Movie Review: Kill Your Darlings

Friday, October 18, 2013

Movie Review: Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings
Directed by: John Krokidas.
Written by: Austin Bunn & John Krokidas.
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe (Allen Ginsberg), Dane DeHaan (Lucien Carr), Ben Foster (William Burroughs), Jack Huston (Jack Kerouac), Michael C. Hall (David Kammerer), Elizabeth Olsen (Edie Parker), Kyra Sedgwick (Marian Carr), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Naomi Ginsberg), David Cross (Louis Ginsberg), David Rasche (Dean), John Cullum (Professor Steeves).

The ongoing fascination with the Beat movement in American literature is understandable. The writers associated with the movement – from Allen Ginsberg to Jack Kerouac to William Burroughs – represented the rejection of the established rules of the previous generations. There is romance in their rebellion, which is why teenagers still read On the Road, and fall in love with the idea of hitting the open road. Kill Your Darlings is about the Beat movement before there was any actual work to go along with their ideas – when the writers were just young, confused (sexually and otherwise) kids who didn’t quite know what they wanted to do – but definitely knew what they didn’t want to do. Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs are all characters in the movie – but the character you will leave the theater remembering is a less famous person – Lucien Carr. It isn’t giving anything away to say that the movie concentrates on the murder of David Kammerer by Carr (it happens in the opening scene, before cycling back to tell what led to it). This murder showed the dark side of the movement – spurned its central figures to go to deeper and darker places.

The main character in the film is Ginsberg, played in an excellent performance by Daniel Radcliffe, leaving Harry Potter behind him. When the movie opens, he has just gotten into Columbia University, but isn’t sure if he should attend, because it would mean leaving his deeply mentally disturbed mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) behind. But he goes anyway, and quickly learns that the poetry he’ll learn in school has too many rules for him. His challenging of the Professor in front of the whole class draws the attention of Carr – and soon the two become inseparable. Ginsberg is drawn to Carr for his ideas, his intellect, and his sexuality that simply oozes out of him. If Ginsberg wasn’t sure he was gay before, he knows after meeting Carr – whose sexuality seems to be fluid. It’s through Carr that Ginsberg will meet Burroughs (Ben Foster), Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) and eventually Kerouac (Jack Huston). Kammerer used to be a Professor, but he has quit his job to follow Carr from school to school like a lost puppy dog. He is completely infatuated with Carr – like Ginsberg is – and immediately senses a threat to their relationship – which the movie hints at, but keeps ambiguous.

Kill Your Darlings is not exactly an original film. Like many films, what starts out as seemingly a non-stop party, and endless good times, gradually reveals itself to be something much darker. Yet, while the film won\t win points for originality, it is still an effective movie for many reasons. Debut director John Krokidas gets the period details right, and nails the feeling of how freeing it can be to be a young person rebelling against the established order. In Radcliffe, he found a fine actor to play Ginsberg at this moment in his life – immensely talented, but confused and unsure of himself. In many ways, he needs someone like Carr – both because he encourages him, and because eventually the cruelty in Carr will inspire heartbreak, which will fuel his work. As Carr, Dane DeHaan is even better – sexy, dangerous, charming, yet seemingly hell bent of self-destruction, and capable of cruelty, towards those around him. Michael C. Hall is also very good as Kammerer, a pathetic shell of a man who knows that his “Lulu” will eventually destroy him, but cannot help himself anyway.

The other performances aren’t quite as good. Perhaps because Foster is tired of everyone saying he’s goes too far over the top, his Burroughs is a curiously sedate character – one who drifts into the background too often. True, you shouldn’t play Burroughs as over the top – Viggo Mortenson’s performance of the man in On the Road last year nailed it. And I never bought Huston as Kerouac – he plays him almost as an immature frat boy. Talented actors like Elizabeth Olsen, David Cross, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kyra Sedgwick are pretty much wasted in nothing, small roles.

But when Kill Your Darling concentrates on its central relationship between Ginsberg and Carr, it works very well. Yes, I would have preferred a more daring film – a film that broke as many rules as the Beat writers themselves – but that doesn’t mean this more conventional approach doesn’t result in a fine movie.

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Historie(s) du Cinema (1988-1998)

The Best Movies I Have Never Seen Before: Historie(s) du Cinema (1988-1998)

Histoire(s) due Cinema (1988-1998)
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.
Written by: Jean-Luc Godard.

Jean-Luc Godard has been bitter and angry for a long time about what he sees as the “failures” of cinema. The famed French director, who perhaps was the biggest name in cinema during the 1960s, has long since turned his back on narrative filmmaking, and become an avant-garde filmmaker. To be fair, had he never made those films in the early to mid-1960s – really most of his films from Breathless (1960) to Weekend (1967) – he would still be an important filmmaker in avant-garde circles. Yet, if it wasn’t for those early films, Godard would not command the respect he now does. Whenever he opens his mouth to insult a filmmaker – a favorite target of his has been Spielberg (although, most of what Godard has said about Spielberg is so outlandish and ridiculous that it masks any legitimate criticisms he may have), everyone listens. When he makes a film like Film Socialism (2010), it becomes the most talked about film at the Cannes Film Festival – where normally a film that like wouldn’t even play there (you can argue that’s either a good or bad thing). There seems to be two camps on Godard – those who think he has done very little of value since Weekend, and those who think that Godard is still a genius, still far ahead of the curve, waiting for people to catch up to him.

For the most part, I consider myself to be in the former camp. Breathless (1960), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), Pierrot Le Fou (1965) and Weekend (1967) are all legitimately great movies, and even if I didn’t think Made in U.S.A. (1966) or 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) were great (or even that good in the case of 2 or 3 Things), they was interesting and intelligent films. This period was so prolific for Godard that I still need to see some fairly major works from it –A Woman is a Woman (1961), Alphaville (1965), Masculin-Feminine (1966) – chief among them. Given how much I hated Film Socialisme (sorry, perhaps I should say I just don’t get it, but in all honesty, when I read the reviews of people who claim it to be a masterpiece, I wonder if I perhaps walked into the wrong theater, because what I saw was an incoherent mess, not some profound statement on anything) and some of his other “late period” films, I cannot imagine wanting to see them above the films he was making in the period where he made several legitimate masterpieces.

All this is a very long introduction into this piece which is about Godard’s magnum opus – Histoire(s) due Cinema, an eight part (or four part, with each part having an (a) and (b) if you want to get technical), four and a half hour epic, which he made and released slowly between 1988 and 1998. Normally, I would have rather watched one of those 1960s Godard films I still haven’t seen rather than this opus – but the film ranked in the top 50 films of all time on the 2012 Sight and Sound Critics Poll, so I bite the bullet and settled in for what I assumed would be a VERY long night.

But I was pleasantly surprised by Histoire(s) du Cinema. I’m certainly not saying that the film is for everyone – it clearly isn’t, and is more of an avant-garde art piece than anything else – but I was fascinated by the film. The film is technical marvel – a masterpiece of montage – as it brings together clips from cinema’s past, and makes startling connections, and wholly new images out of them. Yes, the film is still a long sit, and yet it was never less than fascinating – even when it enraging, which it often was as Godard’s contentions and opinions about cinema are often at complete odds with my own, or self-aggrandizing, which it is nearly constantly for parts of the movie. In Godard’s view, of course, only someone in the New Wave could tell the story of cinema history – meaning only he can – and that the French New Wave was the greatest thing that ever happened to cinema – again, meaning he was – and since then it has been a long, slow death march. He pretty much argues that cinema is already dead – but of course, only Godard is smart enough to see it.

