchell at Julio's Memorial Day party this year, I was impressed that what he had seen theatrically that holiday weekend was Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Hitchcock's Vertigo, the latter of which screened at repertory theatre the Egyptian. It speaks well of a young filmmaker that this was his cinematic diet on a weekend where everybody seemed to be in a mad rush to see fucking The Hangover Part II. Now that I've finally seen Sleepover, I can attest to Mitchell's cineaste taste, and his in-person down-to-earth sincerity, translating successfully to the finished film. As with my Where the Road Meets the Sun review, take this review with whatever amount of salt you see fit.]
7/29 Viewing Journal (review of "Crazy, Stupid, Love")
Just a few minutes into the blissfully entertaining crowd-pleaser Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa), middle-aged suburbanite Cal (Steve Carell) is thrust into single life unprepared after his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore), who he's been with ever since high school, asks for a divorce. There's something inherently comical about the sight of Cal drinking by himself at a swank singles bar while clad in a baggy suit and worn sneakers, but, more importantly, Ficarra & Requa and Carell recognize the inescapable sadness of the situation. The directing team lingers in the pauses between Cal's broadly funny drunken outbursts for a couple beats more than conventionally minded filmmakers would, and Carell plays the loneliness behind the shitfaced bluster with real ache.
The understanding that frothy studio entertainment only really takes flight when executed with real (and ocassionally dark) human feeling has clearly united the directors and terrific ensemble cast of Crazy, Stupid, Love. The movie's script, by Disney veteran Dan Fogelman (Tangled), is rich in characterization and intricate in its farcical structure, but it's also flawed, a bit too eager-to-please, and filled with banter that's roughly 10% more witty than that found in the established-earlier-in-the-blog-as-50%-clever romantic comedy Friends With Benefits (better to be 10% below, say, The Philadelphia Story). So that makes this a case of a film's stars and makers taking a sturdy but overly familiar blueprint and crafting something improbably unique and fresh from it.
Fogelman does deserve credit for taking a more democratic approach to romcom formula that allows for a whole gaggle of characters, not just two destined-to-be-together lovebirds, to pursue romance. In addition to Cal and Emily, there's Jacob (Ryan Gosling), an impeccably sculpted and groomed player charitable enough to take Cal under his wing and teach the divorcee how to score with female clubgoers. For all of the notches on Jacob's bedpost, there is one cute redhead that "got away" and could see through Jacob's practiced moves--shrewd aspiring lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone), who is banking on a marriage proposal from her milquetoast boyfriend (an oddly cast but appropriately dorky Josh Groban).
As long as Crazy, Stupid, Love focuses on the quartet of Cal, Emily, Jacob, and Hannah, and their various romantic entanglements, it stands as a first-rate middlebrow comedy. Carell gives his most affecting and well-rounded big-screen performance since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, refusing to overplay either the humor or pathos of his character and effortlessly clicking with Gosling in a heaven-sent buddy-movie pairing. Gosling invests this rare comedic performance with the same depth and precision he brings to his stunning dramatic work. He has every gesture and strutting step of this confident shark down cold, and also makes Jacob's inevitable third-act transformation wholly believable. Stone bubbles over with energy and intelligence as Hannah, and is especially lovable in a scene where she finally succumbs to Jacob's charms and yet can't stop from drunkenly rambling when Jacob takes her to his pad. There remains no question Stone is a bona fide star. Moore gets a little less to work with than Carell, Gosling, and Stone, but still uses her acting powers to offer a window into the conflict inside of Emily's head. Moore makes the character a complicated woman trying to figure out the source of her unhappiness instead of someone to be judged for throwing Cal out on his ass. Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei (showing off her killer comic timing after excellent dramatic work in recent films like The Wrestler and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead), and relative newcomer Liza Lapira (a tart-tongued wonder as Hannah's best friend) contribute fine support to the story threads dominated by the quartet of Carell, Gosling, Stone, and Moore.
But a subplot involving Cal and Emily's 13-year-old son Robbie's (Jonah Bobo) incurable infatuation with older babysitter Jessica (the endearingly gawky Analeigh Tipton) doesn't quite work, both because a) the conceit of a wise-in-the-ways-of-love kid has clearly been lifted from Love Actually in a shamefully derivative manner and b) said conceit has grown tired and irritating considering Love Actually came out a full eight years ago and this isn't the first movie in those eight years to steal the trope from Richard Curtis' irresistible British ensemble comedy.
The conception of Robbie is hardly the only overly recognizable element in Fogelman's screenplay. The writer aims for classic farce in the movie's elaborately orchestrated climax, wherein the movie's large cast of characters violently converge due to a series of misunderstandings and withheld secrets. I really admired Fogelman's construction of the set piece, and the timing with which the entire cast executes it, but it's proven to be way too old-school for some I've discussed the film with. As for a heartfelt public speech a central character makes in the film's concluding ten minutes, I'm gonna have to side with detractors who claim it's one of Fogelman's unsuccessful Hollywood-y touches. It's too calculated to be moving.
The reason why Fogelman's script is lucky to have been brought to the screen by Ficarra & Requa is that the directors' anti-Hollywood impulses provide necessary balance. The writing team's first directorial effort, the Jim Carrey-Ewan McGregor dark-romantic-comedy vehicle I Love You, Phillip Morris wasn't perfect but announced Ficarra & Requa as possessing a distinctive and refreshing comic sensibility that emphasizes off-kilter gags and the so-dark-it's-nearly-unfunny desperation of the characters. With Crazy, Stupid, Love, the directors' odd bits of visual humor (i.e. beginning a scene via a hilarious slo-mo push-in to Jacob standing and scarfing down a slice of Sbarro's pizza in the Century City mall; naturally, Gosling even looks cool eating a greasy slice of pizza) and collaboration with the cast to infuse the light proceedings with real emotional gravity (the sequence depicting Jacob and Hannah's first night together is a highlight--funny, touching, real, and edited with such grace as to be romantic summer-movie magic on par with Soderbergh, Clooney, and Lopez's "Gary and Celeste" set piece in Out of Sight) make the film a sweet, tasty romcom confection. I'm not in love with it, but I am in crazy, stupid like-a-lot with it. Grade: B+
The understanding that frothy studio entertainment only really takes flight when executed with real (and ocassionally dark) human feeling has clearly united the directors and terrific ensemble cast of Crazy, Stupid, Love. The movie's script, by Disney veteran Dan Fogelman (Tangled), is rich in characterization and intricate in its farcical structure, but it's also flawed, a bit too eager-to-please, and filled with banter that's roughly 10% more witty than that found in the established-earlier-in-the-blog-as-50%-clever romantic comedy Friends With Benefits (better to be 10% below, say, The Philadelphia Story). So that makes this a case of a film's stars and makers taking a sturdy but overly familiar blueprint and crafting something improbably unique and fresh from it.
Fogelman does deserve credit for taking a more democratic approach to romcom formula that allows for a whole gaggle of characters, not just two destined-to-be-together lovebirds, to pursue romance. In addition to Cal and Emily, there's Jacob (Ryan Gosling), an impeccably sculpted and groomed player charitable enough to take Cal under his wing and teach the divorcee how to score with female clubgoers. For all of the notches on Jacob's bedpost, there is one cute redhead that "got away" and could see through Jacob's practiced moves--shrewd aspiring lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone), who is banking on a marriage proposal from her milquetoast boyfriend (an oddly cast but appropriately dorky Josh Groban).
As long as Crazy, Stupid, Love focuses on the quartet of Cal, Emily, Jacob, and Hannah, and their various romantic entanglements, it stands as a first-rate middlebrow comedy. Carell gives his most affecting and well-rounded big-screen performance since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, refusing to overplay either the humor or pathos of his character and effortlessly clicking with Gosling in a heaven-sent buddy-movie pairing. Gosling invests this rare comedic performance with the same depth and precision he brings to his stunning dramatic work. He has every gesture and strutting step of this confident shark down cold, and also makes Jacob's inevitable third-act transformation wholly believable. Stone bubbles over with energy and intelligence as Hannah, and is especially lovable in a scene where she finally succumbs to Jacob's charms and yet can't stop from drunkenly rambling when Jacob takes her to his pad. There remains no question Stone is a bona fide star. Moore gets a little less to work with than Carell, Gosling, and Stone, but still uses her acting powers to offer a window into the conflict inside of Emily's head. Moore makes the character a complicated woman trying to figure out the source of her unhappiness instead of someone to be judged for throwing Cal out on his ass. Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei (showing off her killer comic timing after excellent dramatic work in recent films like The Wrestler and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead), and relative newcomer Liza Lapira (a tart-tongued wonder as Hannah's best friend) contribute fine support to the story threads dominated by the quartet of Carell, Gosling, Stone, and Moore.
But a subplot involving Cal and Emily's 13-year-old son Robbie's (Jonah Bobo) incurable infatuation with older babysitter Jessica (the endearingly gawky Analeigh Tipton) doesn't quite work, both because a) the conceit of a wise-in-the-ways-of-love kid has clearly been lifted from Love Actually in a shamefully derivative manner and b) said conceit has grown tired and irritating considering Love Actually came out a full eight years ago and this isn't the first movie in those eight years to steal the trope from Richard Curtis' irresistible British ensemble comedy.
The conception of Robbie is hardly the only overly recognizable element in Fogelman's screenplay. The writer aims for classic farce in the movie's elaborately orchestrated climax, wherein the movie's large cast of characters violently converge due to a series of misunderstandings and withheld secrets. I really admired Fogelman's construction of the set piece, and the timing with which the entire cast executes it, but it's proven to be way too old-school for some I've discussed the film with. As for a heartfelt public speech a central character makes in the film's concluding ten minutes, I'm gonna have to side with detractors who claim it's one of Fogelman's unsuccessful Hollywood-y touches. It's too calculated to be moving.
The reason why Fogelman's script is lucky to have been brought to the screen by Ficarra & Requa is that the directors' anti-Hollywood impulses provide necessary balance. The writing team's first directorial effort, the Jim Carrey-Ewan McGregor dark-romantic-comedy vehicle I Love You, Phillip Morris wasn't perfect but announced Ficarra & Requa as possessing a distinctive and refreshing comic sensibility that emphasizes off-kilter gags and the so-dark-it's-nearly-unfunny desperation of the characters. With Crazy, Stupid, Love, the directors' odd bits of visual humor (i.e. beginning a scene via a hilarious slo-mo push-in to Jacob standing and scarfing down a slice of Sbarro's pizza in the Century City mall; naturally, Gosling even looks cool eating a greasy slice of pizza) and collaboration with the cast to infuse the light proceedings with real emotional gravity (the sequence depicting Jacob and Hannah's first night together is a highlight--funny, touching, real, and edited with such grace as to be romantic summer-movie magic on par with Soderbergh, Clooney, and Lopez's "Gary and Celeste" set piece in Out of Sight) make the film a sweet, tasty romcom confection. I'm not in love with it, but I am in crazy, stupid like-a-lot with it. Grade: B+
Friday, August 5, 2011
7/28 Viewing Journal (EARLY REVIEW: "Melancholia")
Visionary Danish filmmaker and notorious provocateur Lars von Trier has done some impressive work in the past decade, including his great, lacerating allegory of American exclusion Dogville, and his only recent misfire is that 2004 film's dramatically unsatisfying sequel Manderlay, which still contains enough daring ideas to make it worthwhile viewing for von Trier completists. But his latest film, the intimate epic Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier) (opening 11/11 in limited release and on Video On Demand), stands as his most stunning and full-bodied cinematic achievement since Breaking the Waves.
Von Trier has spent the 15 years since that emotionally devastating masterpiece trying to distance himself from its heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism, whether intentionally or not. Sure, Dancer in the Dark is moving enough to almost be an exception, but its academic interest in dissecting the American movie musical and its jarringly graphic execution climax seemed to signal the direction von Trier was heading in for the remainder of the 21st century's inaugural decade. Von Trier's output in this period contained enough refined artistry and probing depth to keep his "bad boy" edginess from growing stale or seeming immature, but he was so interested in pushing the envelope of good taste with these films as to make emotional engagement with them difficult verging on impossible.
