Movie Review: Computer Chess

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

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: 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.

Movie Review: Enough Said

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

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: Don Jon

Monday, September 30, 2013

Movie Review: Don Jon

Don Jon
Directed by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Written by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Jon), Scarlett Johansson (Barbara), Julianne Moore (Esther), Tony Danza (Jon Sr.), Glenne Headly (Angela), Brie Larson (Monica), Rob Brown (Bobby), Jeremy Luke (Danny), Paul Ben-Victor (Priest), Italia Ricci (Gina), Lindsey Broad (Lauren), Amanda Perez (Lisa), Sarah Dumont (Sequins), Sloane Avery (Patricia), Loanne Bishop (Barbara's Mom).
Like many first time directors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt tries to cram too much into his debut feature, Don Jon. This is a movie filled with ideas, and characters, and undoubtedly tries to do more than any one 90 minute comedy could realistically expect to pull off. And yet, despite that, he has made a very entertaining first film – and shows immense potential for the future. Gordon-Levitt doesn’t take the easy road with this movie, although I do hope he realizes that less can sometimes mean more.

Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed and stars as the title character – Jon – a New Jersey bartender (complete with what I would normally call an exaggerated accent, but then I have seen promos for Jersey Shore). He is good looking and charming in his Jersey way, and has no problem taking home a different beautiful girl every weekend. The problem is that for Jon, the actual sex he is having cannot measure up to the porn he watches obsessively on his computer whenever he gets the chance. The women he sleeps with are stubbornly human – with their own needs and desires, and to put it bluntly they won’t do all the same things the girls in porn will do (shocking, I know). Than he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), and she slowly starts to try and change Jon – manipulating him with sex to get him to do whatever she wants. She doesn’t like his job, so she gets him to go back to school. She wants to blend friends, and meet families. And she despises internet porn. But as the movie also makes clear, while Jon has unrealistic ideas of what sex should be from porn, Barbara has unrealistic ideas of what relationships should be like from romantic movies. To her, if a guy isn’t willing to do anything she asks for her, he doesn’t really love her.

There are more characters – Jon’s overbearing, stereotypical New Jersey family - Tony Danza in his best (only?) role in years, Glenne Headly playing the stereotypical weeping mother, and Brie Larson showing off a wide range of eye rolling – his friends (it was nice to see Rob Brown in something – I always wondered what happened to him after Finding Forrester) – and most important of all Esther (Julianne Moore). Esther is a woman Jon meets at his night class. He catches her crying outside one day, and ignores her. The next week, she tries to explain – but he isn’t interested. But gradually, the two do begin to talk, and then more. If Barbara is trying to get Jon to change into the man she wants through sexual manipulation, than Esther is trying to get him to change, not because of her own desires, but because it would be better for him.

The movie’s greatest strength is Gordon-Levitt himself. He has mainly been in dramas for the past few years (even his one comedy, 50/50, he plays a guy with cancer), so it was nice to see him play a character this oversized and comedic. Gordon-Levitt doesn’t shy away from the New Jersey stereotypes in his portrayal of Jon – in fact, he full on embraces them with his accent, his clothes and his hair – but Jon is not just a walking stereotype. Gradually, he reveals layers to himself, and despite his outward confidence and obnoxiousness, you start to like the guy. Not to be outdone, Scarlett Johansson goes full on Jersey Shore with her accent and mannerisms – and nails it. Too few have exploited Johansson’s comedic gifts over her career – but she has them. Julianne Moore is very good as Esther – the older woman who takes Jon under her wing a little bit – and shows him what love and sex should be like.

It is in the writing of both Barbara and Esther than the movie has its biggest problem however. Gordon-Levitt tries to make the point that romantic comedies warp Barbara’s idea about love, just like the porn warps Jon’s ideas about sex, but it is an underwritten idea - yes, the clips of the movies they watch, complete with movie star cameos are hilarious – but because the movie never spends any time with Barbara by herself – she’s never seen Jon – she never really becomes a complete character. If Gordon-Levitt doesn’t necessarily excuse Jon’s porn addiction, he certainly gives him plenty of room to grow by the end – room that Johansson’s Barbara never gets. Esther is an even more underwritten character – her revelation about the source of her crying doesn’t quite hit as hard as it should, and she never really becomes a fully rounded character herself – just someone who fills a plot point. Both Johansson and Moore are excellent however – they help paper over the flaws in the writing of their characters, but I almost want to see two more movies – one from Barbara’s point of view and one from Esther’s – because the time we spend with them in Don Jon makes me want to spend more with both of them.