But I can disagree with a movie, and still find it interesting – and Histoire(s) du Cinema is certainly interesting. It’s not that I didn’t know that Godard was an egomaniac when I sat down to watch Histoire(s) du Cinema, or that he wasn’t going to argue that cinema has failed – he has been arguing that for years. And Histoire(s) du Cinema is the type of film that only someone who at one point completely loved cinema could make. Godard’s movie knowledge is unquestionable, and his disappointment in cinema’s “failings” is genuine, even if I think more than a little of that disappointment stems from the fact that so few people followed him when he broke away from the mainstream.

It should be noted that this isn’t a standard issue cinema history documentary – for that, watch Martin Scorsese’s A Personal Journey Through American Film and My Voyage to Italy, both of which are excellent, both for film buffs and newcomers. No, to truly understand Godard’s film, you have to know a lot about cinema before you sit down and watch it – there were times when I was completely overwhelmed by what was being thrown on the screen. To add to the confusion, the version I saw had sparse English subtitles – but I think the important parts are subtitled (I was never very good at French in school, but I remember enough to be able to piece together much of the non-subtitled, oft-repeated phrases).

Histoire(s) du Cinema is finally a love letter to, elegy of and condemnation of cinema, from one of its sharpest minds. I may not like much of Godard’s later output, but I have never doubted that he is, on some level, still a genius – even if I think he has bought too much into his own myth (no one thinks Godard is a genius as much as Godard does). The film is never less than fascinating, even if it does begin to repeat itself after a while. At four and half hours, this is a VERY long sit – and most audiences will grow restless. I do not think this is the masterpiece that its most ardent supporters do, but for what it is, Histoire(s) du Cinema certainly deserves to be more widely seen than it has been (part of that is undoubtedly do to the rights issues of using all those old clips – this held up the DVD release for years apparently). I cannot think of too many people that I would actually recommend sitting through this film to – it requires a patient audience member, willing to indulge Godard – but if the film sounds interesting to you, than I certainly think you should see it.

Movie Review: Bastards

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Movie Review: Bastards

Bastards
Directed by: Claire Denis.
Written by: Jean-Pol Fargeau and Claire Denis.
Starring: Vincent Lindon (Marco Silvestri), Chiara Mastroianni (Raphaëlle), Julie Bataille (Sandra), Michel Subor (Edouard Laporte), Lola Créton (Justine), Alex Descas (Dr. Béthanie), Grégoire Colin (Xavier), Florence Loiret Caille (Elysée), Christophe Miossec (Guy), Yann Antoine Bizette (Joseph), Jeanne Disson (Audrey), Laurent Grévill (Jacques).

The opening frames of Claire Denis’ Bastards lets us know we are in the film noir world. A bald man, in a fancy suit looks out into the dark, raining night – looking miserable. Soon, he’ll be on the dead on the concrete – having thrown himself to his death. A beautiful young girl walks naked down the street – wearing only a pair of high heels that click as she walks slowly, a dazed look on her face. A woman blames the police and their apathy for her husband’s suicide, and the state of her daughter. A grizzled older man gets a phone call – a family emergency – which makes him go AWOL from his job at sea, and head back to land to help his family. As with many of Denis’ films, she makes no effort to explain everything from the outset – preferring instead to let events unfold, and the audience to figure them out as they go along.

The second man, we soon learn, is Marco Silvestri (Vincent Lindon). The first man was Jacques (Laurent Grevill), an old friend, and current brother-in-law, married to Marco’s sister Sandra (Julie Bataille). The naked young woman is Justine (Lola Creton), their daughter, Vincent’s niece. Jacques and Sandra run a failing shoe factory, and Sandra blames all of their problems on Edouard Laporte (Michel Subor), an exceedingly wealthy, powerful man – not only does he own most of their debt, he is also the man they have accused of abusing Justine – and when we find out just how abused she was, it is stomach churning. Marco has come back to help out – although it isn’t immediately clear just what that means. What we do know is that he is moving in upstairs from Raphaelle (Chiara Mastroianni), the younger mistress of Laporte, and her young son. He charms his way into her life – and her pants – but maybe charms is the wrong word here. He is an old fashioned type of guy, and his seduction of her is gruff, and almost wordless – she puts up little resistance to his advances.

Marco is a classic noir “hero” – a normal guy who is duped into doing things he would not normally do. He is tough and intelligent – but also almost hopelessly naïve. In classic Hollywood noir terms, he is the type of character Robert Ryan would have excelled at playing. You really cannot call Mastroianni’ Raphaelle a femme fatale – she doesn’t seduce him into doing anything for her – some will even complain that she is too passive. She doesn’t seem too interested in who he is, what he does, or why he is there. Given the sexual relationship we see between and the older Laporte, it may well be that she just wants him for sex. He tries to get under her skin, but she seems impervious to his efforts – she doesn’t judge him – doesn’t want to know why he’s living in an expensive apartment, with no furniture, and yet has pawned his watch and sold his car. Marco is drawn back in by his sister – who has a one track mind of getting even with Laporte – but he doesn’t ask her the right questions – in fact, he doesn’t really ask her anything at all. That something doesn’t quite seem right about everything she is saying seems obvious to the audience – but not to Marco, who just accepts it – and then is shocked as secrets start being revealed. The film gets darker and darker, right up until its shocking final scene – which finally explains what precisely happened in a dirty shack, littered with bloody corn cobs.

In many ways, Bastards is more straight forward than much of Denis’ recent work. Yes, there are flashbacks and forwards, and she never gives the audience all the information they want until the final scene, yet the film is more straight forward than films like White Material or The Intruder. The film’s violence – sexual and otherwise – is strong and shocking, but then given the material it pretty much needs to be. Denis is not just using the violence to shock the audience, its part of her larger narrative arc, inspired by Faulkner’s Sanctuary. It will likely offend some, as the victims in the movie seem passive – almost accepting of their victimization (they certainly do not fight back against it). A character like Lola Creton’s damaged young woman remains an enigma right until the end – a victim of just about everyone else in the movie, but one whose interior world is never explored. Raphaelle is a character who also threatens to be an enigma as well – is she just using Marco, or is there something deeper going on there – right until her final moments, when the character snaps into focus. Sandra goes from grieving widow into something much more insidious as the movie goes along. Laporte, we sense from the outset is sinister – it doesn’t help that he seems to be made to look like Robert Blake in Lost Highway – but just what his character does still surprises. Into this world, Marco comes wholly unprepared. Lindon does a marvelous job in his role – making Marco into a man’s man – the type we don’t see much of in films anymore – but one who ultimately is a lot softer than he first appears. The poor bastard has no idea what’s coming for him.

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips
Directed by: Paul Greengrass   
Written by: Billy Ray based on the book by Richard Phillips & Stephan Talty.
Starring: Tom Hanks (Captain Richard Phillips), Barkhad Abdi (Muse), Barkhad Abdirahman (Bilal), Faysal Ahmed (Najee), Mahat M. Ali (Elmi), Michael Chernus (Shane Murphy), Catherine Keener (Andrea Phillips), David Warshofsky (Mike Perry), Corey Johnson (Ken Quinn), Chris Mulkey (John Cronan), Yul Vazquez (Captain Frank Castellano), Max Martini (SEAL Commander), Omar Berdouni (Nemo), Mohamed Ali (Asad), Issak Farah Samatar (Hufan). 