While it's unlikely that the pure uplift of Breaking the Waves' final scene will ever factor into von Trier's work again, Melancholia boasts a palpable humanity and emotional texture that has been noticeably lacking in even the best of the director's post-Waves films. Nothing remotely gross or hard-to-take occurs in the film, and that freedom from shock tactics has loosened von Trier up to such a degree that, for the first time in a while, he's made a movie that works first and foremost as a wonderful character drama. The high style, elements of genre subversion, and deep well of subtext that we've come to expect from von Trier are really just icing on the cake here.
But oh my, what icing! Von Trier opens the film with an eight-minute-long coup de cinema likely to cause even the most jaded cinephile to go slack-jawed in wonderment. A series of precisely framed images play out in extreme slow-motion, depicting a planet destructively colliding with Earth and a handful of characters we haven't yet met reacting to the storm-like chaos of the collision in a variety of different ways.
Von Trier then shifts gears from the effects-driven, classical-music-scored surrealism of this positively orgasmic prologue to a gracefully handheld, character-centered approach as the story proper begins. At this point, the planet that we know from the prologue will eventually cause the end of life on Earth as we know it is dismissed as just a star, certainly nothing to disrupt the wedding of Justine (Kirsten Dunst), an ad copywriter with a history of severe depression, to her well-intentioned beau, Michael (a charming Alexander Skarsgard).
The greatest threat to the nuptials is Justine's mercurial emotional state. She is sincere in her assertion to Michael that she will try to stay happy at the wedding reception. But that's a tall order considering the reception's guest list: Justine's former boss, Jack (Stellan Skarsgard), who is uninterested in disguising his zeal to win his star employee back; her long-divorced, frequently bickering parents (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling); and her understanding-to-a-point, long-suffering sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), accompanied by temperamental husband John (Kiefer Sutherland).
The bustling, ensemble-powered humanity and dark comedy derived from social awkwardness that defines this reception set piece, which takes up a little over half of the movie, is reminiscent of Robert Altman's A Wedding, fellow Dane Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration, and Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. It's a testament to von Trier's gifts that he's able to guide the onscreen festivities with as sure a hand as those other estimable directors.
Then, he shifts gears yet again, demonstrating that he's more than able to retain his ability to surprise even while restraining his impulse to shock. The movie jumps forward in time to show that forbidding planet, now called Melancholia, moving ever closer to Earth, as Justine and Claire each deal with the inevitability of death in their own different ways. This part of the film is an art-house riff on the sci-fi genre in much the same way that von Trier's last film, Antichrist, acted as an art-house take on the horror genre (the voluptuous prologue, crayon-scrawled title/director card, and presence of Gainsbourg also offer intriguing overlaps with Antichrist, although those scarred for life by that film's graphic sexual violence can be assured that this is a far more restrained film).
The sum total of what von Trier has pulled off with his audacious stylistic and narrative shifts is artistically breathtaking, and open to discussion as to the underlying meaning(s). Since von Trier has openly discussed the mighty battle with crippling depression that led him to create Antichrist, it's easy to see the character of Justine in Melancholia as a symbolic stand-in for the director. But then, is he using Justine to metaphorically compare Melancholia's fatal trajectory with a promising young talent's loss to an overpowering inner darkness (this and The Tree of Life, the two best films I've seen this year so far, both juxtapose the cosmic and the human in thematically fertile ways), or is the character a sly justification of pessimism as an entirely logical viewpoint? (On yet another level, the movie seems to allegorically address the climate-change debate, pointedly casting Sutherland--hero Jack Bauer from right-wing small-screen favorite 24--as a conservative naysayer.)
Still, as rewarding as it is to read into Melancholia, the film succeeds most as an intimate, finely detailed character study. Von Trier has been accused of misogyny in the past (which I think is overly reductive, though it's not like I'm unable to see where those charges are coming from), but his connection to Dunst's Justine is strong and empathic. Dunst responds with a performance of keen emotional intuition, the best of her career to date. Every minute flicker of feeling that passes over Dunst's face is easily discernible to the viewer; we eventually can tell the difference between Justine's real smiles and those she merely puts on in a game effort to fit in. Another major achievement of von Trier and Dunst's collaboration is how disturbingly accurate they are in capturing real, exhausting depression.
As the family member best equipped to deal with Justine when she hits an emotional nadir, Gainsbourg is remarkably subtle and complex in suggesting Claire's occasional difficulty in summoning the appropriate compassion to help keep Justine from sinking into the abyss. She obviously wouldn't be the first actress to come to mind as a physically credible sister to Dunst (if von Trier had nabbed his first choice for the Justine role, Penelope Cruz, the sibling casting would've raised even more eyebrows), but she and Dunst forge such a believable and unique emotional bond onscreen as to render such concerns needlessly superficial. In a just world, both would be major contenders in this year's Best Actress Oscar race (Dunst has already garnered the Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival, though this film isn't typical Oscar fare, to put it mildly).
The two leads also benefit from the back-up provided by a sterling supporting cast. Hurt and Rampling are as formidable as ever; a scene in which their characters verbally assault each other at the wedding reception could legitimately be shown in acting classes. And the elder Skarsgard is in prime creep mode; he gets a sublime throwaway bit where his character angrily tosses his plate of food against the side of a catering truck only to deny his hissyfit the moment he realizes he was caught in the act. Sutherland is the only one here who doesn't quite fit in, but von Trier is wise enough to use his weirdly overamped intensity to comedic effect.
With one of von Trier's best ensembles and an eloquently articulated sense of end-times despair, Melancholia would be ideally primed to win over those who've been staying away from the director's recent work...were it not for von Trier's jackass decision to play the "bad boy" at the film's Cannes press conference, jokingly admitting that he feels a kinship with Adolf Hitler and making other cracks that someone unfamiliar with his interview schtick might interpret as anti-Semitic. Of course, those used to his routine know that he was being knowing and insincere--an imp with a questionable sense of humor and zero sense of public decorum. I agree with another of the film's big fans (I do forget which critic at the moment) that after making a film as relatively restrained and uncomfortably personal as Melancholia, von Trier most likely felt a psychological need to create division among the cinephile ranks once again. It surely can't feel safe for someone of his unusual mindset to bare his soul in a film that's entirely free of the transgressive jolts that he has come to use as a kind of stylistic defense mechanism. But I'm sure as hell glad he did. Melancholia's doom may be more crushing than the tears-inspiring catharsis of Breaking the Waves, but both offer the rare spectacle of a master filmmaker in full command of his formal and narrative powers. Grade: A
Von Trier has spent the 15 years since that emotionally devastating masterpiece trying to distance himself from its heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism, whether intentionally or not. Sure, Dancer in the Dark is moving enough to almost be an exception, but its academic interest in dissecting the American movie musical and its jarringly graphic execution climax seemed to signal the direction von Trier was heading in for the remainder of the 21st century's inaugural decade. Von Trier's output in this period contained enough refined artistry and probing depth to keep his "bad boy" edginess from growing stale or seeming immature, but he was so interested in pushing the envelope of good taste with these films as to make emotional engagement with them difficult verging on impossible.
While it's unlikely that the pure uplift of Breaking the Waves' final scene will ever factor into von Trier's work again, Melancholia boasts a palpable humanity and emotional texture that has been noticeably lacking in even the best of the director's post-Waves films. Nothing remotely gross or hard-to-take occurs in the film, and that freedom from shock tactics has loosened von Trier up to such a degree that, for the first time in a while, he's made a movie that works first and foremost as a wonderful character drama. The high style, elements of genre subversion, and deep well of subtext that we've come to expect from von Trier are really just icing on the cake here.
But oh my, what icing! Von Trier opens the film with an eight-minute-long coup de cinema likely to cause even the most jaded cinephile to go slack-jawed in wonderment. A series of precisely framed images play out in extreme slow-motion, depicting a planet destructively colliding with Earth and a handful of characters we haven't yet met reacting to the storm-like chaos of the collision in a variety of different ways.
Von Trier then shifts gears from the effects-driven, classical-music-scored surrealism of this positively orgasmic prologue to a gracefully handheld, character-centered approach as the story proper begins. At this point, the planet that we know from the prologue will eventually cause the end of life on Earth as we know it is dismissed as just a star, certainly nothing to disrupt the wedding of Justine (Kirsten Dunst), an ad copywriter with a history of severe depression, to her well-intentioned beau, Michael (a charming Alexander Skarsgard).
The greatest threat to the nuptials is Justine's mercurial emotional state. She is sincere in her assertion to Michael that she will try to stay happy at the wedding reception. But that's a tall order considering the reception's guest list: Justine's former boss, Jack (Stellan Skarsgard), who is uninterested in disguising his zeal to win his star employee back; her long-divorced, frequently bickering parents (John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling); and her understanding-to-a-point, long-suffering sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), accompanied by temperamental husband John (Kiefer Sutherland).
The bustling, ensemble-powered humanity and dark comedy derived from social awkwardness that defines this reception set piece, which takes up a little over half of the movie, is reminiscent of Robert Altman's A Wedding, fellow Dane Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration, and Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. It's a testament to von Trier's gifts that he's able to guide the onscreen festivities with as sure a hand as those other estimable directors.
Then, he shifts gears yet again, demonstrating that he's more than able to retain his ability to surprise even while restraining his impulse to shock. The movie jumps forward in time to show that forbidding planet, now called Melancholia, moving ever closer to Earth, as Justine and Claire each deal with the inevitability of death in their own different ways. This part of the film is an art-house riff on the sci-fi genre in much the same way that von Trier's last film, Antichrist, acted as an art-house take on the horror genre (the voluptuous prologue, crayon-scrawled title/director card, and presence of Gainsbourg also offer intriguing overlaps with Antichrist, although those scarred for life by that film's graphic sexual violence can be assured that this is a far more restrained film).
The sum total of what von Trier has pulled off with his audacious stylistic and narrative shifts is artistically breathtaking, and open to discussion as to the underlying meaning(s). Since von Trier has openly discussed the mighty battle with crippling depression that led him to create Antichrist, it's easy to see the character of Justine in Melancholia as a symbolic stand-in for the director. But then, is he using Justine to metaphorically compare Melancholia's fatal trajectory with a promising young talent's loss to an overpowering inner darkness (this and The Tree of Life, the two best films I've seen this year so far, both juxtapose the cosmic and the human in thematically fertile ways), or is the character a sly justification of pessimism as an entirely logical viewpoint? (On yet another level, the movie seems to allegorically address the climate-change debate, pointedly casting Sutherland--hero Jack Bauer from right-wing small-screen favorite 24--as a conservative naysayer.)
Still, as rewarding as it is to read into Melancholia, the film succeeds most as an intimate, finely detailed character study. Von Trier has been accused of misogyny in the past (which I think is overly reductive, though it's not like I'm unable to see where those charges are coming from), but his connection to Dunst's Justine is strong and empathic. Dunst responds with a performance of keen emotional intuition, the best of her career to date. Every minute flicker of feeling that passes over Dunst's face is easily discernible to the viewer; we eventually can tell the difference between Justine's real smiles and those she merely puts on in a game effort to fit in. Another major achievement of von Trier and Dunst's collaboration is how disturbingly accurate they are in capturing real, exhausting depression.
As the family member best equipped to deal with Justine when she hits an emotional nadir, Gainsbourg is remarkably subtle and complex in suggesting Claire's occasional difficulty in summoning the appropriate compassion to help keep Justine from sinking into the abyss. She obviously wouldn't be the first actress to come to mind as a physically credible sister to Dunst (if von Trier had nabbed his first choice for the Justine role, Penelope Cruz, the sibling casting would've raised even more eyebrows), but she and Dunst forge such a believable and unique emotional bond onscreen as to render such concerns needlessly superficial. In a just world, both would be major contenders in this year's Best Actress Oscar race (Dunst has already garnered the Best Actress award from the Cannes Film Festival, though this film isn't typical Oscar fare, to put it mildly).