Perhaps though that really isn’t Gordon-Levitt’s fault. He is, after all, making a movie almost entirely from his character’s point-of-view, and for almost the entire movie, his character does only see the women in his life in the ways they affect him – and not as complete people. And it is to the movie’s credit that Gordon-Levitt doesn’t try to wrap everything up in a happy ending where Jon is “cured” – but instead only offers hope that he will, eventually, be able to have a mature, committed relationship with a woman. I do wish we’d get more movies like this from the women’s point of view however – but that’s really Hollywood’s problem, and not Gordon-Levitt’s.

Don Jon is a promising debut film from Gordon-Levitt, the writer director. He does try to cram too much into his running time (I haven’t even mentioned his take on religion in the film, which feels underdeveloped), and as a result his movie has a little to say about a lot of subjects, when it would be better if it had more to say on fewer subjects. But that’s something many directors learn with time. I liked Don Jon – it is funny and well-acted – the charm of the actors helping to overcome some of the scripts weaknesses. I look forward to seeing what Gordon-Levitt does next as a writer/director. He may not have made a great film this time out, but Don Jon shows that the potential is there for him to get there someday.

Movie Review: The Kings of Summer

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Movie Review: The Kings of Summer

The Kings of Summer
Directed by: Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
Written by: Chris Galletta.
Starring: Nick Robinson (Joe), Gabriel Basso (Patrick), Moises Arias (Biaggio), Nick Offerman (Frank), Erin Moriarty (Kelly), Megan Mullally (Mrs. Keenan), Marc Evan Jackson (Mr. Keenan), Alison Brie (Heather), Eugene Cordero (Colin), Gillian Vigman (Carol), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Captain Davis), Thomas Middleditch (Rookie Cop).

Every year the Sundance Film Festival serves as launching pad for many Indie comedy/dramas telling coming of age stories about teenagers from dysfunctional families. With my (finally) catching up with The Kings of Summer, the triple bill of indie hits in this vein emerging from Sundance is now complete for 2013. On the high end, you have James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now, an uncommonly intelligent film about teenage romance, sex, love and alcoholism, that hits all the notes we expect, but not quite in the way we expect it to. In the middle is Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s The Way Way Back, an agreeable movie, filled with movie stars doing low key character work, that hits all the notes we expect in precisely the way we expect, but it still entertaining – cinematic comfort food if you will. And now, on the low end, is Jordan Vogt-Roberts The Kings of Summer, a well-meaning film to be sure, but one that all the notes we expect it to, in mostly unsatisfying ways.

The film is about three teenage boys – Joe (Nick Robinson), stuck living with his overbearing, sarcastic verging on cruel father Frank (Nick Offerman) and still reeling from the death of his mother. Patrick (Gabriel Basso), whose overly kind parents (Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson) are always hovering above him – encouraging him, and being generally overprotective and extremely annoying. And then there’s Biaggio (Moises Arias), who is just plain weird – when he speaks at all, it’s in non sequiturs, and you cannot help but spending much of the movie runtime wondering just what the hell is wrong with him. They stumble across a pristine, unspoiled wonderland in the middle of the forest (I couldn’t help but think of the mystical “crevasse” on The Weekenders), and decide to build a house there, and move in over the summer. This will allow them to be “real men” – independent and on their own. They, of course, don’t tell their parents their plan, and although the parents report their children missing to police, no one seems to be trying to find them. The first thing they did in the recent Prisoners was send search parties into the woods – but either no one thinks of doing this in The Kings of Summer, or no one cares. No one even notices when Joe and Biaggio, frequent the local Boston Market, when they discover hunting is harder than they thought it was going to be.

The movie is about these three “becoming men” - which basically consists of them dancing around in the middle of nowhere, eating around a fire and looking at the sunset. What dialogue these three speak to each other isn’t very enlightening or all that entertaining or funny either. I guess, we can at least be thankful in these stretches for Arias’ presence – I have no idea what he’s doing for much of the movie, but at least it’s not dull and boring like Joe and Patrick are.