The scenes that open and close Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips are what elevate the film above the level of a typical thriller. For the vast majority of its running time, Captain Phillips is the type of intelligent, intense, well-crafted thriller that we have come to expect from Greengrass since his breakthrough film Bloody Sunday (2002) – through his 9/11 film United 93 (2006), the second and third Bourne movies, and his Iraq war film Green Zone. Greengrass is one of the few directors who is able to use handheld camera work and rapid fire editing, and still keep everything clear for an audience. Where someone like Michael Bay often tries to do the same thing, the result is often action sequences that are incoherent – but I have never felt that way in a Greengrass movie. He uses the same approach in Captain Phillips – and it’s even more effective here than in his previous films. But as good as the majority of the runtime of the movie is, it really remains the opening and closing of the film that deepens the work as a whole – and makes it into more than just a well done, intense thriller.

The story of Captain Phillips is well known by now. He was the Captain of an American cargo ship – the Alabama Maersk – in 2009, when off the coast of Somalia, his boat is attacked by two skiffs containing four, armed Somali pirates. They are able to outflank the pirates on their first attempt, but the next day when they try again, they are unable to do so. The four men board the ship, and because no one on the ship is armed, they quickly take over. The majority of the crew hides below deck, while Phillips and his officers are stuck in the control room with the pirates. They don’t just want the $30,000 they have on board – they think that taking over an American ship should net them millions. After an intense few hours, the pirates agree to leave the ship in the rickety, enclosed lifeboat – but take Phillips with them. The Marines are called in – one way or another, Phillips and his captors are not going to reach Somalia.

Because Greengrass cast Tom Hanks as Phillips, we know almost immediately that he is a good guy – but Greengrass establishes this anyway in the opening scene, where his wife (Catherine Keener) drives him to the airport. As they drive, they talk about the worries they have for their children – whether they’ll work hard enough in school, whether they’ll find a good job, etc. Everything seems to move so fast, and is so competitive, that they worry their kids won’t have the same advantages they had. Greengrass then does an interesting – and bold thing – as he cuts immediately from Phillips and his wife, to Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the leader of the pirates who will take over his ship, in Somalia. Just like Greengrass immediately establishes sympathy and humanity with Phillips in his brief opening scene, he does the same thing for Muse and the other pirates in Somalia. What choice do these men have, other than to do what they do? They are ruled by brutal warlords who demand they go out and make money. If they don’t, they’re doomed anyway. Right off the bat, Greengrass has established the complex moral world his movie takes place in by establishing the humanity of all the players. This will not just be an easy thriller about good guys and bad guys, but something far more complex.

The film is impeccably made by Greengrass. Normally, I don’t like the shaky handheld camera work, and rapid fire editing that Greengrass specializes in. However, I do think that Greengrass uses it better than any other director working right now – and here, it aids him immensely in his storytelling. As the majority of the action takes place in the small lifeboat, which rocks over the waves in the ocean, and the shaky camera work places us right alongside the characters – it immerses us in the situation, and helps to generate tension throughout.

The film is also aided immensely by the performances – particularly those by Hanks and Abdi. Abdi is a newcomer, who is asked to hold his own next to Hanks – and he is more than up to the task. His Muse is intelligent and thoughtful – more so than his accomplices, two of whom seem like little more than scared kids, and the third who is more brutal and violent. To him, this is a business transaction – nothing more – and while he is not above using violence, he doesn’t see much point in it if it can be helped. It is a dynamic debut performance. Hanks is one of the most likable, and relatable actors in movie history, and his Captain Phillips makes the most of the association we have with the actor before walking into the theater. His Phillips is heroic, but in a more subdued way than most heroes in a thriller would be. He does what he can to protect his crew once they have been boarded, and he even does what he can to help the pirates themselves on the boat. He doesn’t want anyone to die, but he knows full well that if the pirates don’t give up, they will be doomed – and they may well take him with him. It is a fine performance throughout the movie – but becomes a great one in the film’s closing scenes. Those scenes, details of which I won’t reveal here, are the type of scenes that normally do not happen in a thriller of this sort. Normally, once the action climax of the film has passed, the movie ends – this one extends it beyond that point, and gives us a view of the shock and trauma we normally never see. It is in these moments where the full weight of the movie hits us the hardest – and elevates the entire movie.

Captain Phillips is an uncommonly complex moral movie. Yes, Captain Phillips is undeniably a good guy, and the pirates are the “bad guys”, but things are not that simple. Audiences are conditioned to root for Americans in the movies, and against the invaders – and some will undoubtedly still do the same thing when they watch Captain Phillips. And yet, this is not a film where everything is quite so simple. I am reminded of the moment in Greengrass’ United 93, when he cuts back and forth between the passengers on the plane praying to God, and the two hijackers praying to Allah, drawing the similarity between the two of them – no matter if you’re the “good guy” or the “bad guy” you are praying to God when the end comes. Captain Phillips takes this link between the two even farther, making for a much more complex than a typical thriller. If you want a thriller – than Captain Phillips more than fits the bill – this is one of the most intense movies of the year. But it is also more than that. Most thrillers, you forget by the time you hit the parking lot. You won’t be able to shake Captain Phillips quite that easily.

Movie Review: Computer Chess

Movie Review: Computer Chess

Computer Chess
Directed by: Andrew Bujalski.
Written by: Andrew Bujalski.
Starring: Patrick Riester (Peter Bishton), Wiley Wiggins (Martin Beuscher), Myles Paige (Michael Papageorge), Robin Schwartz (Shelly Flintic), Gerald Peary (Pat Henderson), Gordon Kindlmann (Tom Schoesser), Jim Lewis (John), Freddy Martinez (Freddy), James Curry (Carbray), Bob Sabiston (McVey), Tishuan Scott (Keneiloe), Chris Doubek  (Dave), Annie LaGanga (Carol).

I have never been much of a mumblecore fan – but that could well be because I haven’t been watching the right movies. Andrew Bujalski is considered probably the first name in mumblecore – and until Computer Chess, I had not seen any of his movies. In the past few years, we’ve seen some mumblecore names move (or attempt to move) into the mainstream – actress Greta Gerwig, actor/writer/director Mark Duplass, and director Joe Swanberg for example, have all done movies with bigger movie stars and/or director in an attempt to move beyond their small, but loyal, fan base. Bujalski doesn’t seem much interested in that – not yet anyway – but that doesn’t mean Computer Chess is a typical mumblecore film. For one, it’s a period piece – taking places in the early 1980s, shot in black & white, on video – and not the good digital video everyone shoots on these days, cheap, old school 1980s video.

The movie takes place over a long weekend when computer programmers from around the country converge on a low rent hotel in order to pit there computer chess programs against each other. The winner gets bragging rights, a cheque for $7,500 and an opportunity to go up against a real life chess master – Pat Henderson (Gerald Peary) – who has not lost yet, but believes that at some point around 1984, we will be beaten.

Part of the charm of Computer Chess is seeing the period details. Pretty much all the men in Computer Chess – and all but one of them are men – are not quite as nerdy as the guys in 1980s movies like Revenge of the Nerds – but they aren’t that far off either. They have cheap haircuts, geeky clothes, and haul around massive computers from one room to another. When they need to show things to a larger group in a conference room, they use an overhead projector. Shooting in cheap 1980s video makes sense for this movie – like the rest of the period details, the look, however crude, simply fits. Bujalski structures the movie almost as a mocumentary, but doesn’t really try to fool you into thinking its real.