The two leads also benefit from the back-up provided by a sterling supporting cast. Hurt and Rampling are as formidable as ever; a scene in which their characters verbally assault each other at the wedding reception could legitimately be shown in acting classes. And the elder Skarsgard is in prime creep mode; he gets a sublime throwaway bit where his character angrily tosses his plate of food against the side of a catering truck only to deny his hissyfit the moment he realizes he was caught in the act. Sutherland is the only one here who doesn't quite fit in, but von Trier is wise enough to use his weirdly overamped intensity to comedic effect.
With one of von Trier's best ensembles and an eloquently articulated sense of end-times despair, Melancholia would be ideally primed to win over those who've been staying away from the director's recent work...were it not for von Trier's jackass decision to play the "bad boy" at the film's Cannes press conference, jokingly admitting that he feels a kinship with Adolf Hitler and making other cracks that someone unfamiliar with his interview schtick might interpret as anti-Semitic. Of course, those used to his routine know that he was being knowing and insincere--an imp with a questionable sense of humor and zero sense of public decorum. I agree with another of the film's big fans (I do forget which critic at the moment) that after making a film as relatively restrained and uncomfortably personal as Melancholia, von Trier most likely felt a psychological need to create division among the cinephile ranks once again. It surely can't feel safe for someone of his unusual mindset to bare his soul in a film that's entirely free of the transgressive jolts that he has come to use as a kind of stylistic defense mechanism. But I'm sure as hell glad he did. Melancholia's doom may be more crushing than the tears-inspiring catharsis of Breaking the Waves, but both offer the rare spectacle of a master filmmaker in full command of his formal and narrative powers. Grade: A
Friday, July 29, 2011
7/27 Viewing Journal (review of "Where the Road Meets the Sun")
Whereas many cinematic portraits of Los Angeles can double as tourist-targeted travelogues, the well-observed if rough-around-the-edges indie drama Where the Road Meets the Sun (2011, Yong Mun Chee) is admirably interested in exposing the real L.A. to audiences. Writer-director Yong has enough clear affection for the city that she does justice to its striking architecture and colorful neighborhoods--Little Tokyo and Silver Lake are both featured to fine effect--but she also offers viewers a glimpse of restaurant kitchens staffed with illegal Mexican immigrants and sweat shops where counterfeit green-card photos are taken. This is a version of the city--decaying, multicultural, inhabited by an invisible-to-most lower class--bound to be refreshingly familiar to residents and eye-opening to outsiders.
In one of the city's decrepit hotels, manager Blake (Eric Mabius), bearing wounds from a marriage that went south, rents rooms to immigrants looking for a temporary residence. Along with Blake, three of the hotel's denizens take center stage in the film: Julio (Fernando Noriega), a Mexican dish washer hoping to save enough money to bring his wife and child over the border to join him; Takashi (Will Yun Lee), a brooding Japanese man with a mysterious past; and Guy (Luke Brandon Field), a shamelessly womanizing Brit.
Yong has created an engaging (and respectably multi-ethnic) quartet of characters, and she and editor Azhar Ismon effortlessly balance each of the four characters' intersecting narrative threads. (Yong and Ismon also deserve credit for the economical storytelling of the movie's first 15 or so minutes, which track four years in the characters' lives in a minimum of screen time.) Julio and Guy emerge as the strongest figures, partly because the two characters form a touching and believable friendship, and partly because Noriega and Field are immensely charismatic. Noriega has a killer smile, and does an impressive job of conveying Julio's decency and optimism without ever turning the character into a cardboard saint. Field, who, with his dark eyes and broad nose, resembles a taller, less nerdy UK version of Shia LaBeouf, invests Guy with such sincerity that it's clear Guy is a big-hearted person underneath his raging libido.
I had such a good time getting to know these characters and their struggles that I was disappointed when the narrative machinations of the third act kicked in, overwhelming the movie's gentle humanity. Without giving anything away, the events that reunite Julio with a group of pawn-shop hooligans he antagonized earlier in the film depend upon an implausible number of narrative coincidences.
Also, Yong's dialogue often settles for being functional instead of inspired. While it's natural that characters in such desperate financial straits would talk most often about the hardships they face, some more loose conversational exchanges would've been welcome to keep monotony at bay.
However, Yong's vision of LA's fringe dwellers is so potent that I hope we're graced with more of her humane urban portraiture in the future. Grade: B-
[FULL DISCLOSURE: Yong is actually a friend and former colleague of mine, so I'm not even gonna pretend to be unbiased here (although, honestly, I did try to write as "objective" a review as possible under the circumstances). It was actually hard not to just call her Mun Chee throughout the review, but I stuck to my professional guns. To support her, I'll mention that Where the Road Meets the Sun is now playing for a week-long engagement in LA and New York as part of Maya Indie's Film Series and will spread to other cities in the weeks to come. Go see it!]
In one of the city's decrepit hotels, manager Blake (Eric Mabius), bearing wounds from a marriage that went south, rents rooms to immigrants looking for a temporary residence. Along with Blake, three of the hotel's denizens take center stage in the film: Julio (Fernando Noriega), a Mexican dish washer hoping to save enough money to bring his wife and child over the border to join him; Takashi (Will Yun Lee), a brooding Japanese man with a mysterious past; and Guy (Luke Brandon Field), a shamelessly womanizing Brit.
Yong has created an engaging (and respectably multi-ethnic) quartet of characters, and she and editor Azhar Ismon effortlessly balance each of the four characters' intersecting narrative threads. (Yong and Ismon also deserve credit for the economical storytelling of the movie's first 15 or so minutes, which track four years in the characters' lives in a minimum of screen time.) Julio and Guy emerge as the strongest figures, partly because the two characters form a touching and believable friendship, and partly because Noriega and Field are immensely charismatic. Noriega has a killer smile, and does an impressive job of conveying Julio's decency and optimism without ever turning the character into a cardboard saint. Field, who, with his dark eyes and broad nose, resembles a taller, less nerdy UK version of Shia LaBeouf, invests Guy with such sincerity that it's clear Guy is a big-hearted person underneath his raging libido.
I had such a good time getting to know these characters and their struggles that I was disappointed when the narrative machinations of the third act kicked in, overwhelming the movie's gentle humanity. Without giving anything away, the events that reunite Julio with a group of pawn-shop hooligans he antagonized earlier in the film depend upon an implausible number of narrative coincidences.
Also, Yong's dialogue often settles for being functional instead of inspired. While it's natural that characters in such desperate financial straits would talk most often about the hardships they face, some more loose conversational exchanges would've been welcome to keep monotony at bay.
However, Yong's vision of LA's fringe dwellers is so potent that I hope we're graced with more of her humane urban portraiture in the future. Grade: B-
[FULL DISCLOSURE: Yong is actually a friend and former colleague of mine, so I'm not even gonna pretend to be unbiased here (although, honestly, I did try to write as "objective" a review as possible under the circumstances). It was actually hard not to just call her Mun Chee throughout the review, but I stuck to my professional guns. To support her, I'll mention that Where the Road Meets the Sun is now playing for a week-long engagement in LA and New York as part of Maya Indie's Film Series and will spread to other cities in the weeks to come. Go see it!]
7/26 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Project Nim" and "The Guard")
Being a true animal lover requires an understanding that the beasts we share the planet with are far more unpredictable and vulnerable than humans, who possess the singular ability to vocalize their needs and the shelter of civilization. This knowledge should ideally guide any human interactions with animals, such as when I was walking Sadie, a gorgeous dog I watched for a week last year while her human parents were out of town, and she began aggressively snarling and barking at another passing canine. I had to hold Sadie back from engaging her perceived rival, but even though she was technically behaving badly, I knew, as any person should, that her actions were not to be punished. She couldn't let me know in English what her beef was with the dog--I'd like to think she was being either protective or possessive of me, naturally--and I'm smart enough to realize that her behavior, while annoying, did not constitute the kind of flaw that would make me love her any less. She's a dog, and it's just in her nature.
Part of what makes Project Nim (2011, James Marsh) the best and most engrossing documentary of the year so far is its implicit critique of how an unfortunate number of people who cross paths with the chimpanzee at its center, adorably named Nim Chimpsky, are so oblivious to Nim's basic animal nature.
Nim is taken from his mother in a prologue that hooks the viewer right from the start, and then placed with Dr. Herb Terrace, a Columbia University professor who, in the '70s, takes on an experiment to test whether or not humans can communicate with chimps using sign language. Nim becomes his subject for the experiment, and to provide the chimp with a home and someone to hopefully sign with, he passes Nim onto ex-girlfriend Stephanie LaFarge, who's excited to raise Nim within her self-proclaimed "rich hippie" family. Stephanie ends up treating Nim like an ordinary human son, ignorant that such anthopomorphism doesn't take into account such behavior as Nim's territorial anger towards Stephanie's long-haired poet husband.
Despite such complications, Dr. Terrace's test of the age-old nature-vs.-nurture hypothesis yields results. Nim acquires quite the sign-language vocabulary. My favorite is his compound use of the signs for "stone" and "smoke," indicating that he wants to smoke marijuana (the sign-language teachers who work under Dr. Terrace get him hooked on the wacky tobacky).
I'm reluctant to share where Nim goes from Stephanie LaFarge's houshould, and the directions in which Dr. Terrace takes his experiment, because the film really benefits from the viewer going into it with as little foreknowledge of Nim's true-life story as possible. But it's revealing little to say that whereas Stephanie fails in her treatment of Nim as something more than he really is, other people who come into possession of the chimp falter in treating him as something less--a being whose life has no value. The blatant disregard for animal welfare captured on film is downright disturbing. Without any preaching, Project Nim passionately attacks scientific pursuits divorced entirely from ethical considerations.
As he also proved with the excellent, Oscar-winning Man on Wire (which Nim, remarkably, improves upon), director Marsh is a poet of the non-fiction form, blending archival footage, still photos (almost all of which are extremely cute), evocatively lit interviews with Nim's human friends and foes, and artful recreations into a stunning cinematic whole (cinematographer Michael Simmonds, editor Jinx Godfrey, and composer Dickon Hinchliffe make invaluable contributions). Beneath this exquisite surface lies a mighty narrative engine; Marsh's style is magically connected to his muscular storytelling sense.
Project Nim is such a great story well told that its box-office underperformance thus far is depressing. It's hard to imagine even viewers who avoid documentaries not being affected by this thought-provoking, immensely moving glimpse into human-and-animal relationships gone spectacularly wrong. Grade: A
Since John Michael McDonagh is the brother of playwright Martin McDonagh, I was hoping his debut feature as writer and director, The Guard (2011, John Michael McDonagh), would be in the same league as Martin McDonagh's first feature, In Bruges, one of the few post-Tarantino hit-man comedies that could be classified as genuinely original and soulful in its own right. But, lacking In Bruges' meaty characterizations, narrative ingenuity, and thematic depth, The Guard is instead in the unambitious, reasonably-entertaining-yet-flimsy class of your average Guy Ritchie action-comedy.
Basically a formula buddy picture pairing the most ethically shaky cop (Brendan Gleeson) in all of Galway, Ireland with a by-the-book FBI agent (Don Cheadle) to crush a drug ring, The Guard is marred by McDonagh's inability to supply the requisite comic energy; the pacing just lags.
Luckily, though, the one trait McDonagh does share with his more talented sibling is a gift for enjoyably digressive tough-guy dialogue. There are enough great one-liners and interactions here to make one curious for what McDonagh does next, in spite of his shortcomings.