Slightly better are the scenes of Frank back home, wondering what he did that was so terrible to drive his own son away – and gradually seeing that yes, he is in fact a bully and an asshole. This is mainly because of Offerman – who is basically playing the same character he plays on Parks and Recreation, but without his cuddly teddy bear core that makes Ron Swanson so sympathetic. This isn’t entirely a bad thing – hearing Offerman at his sarcastic best is still a blast (“Can you relate it to my life in an allegorical fashion?”), but it’s still a minor pleasure. Unfortunately, the film basically wastes the sweet comic presence of Alison Brie as Joe’s older sister – and although I quite enjoyed Mullally and Jackson’s interplay, it’s basically one note.

The movie, of course, contains young love and heartbreak – all involving Kelly (Erin Moriarty) as the girl who Joe is infatuated with, who, of course, falls for Patrick – causing friction – basically because the movie needs something to get it to its climax. This entire subplot is thoroughly unconvincing because it feels like it tacked on.

The Kings of Summer is a perfect example of the type of movie that comes out of Sundance with lots of buzz that when you watch it later, outside the atmosphere of the festival, you cannot help but wonder what all the fuss was about. I’ve probably made the movie sound worse than it actually is – it is a well-meaning movie, with a few isolated moments that work – but not by much.  

Movie Review: Gimme the Loot

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Movie Review: Gimme the Loot

Gimme the Loot
Directed by: Adam Leon.
Written by: Adam Leon.
Starring: Tashiana Washington (Sofia), Ty Hickson (Malcolm), Meeko (Champion), Zoë Lescaze (Ginnie), Sam Soghor (Lenny), Adam Metzger (Donnie), Greyson Cruz (Alfonso), James Harris Jr. (Ronaldo), Joshua Rivera (Rico), Melvin Mogoli (Kaps).
What stands out to me about Gimme the Loot – a micro-budgeted indie by first time director Adam Leon – is the almost boundless energy of the movie. That’s rare for an indie film of this size – but Leon is more talented than most, and his film moves with the same reckless energy his two heroes have. The goal of Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) is to “Bomb the Apple” – the apple being that oversized one that comes out in the bleachers at Shea Stadium every time the Mets hit a homerun. They need money to finance this operation - $500 bucks – a lot of money for two poor kids from the Bronx, so they set about one scam after another to try and earn the money.

Annoyed that the drug dealers he sometimes delivers for won’t give him any product, Malcolm scams a fellow delivery boy out of his goods, and heads off to rich girl Ginnie’s (Zoe Lescaze) to try and make some quick money – as the two talk and flirt, he’s also casing the place to see what he’ll be able to steal. Meanwhile, Sofia tries to sell some of the things she’s recently stolen – spray paint, a cell phone, a pair of sneakers – to make some cash herself. Of course, things never quite go as planned, and as one scheme is thwarted, they come up with another one – and the movie follows them along.

Some will probably not be happy that the movie doesn’t judge or moralize this story of two people who are admittedly criminals. This is not a gritty, slice of life in the ghetto that feels sorry for its characters, but a film that simply acknowledges the realities of their lives, and then moves on. Yes, they’re criminals, who hang out with more criminals, but they’re basically good kids trying to pass the time.

The majority of the running time is spent with these two at their various scams – but the film is at its best when it slows down long enough to allow the characters to interact with each. True, Leon’s dialogue sounds like dialogue, and although the three principle actors are all very good for non-professionals, they are still non-professionals, and those surrounding them aren’t nearly as good.

But while Leon’s goal here is mainly to entertain, there are times when he does make some social commentary. The best scenes in the movie may well be between Malcolm and Ginnie – the rich white girl he sells drugs to. Their first interaction is playful and flirtatious – so much so that Malcolm thinks he’ll be able to go back and seduce her, while others can rob her apartment. But when he returns, she is no longer alone – and the scene is 180 degrees away from what it was before – with Ginnie turning cruel. Race and class separate these two in ways Malcolm didn’t quite understand at first.

And it’s also interesting to see how Sofia fits into the male dominated world he inhabits. She is filled with bravado – tries her best to act tough, and swears more than anyone else, but it’s basically a front – and she can hurt with just a few words from a loudmouth idiot standing behind a fence. The unspoken attraction between her and Malcolm makes up the heart of the movie – these two are, of course, perfect for each other – but to admit as much would require one of them to be vulnerable to the other – which neither may be willing to do.

Gimme the Loot is far from a perfect film. It follows a pretty straight forward, predictable arc, and as I mentioned the dialogue does feel like dialogue, and the acting can be uneven. But as a first film, the film works remarkably well. I expect bigger – and better – things from Leon in the future.