The film is a comedy, but a low-key one – that occasionally borders on the absurd. A running joke in the movie involves one programmer (Myles Paige) whose reservation was lost by the hotel (if he ever had one), and runs around trying to get someone else to allow him to stay with them. When he finally does get a room, it is inexplicably filled with cats.

The film has many characters, who very gradually, we get to know. My favorite character is Peter (Patrick Riester), who is one of the underlings on the team who won last year. He, like many of the other characters, is shy and quiet – has trouble relating to other people. Throughout the movie though, he will gradually come out of his shell – he has a rather sweet relationship with the one woman at the competition (Robin Schwartz), perhaps because he’s one of the only ones who doesn’t make an awkward pass at her. He is also drawn in by an older couple, who is at another conference at the hotel – a new age retreat for swingers, it appears like. Bujalski gets some comic mileage out of comparing and contrasting these aging hippies, with the new wave nerds, but the scenes between Peter and this older couple go a little deeper than mere comic fodder – they are awkward, funny, and strangely honest.

The movie also does something unexpected – at least by me. While there is a lot of “geek speak” as it were, there are also some rather intelligent conversations about the future of artificial intelligence – and what it all means. I’m not sure the strange twist the movie takes near the end – involving one of the programs, and it’s developing intelligence, really works all that well, but damn it if it wasn’t strange and interesting.

And that pretty much describes the movie as well to me. It’s strange and interesting – unlike most of what I see in any given year, and while not wholly satisfying to me (the film has generated some rapturous reviews), is certainly one I’m glad I saw. I’m not quite sure what it all means, but watching it was something different and unexpected. So I’ll try and not let another Bujalski film pass me by.

Movie Review: Gideon's Army

Movie Review: Gideon's Army

Gideon’s Army
Directed by: Dawn Porter
Written by: Matthew Hamachek & Dawn Porter.

Everyone charged with a crime in America is entitled to a defense – although not everyone can afford a great defense lawyer, everyone is supposed to get a qualified lawyer to represent them – to look out for their interests. As the wonderful documentary Gideon’s Army shows, the public defenders who represent those who cannot afford their own lawyer really do care about their clients. They believe in what they do, and work hard for their clients. The problem is that they often have well over 100 clients at a time – so not all of them get the defense they probably need. For the 90-95% of the people charged, who the movie says will plead guilty to some sort of crime or another, this may not be as big of a deal. They are charged, they are guilty, they know they cannot win, so they look to their lawyer to get them the best deal they can get. But to those other clients – those innocent of what they are charged with – the prospect of having a public defender scares them to death. How much time can a PD really spend on any one case?

The film focuses mostly on two PDs in Georgia – Travis Williams and Brandy Alexander. They know most of their clients are guilty – Alexander tells two shocking stories – one about a man she was working hard to defend, who at the same time was plotting her murder if he was convicted, and another about a man who almost gleefully confesses to raping his stepdaughter. Still, they work long, hard hours trying their best to represent their clients – with little time to mount a defense, and almost no resources in which to do it. The film will eventually concentrate on two cases – one for each lawyer. In the case Williams defends, there is fingerprint evidence found on the scene – but those fingerprints were never tested. Williams doesn’t have the resources to test them himself, so instead he tricks the DA into doing it for him – but even when the fingerprints don’t match, the DA still wants to press on in her prosecution. With Alexander, we see her mount a defense step-by-step, gradually trying to build up reasonable doubt in the jury. The film isn’t an advocacy documentary for these two cases though, as much as it a portrait of the PDs themselves. If it advocates anything, it’s that PDs deserve more credit and respect than they get.

The documentary doesn’t have a narrator, and has an quiet, understated score that only plays some of the time. The movie doesn’t try to ramp up the drama into phony Hollywood-style theatrics, but instead just watches as these dedicated PD’s try their best to mount a defense, even though everything is stacked against them. While the film is about the justice system, it is also about the increasing divide between the haves and have-nots – the haves can afford the best lawyers, working round the clock on their case alone. The have-nots – which there seem to be more have – have to make do with dedicated lawyers, who have little time, and no money to do the same thing. Is it any wonder why most of them simply plead out? You can go broke, lose your job, your house and your kids just by being charged with a crime, even if you are eventually acquitted. The system is stacked against them, and no matter how dedicated these lawyers are, that doesn’t change the basic facts. It’s no wonder most Public Defender’s leave after a few years. No matter what they do, the odds are stacked against them – the work long, hard hours for little pay, and see the justice system they believe in stacked against the weaker people in society. Would you stick around too long for that?

Movie Review: The Heat

Movie Review: The Heat

The Heat
Directed by: Paul Feig.
Written by: Katie Dippold.
Starring: Sandra Bullock (Ashburn), Melissa McCarthy (Mullins), Demian Bichir (Hale), Marlon Wayans (Levy), Michael Rapaport (Jason Mullins), Jane Curtin (Mrs. Mullins), Spoken Reasons (Rojas), Dan Bakkedahl (Craig), Taran Killam (Adam), Michael McDonald (Julian), Tom Wilson (Captain Woods).

Melissa McCarthy seems to be at her best when she’s the least scripted. She was the best thing about Judd Apatow’s This is 40 last year, despite her limited screen time, and as her the extended scene of her over the end credits shows, she seemed to be making it up as she went along, leaving her co-stars laughing as her increasingly insane rant goes off in a million different directions. It’s at moments like these that her immense comic talent is truly at its best. There are moments in The Heat when that side of her comes out – but unfortunately not as many as I would have liked. For the most part, she is shoehorned into a buddy cop comedy alongside Sandra Bullock that simply isn’t up to her level (nor Bullock’s for that matter).

The movie stars McCarthy as Mullins, a Boston PD detective, who takes her job of cleaning up the streets very seriously – so seriously in fact, that she has no problem running people down with her car. That she bears no resemblance to how a cop in the real world would have to operate goes without saying. A drug dealer she has just arrested comes to the attention of the FBI, who thinks he may be the key to a bigger kingpin – so they send in Ashburn (Bullock), to question him – which, of course, infuriates Mullins. Neither of these women play well with others – they do not have, nor want, partners. But for seemingly no other reason than because the screenplay needs them together, they are partnered up on this case to crack this drug ring.

I have to admit, that even now – not long after I watched the film, the details of what the plot of the drug dealers actually is in the movie has already started to grow hazy. It doesn’t really matter though – the movie really isn’t about its crime plot, but rather about putting these two women, who in the time honored tradition of buddy comedies start out hating each other and then grow to become best friends forever, in absurd comic situations. If nothing else, The Heat shows just how much chemistry McCarthy and Bullock have together. Bullock has the “straight” role, something she hasn’t done often before, but she excels at it here. She’s a stick in the mud that needs to loosen up, and let others into her life, or else she’s destined to be alone forever. Because Bullock is so good at playing it straight here, it allows McCarthy to go bat shit insane, which is when she is at her best. The movie gives her more space to run wild than the abysmal Identity Thief did earlier this year, and McCarthy makes the most of it.

Unfortunately, other than the two leads, there really is nothing else in the movie that is at all interesting. A talented supporting cast – including Oscar nominee Demian Bichir, Marlon Wayans, Jane Curtain, Spoken Reasons (with a name like that, he has to be a rapper, right? Or perhaps a slam poet – do they still have those?), Michael Rapaport, Dan Bakkedahl and Taran Killam (slowly becoming the most consistent performer on SNL every week) – are pretty much wasted. They get steamrolled by Bullock and McCarthy. And Paul Feig, a colleague of Judd Apatow shares Apatow’s inability to cut his movie to an appropriate length. Like his last film, Bridesmaids (which I quite liked – but not as much as many did), his film goes on far too long, and grows slack. By the end, it has worn out its welcome.