The writer-director also benefits from his casting of wonderful character actor Gleeson in a showy lead part. Gleeson is a marvel in the role of a cop so hedonistic he steals acid from a car-crash victim and even ingests it at the scene of the collision. As his mismatched partner, Cheadle, a great dramatic actor, is less successful; he doesn't possess the light touch necessary for comedy (except in that scene from Ocean's Thirteen where he goes gleefully over-the-top when his thief character pretends to be a showboating stunt cyclist in order to distract Al Pacino's villain). Underneath Cheadle's genre-inappropriate glowering, one senses he still did enjoy bouncing banter off of Gleeson. I mean, who wouldn't? Grade: B-
Part of what makes Project Nim (2011, James Marsh) the best and most engrossing documentary of the year so far is its implicit critique of how an unfortunate number of people who cross paths with the chimpanzee at its center, adorably named Nim Chimpsky, are so oblivious to Nim's basic animal nature.
Nim is taken from his mother in a prologue that hooks the viewer right from the start, and then placed with Dr. Herb Terrace, a Columbia University professor who, in the '70s, takes on an experiment to test whether or not humans can communicate with chimps using sign language. Nim becomes his subject for the experiment, and to provide the chimp with a home and someone to hopefully sign with, he passes Nim onto ex-girlfriend Stephanie LaFarge, who's excited to raise Nim within her self-proclaimed "rich hippie" family. Stephanie ends up treating Nim like an ordinary human son, ignorant that such anthopomorphism doesn't take into account such behavior as Nim's territorial anger towards Stephanie's long-haired poet husband.
Despite such complications, Dr. Terrace's test of the age-old nature-vs.-nurture hypothesis yields results. Nim acquires quite the sign-language vocabulary. My favorite is his compound use of the signs for "stone" and "smoke," indicating that he wants to smoke marijuana (the sign-language teachers who work under Dr. Terrace get him hooked on the wacky tobacky).
I'm reluctant to share where Nim goes from Stephanie LaFarge's houshould, and the directions in which Dr. Terrace takes his experiment, because the film really benefits from the viewer going into it with as little foreknowledge of Nim's true-life story as possible. But it's revealing little to say that whereas Stephanie fails in her treatment of Nim as something more than he really is, other people who come into possession of the chimp falter in treating him as something less--a being whose life has no value. The blatant disregard for animal welfare captured on film is downright disturbing. Without any preaching, Project Nim passionately attacks scientific pursuits divorced entirely from ethical considerations.
As he also proved with the excellent, Oscar-winning Man on Wire (which Nim, remarkably, improves upon), director Marsh is a poet of the non-fiction form, blending archival footage, still photos (almost all of which are extremely cute), evocatively lit interviews with Nim's human friends and foes, and artful recreations into a stunning cinematic whole (cinematographer Michael Simmonds, editor Jinx Godfrey, and composer Dickon Hinchliffe make invaluable contributions). Beneath this exquisite surface lies a mighty narrative engine; Marsh's style is magically connected to his muscular storytelling sense.
Project Nim is such a great story well told that its box-office underperformance thus far is depressing. It's hard to imagine even viewers who avoid documentaries not being affected by this thought-provoking, immensely moving glimpse into human-and-animal relationships gone spectacularly wrong. Grade: A
Since John Michael McDonagh is the brother of playwright Martin McDonagh, I was hoping his debut feature as writer and director, The Guard (2011, John Michael McDonagh), would be in the same league as Martin McDonagh's first feature, In Bruges, one of the few post-Tarantino hit-man comedies that could be classified as genuinely original and soulful in its own right. But, lacking In Bruges' meaty characterizations, narrative ingenuity, and thematic depth, The Guard is instead in the unambitious, reasonably-entertaining-yet-flimsy class of your average Guy Ritchie action-comedy.
Basically a formula buddy picture pairing the most ethically shaky cop (Brendan Gleeson) in all of Galway, Ireland with a by-the-book FBI agent (Don Cheadle) to crush a drug ring, The Guard is marred by McDonagh's inability to supply the requisite comic energy; the pacing just lags.
Luckily, though, the one trait McDonagh does share with his more talented sibling is a gift for enjoyably digressive tough-guy dialogue. There are enough great one-liners and interactions here to make one curious for what McDonagh does next, in spite of his shortcomings.
The writer-director also benefits from his casting of wonderful character actor Gleeson in a showy lead part. Gleeson is a marvel in the role of a cop so hedonistic he steals acid from a car-crash victim and even ingests it at the scene of the collision. As his mismatched partner, Cheadle, a great dramatic actor, is less successful; he doesn't possess the light touch necessary for comedy (except in that scene from Ocean's Thirteen where he goes gleefully over-the-top when his thief character pretends to be a showboating stunt cyclist in order to distract Al Pacino's villain). Underneath Cheadle's genre-inappropriate glowering, one senses he still did enjoy bouncing banter off of Gleeson. I mean, who wouldn't? Grade: B-
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
7/24 - 7/25 Viewing Journal
Nothing for last Sunday or Monday. But keep an eye on the blog over the next few days, when I post a couple more early reviews and rave about one of the very best movies of the year so far. (Hint: It's a movie that involves a non-human primate in a central role.) (That means it's either Project Nim or The Zookeeper. Place your bets!)
7/23 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "Friends With Benefits")
Technically polished yet boring as hell, the WWII-era superhero movie Captain America: The First Avenger (2011, Joe Johnston) fastidiously recreates an era of USO rallies and Nazi foes (the work done by cinematographer Shelly Johnson, production designer Rick Heinrichs, and costume designer Anna B. Sheppard is not to be faulted) but finds only overly earnest stick figures with which to populate its handsome period recreation.
Don't get me wrong--a quality like earnestness is usually something to be treasured in a film. But this script, written by Chronicles of Narnia veterans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, is so intent on painting heroes Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) as unblemished, noble do-gooders that they never attain that extra dimension needed to get us involved in their fight against evil. Lacking recognizable humanity, Captain America aims for retro sincerity but achieves only blandness and terminal dramatic stiffness instead.
The dull, mummified vibe extends to scenes in which the villainous Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, who adopts an enjoyably artificial German accent but gets absolutely no interesting words with which to wrap it around) confers with a scientist associate (Toby Jones) over his intricate, destructive plans. If the movie's meant to be a throwback, then why is that these scenes of overly dry exposition remind me only of other recent unsuccessful blockbusters?
Director Johnston drags the proceedings to a snail's pace. There's none of the matinee-adventure zip of his The Rocketeer, nor any of the rousing spirit of his October Sky, both of which were set in roughly the same time period as this. Now those movies were throwbacks.
Evans' work is more lively and nuanced in early scenes that use CGI to put his head on a rail-thin body to convey how puny Steve is; when a serum inflates Steve's body to the beefcake level of a superhero, Evans weirdly reverts to phoning it in, as if he believed his pecs and abs can just take over the acting duties. I missed the cocky, young-Tom-Cruise-esque confidence that Evans has brought to previous movies, but the character of Steve is so one-dimensional that it shouldn't be viewed as a test of his ability to play non-cocky types. Nor should Atwell's future be judged based solely on her ho-hum work here; she was very smart and charismatic in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, and no doubt other projects down the line will allow her to flourish again.
The only actor who really shines here is the infallible Tommy Lee Jones, who manages the neat trick of burrowing into his character--that of a colonel doubtful of Steve's ability to pull off the Captain America alter-ego--while simultaneously seeming to signal to the audience his contempt for the threadbare material. Jones' musical, curveball line readings give Captain America something it otherwise sorely lacks: a sense of surprise. Grade: C
While watching attractive stars Evans and Atwell straitjacketed by the goody-two-shoes act they're forced to play out in Captain America, it's hard not to picture them ripping off each other's clothes and going at it like two attractive people would in the real world, as opposed to the world of poor comic-book adaptations.
So the romantic comedy Friends With Benefits (2011, Will Gluck) already has an edge over its Saturday-afternoon predecessor in that it frequently gets stars Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis naked and in bed for some vigorous shagging. And the film's sex scenes also manage to work on a non-prurient level too. Since Timberlake and Kunis' characters, Dylan and Jamie, are pals looking to engage in entirely non-romantic sex, they openly tease and criticize each other while in the middle of the act. The intimacy is refreshing, and Timberlake, who really should quit his day job (actually, it seems he pretty much has at this point), and the whip-smart Kunis make for a naturally likable pair of lovers.
There's plenty more to like about the film too, from its rare-in-mainstream-comedies focus on two unashamedly intelligent, articulate characters, and amusing supporting performances from Woody Harrelson (as Dylan's self-mockingly gay sports-writer colleague) and Patricia Clarkson (as Jamie's loopy, free-spirit mother). (The awesome Richard Jenkins is also very good as Dylan's Alzheimer's-inflicted father, but due to the nature of the character, the word "amusing" wouldn't really fit.)
Still, I wasn't as taken with Friends With Benefits as most critics have been. Maybe I'm just at a younger age where I can sense the pandering behind nearly non-stop referencing to phenomena "those kids today" are attuned to, such as YouTube, iPhone apps, flash mobs, and the like. And while roughly half the dialogue in the script by Gluck, Keith Merryman & David A. Newman is genuinely clever, the other half just thinks it's clever in a cloying, Diablo Cody-esque way. The verbal wit in Gluck's previous comedy, the delightful surprise Easy A, was much sharper; conspicuously, it was written by somebody else, Bert V. Royal.
I'm actually about equally "meh" on this and the much less acclaimed, similar-in-concept No Strings Attached from earlier this year (which is less intelligent than Friends, but also more moving, due to star Natalie Portman's emotionally committed performance). Separately, neither of the two movies makes a compelling case for must-see big-screen status, but if combined as a stay-at-home double feature when both are available on DVD or cable, they'd make for a pleasant pair. As long as they have no plans for a serious commitment, of course. Grade: B-
Don't get me wrong--a quality like earnestness is usually something to be treasured in a film. But this script, written by Chronicles of Narnia veterans Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, is so intent on painting heroes Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) as unblemished, noble do-gooders that they never attain that extra dimension needed to get us involved in their fight against evil. Lacking recognizable humanity, Captain America aims for retro sincerity but achieves only blandness and terminal dramatic stiffness instead.
The dull, mummified vibe extends to scenes in which the villainous Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, who adopts an enjoyably artificial German accent but gets absolutely no interesting words with which to wrap it around) confers with a scientist associate (Toby Jones) over his intricate, destructive plans. If the movie's meant to be a throwback, then why is that these scenes of overly dry exposition remind me only of other recent unsuccessful blockbusters?
Director Johnston drags the proceedings to a snail's pace. There's none of the matinee-adventure zip of his The Rocketeer, nor any of the rousing spirit of his October Sky, both of which were set in roughly the same time period as this. Now those movies were throwbacks.
Evans' work is more lively and nuanced in early scenes that use CGI to put his head on a rail-thin body to convey how puny Steve is; when a serum inflates Steve's body to the beefcake level of a superhero, Evans weirdly reverts to phoning it in, as if he believed his pecs and abs can just take over the acting duties. I missed the cocky, young-Tom-Cruise-esque confidence that Evans has brought to previous movies, but the character of Steve is so one-dimensional that it shouldn't be viewed as a test of his ability to play non-cocky types. Nor should Atwell's future be judged based solely on her ho-hum work here; she was very smart and charismatic in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, and no doubt other projects down the line will allow her to flourish again.
The only actor who really shines here is the infallible Tommy Lee Jones, who manages the neat trick of burrowing into his character--that of a colonel doubtful of Steve's ability to pull off the Captain America alter-ego--while simultaneously seeming to signal to the audience his contempt for the threadbare material. Jones' musical, curveball line readings give Captain America something it otherwise sorely lacks: a sense of surprise. Grade: C
While watching attractive stars Evans and Atwell straitjacketed by the goody-two-shoes act they're forced to play out in Captain America, it's hard not to picture them ripping off each other's clothes and going at it like two attractive people would in the real world, as opposed to the world of poor comic-book adaptations.