Movie Review: Drinking Buddies

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Movie Review: Drinking Buddies

Drinking Buddies
Directed by: Joe Swanberg.
Written by: Joe Swanberg.
Starring: Olivia Wilde (Kate), Jake Johnson (Luke), Anna Kendrick (Jill), Ron Livingston (Chris), Ti West (Dave), Jason Sudeikis (Gene Dentler), Mike Brune (Mike), Frank V. Ross (Frank), Jim Cibak (Jim), Alicia Van Couvering (Amy), Joe Swanberg (Angry guy in car), Michael Zeller (Eli).

If you’re like me, you probably spent more time reading about Mumblecore films than actually watching them. These films, which began in 2002 with Andrew Bujalski’s film Funny Ha Ha, are extremely low budget American indie films – most often shot with amateur actors, with largely improvised screenplays, shot on digital video, and most often concern young hipsters navel gazing. Outside of film festivals most of the films barely got released into theaters, but found a cult following on DVD, and later the internet. The films were shot quickly and cheaply, which allowed the directors to make many of them. Some critics championed the films, some despised them, and for the most part, everyone outside their target demographic of other hipsters completed ignored them. The mainstreaming of Mumblecore started a few years ago – Greta Gerwig, a mumblecore staple, moved on to making bigger movies, and her presence have infinitely improved the last two Noah Baumbach films (Greenberg and Frances Ha – the second of which she co-wrote). The Duplass brothers have made two films – Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home – with bigger movie stars, and Mark Duplass has started a nice little acting career for himself. Lynn Shelton has also moved onto films with bigger stars – Your Sister’s Sister, and the upcoming Touchy Feely. Lena Dunham’s lone directing effort in film, Tiny Furniture, is often called a mumblecore film, and she’s now one of the biggest names on TV. Actress Amy Seimetz is having a great year this year, with her performance in Shane Carruth’s excellent Upstream Color, and her own film, Sun Don’t Shine, which while some call it a mumblecore film, it doesn’t really seem like one to me. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before Joe Swanberg – arguably the director most associated with mumblecore – tried his hand at something more mainstream.

With Drinking Buddies, Swanberg doesn’t stray too far from his mumblecore roots – the characters are still hipsters (they work at a craft brewery, and if there’s anything more hipster than that, I’m not sure what it is), and the film is still largely improvised by its cast. The film however does have a more standard issue setup – two friends, one male, one female, who the audience knows are perfect for each other, but are involved with other people when the movie opens.

The two characters are Kate (Olivia Wilder) and Luke (Jake Johnson) – and the two of them have an easy chemistry with each other. They laugh, flirt and joke around with each other, and seem completely at ease with each other. And then we meet their significant others – Kate’s is Chris (Ron Livingstone), a slightly older, dullard and Luke’s is Jill (Anna Kendrick), a cute, perky super organized artist. We know when the four of them go away together for the weekend something is going to happen – but we’re not quite expecting what does.

It becomes clear at some point in the running time that Swanberg isn’t going to give the audience exactly what they are expecting. This is his way of twisting the romantic comedy genre if you will – there’s only one real problem with that – once he decided to not have the movie payoff in the way we are expecting, he doesn’t really come up with a way for it to pay off at all. The result is an amusing diversion – but really not much else.

The acting it must be said is quite good. We expect Johnson to be at ease in this type of role – it isn’t all that far away from his character on New Girl, who of course, would fit right in a mumblecore movie. I wasn’t expecting Wilde to be as good as she is – but she is charming and funny, and fits it well. It’s nice to see her have a role to play that isn’t literally the personification of female perfection she played in Tron: Legacy or Cowboys and Aliens. Anna Kendrick proves once again why she’s going to have a long career – she fits in with ease to whatever movie you’re making. Livingstone is rather dull and boring as Chris – but then again, I think the entire point of his character is to make him dull and boring, so kudos to him I guess.

The movie doesn’t really go anywhere – but then again, I don’t think Swanberg really wants it to. If he’s going to make it as a mainstream filmmaker, he’s going to do it on his own terms. Good for him. I hope the next film he makes is better than Drinking Buddies – there’s a lot of promise in it, but it ultimately left me wanting more.

Movie Review: Prince Avalanche

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Movie Review: Prince Avalanche

Prince Avalanche
Directed by: David Gordon Green.
Written by: David Gordon Green based on the film written by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson.
Starring: Paul Rudd (Alvin), Emile Hirsch (Lance), Lance LeGault (Truck Driver), Joyce Payne (Lady), Gina Grande (Madison), Lynn Shelton (Voice of Madison).