I liked parts of The Heat more than the whole. Bullock and McCarthy are as good as they can be in the movie – and it is refreshing not only to see a mainstream, buddy cop movie center around two women, but also have neither one need a man to make them complete. They’re both single – and neither is given a love interest (although the running gag of McCarthy’s past lovers is pretty amusing) – and neither need one. But in the end, a movie like The Heat rises and falls on just how funny it is – when you’re movie is basically just a clothesline in which to hang jokes, the jokes better be funny. Some are, most aren’t. The movie probably goes 1-for-3 in terms of good jokes to bad – which may be good in baseball, but in a movie, that’s a whole lot of jokes falling flat.

My Answer to the Latest Criticwire Survey: History Too Important for Fiction

Monday, October 14, 2013

My Answer to the Latest Criticwire Survey: History Too Important for Fiction

Q: CBGB was blasted by critics for its inauthentic evocation of the legendary punk club. What cultural movement or milestone would you never want to see filmed?

Because CBGB is about music, the first thing that came to mind, is that I never want to see a biopic of Kurt Cobain. Nirvana was my favorite band as a teenager, and I’m not sure I could take a film like Ray or Walk the Line about Cobain – which I probably never have to worry about, since for the most part, they like to make biopics about people who overcome their demons, not give into them, like Cobain ultimately did. Still, I shudder at the thought of a simple minded Cobain biopic, who comes up with Something in the Way while literally living underneath a bridge. Besides, Gus Van Sant already made Last Days (2005), and while that is not “officially” a Cobain movie, it is pretty much the perfect one to make about him – a portrait of a depressed, isolated, drugged out rock star who eventually gives up – told with no glamor or artifice.

For the record, I also don’t want to see a Wayne Gretzky biopic – yes, he is my favorite hockey player ever, and yes, hockey is still my favorite sport, but the movies never get hockey right anyway, and a Gretzky movie would almost certainly be overly sentimental. And after suffering through not one but two movies about the making two cinematic masterpieces by Alfred Hitchcock – Hitchcock about Psycho and The Girl about The Birds – I don’t think I want to see any other dramatizations about making my favorite movies – even if it’s obvious Jessie Eisenberg would be great as a young Martin Scorsese.

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Bullet in the Head (1990)

Friday, October 11, 2013

The Best Films I Have Never Seen Before: Bullet in the Head (1990)

Bullet in the Head (1990)
Directed by: John Woo.
Written by: Janet Chun & Patrick Leung & John Woo.
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Ah Bee), Jacky Cheung (Fai), Waise Lee (Little Wing), Simon Yam (Luke), Fennie Yuen (Jane), Yolinda Yam (Sally Yen).

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was no better action filmmaker in the world than John Woo. In films like A Better Tomorrow (1986), and it’s even better sequel A Better Tomorrow II (1987), and his two masterpieces The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992), Woo elevated gunfight choreography to its very highest level. I suppose it was inevitable that Hollywood would come calling, and after a few disappointing efforts – Hard Target (1993) and Broken Arrow (1995) – Woo made his American masterwork Face/Off (1997), arguably the most entertaining pure action movie made in America in the 1990s. Since then, his career has most been disappointing – Mission Impossible II (2000) was entertaining sure, but it doesn’t come close to Woo’s best work. The less said about Windtalkers (2002) and Paycheck (2003), the better. I did quite like his last film – Red Cliff (2008), although I’ve only ever seen the truncated American release – which cut out roughly half of Woo’s epic return to his homeland.

All of this is a fancy way of saying that I am a John Woo fan, although not as big of one as I once was. I have always meant to check out his 1990 film Bullet in the Head. I remember trying desperately to track this film down back when I was high school and not being able to, so when I came across a copy recently, I couldn’t help myself. I just had to check out what some had referred to as Woo’s best film, and Woo himself had referred to as his “Apocalypse Now” – because he drove himself as crazy as Coppola did making the film.

 

But it wasn’t Apocalypse Now I thought of when watching Bullet in the Head, but another Vietnam film – Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). Like that film, Bullet in the Head is about three friends who go off to Vietnam during the American war there. Of course, these characters are not American, but from Hong Kong, and are not going to fight a war, but to make money. A friend of theirs tells them that wherever there is war, there is money to be made – and these three guys, who fancy themselves criminals - think they can be the ones to make it. But of course, everything gets shot to shit pretty damn quickly.

Woo is a genius at action sequences, and they are the highlight of Bullet in the Head as well. There are multiple chase sequences, and gun battles, and while nothing may quite reach the heights of the opening of Hard Boiled, there is a long sequence in a nightclub when things go bad that comes pretty damn close. And unlike the other Woo movies of the period, this is also a war movie – the three “friends”, who quickly fall apart, eventually find themselves captives of the Vietcong, and like the men in The Deer Hunter, are tormented for their captor’s amusement. In The Deer Hunter, they were forced to play Russian roulette. In Bullet in the Head, they are forced to execute American soldiers, as their captors look on and laugh. But, again like in The Deer Hunter, when you give your prisoners a gun, you give them a weapon they can use against you – and this sets up another epic gun fight.

With all due respect to those who think Bullet in the Head is Woo’s masterpiece, I don’t quite get it. The opening scenes of the film – in Hong Kong (and like The Deer Hunter include a wedding) aren’t very good at all, and in fact are almost embarrassingly simplistic – especially in terms of the dialogue. When the action starts up in the second and third acts, the movie certainly gets far more entertaining – the action sequences are the reason to see the movie, and they are brilliantly staged as we have come to expect from Woo.

But the story of the movie is just far too derivative. I think I’ve mentioned The Deer Hunter about six times now, and that’s because this movie really does seem to go past the point of mere homage, and gets almost into plagiarism territory. Worse, the film makes all the characters more simple and one note than they were in Cimino’s films. Tony Leung is very good as Ah Bee (the Robert DeNiro equivalent), as he maintains his moral compass, and tries desperately to keep the group together. But Waise Lee as Little Wing (the Christopher Walken equivalent) isn’t given all that much to do – and they make him too simple minded – really bordering on mildly retarded. This, I suppose, makes Jacky Cheung’s Fai into the John Savage character, although that really isn’t fair to Savage, who doesn’t become a villain as Fai does here, just a bitter, angry cripple. Fai’s continued attempts to keep the gold he stole become increasingly ridiculous as the narrative goes along. And his final scene with Leung, back in Hong Kong, is gruesome in a way that simply feels exploitive.

I understand the urge that must have went into making Bullet in the Head for Woo. He had just had a falling out with his producing partner, Tsui Hark, who apparently was more powerful than Woo in Hong Kong cinema at the time, and this led to Woo pretty much being blacklisted – he financed much of the movie himself. And Woo wanted to make something more “serious” than the simple gangster-action movie he had been doing. Not only is he addressing the Vietnam war, but he very explicitly references the then recent Tiananmen Square incident (even all these years later, it’s impossible not to think of what happened there when watching Woo pretty much recreate the famous incident, under the guise of something else).

The problem seems to be that Woo doesn’t really have anything to say about the issues he raises – either the Vietnam War or Tiananmen Square. At least nothing anything beyond the most basic. And he lifts so much directly from The Deer Hunter that it detracts from what is great about the film. John Woo is better than most at action movies – and A Bullet in the Head proves that in the action sequences. It also proves why he has so rarely decided to tackle serious subject matter. He’s just not very good at that.