So the romantic comedy Friends With Benefits (2011, Will Gluck) already has an edge over its Saturday-afternoon predecessor in that it frequently gets stars Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis naked and in bed for some vigorous shagging. And the film's sex scenes also manage to work on a non-prurient level too. Since Timberlake and Kunis' characters, Dylan and Jamie, are pals looking to engage in entirely non-romantic sex, they openly tease and criticize each other while in the middle of the act. The intimacy is refreshing, and Timberlake, who really should quit his day job (actually, it seems he pretty much has at this point), and the whip-smart Kunis make for a naturally likable pair of lovers.
There's plenty more to like about the film too, from its rare-in-mainstream-comedies focus on two unashamedly intelligent, articulate characters, and amusing supporting performances from Woody Harrelson (as Dylan's self-mockingly gay sports-writer colleague) and Patricia Clarkson (as Jamie's loopy, free-spirit mother). (The awesome Richard Jenkins is also very good as Dylan's Alzheimer's-inflicted father, but due to the nature of the character, the word "amusing" wouldn't really fit.)
Still, I wasn't as taken with Friends With Benefits as most critics have been. Maybe I'm just at a younger age where I can sense the pandering behind nearly non-stop referencing to phenomena "those kids today" are attuned to, such as YouTube, iPhone apps, flash mobs, and the like. And while roughly half the dialogue in the script by Gluck, Keith Merryman & David A. Newman is genuinely clever, the other half just thinks it's clever in a cloying, Diablo Cody-esque way. The verbal wit in Gluck's previous comedy, the delightful surprise Easy A, was much sharper; conspicuously, it was written by somebody else, Bert V. Royal.
I'm actually about equally "meh" on this and the much less acclaimed, similar-in-concept No Strings Attached from earlier this year (which is less intelligent than Friends, but also more moving, due to star Natalie Portman's emotionally committed performance). Separately, neither of the two movies makes a compelling case for must-see big-screen status, but if combined as a stay-at-home double feature when both are available on DVD or cable, they'd make for a pleasant pair. As long as they have no plans for a serious commitment, of course. Grade: B-
7/22 Viewing Journal (EARLY REVIEW: "30 Minutes or Less")
Since Bridesmaids, Bad Teacher, and Horrible Bosses are all fairly benign examples of the now-popular form of the raunchy, R-rated mainstream comedy, I was hoping to go all summer without having to bear witness to another scummy, mean-spirited blast of immature machismo on the order of The Hangover, the movie that brought box-office viability back to the restricted-rating laugh-fest even as it alienated those of us who demand more than hateful boys'-club hijinks from our comedies. But, alas, here comes 30 Minutes or Less (2011, Ruben Fleischer) (opening 8/12 nationwide), a profane lark wherein all the women onscreen are either strippers, cardboard love interests, helpless victims, or some combination thereof, and where there's nothing scarier for the central straight-male characters than the very existence of homosexuality.
However, while The Hangover and 30 Minutes or Less share the same ugly mindset, it would be unfair to the newer film to say it's precisely "on the order of" The Hangover. It doesn't come near that level of awfulness--thank goodness for small favors, right?--and it has a number of compensating pleasures, chief among them the presence of Parks and Recreation's very funny Aziz Ansari. With his tendency to erupt in buzzing, high-pitched fits and rants that contain enough sharp observations to ever come close to being annoying (his best bit here is an astute assessment of Netflix), Ansari raises the movie's hit-to-miss gag ratio to an adequate level.
Ansari also connects well with Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Nick, a burnt-out pizza-delivery boy more comfortable spending his nights swigging beers with teacher pal Chet (Ansari) than trying to strike up a real relationship with Chet's sister, Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), a former one-night-stand who Nick is secretly in love with.
One night, Nick unfortunately crosses paths with Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), two losers looking for a patsy to rob a bank, which would then provide Dwayne with enough money to hire a hitman to kill his father (Fred Ward, a strong presence reduced here to the duty of hurling homophobic slurs), a military veteran made rich by a lottery win. Dwayne and Travis decide that Nick is their patsy, so they strap Nick with a time-bomb vest that will detonate if he doesn't rob a bank within a matter of hours.
Nick enlists Chet's assistance, and the comic set piece in which they carry out the robbery does not disappoint--it escalates nicely as farce, and is one of the movie's highlights. The scene confirms that director Fleischer has some talent when it comes to funneling the cast's energy into tightly constructed bits of comic mayhem, but I wonder if Fleischer knows that not every film he takes on needs to be as slick and propulsive as a Mountain Dew commercial. His injection of a healthy amount of action into his only previous film, the superior Zombieland, made sense in that case because the survivors-vs.-zombies set-up warranted the gunfights. Here, though, all the blam-blam stuff, the flame-thrower explosions, and the car chases feel desperate and gratuitous, as if Fleischer didn't trust his comedy chops to carry the film. (His next film, inexplicably, will be a period gangster epic starring the impressive line-up of Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin. It seems Ward's character isn't the only lottery winner involved in 30 Minutes or Less.)
Eisenberg is fine, although unlike some who complain (unfairly) that "he always plays the same character," or some such garbage, I didn't need him to tamp down his natural wit, charm, and intelligence to play an underachieving douchebag; there's enough range within the gallery of articulate youngsters he has played as to render the question of whether he needs to "stretch" entirely moot. McBride's disgusting-cretin routine is growing on me; he's dependably funny, although if the anti-Eisenberg camp wants me to point to an actor who I feel does have a limited range, I will gladly offer McBride as Exhibit A. Swardson, who often just looks lost when he's required to react to a scene partner, is the weak link in the central quartet.
Still, three good performances out of the four main actors is nothing to scoff at when considering the juvenile material the cast has to work with. 30 Minutes or Less isn't a bad movie of its kind, but how much of an achievement is that when the kind of comedy it is inspires repulsion? Grade: C+
However, while The Hangover and 30 Minutes or Less share the same ugly mindset, it would be unfair to the newer film to say it's precisely "on the order of" The Hangover. It doesn't come near that level of awfulness--thank goodness for small favors, right?--and it has a number of compensating pleasures, chief among them the presence of Parks and Recreation's very funny Aziz Ansari. With his tendency to erupt in buzzing, high-pitched fits and rants that contain enough sharp observations to ever come close to being annoying (his best bit here is an astute assessment of Netflix), Ansari raises the movie's hit-to-miss gag ratio to an adequate level.
Ansari also connects well with Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Nick, a burnt-out pizza-delivery boy more comfortable spending his nights swigging beers with teacher pal Chet (Ansari) than trying to strike up a real relationship with Chet's sister, Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria), a former one-night-stand who Nick is secretly in love with.
One night, Nick unfortunately crosses paths with Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), two losers looking for a patsy to rob a bank, which would then provide Dwayne with enough money to hire a hitman to kill his father (Fred Ward, a strong presence reduced here to the duty of hurling homophobic slurs), a military veteran made rich by a lottery win. Dwayne and Travis decide that Nick is their patsy, so they strap Nick with a time-bomb vest that will detonate if he doesn't rob a bank within a matter of hours.
Nick enlists Chet's assistance, and the comic set piece in which they carry out the robbery does not disappoint--it escalates nicely as farce, and is one of the movie's highlights. The scene confirms that director Fleischer has some talent when it comes to funneling the cast's energy into tightly constructed bits of comic mayhem, but I wonder if Fleischer knows that not every film he takes on needs to be as slick and propulsive as a Mountain Dew commercial. His injection of a healthy amount of action into his only previous film, the superior Zombieland, made sense in that case because the survivors-vs.-zombies set-up warranted the gunfights. Here, though, all the blam-blam stuff, the flame-thrower explosions, and the car chases feel desperate and gratuitous, as if Fleischer didn't trust his comedy chops to carry the film. (His next film, inexplicably, will be a period gangster epic starring the impressive line-up of Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin. It seems Ward's character isn't the only lottery winner involved in 30 Minutes or Less.)
Eisenberg is fine, although unlike some who complain (unfairly) that "he always plays the same character," or some such garbage, I didn't need him to tamp down his natural wit, charm, and intelligence to play an underachieving douchebag; there's enough range within the gallery of articulate youngsters he has played as to render the question of whether he needs to "stretch" entirely moot. McBride's disgusting-cretin routine is growing on me; he's dependably funny, although if the anti-Eisenberg camp wants me to point to an actor who I feel does have a limited range, I will gladly offer McBride as Exhibit A. Swardson, who often just looks lost when he's required to react to a scene partner, is the weak link in the central quartet.
Still, three good performances out of the four main actors is nothing to scoff at when considering the juvenile material the cast has to work with. 30 Minutes or Less isn't a bad movie of its kind, but how much of an achievement is that when the kind of comedy it is inspires repulsion? Grade: C+
7/21 Viewing Journal
I didn't see anything on this day, so it's time again for a little of the ol' self-promotion. Here's a Metromix feature I just wrote on weird Westerns, tied into the release of Cowboys & Aliens:
http://newyork.metromix.com/movies/essay_photo_gallery/10-weirdest-western-movies/2738503/content
Check back for my review of Cowboys & Aliens when I post my 7/31 Viewing Journal.
http://newyork.metromix.com/movies/essay_photo_gallery/10-weirdest-western-movies/2738503/content
Check back for my review of Cowboys & Aliens when I post my 7/31 Viewing Journal.
Monday, July 25, 2011
7/20 Viewing Journal (reviews of "John Carpenter's The Ward" and "The Perfect Host")
A mere two days after enduring the obnoxious, amped-up postmodernism of Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, the decidedly more relaxed, neo-classical genre craftsmanship of John Carpenter's The Ward (2011, John Carpenter) arrived as a breath of fresh air. Understand this, though: The Ward is more of an exceedingly well-directed okay movie than a legitimately good one. Still, even if the unoriginal and predictable script by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen prevents Carpenter from reaching the heights of his The Thing or Big Trouble in Little China, the filmmaker's compositional rigor and infectious glee at working with familiar genre tropes invigorates the cliches enough to make this worth a look for die-hard fans.
The setting is a sinister mental-patient ward, which is hardly a novel one, although Carpenter's tracking shots down the ward's corridors during stormy evenings strike the right ominous tone. This is where Kristen (Amber Heard) is admitted after a fit of pyromania, although she insists her sanity is above reproach. In an effort to adjust to her new surroundings, she bonds with her fellow female inmates and makes her required appointments with the hospital's psychiatrist (Jared Harris, whose plummy, Rex Harrison-esque Britishness works for a character with ambiguous motives). But frequent nighttime visits from a pissed-off ghost understandably heightens her desire to escape the ward.
Carpenter builds nicely to an increasingly intense third act, and he remains an expert at delivering scares that don't cheat. And while his decision to stock the ward completely with perfectly-coiffed hotties is questionable, for plausibility's sake at the very least, he doesn't make the mistake of sleazily ogling and violently exploiting his young-female cast the way director Zack Snyder did with his own, thoroughly vile female-mental-ward yarn Sucker Punch. Even the obligatory shower scene is shot and cut for maximum tastefulness, if you can imagine such a thing.
It helps, too, that the distaff ensemble does fairly solid work. Mamie Gummer is a standout as Emily, the ward's only patient to fully embrace her looney-tunes status (since Gummer is Meryl Streep's daughter, she truly is a chip off the old block). In the lead, Heard botches a couple of her more emotionally demanding scenes, but she still exudes a forceful charisma befitting her "It Girl" status.
Even viewers whose past exposure to insane-asylum genre flicks consists only of having seen recent entries Sucker Punch (which this is vastly superior to) and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (which this is vastly inferior to) will know exactly where the story's heading. But old pro Carpenter makes getting there mildly fun. Grade: B-
More of a whatsit than an actual movie, The Perfect Host (2011, Nick Tomnay) delights in narrative rug-pulling that is entertaining for the duration of the movie but fails to hold up to even the slightest scrutiny once it wraps up. A riveting, delightfully odd star performance from the perpetually underutilized David Hyde Pierce (Niles from TV's Frasier) does its best to cover over the massive plot holes and debut writer-director Tomnay's shoddy filmmaking, and the spectacle of his unhinged performance combined with the out-of-left-field plot twists almost manage that feat. But, as they say, "almost" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Another liability is actor Clayne Crawford's charisma-free and woefully amateurish work as John, a bank robber on the run who coerces Pierce's Warwick to let him into Warwick's posh abode by pretending to be a friend of a friend. Warwick warns John right off the bat that because he's throwing a dinner party, John can't stay for long, though John's impulse is to stay in the safe harbor of Warwick's house for as long as possible.