At one point, not that long ago, David Gordon Green was one of my favorite up and coming filmmakers. His first three films – George Washington (2000), All the Real Girls (2003) and Undertow (2004) – were great, small slices of life. He didn’t seem too interested in a standard plot, but was more interested in mood, tone and performance. His fourth film, Snow Angels (2007) was more plot driven than the first three, but was also a near-great film – a tragedy played out in intimate detail. Because those films made very little money, it didn’t surprise me when he decided to make something more mainstream. The result was Pineapple Express (2008) – which is one of the great stoner movies in recent memory, and although it seemed much different than his previous films – and was in many ways – it also shared some similarities. And then, things kind of flew off the rails for Green. Buoyed by the success of Pineapple Express, he made two comedies in 2011 – Your Highness and The Sitter – both of them nearly unwatchable. If one assumed that Green would adopt a “one for them, one for you” mentality that many in Hollywood have, the fact that he made three mainstream comedies in a row – and two of them awful – seemed to suggest otherwise. I feared that Green would become yet another indie causality – a talented director who showed a ton of promise, who gets chewed up and spit out by Hollywood.

His latest film, Prince Avalanche, then comes as a welcome relief. No, it’s not as good as Green’s earlier films, but it is at least a step in the right direction. Oddly, Green seems to be trying to combine the comedic elements of his more mainstream efforts, with the look and feel of his earlier films, and it makes for an odd marriage – not a bad one mind you, but an odd one.

The film stars Paul Rudd as Alvin and Emile Hirsch as Lance. The year is 1988, and the two of them work on the road crew, repainting the lines, hammering in polls, and gluing on reflectors, on a stretch of desolate Texas highway that had been destroyed by fire. The two of them spend the week with no company except for each other – camp out every night, and have seemingly little in common. Alvin did this job alone for a few months, but was convinced by his girlfriend to give her aimless brother Lance a job assisting him. While Alvin seems content to let the days pass in relative silence, Lance feels the need to chatter on endlessly. The two are seemingly polar opposites – which, of course, is the oldest strategy in the world when it comes to buddy comedies.

In some ways, that is what Prince Avalanche is. When the two are together, more often than not, they are arguing with each other – whether it’s about the radio, the food, the monotony or anything else, the two don’t see eye to eye on anything, so of course there’s friction. Green could have made a more mainstream buddy comedy out of this material – and even kept the same two actors, as Rudd and Hirsch have good screen chemistry, and play off each other well.

But then Green adds in scenes of more quiet contemplation – as when Lance goes away for the weekend, and Alvin stays behind to be at one with nature. Green may be trying a little too hard in these scenes to be artistic – some of the shots seem out of place, as if he were trying to earn the comparisons he got to Terrence Malick earlier in his career again. The presence of an older woman during this sequence is one of the emotional high points of the film – but her numerous reappearances over the course of the film don’t really seem to work. The same could be said of the truck driver who shows up occasionally – each time he shows up, it’s a little less effective than the last.

But Green does manage to get solid performances out of his two stars. Rudd has become a comedic star over the past few years, and I do think he can be hilarious, but Prince Avalanche is a welcome reminder that there is more to him than just those comedies. This is a quiet, subtle performance as a man who is essentially hiding from the world until he can no longer. Hirsch’s role doesn’t give him the same opportunity for complexity – and he is an actor who exudes a little too much intelligence to play a character so dim – yet he is still charming, and funny –he makes a good sidekick for Rudd.

In short, while Prince Avalanche is a set in the right direction for Green – a return to the type of personal, less narrative driven films he built his reputation on, it’s still not quite as good as his best. Perhaps though, this is a signal that Green wants to return to this type of film – or perhaps something even more ambitious – something more accessible than his first films, but more intelligent and grounded than his recent output. That’s a welcome sign. I took no joy in heavily criticizing a director I thought was well on the way to be one of the greats. Hopefully, after a detour, he’s back on track.

Movie Review: The World's End

Monday, August 26, 2013

Movie Review: The World's End

The World’s End
Directed by: Edgar Wright.
Written by: Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright.
Starring: Simon Pegg (Gary King), Nick Frost (Andy Knightley), Martin Freeman (Oliver Chamberlain), Paddy Considine (Steven Prince), Eddie Marsan (Peter Page), David Bradley (Basil), Michael Smiley (Reverend Green), Pierce Brosnan (Guy Shephard), Bill Nighy (The Network).