Movie Review: The Dirties

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Movie Review: The Dirties

The Dirties
Directed by: Matthew Johnson.
Written by: Matthew Johnson & Evan Morgan.
Starring: Matthew Johnson (Matt), Owen Williams (Owen), Krista Madison (Chrissy H.), Brandon Wickens (Jackman), Jay McCarrol (Mr. Bird), Josh Boles (Boozy), Shailene Garnett (Krissy B.), Alen Delain (Alan), Paul Daniel Ayotte (Laren).
 

Any movie that throws out a line like “It takes place in the same club as Irreversible” within its first minute, is a movie after my own heart. Matthew Johnson’s The Dirties contains many references to movies old and new, obscure and popular, some as explicit as the name dropping of Irreversible, or an extended riff on Being John Malkovich, and some so subtle that they go by without you noticing them (I have no doubt that I missed about as many as I caught). They are part of what makes The Dirties so entertaining and amusing during its running time – and part of what makes it so disturbing as it progresses. Because The Dirties is another school shooting movie, and it does indeed close with disturbing acts of violence, and ends with its protagonist uttering an unforgettable final line – one as haunting as the final line of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003) – but in a completely different way.

The movie was written, directed and stars Johnson, playing a character named Matt Johnson. He and his buddy Owen (Owen Williams) are high school film geeks – much of the movie takes place in Matt’s basement, adorned with posters for movies like Pulp Fiction, Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club and Schindler’s List. They are not the popular kids, and get picked on by bullies – who they have dubbed “The Dirties”. For film class, they’re making a movie about two assassins who kill bullies (for those who know about Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, you’ll know they made a similar movie – and that another video we see later in the movie, in which the pair go shooting – pop bottles, watermelons, etc, also recalls one made by Harris and Klebold). When they show the movie to their teacher though, he balks. Too much violence, too much swearing – they’ll need to tone it down. And this is when things start to subtly shift. Matt no longer simply talks about how cool other movies are, but starts to talk about how cool it be to actually do the things they were just pretending to do in their movie. A plot is hatched – Matt and Owen are actually going to pull off a school shooting – but they’re still the good guys, because after all, they’re only going to kill the bad guys.

To film his movie, Johnson took an interesting approach – filming on actual locations, without telling those around them they were making a movie. Amazingly, he got a real high school to let he and Williams “attend” classes for a while, and film the action as long as they didn’t interfere. They staged the bullying scenes without the students around them knowing what was going on – those kids Johnson tells about the club in Irreversible are just random kids they met in the park, etc. More and more filmmakers are doing this – it’s kind of like what Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry Charles did with Bruno and Borat, but Johnson is doing this in a more serious way (as is Jonathan Glazer in Under the Skin – where the scenes with Johansson in her car were filmed the same way). The approach works, as the reactions of those around them is genuine – but also because the performances of Johnson, Williams and the rest of cast fits in perfectly with them. I don’t know if they’re actually good actors or not, but they work in this movie.

The film we watch is the one that Matt Johnson, the character, directs and edits to leave behind – although someone else obviously finishes it. This would be the two cameramen who shoot the movie, that are never explained - according to an interview I read with Johnson, an earlier cut did explain them, but it didn’t work, so it was cut. This way works better than having them explained. Who are they? Why are doing this, and why don’t they tell anyone. The only time Matt addresses one of the cameramen is when we see him working on the end credits (which is a host of movie references all on its own), telling him he’ll have to add it later. This makes The Dirties even more disturbing.

All of this probably makes The Dirties sound like a stunt – and yet while watching the movie, I didn’t think of the method of shooting, because I got wrapped up in the story and the characters. Matt is the character who drives the action of the movie – he’s the idea man, he’s the one making all the movie references (if Williams even gets half of them, he doesn’t show it), and as he grows darker, so does the movie. The film is about how Johnson lives so completely inside the movies, that the line between fiction and reality becomes blurred – to him, actually shooting The Dirties is not very different for pretending to shoot them. Matt directs everything in the movie to the increasing annoyance of Owen, who doesn’t think Matt is actually talking to him anymore, but instead constantly acting. Everything they do, everywhere they go, they do is because Matt thinks it will look good in the movie. Owen has his own journey in the movie as well – he starts the movie depressed and love sick, so he goes along with Matt’s ideas at first. But as the movie progresses, and he starts to develop a friendship – which may turn into something more – with the girl he’s had a crush on for years, he starts to pull away from Matt – what once seemed hopeless, no longer does, and Owen has a change of heart. By this time though, Matt is too far down the rabbit hole.

There has been no shortage of school shooting movies made since Columbine all the way in 1999. Hell, in 2009, I did an entire piece on them (http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.ca/2009/04/school-shootings-in-movies.html). For me, The Dirties ranks just below Elephant as the best of its kind yet made. It is a clever, funny film for much of its running time – film buffs like me will have a blast catching all the clever references – and it also succeeds in making Matt into a likable character – a lovable outsider that those of us obsessed with film can relate to. And that is also what makes the finale so disturbing – as Matt shifts from likable outsider, into a monster, and just how thin the line between the two actually is. This is not a movie that blames anything for school shootings – it has no solutions for the problem. Although there are bullies in the film, The Dirties doesn’t come close to making excuses for Matt, or placing the blame on them like so many movies and novels have done since Columbine, seeing the shooters as victims who snapped (see this other post by me about novels about school shootings for examples of this http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.ca/2009/05/books-reviews-novels-about-school.html). The Dirties is deeper, and more complex than that. For a movie made with little money, by unknowns, The Dirties is a surprisingly confident, complex film.

Movie Review: Enough Said

Movie Review: Enough Said

Enough Said
Directed by: Nicole Holofcener.
Written by: Nicole Holofcener.
Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Eva), James Gandolfini (Albert), Catherine Keener (Marianne), Toni Collette (Sarah), Tracey Fairaway (Ellen), Ben Falcone (Will), Tavi Gevinson (Chloe), Amy Landecker (Debbie), Anjelah Johnson-Reyes (Cathy), Eve Hewson (Tess), Toby Huss (Peter), Kathleen Rose Perkins (Fran).
 

To a certain extent, I understand why some have dismissed Enough Said as a “big screen sitcom”. The movie does, after all, star two people best known for TV and not film, has a central premise that could easily be used on any number of bad sitcoms, and has the kind of large ensemble cast that can provide subplots to the main action, like we often see in sitcoms. And yet, there is no network sitcom on TV now – and hasn’t been in a long time – that is this funny, sensitively written, directed and acted, or this relatable and human as Enough Said. You can say the film is basically a sitcom if you want to – but if it really was a sitcom, it would be one of the best on TV.

The movie stars Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as Eva – a middle aged massage therapist, divorced for a decade, and dealing with the impending departure of her only daughter to University across the country. One night, she accompanies her bickering friends (Toni Collette and Ben Falcone) to a party – and meets two people. The first is Marianne (Catherine Keener) a successful poet (and if you don’t believe such a thing exists, neither does Eva) – who likes Eva, and could use a massage therapist. She then meets Albert (James Gandolfini), a big bear of a man, but a nice one – gentle, kind and funny. Later, he’ll call her up for a date – and she accepts – and Marianne hires her as her massage therapist, and because she doesn’t have many friends, also adopts Eva for some girl talk. Eva eventually discovers that Albert and Marianne used to be married – the harpy Albert complains about is her new friend, and the pig Marianne complains about is the man Eva has unexpectedly fallen for. Rather than come clean, she decides to keep the façade going for a while – as a way to find out what may be wrong with Albert. Of course, at some point, everyone (even Eva) knows it will blow up in her face.