That describes the first act of The Perfect Host, and it would be ungenerous of me to outline the remaining two acts. It would be sufficient to say that the more loopy surprises the movie throws at the audience, the more entertaining it becomes while simultaneously making less and less sense. The narrative hinges on coincidences and lapses in logic so hard for the rational viewer to swallow that one has to decide either to go with the madness or resist it. I straddled the middle ground; I felt like my intelligence was insulted, but I can't deny I had some fun in the process.
Let's admit it--any movie that gives Pierce an extremely weird dance number isn't a total waste. With his skills far exceeding Crawford's, The Perfect Host is an unusually imbalanced two-hander. But Pierce is so rarely given such a juicy leading role that I could frankly care less who he's sharing the screen with. Grade: C+
The setting is a sinister mental-patient ward, which is hardly a novel one, although Carpenter's tracking shots down the ward's corridors during stormy evenings strike the right ominous tone. This is where Kristen (Amber Heard) is admitted after a fit of pyromania, although she insists her sanity is above reproach. In an effort to adjust to her new surroundings, she bonds with her fellow female inmates and makes her required appointments with the hospital's psychiatrist (Jared Harris, whose plummy, Rex Harrison-esque Britishness works for a character with ambiguous motives). But frequent nighttime visits from a pissed-off ghost understandably heightens her desire to escape the ward.
Carpenter builds nicely to an increasingly intense third act, and he remains an expert at delivering scares that don't cheat. And while his decision to stock the ward completely with perfectly-coiffed hotties is questionable, for plausibility's sake at the very least, he doesn't make the mistake of sleazily ogling and violently exploiting his young-female cast the way director Zack Snyder did with his own, thoroughly vile female-mental-ward yarn Sucker Punch. Even the obligatory shower scene is shot and cut for maximum tastefulness, if you can imagine such a thing.
It helps, too, that the distaff ensemble does fairly solid work. Mamie Gummer is a standout as Emily, the ward's only patient to fully embrace her looney-tunes status (since Gummer is Meryl Streep's daughter, she truly is a chip off the old block). In the lead, Heard botches a couple of her more emotionally demanding scenes, but she still exudes a forceful charisma befitting her "It Girl" status.
Even viewers whose past exposure to insane-asylum genre flicks consists only of having seen recent entries Sucker Punch (which this is vastly superior to) and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (which this is vastly inferior to) will know exactly where the story's heading. But old pro Carpenter makes getting there mildly fun. Grade: B-
More of a whatsit than an actual movie, The Perfect Host (2011, Nick Tomnay) delights in narrative rug-pulling that is entertaining for the duration of the movie but fails to hold up to even the slightest scrutiny once it wraps up. A riveting, delightfully odd star performance from the perpetually underutilized David Hyde Pierce (Niles from TV's Frasier) does its best to cover over the massive plot holes and debut writer-director Tomnay's shoddy filmmaking, and the spectacle of his unhinged performance combined with the out-of-left-field plot twists almost manage that feat. But, as they say, "almost" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Another liability is actor Clayne Crawford's charisma-free and woefully amateurish work as John, a bank robber on the run who coerces Pierce's Warwick to let him into Warwick's posh abode by pretending to be a friend of a friend. Warwick warns John right off the bat that because he's throwing a dinner party, John can't stay for long, though John's impulse is to stay in the safe harbor of Warwick's house for as long as possible.
That describes the first act of The Perfect Host, and it would be ungenerous of me to outline the remaining two acts. It would be sufficient to say that the more loopy surprises the movie throws at the audience, the more entertaining it becomes while simultaneously making less and less sense. The narrative hinges on coincidences and lapses in logic so hard for the rational viewer to swallow that one has to decide either to go with the madness or resist it. I straddled the middle ground; I felt like my intelligence was insulted, but I can't deny I had some fun in the process.
Let's admit it--any movie that gives Pierce an extremely weird dance number isn't a total waste. With his skills far exceeding Crawford's, The Perfect Host is an unusually imbalanced two-hander. But Pierce is so rarely given such a juicy leading role that I could frankly care less who he's sharing the screen with. Grade: C+
7/19 Viewing Journal (reviews of "Terri" and "Tabloid")
Slow to get going but ultimately very winning in its understated humanity, Terri (2011, Azazel Jacobs) tracks a lonely, overweight high-school student's social progress as he gradually expands his circle of friends.
When we first meet the high-schooler, named Terri and played by likable newcomer Jacob Wysocki with nary a trace of pity-party pleading, his life is stuck in an unenviable cycle of going to school, performing household tasks for his mentally troubled uncle (The Office's Creed Bratton), and scarfing down meals consisting of toast topped with baked beans. Director Jacobs depicts Terri's routine existence with a vividly unglamorous verisimilitude, but in early scenes, he and writer Patrick Dewitt are unable to separate the necessary repetition of Terri's daily grind from the unnecessary repetition of a character study spinning its narrative wheels. You've seen one scene of Terri setting mouse traps in the attic for doddering Uncle James, you've seen 'em all.
The movie gains in interest at the point when Terri's weekly meetings with assistant principal Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), who insists on the meetings in a bid to increase Terri's self-esteem, gain in character depth. Mr. Fitzgerald is initially viewed as a comical figure armed with feeble motivational phrases and tricks, but Dewitt and the masterful Reilly eventually reveal, with commendable subtlety, that underneath his optimistic bluster, Mr. Fitzgerald is a regular guy with problems like anyone else who is just trying to do his job to the best of his abilities. Reilly is perfectly cast in a role that draws upon both his vast comedic and dramatic gifts, and he and Wysocki play off of each other beautifully.
Wysocki also has real chemistry opposite Bridger Zadina and Olivia Crocicchia, who play two high-school peers of Terri's who warm up to him. Zadina's compulsively hair-pulling beanpole Chad bonds with Terri over their shared visits to Mr. Fitzgerald's office, while Crocicchia's Heather is a beauty downgraded to outcast status after suffering a sexually humiliating incident in home-ec class. Jacobs gets these three teens together for a marvelously observed climactic scene, boldly played out in near-real-time, in which they experiment with drugs and alcohol in Uncle James' shed. The substance ingestion leads to honest confessions, awkward stabs at intimacy, and bursts of drunken hostility, all captured by Jacobs and Dewitt with compassion enough to recognize that teenagers need nights like this to remind them that life is full of surprise and possibility; it's not just homework and social ostracism.
Another good scene follows, between Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald, that cements Terri as a sweet, small-scale hymn to friendship. Grade: B
There's no other way to put it--Tabloid (2011, Errol Morris) is a humdinger of a documentary. The story of gossip-rag magnet Joyce McKinney is packed with enough sordid twists and turns to satisfy viewers drawn in by the title's implicit promise of salacious shocks; it's impossible not to laugh in disbelief or react with an inner "oh no, she didn't!" at what's unearthed here (honestly, this is the rare movie where other theatre patrons surely wouldn't mind if you vocalize that "oh no, she didn't!" reaction). But what makes Tabloid even more of an accomplishment is how celebrated documentarian Morris (The Fog of War), a sharp cookie, seems to flatter the intelligent viewer's armchair analysis of McKinney's story one moment and then confound that analysis the next moment. It's clear that he doesn't want every audience member walking out of the theatre with the exact same interpretation of who McKinney is and how trustworthy her own account of her life story is, and that ambiguity is what makes Tabloid such an exhilarating puzzle to piece together.
When McKinney, an enabling pilot, and a tabloid reporter offer their accounts of the "manacled Mormon" story that first gained McKinney notoriety in the film's opening passages, I wrongfully felt I had a handle on what Morris is after here. The differing accounts of the "manacled Mormon" legend go like this: authorities and reporters believe that former beauty queen McKinney kidnapped her Mormon ex-boyfriend, chained him to a bed, and forced him to repeatedly have sex with her, while McKinney claims in on-camera interviews that she and the love of her life had a blissfully romantic weekend that involved her challenging the shame-related perception of sex that had been drilled into the ex-boyfriend's head by the Mormon church. At this point, I believed that Morris was subtextually drawing a savage parallel between the neuroses women attain when paraded around the beauty-pageant circuit like so much meat and the inhuman repression suffered by devout followers of unhealthily restrictive religious cults (Morris, always cinematic in his approach to the documentary form, slyly incorporates footage from an animated Mormon propaganda film).
And, well, that initial reading of the film is still a valid interpretation, but it started to feel like a reductive one when McKinney's story continued unspooling onscreen. McKinney's tale most certainly doesn't end with the "manacled Mormon" fiasco, and the more you learn about her after the details of that incident have been laid out, the more your opinion of her and what Morris' movie really is keep shifting.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that most people I discuss this film with in the near future will conclude simply that McKinney is utterly batshit--a self-mythologizing loon. Morris' sole weakness is his occasional tendency to condescendingly underline the possibility of McKinney's insanity; at one point, he cuts immediately to black after McKinney stumbles in pronouncing the easy-enough word "phenomenon." But, for the most part, Morris lets us make up our own minds about her. In her defense, I'll say two things: her claim that female-on-male rape still requires an erection on the victim's part seems to me indisputable, and when a certain event much later in her life once again attracts the attention of tabloid reporters (I'm so not saying anything more than that), she does adopt a pseudonym, indicating that she doesn't always seek the validation of mass-media attention.
Look, I still don't quite know what I think about McKinney overall, but that fits what I think is Morris' ultimate goal--to provide a character study that tantalizingly withholds crucial details, the better to satisfy masochists who love a good "objective truth is unknowable" cinematic narrative. Those who have seen the likes of Rashomon or (my personal favorite) Zodiac several times know exactly what I'm talking about. Sometimes, walking out of a movie not having any of the answers is preferable to having only one. Grade: A-
When we first meet the high-schooler, named Terri and played by likable newcomer Jacob Wysocki with nary a trace of pity-party pleading, his life is stuck in an unenviable cycle of going to school, performing household tasks for his mentally troubled uncle (The Office's Creed Bratton), and scarfing down meals consisting of toast topped with baked beans. Director Jacobs depicts Terri's routine existence with a vividly unglamorous verisimilitude, but in early scenes, he and writer Patrick Dewitt are unable to separate the necessary repetition of Terri's daily grind from the unnecessary repetition of a character study spinning its narrative wheels. You've seen one scene of Terri setting mouse traps in the attic for doddering Uncle James, you've seen 'em all.
The movie gains in interest at the point when Terri's weekly meetings with assistant principal Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), who insists on the meetings in a bid to increase Terri's self-esteem, gain in character depth. Mr. Fitzgerald is initially viewed as a comical figure armed with feeble motivational phrases and tricks, but Dewitt and the masterful Reilly eventually reveal, with commendable subtlety, that underneath his optimistic bluster, Mr. Fitzgerald is a regular guy with problems like anyone else who is just trying to do his job to the best of his abilities. Reilly is perfectly cast in a role that draws upon both his vast comedic and dramatic gifts, and he and Wysocki play off of each other beautifully.
Wysocki also has real chemistry opposite Bridger Zadina and Olivia Crocicchia, who play two high-school peers of Terri's who warm up to him. Zadina's compulsively hair-pulling beanpole Chad bonds with Terri over their shared visits to Mr. Fitzgerald's office, while Crocicchia's Heather is a beauty downgraded to outcast status after suffering a sexually humiliating incident in home-ec class. Jacobs gets these three teens together for a marvelously observed climactic scene, boldly played out in near-real-time, in which they experiment with drugs and alcohol in Uncle James' shed. The substance ingestion leads to honest confessions, awkward stabs at intimacy, and bursts of drunken hostility, all captured by Jacobs and Dewitt with compassion enough to recognize that teenagers need nights like this to remind them that life is full of surprise and possibility; it's not just homework and social ostracism.
Another good scene follows, between Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald, that cements Terri as a sweet, small-scale hymn to friendship. Grade: B
There's no other way to put it--Tabloid (2011, Errol Morris) is a humdinger of a documentary. The story of gossip-rag magnet Joyce McKinney is packed with enough sordid twists and turns to satisfy viewers drawn in by the title's implicit promise of salacious shocks; it's impossible not to laugh in disbelief or react with an inner "oh no, she didn't!" at what's unearthed here (honestly, this is the rare movie where other theatre patrons surely wouldn't mind if you vocalize that "oh no, she didn't!" reaction). But what makes Tabloid even more of an accomplishment is how celebrated documentarian Morris (The Fog of War), a sharp cookie, seems to flatter the intelligent viewer's armchair analysis of McKinney's story one moment and then confound that analysis the next moment. It's clear that he doesn't want every audience member walking out of the theatre with the exact same interpretation of who McKinney is and how trustworthy her own account of her life story is, and that ambiguity is what makes Tabloid such an exhilarating puzzle to piece together.
When McKinney, an enabling pilot, and a tabloid reporter offer their accounts of the "manacled Mormon" story that first gained McKinney notoriety in the film's opening passages, I wrongfully felt I had a handle on what Morris is after here. The differing accounts of the "manacled Mormon" legend go like this: authorities and reporters believe that former beauty queen McKinney kidnapped her Mormon ex-boyfriend, chained him to a bed, and forced him to repeatedly have sex with her, while McKinney claims in on-camera interviews that she and the love of her life had a blissfully romantic weekend that involved her challenging the shame-related perception of sex that had been drilled into the ex-boyfriend's head by the Mormon church. At this point, I believed that Morris was subtextually drawing a savage parallel between the neuroses women attain when paraded around the beauty-pageant circuit like so much meat and the inhuman repression suffered by devout followers of unhealthily restrictive religious cults (Morris, always cinematic in his approach to the documentary form, slyly incorporates footage from an animated Mormon propaganda film).
And, well, that initial reading of the film is still a valid interpretation, but it started to feel like a reductive one when McKinney's story continued unspooling onscreen. McKinney's tale most certainly doesn't end with the "manacled Mormon" fiasco, and the more you learn about her after the details of that incident have been laid out, the more your opinion of her and what Morris' movie really is keep shifting.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that most people I discuss this film with in the near future will conclude simply that McKinney is utterly batshit--a self-mythologizing loon. Morris' sole weakness is his occasional tendency to condescendingly underline the possibility of McKinney's insanity; at one point, he cuts immediately to black after McKinney stumbles in pronouncing the easy-enough word "phenomenon." But, for the most part, Morris lets us make up our own minds about her. In her defense, I'll say two things: her claim that female-on-male rape still requires an erection on the victim's part seems to me indisputable, and when a certain event much later in her life once again attracts the attention of tabloid reporters (I'm so not saying anything more than that), she does adopt a pseudonym, indicating that she doesn't always seek the validation of mass-media attention.
Look, I still don't quite know what I think about McKinney overall, but that fits what I think is Morris' ultimate goal--to provide a character study that tantalizingly withholds crucial details, the better to satisfy masochists who love a good "objective truth is unknowable" cinematic narrative. Those who have seen the likes of Rashomon or (my personal favorite) Zodiac several times know exactly what I'm talking about. Sometimes, walking out of a movie not having any of the answers is preferable to having only one. Grade: A-
7/18 Viewing Journal (EARLY REVIEW: "Attack the Block")
The score for the British alien-invasion comedy Attack the Block (2011, Joe Cornish) (opening 7/29 in limited release) is by Steven Price, who nimbly mixes hip-hop influences with the recognizable sounds of synth-heavy '80s genre-movie music. Pity, then, that the film itself fails to pull off a similar mix of old-school sci-fi and contemporary gangsta-culture edge.
Of course, it would be reductive and offensive to blame the fact that writer-director Cornish is white for his inability to deliver on the latter, but his race does become a factor when examining how glaringly problematic his film's representational politics are. By populating Attack the Block with a group of mostly black teenage characters who live in a public housing project, it's clear that Cornish wants his movie, on some level, to be a corrective to the regrettably white-washed, class-ignorant genre fare Hollywood is currently offering up (you can almost hear the studio executives behind Captain America, for example, asking themselves, "hey, if we put Derek Luke onscreen for 20 seconds, that counts as multi-racial, right?"). But Cornish is so inept when it comes to characterization that every person of color onscreen comes off as a troubling stereotype instead of a flesh-and-blood human being (the black characters include a gold-toothed drug dealer who whips out his pistol at the slightest provocation and the dealer's overweight, bumbling, Fetchit-level-comic-relief henchman--believe me, I'm not making this up).
Cornish also has the misguided audacity to open Attack the Block with a scene in which the film's ostensible heroes assault and steal from an innocent white woman, Sam (Jodie Whittaker). So right off the bat, he correlates black, lower-class masculinity with ugly intimidation and misogyny, associations that he's not smart enough to debunk as the movie goes on. But, for anyone looking to give him a pat on the back for effort, it should be noted he does try to debunk them, kind of. As soon as sharp-fanged aliens start slamming into the asphalt like miniature asteroids, the teenage muggers and Sam are forced to team up to survive in a characters-on-both-sides-of-the-law-vs.-a-common-enemy set-up straight out of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. But, as would be the case with any movie that fails to produce a single three-dimensional character, the intended moral ambiguity inherent in that set-up never achieves proper human weight. At one point, the stereotypically sassy female friend of the thieves' stereotypically sullen ringleader, Moses (John Boyega, who resembles the young Denzel Washington; hopefully one day, a better script will come along to test if he has any of Washington's talent and charisma), chastises Moses for the mugging of Sam, which may be enough for some to excuse the film's minefield of race and gender issues. However, when, just 20 or so minutes later, Cornish shows the thieves making creepy passes at Sam and Moses clarifying to Sam that he wouldn't have robbed her if he had known she lived in the same housing project as him (oh, so mugging non-natives is fine and dandy then), it's clear that the filmmaker just can't keep from tripping over his representational-political feet, as it were.
Okay, so putting aside those major political issues, does Attack the Block at least work as a simple humans-vs.-aliens action-thriller? Only in fits and starts, sadly. There's a race to get into the protective housing project that makes fun use of parkour leaps, and the climax is a superficially badass slo-mo treat. But all too often, Cornish and editor Jonathan Amos dice the action into incoherent, sadistic bursts of gleaming-alien-teeth close-ups, geysers of blood, and loud noises.
The shrill volume extends to the ensemble cast, who seem to have been directed to shout their lame, juvenile one-liners at an eardrum-shattering level.
Mystifyingly, Attack the Block has played at film festivals like the Los Angeles Film Festival and Austin's South by Southwest to a generally positive audience reception. Honestly, the only way I can imagine anyone over the age of 12 finding it genuinely good is if that potential viewer either likes any contemporary genre movie bearing the unmistakable Carpenter influence or any action movie centered on a black, lower-class protagonist. If you belong to either or both of those camps, have at it, I guess. Grade: C-
Of course, it would be reductive and offensive to blame the fact that writer-director Cornish is white for his inability to deliver on the latter, but his race does become a factor when examining how glaringly problematic his film's representational politics are. By populating Attack the Block with a group of mostly black teenage characters who live in a public housing project, it's clear that Cornish wants his movie, on some level, to be a corrective to the regrettably white-washed, class-ignorant genre fare Hollywood is currently offering up (you can almost hear the studio executives behind Captain America, for example, asking themselves, "hey, if we put Derek Luke onscreen for 20 seconds, that counts as multi-racial, right?"). But Cornish is so inept when it comes to characterization that every person of color onscreen comes off as a troubling stereotype instead of a flesh-and-blood human being (the black characters include a gold-toothed drug dealer who whips out his pistol at the slightest provocation and the dealer's overweight, bumbling, Fetchit-level-comic-relief henchman--believe me, I'm not making this up).
Cornish also has the misguided audacity to open Attack the Block with a scene in which the film's ostensible heroes assault and steal from an innocent white woman, Sam (Jodie Whittaker). So right off the bat, he correlates black, lower-class masculinity with ugly intimidation and misogyny, associations that he's not smart enough to debunk as the movie goes on. But, for anyone looking to give him a pat on the back for effort, it should be noted he does try to debunk them, kind of. As soon as sharp-fanged aliens start slamming into the asphalt like miniature asteroids, the teenage muggers and Sam are forced to team up to survive in a characters-on-both-sides-of-the-law-vs.-a-common-enemy set-up straight out of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. But, as would be the case with any movie that fails to produce a single three-dimensional character, the intended moral ambiguity inherent in that set-up never achieves proper human weight. At one point, the stereotypically sassy female friend of the thieves' stereotypically sullen ringleader, Moses (John Boyega, who resembles the young Denzel Washington; hopefully one day, a better script will come along to test if he has any of Washington's talent and charisma), chastises Moses for the mugging of Sam, which may be enough for some to excuse the film's minefield of race and gender issues. However, when, just 20 or so minutes later, Cornish shows the thieves making creepy passes at Sam and Moses clarifying to Sam that he wouldn't have robbed her if he had known she lived in the same housing project as him (oh, so mugging non-natives is fine and dandy then), it's clear that the filmmaker just can't keep from tripping over his representational-political feet, as it were.
Okay, so putting aside those major political issues, does Attack the Block at least work as a simple humans-vs.-aliens action-thriller? Only in fits and starts, sadly. There's a race to get into the protective housing project that makes fun use of parkour leaps, and the climax is a superficially badass slo-mo treat. But all too often, Cornish and editor Jonathan Amos dice the action into incoherent, sadistic bursts of gleaming-alien-teeth close-ups, geysers of blood, and loud noises.
The shrill volume extends to the ensemble cast, who seem to have been directed to shout their lame, juvenile one-liners at an eardrum-shattering level.
Mystifyingly, Attack the Block has played at film festivals like the Los Angeles Film Festival and Austin's South by Southwest to a generally positive audience reception. Honestly, the only way I can imagine anyone over the age of 12 finding it genuinely good is if that potential viewer either likes any contemporary genre movie bearing the unmistakable Carpenter influence or any action movie centered on a black, lower-class protagonist. If you belong to either or both of those camps, have at it, I guess. Grade: C-
7/17 Viewing Journal (mini-review of "Louis C.K.: Hilarious")
I still haven't decided what to do with a movie like Louis C.K.: Hilarious (2010, Louis C.K.), which played on the big screen a handful of times (including at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival) but is essentially a straight-to-DVD title, in terms of site coverage. I figure I'll write up reviews for, say, made-for-HBO movies, since there's some really brilliant work being done on that channel, but if I open up the floodgates to every non-theatrical title, then this blog will be overrun by write-ups on cheesy Wesley Snipes action vehicles and whatnot. (Actually, that wouldn't be so bad.) So for now, I'll just do a really brief review of the film in question, of which not a lot needs to be said.
Basically, Louis C.K.: Hilarious possesses the best truth-in-advertising title since U2 3D. This stand-up-comedy concert film is so unrelenting in its attack on the funny bone that I would've fainted from exhaustion if it had lasted even a minute longer. It would hardly be exaggerating to label it as your-neighbors-may-call-the-police-because-your-laughter-is-legitmately-disturbing-the-peace funny. In one bit, Louis skewers people who overuse the adjective "hilarious," but it certainly applies here. Grade: A
Basically, Louis C.K.: Hilarious possesses the best truth-in-advertising title since U2 3D. This stand-up-comedy concert film is so unrelenting in its attack on the funny bone that I would've fainted from exhaustion if it had lasted even a minute longer. It would hardly be exaggerating to label it as your-neighbors-may-call-the-police-because-your-laughter-is-legitmately-disturbing-the-peace funny. In one bit, Louis skewers people who overuse the adjective "hilarious," but it certainly applies here. Grade: A
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
7/16 Viewing Journal (review of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2")
As someone who has been keeping up with the Harry Potter film series without the benefit of having read author J.K. Rowling's mega-best-selling Potter books, I can pinpoint the exact moment at which I became more emotionally invested in the bespectacled boy wizard. It was in the very first scene of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), touchingly isolated, sat in a swing in an otherwise deserted playground as bullies taunted him over his parents' deaths. Understandably, Harry starts crying.