That does, admittedly, sound like a sitcom. And yet, Enough Said is so well written and acted, that I didn’t mind it at all. Louis-Dreyfuss and Gandolfini have a wonderful, unexpected chemistry together right from the outset. Louis-Dreyfuss may be playing a character not a million miles away from some of her TV work – and yet she makes Eva a character all her own – a likable smart, funny woman, who nevertheless does some things we (and she) knows that she shouldn’t. The bigger revelation is the late Gandolfini. Because of his physical appearance, his pre-Sopranos career basically consisted of him playing the heavy in movie after movie. The Sopranos showed he made more range – but as complex as Tony Soprano was, he was also scary and physically imposing. The same cannot be said about his work in Enough Said. He’s as big as ever (bigger probably), but there is nothing scary about Albert – he is funny, kind, thoughtful and sensitive. Yes, he’s a big man, but he never uses his size to intimidate – he almost uses it as protection. I knew Gandolfini was a great actor – and he had been getting great reviews for his role here – but even with that knowledge, his performance here still surprised me with just how wonderful he is. The first date the two go on is the best scene in the movie – and one of the best of its kind in recent memory. When eventually Eva’s secret comes out – as it must – the movie doesn’t have the expected fireworks – the yelling and screaming we often see in movies like this. Just a quiet, heartbreaking moment from Gandolfini.

The rest of the movie works fine as well – although Holofcener does try to add perhaps one or two too many subplots into the film. They work fine, but they distract from what makes the movie so special – which is the relationship between Eva and Albert. Holofcener has long been one of the best indie writer-directors working – in films like Lovely and Amazing, Friends with Money and Please Give, she tells the kind of stories, about the kind of women that all too infrequently appear in movies of any kind. Enough Said is another winner from Holofcener – a romantic comedy for grown-ups.

Movie Review: Europa Report

Movie Review: Europa Report

Europa Report
Directed by: Sebastián Cordero.
Written by: Philip Gelatt.
Starring: Christian Camargo (Dr. Daniel Luxembourg), Embeth Davidtz (Dr. Samantha Unger), Anamaria Marinca (Rosa Dasque), Michael Nyqvist (Andrei Blok), Daniel Wu (William Xu), Karolina Wydra (Dr. Katya Petrovna), Sharlto Copley (James Corrigan), Dan Fogler (Dr. Sokolov), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Dr. Tarik Pamuk).

Science fiction movies so often forget about the science part of things that when a movie comes along that doesn’t, I really want to love it. And Europa Report takes the science part of science fiction very seriously – it has already been praised by many in the field as one of the most realistic space movies they have ever seen. But realistic doesn’t always mean the best. Europa Report is a good movie that I wanted to like more than I ultimately did.

The film is about a manned mission to Europa – one of the moons of Jupiter – which was long thought to essentially be a giant ball of ice. But then they discovered that under the surface ice is water. And water may mean life. So a crew is assembled and sent to explore Europa – they’re only supposed to take samples – both of the surface ice and after drilling – the water as well. But since this is a space mission in a movie, of course, nothing goes as planned.

What is refreshing about Europa Report is that you can actually believe pretty much everything you see in the movie. This isn’t a movie with giant monsters and action sequences that strain credibility – or that starts out as intelligent science fiction and devolves into action movie clichés. Everything that happens in Europa Report is restrained – and while many things go wrong – they all go believably wrong. You do not have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy Europa Report.

The film is also quite well made – yes, it’s another “found footage” film but because most of the film is shot through the security cameras around and outside the ship, you won’t get motion sickness from watching this movie. Some people seem deadest against found footage films, but as with anything else, they can be good if shot correctly – which Europa Report mainly is. It uses a framing device of scientists back on earth talking about the footage that has been recovered from the mission, which helps place in the film in a wider context.

The central question of Europa Report is also interesting – whether the individual lives of the crew matter at all compared to the huge scientific discovery they may make on Europa. What is more important? Individual lives or knowledge? The characters in the movie certainly have their own theories about this – and the movie does seem ultimately to come down on the side of knowledge, even if that makes the film a rather cold viewing experience (really, only one character seems to disagree – and even he doesn’t completely disagree).

What would have made Europa Report a better film is having the characters be more fully realized. In the movie, they are basically defined by their jobs –I struggle to remember just exactly what a few of the crewmembers actually looked like, or what their jobs were. Really only three make a lasting impression (and that could be because they are played by three actors I already knew). Sharlto Copley, from District 9, is very good as an engineer – and really the only person in the film who at all talks about his life outside of the mission – and when he makes his fateful decision, it hangs over the rest of the movie. Michael Nyqvist (from the original Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movies) is also quite good – he’s the one character who seems to value life over knowledge – not necessary his life. The best performance though is probably by Anamaria Marinca (from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), who plays the pilot, and has to make the final heart wrenching decision in the movie.

As I said, I wanted to like Europa Report more than I ultimately did. It is a good movie – well shot, intelligent and thought provoking – and on that level it deserves a lot of praise. This is certainly more intelligent than most mainstream sci-fi movies would even attempt to be. But what is missing is the human element. Had Europa Report made its characters more three dimensional – if it had made me care about them more than it did – it could well have been one of the best movies of the year. As it stands, it’s a good movie – a must for fans of intelligent sci-fi – but not quite the film it could have been.

Movie Review: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Movie Review: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
Directed by:  Jonathan Levine.
Written by: Jacob Forman.
Starring: Amber Heard (Mandy Lane), Anson Mount (Garth), Whitney Able (Chloe), Michael Welch (Emmet), Edwin Hodge (Bird), Aaron Himelstein (Red), Luke Grimes (Jake), Melissa Price (Marlin), Adam Powell (Dylan).

The story goes that Harvey Weinstein bought All the Boys Love Mandy Lane when it became a buzzy Midnight Madness selection at TIFF all the back in 2006. He thought that his brother Bob could release the film through their genre division – Dimension. The only problem is that Bob didn’t really like the movie – it got moved around the schedule multiple times – came out pretty much everywhere else in the world (including DVD releases) except for North America. Why it’s getting released now, I have no idea – except, I guess it makes sense to, finally, try and make some of the money back on their investment. I remember hearing about the film at TIFF all the way in 2006 – and thinking it sounded interesting – so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is not the horror equivalent of Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret – a long delayed masterwork by a studio who didn’t know what they had. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane left me wanting a lot more.

All the boys in her high school do in fact love Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) – and on a purely physical level, it’s easy to see why. She’s gorgeous, and the fact that she’s an “infamous virgin” only makes her more sought after. Apparently, Mandy was pretty much a wallflower until junior year, when she showed up looking smoking hot – I don’t really buy that she got that much hotter over the course of a summer, but whatever. Soon, she has pretty much dropped her loser friend Emmet (Michael Welch) – to hang out with the cool kids. All the boys want to be the one who deflowers her – one idiot even kills himself at a house party trying to impress her.

Most of the action of the movie takes place at the ranch of one of the cool kids who invites Mandy, alongside some other kids up for the weekend. Everyone is looking forward to a weekend of debauchery – drinking, drugs and sex – and that is pretty much what they get. Until, of course, the kids start being killed in gruesome ways by someone in a hoodie. Could it be Garth (Anson Mount) – the handsome ranch hand – or is it an outsider, or more chillingly, one of the kids themselves. The movie takes a painfully long time to reveal its secrets – and even features a “shocking twist ending” which if you’re like me, you’ll probably see coming from the outset.