It's an opening of shocking emotional directness, especially coming after four films that primarily concerned themselves with Harry, redheaded pal Ron (Rupert Grint), and shrewd-beyond-her-years Hermione (Emma Watson) walking along the Hogwarts hallways and dispensing with exposition. (To be fair, the third film, Alfonso Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, proved a vivid exception, although only on a post-Order of the Phoenix second viewing did its merits become clear to me.) It's no coincidence that this was the first scene in the series directed by British TV veteran David Yates (whose crackling BBC mini-series State of Play is, ironically, much more cinematic in style than the tepid theatrically released Hollywood remake helmed by Kevin MacDonald), and the Potter producers were smart in entrusting Yates with the three remaining post-Phoenix films in the series. His flair for immaculately composed fantasy spectacle and his foregrounding of performance nuance from both the young and seasoned members of the vast Potter cast have converted at least this muggle into a true-blue series fan.
So leave it to Yates, with his combination of visual magic and alertness to human feeling, to make a thoroughly rewarding film out of what is essentially a series of narrative payoffs in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011, David Yates). Going into the film, I had no idea of the difficulties Yates and writer Steve Kloves faced in making this installment work as a stand-alone film, and that's not only because of my lack of familiarity with the original books. The thing is, critics raved about this series finale to a degree previously unprecedented in the series (its score on the review-compilation site Metacritic is an 87, which, if memory serves, is behind only two wide releases from all of 2010: The Social Network and Toy Story 3), and many reviews hyped it as being an extremely emotional cinematic experience, which didn't adequately prepare me for what Deathly Hallows: Part 2 really is on a narrative and character level. The movie is essentially a series of major narrative incidents and spectacular battles, with intermittent pauses for exposition, drawing upon our memories of moving scenes from all the previous films. There are way too many plot threads to tie up here for there to be any room for the kind of truly emotional grace notes like that aforementioned swing scene in Phoenix, or Harry's attempt to cheer up Hermione as she weeps in a quiet stairwell after seeing her crush Ron with another girl in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, or Harry's playful dance with Hermione to a Leonard Cohen song in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. And while it's spoiling nothing to say that characters we like die in Deathly Hallows: Part 2, only one of those is rooted in the emotional context of this film and this film only (in non-spoiler fashion, I'll just say the person whose deathbed tears provide a window into his/her past).
While airing out my reasons for why this is only my fifth favorite in the eight-film series, I might as well add that I'm still undecided as to whether Kloves has been an asset or a liability to the series overall. This is the first Potter film since the so-so fourth entry, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, to have a handful of dramatically inert exposition-driven scenes (also: not a good idea to put one of those scenes in the first ten minutes, even if John Hurt is involved), and it's telling that the only film in the series that works entirely on its own as a stand-alone, meaning that it has a beginning, middle, and end that work on a thematic, emotional, narrative, and fantasy-genre level, is Phoenix, the only one not written by Kloves (Michael Goldenberg did the more film-narrative-friendly adapting there). At the same time, though, the two films preceding Deathly Hallows: Part 2 have really strong character work in them, and they were written by Kloves. And the guy wrote Wonder Boys, which definitely counts for something.
At any rate, I don't intend for my nitpicks to make it sound like Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a disappointment. The narrative stakes are raised to an epic level entirely appropriate for the series' ending, and Yates makes the action set pieces spectacularly inventive. His classical visual approach prevents the visual effects from ever becoming too overwhelming or wearying, and he instead lets the biggest scenes play out as a series of small, wondrous surprises (my favorite may be the first-act Gringott's Bank sequence, in which a trip to get into the evil Bellatrix Lastrange's vault leads to a tense bit of undercover work, then to a pleasantly dizzying roller-coaster ride into the bank's subterranean depths, then to a treasure trove of multiplying jewels and goblets, and only then does a dragon come into play; my description is hardly doing it justice).
Since this movie asks less of the central trio of Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson than the three Potter films immediately preceding it (though it must be said again that they've grown into very solid young actors, Radcliffe especially), Deathly Hallows: Part 2 allows some of those great supporting Brits to really step up and strut their stuff. Helena Bonham Carter is stealthily funny in that bank sequence wherein Bellatrix has essentially become Hermione's puppet, and Ralph Fiennes intelligently modulates master villain Voldemort's chilling line readings (notice that his voice is much less trembly after Voldemort believes he has gained the upper hand over Harry). But a badass Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman really dominate here. Rickman's skill at making Dark Arts professor Snape a compelling enigma has been evident even in the disposable early films, and the payoff Kloves delivers in revealing who Snape really is makes for the strongest character work in this notably light-on-character-nuance series entry (Yates and editor Mark Day also deserve credit for making a pivotal Snape-centered sequence so beautiful and collage-like for a blockbuster of this size).
So obviously, the high accomplishment of filmmaking and acting here cannot be denied. And if Deathly Hallows: Part 2 feels a bit more like a magnificently mounted and entirely absorbing ending to what has come before than something that stands on its own two legs, it's worth mentioning that most franchises are entirely inept when it comes to conclusions. Remember that third Matrix? Or that final Austin Powers where it felt like Mike Meyers played everyone but Beyonce's character? Or the insanely convoluted third Pirates, which was meant to finish the series before Jerry Bruckheimer remembered he liked money? Point taken, right? So there's no reason for me to be too hard on ol' Harry. I'll miss him. And chances are, I'll be catching up with those goshdarn books. Grade: B+
For Potter-philes, here's my personal best-to-worst rankings of the movies, which I realize is a pretty idiosyncratic one:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007, David Yates): A
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004, Alfonso Cuaron): A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010, David Yates): A-
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009, David Yates): A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011, David Yates): B+
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2004, Mike Newell): B-
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002, Chris Columbus): C+
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001, Chris Columbus): C
It's an opening of shocking emotional directness, especially coming after four films that primarily concerned themselves with Harry, redheaded pal Ron (Rupert Grint), and shrewd-beyond-her-years Hermione (Emma Watson) walking along the Hogwarts hallways and dispensing with exposition. (To be fair, the third film, Alfonso Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, proved a vivid exception, although only on a post-Order of the Phoenix second viewing did its merits become clear to me.) It's no coincidence that this was the first scene in the series directed by British TV veteran David Yates (whose crackling BBC mini-series State of Play is, ironically, much more cinematic in style than the tepid theatrically released Hollywood remake helmed by Kevin MacDonald), and the Potter producers were smart in entrusting Yates with the three remaining post-Phoenix films in the series. His flair for immaculately composed fantasy spectacle and his foregrounding of performance nuance from both the young and seasoned members of the vast Potter cast have converted at least this muggle into a true-blue series fan.
So leave it to Yates, with his combination of visual magic and alertness to human feeling, to make a thoroughly rewarding film out of what is essentially a series of narrative payoffs in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011, David Yates). Going into the film, I had no idea of the difficulties Yates and writer Steve Kloves faced in making this installment work as a stand-alone film, and that's not only because of my lack of familiarity with the original books. The thing is, critics raved about this series finale to a degree previously unprecedented in the series (its score on the review-compilation site Metacritic is an 87, which, if memory serves, is behind only two wide releases from all of 2010: The Social Network and Toy Story 3), and many reviews hyped it as being an extremely emotional cinematic experience, which didn't adequately prepare me for what Deathly Hallows: Part 2 really is on a narrative and character level. The movie is essentially a series of major narrative incidents and spectacular battles, with intermittent pauses for exposition, drawing upon our memories of moving scenes from all the previous films. There are way too many plot threads to tie up here for there to be any room for the kind of truly emotional grace notes like that aforementioned swing scene in Phoenix, or Harry's attempt to cheer up Hermione as she weeps in a quiet stairwell after seeing her crush Ron with another girl in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, or Harry's playful dance with Hermione to a Leonard Cohen song in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. And while it's spoiling nothing to say that characters we like die in Deathly Hallows: Part 2, only one of those is rooted in the emotional context of this film and this film only (in non-spoiler fashion, I'll just say the person whose deathbed tears provide a window into his/her past).
While airing out my reasons for why this is only my fifth favorite in the eight-film series, I might as well add that I'm still undecided as to whether Kloves has been an asset or a liability to the series overall. This is the first Potter film since the so-so fourth entry, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, to have a handful of dramatically inert exposition-driven scenes (also: not a good idea to put one of those scenes in the first ten minutes, even if John Hurt is involved), and it's telling that the only film in the series that works entirely on its own as a stand-alone, meaning that it has a beginning, middle, and end that work on a thematic, emotional, narrative, and fantasy-genre level, is Phoenix, the only one not written by Kloves (Michael Goldenberg did the more film-narrative-friendly adapting there). At the same time, though, the two films preceding Deathly Hallows: Part 2 have really strong character work in them, and they were written by Kloves. And the guy wrote Wonder Boys, which definitely counts for something.
At any rate, I don't intend for my nitpicks to make it sound like Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a disappointment. The narrative stakes are raised to an epic level entirely appropriate for the series' ending, and Yates makes the action set pieces spectacularly inventive. His classical visual approach prevents the visual effects from ever becoming too overwhelming or wearying, and he instead lets the biggest scenes play out as a series of small, wondrous surprises (my favorite may be the first-act Gringott's Bank sequence, in which a trip to get into the evil Bellatrix Lastrange's vault leads to a tense bit of undercover work, then to a pleasantly dizzying roller-coaster ride into the bank's subterranean depths, then to a treasure trove of multiplying jewels and goblets, and only then does a dragon come into play; my description is hardly doing it justice).
Since this movie asks less of the central trio of Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson than the three Potter films immediately preceding it (though it must be said again that they've grown into very solid young actors, Radcliffe especially), Deathly Hallows: Part 2 allows some of those great supporting Brits to really step up and strut their stuff. Helena Bonham Carter is stealthily funny in that bank sequence wherein Bellatrix has essentially become Hermione's puppet, and Ralph Fiennes intelligently modulates master villain Voldemort's chilling line readings (notice that his voice is much less trembly after Voldemort believes he has gained the upper hand over Harry). But a badass Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman really dominate here. Rickman's skill at making Dark Arts professor Snape a compelling enigma has been evident even in the disposable early films, and the payoff Kloves delivers in revealing who Snape really is makes for the strongest character work in this notably light-on-character-nuance series entry (Yates and editor Mark Day also deserve credit for making a pivotal Snape-centered sequence so beautiful and collage-like for a blockbuster of this size).
So obviously, the high accomplishment of filmmaking and acting here cannot be denied. And if Deathly Hallows: Part 2 feels a bit more like a magnificently mounted and entirely absorbing ending to what has come before than something that stands on its own two legs, it's worth mentioning that most franchises are entirely inept when it comes to conclusions. Remember that third Matrix? Or that final Austin Powers where it felt like Mike Meyers played everyone but Beyonce's character? Or the insanely convoluted third Pirates, which was meant to finish the series before Jerry Bruckheimer remembered he liked money? Point taken, right? So there's no reason for me to be too hard on ol' Harry. I'll miss him. And chances are, I'll be catching up with those goshdarn books. Grade: B+
For Potter-philes, here's my personal best-to-worst rankings of the movies, which I realize is a pretty idiosyncratic one:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007, David Yates): A
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004, Alfonso Cuaron): A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010, David Yates): A-
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009, David Yates): A-
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011, David Yates): B+
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2004, Mike Newell): B-
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002, Chris Columbus): C+
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001, Chris Columbus): C
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