Spoiler Warning: I’ll try not to spoil the movie below, but unfortunately, I pretty much have to at least hint what the movie has in store. You’ve been warned.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is half of a good idea, that the screenplay by Jacob Forman doesn’t quite follow through on. One of the clichés of the horror genre has always been the “virgin girl”, who survives until the end, and is the one who confronts the killer – and ends up walking away safely - while all of her slutty, alcoholic drugged out pay the price for their transgressions. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane decides to take that cliché, and twist it in the hopes of coming up with something new. It’s a good idea, but in this movie it doesn’t quite work. Like Joe Swanberg’s recent Drinking Buddies, which upended one cliché of the romantic comedy genre, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane doesn’t really have anything new to add to the genre except flipping the one cliché around. So like Drinking Buddies, it’s refreshing to see a movie that tries something different – but disappointing that the filmmakers didn’t come up with something more to do in place of the cliché they are upending. So both movies kind of go sideways instead leading somewhere satisfying. It’s an even bigger problem for All the Boys Love Mandy Lane than it was for Drinking Buddies, because by the time they get around to upending the cliché, the movie is just about over – and we are left with too many nagging, unanswered questions – and not the kind of ambiguous ones that can be intriguing, but instead the kind that feel like no one involved in making the movie really though through.

The movie itself isn’t horrible – it’s well made by director Jonathan Levine (it’s easy to see why he’s made three better films – The Wackness, 50/50 and Warm Bodies – since) and Heard is effective for most of her scenes – until the screenplay lets her down at the end. And yes, there’s a lot of blood for horror fans out there.

Still, it remains a fairly big disappointment for me, because there is so much promise in the premise – in the ideas it raises, that the movie never really follows through on. The film reminded me of Kate Asleton’s Black Rock from earlier this year – another film that tried to confront the misogyny implicit in so many horror films that ended up not quite being able to deliver on its promise.

My Answer to This Week's Criticwire Survey Question: Game Changers

Monday, October 7, 2013

My Answer to This Week's Criticwire Survey Question: Game Changers

Q: This weekend, Gravity set a record for the biggest October opening weekend in history. But that's small potatoes compared to the claims some critics have made that it represents the dawning of a new era in movies. What's a film you thought would change movies forever, and were you right?

The first film that came immediately to mind for this was The Blair Witch Project (1999). The film was made for almost no money, over a span of 8 days, and was basically a Do-It-Yourself movie that proved that making films with cheap cameras, and non-professional actors could make a ton of money, without costing that much. I assumed at the time that we would get many more “Blair Witch Project” type movies in the years since. Was I right?

Yes, and no. True, more movies than ever before seem to be made – many by amateurs with no money. But very few have had the type of mainstream success that Blair Witch had back in 1999. But what filmmakers now do is make that small film for almost no money mainly as a calling card to get a bigger deal. You can still achieve some degree of success with these types of small movies – Jonathan Caouette;s Tarnation and Shane Carruth’s Primer comes to mind, and I hope Matthew Johnson’s recent The Dirties (review coming this week) gets seen by lots of people – but in reality, none of them have, or probably will, break through like Blair Witch did.

Strangely, in some ways The Blair Witch Project has perhaps become more influential in another way – by showing that the “found footage” genre could work. True, it took Hollywood YEARS to adopt the format (they didn’t even use it for the inevitable – Blair Witch sequel – but after it’s heir apparent – Paranormal Activity – made a ton of cash, they did. Now, found footage is mainstream – in large part because of The Blair Witch Project.

Movie Review: Gravity

Friday, October 4, 2013

Movie Review: Gravity

Gravity
Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón.
Written by: Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón.
Starring: Sandra Bullock (Dr. Ryan Stone), George Clooney (Matt Kowalsky), Ed Harris (Mission Control), Paul Sharma (Shariff).

Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is one the greatest technical achievements I have ever seen in a movie theater. The combination of breathtaking cinematography (in 3-D no less), special effects, art direction and sound design mean there is not a second of the film that isn’t a pure joy to behold. But the technical achievement – no matter how great it is – is only part of the reason why Gravity is one of the year’s must-see films. Sandra Bullock delivers her best performance to date in the lead role – where she is more often by herself than in a scene with another actor – and, with only a few bare facts about her character, she makes you care deeply about her. It is one thing to be visually blown away by a movie –it’s another to be visually blown away, and also care deeply for its central character.

The plot of the movie is exceedingly simple. Three astronauts are on a spacewalk to install a new piece of equipment on the Hubble telescope. This is Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) for first time in space, and she is the one who designed the equipment. By contrast Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) has been in space so much, he’s approaching the all-time space walking record. Things are going okay, until the Russians (it’s nice to have them as the villains again) blow up one of their own satellites. This causes debris to fly through space, smashing other satellites, and creating more debris, to come hurtling at the astronauts, who do not have the time to get back to safety. Eventually, they become untethered and have to slowly make their way to safety. The problem – there may be nothing left for them to get to safely.

Cuaron has always been a gifted visual stylist. His modern adaptation of Great Expectations may not be a great movie, but is visually stunning – especially in its early scenes. His Y Tu Mama Tambien is a fascinating ménage a trois relationship drama that while low-key, is still well directed. And Children of Men is a dystopian masterpiece – that is at its best during the action sequences that Cuaron shoots with long takes with his endlessly roaming camera.

In Gravity, Cuaron takes his love of those long, unbroken takes to the extreme. His camera moves around the astronauts as they float through space, circling back towards them, and even sometimes through their helmet and back out again. It is dazzling to behold – and refreshing as most movies these days seem to think that in order to be exciting, they need to have rapid fire editing, with images cut up so much that they verge on incoherence, and use special effects for the sake of using special effects, and 3-D simply to milk a few extra dollars for the audience. By contrast, Cuaron uses these long takes – in conjunction with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who he worked with on Children of Men, and has also worked with Terrence Malick on his last few films, so he knows how to do these long takes. Although the film was converted to 3-D after shooting, you wouldn’t know it – every shoot seems to have been designed for 3-D, and it never seems like a gimmick. The special effects are used to create visuals that feel real – space has never quite looked like this on film before. It joins the very short list of recent live action movies that actually benefit from 3-D (the list before Gravity perhaps only contains Avatar, Hugo and Life of Pi). This is pretty much a completely digital world that Cuaron and his team have crafted – and while that often annoys me (because when technology allows filmmakers to create anything they can imagine, they often goes overboard), here Cuaron uses it to disorient the audience in an effective way. In essence, he uses visual effects to have the audience float in space alongside his characters. The effect is stunning.

If it were just the technical elements in Gravity and nothing else, it would still demand to be seen on the biggest screen possible (I fear that the movie will lose a lot when viewed on a TV screen). But Bullock’s performance in the movie is also one of the best of the year. The film gives her a little backstory, that makes her instantly sympathetic, but her performance goes deeper than that. It is impossible not to relate to her on a human level – as a woman struggling to do whatever she can to survive. It’s a remarkably physical performance, and Bullock never oversells the emotion behind it, like she has done in the past.

In short, Gravity is nothing less than masterful in its every moment. While the story is simple, the ambition of the project is huge. That Cuaron attempted it should be commended – that he pulled it off is nothing short of remarkable.