Over the last decade, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (along with co-star Nick Frost) have made the so called Cornetto trilogy – named after ice cream that shows up subtly in each of the three films. While the characters don’t carry over from film to film – the comic tone does, as do the themes of male friendship, the dangers of conformity and that dangerously thin line where nostalgia goes from being a pleasant memory to a dangerous force in the lives of people – or communities. And each film sends up a specific, well known movie genre – Shaun of the Dead (2004) was the zombie movie, Hot Fuzz (2007) was the buddy cop action movie, and now The World’s End is about science fiction films – specifically a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Stepford Wives. Although there are still many genres that Wright and Pegg could poke fun of – I hope they end the series with The World’s End. Not because the series has grown tired – but because I find it difficult to believe that you can make a better movie in this style than The World’s End – which is the funniest and most entertaining film I have seen this summer. It’s time for Wright, Pegg and company to take their films own advice to the lead character of The World’s End – and grow up. And on the basis of this movie, that's just what they're doing.

The World’s End is the darkest of the trilogy – and it wastes no time in letting us know that. We open with Gary King (Pegg) telling the story of the legendary night back in 1990 when he and four best buds took on the Golden Mile in their small British hometown of Newton Haven – the goal is 12 pints, in 12 pubs in one night. They didn’t make it that night back in 1990 – a few dropped out early, and King and the rest couldn’t get past 9 – but for King he didn’t think life would ever get any better than that night – and for King he’s right. As his story ends, we realize that King isn’t just telling his backstory to the audience for our benefit – but at an AA meeting. King doesn’t want to “recover” however – he wants to get the gang back together – 23 years later – and try the Golden Mile again. In the intervening years Peter (Eddie Marsan), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Oliver (Martin Freeman) have all grown up and moved on – they have lives, wives, families, careers and not much contact with King. One by one though he convinces them to come with him – all the while assuring them that Andy (Frost) really is coming along with them – even after the “accident” years ago. And while Andy does take more convincing – a sob story about King’s recently deceased mom – and Andy begrudgingly shows up as well. The band is back together – even if King is the only one who seems to care.

But sometimes, you cannot go home again. While the pubs are still there they have been “Starbucked” – made uniform and devoid of any individuality or quaint charm. The same could be said of the people – even people that should remember King and his cohorts seem to look right through them. And as so often happens when alcohol is involved, a fight breaks out in the bathroom, someone gets decapitated, and the truth comes spilling out.

The World’s End is the best of three Cornetto films for a few reasons. For one, as much as I love the intelligence and wit that is used to send up the different genres in all three films, ultimately that sort of humor as a limit on just how effective it can be. The World’s End is far less reliant on sending up genre tropes than either of the other films – hell, the body snatcher plot isn’t even revealed until well into the second act of the film. Up until then, what we have witnessed is an intelligent comedy about male friendship. The second reason is Pegg’s character of Gary. Shaun in Shaun of the Dead may have been a slacker – but he was a well-meaning, funny and likable slacker. Gary on the other hand is pretty much just pathetic – a shell of a man with nothing in his life other than his memories – he wears the same clothes, drives the same car and listens to the same music he did as a teenager, and his only goal in life is to complete the quest his teenage self-wanted to. There is good reason why his four friends distanced themselves over the years – but Gary is a skilled manipulator of people, who somehow convinces them to come back with them. He could do the Golden Mile by himself – but what would the point of that be? He needs his friends, not really because they are his friends, but because he needs enablers. His relationship with Frost’s character in Shaun was dangerous because it prevented them both from growing up – and here that is taken to the extreme, where one of them has moved on, and the other keeps clinging to the past. Pegg’s performance is still funny and charming – we still like Gary despite ourselves – but we also pity the poor bastard this time around. They have taken this character as far as he can go – and Pegg delivers a surprisingly complex performance – and his old friend Frost matches him. The supporting cast around these three is also better than the have been in the past – with Freeman, Considine and Marsen all get fully rounded character to play, and all doing a wonderful job of it. We expect that from Freeman – but Considine, known for heavier fare, is a surprise with his comic timing, and it’s nice to see Marsen, one of Britain’s best character actors, get to play something other than the weaselly little psycho he seems to have specialized in for the past few years. It would have been nice to give Rosamund Pike more to do – the one problem with the trilogy as a whole is that Wright and Pegg have never created a fully rounded female character – but overall that’s a small complaint.

The World’s End will inevitably be compared to a similarly themed (and titled) American comedy from summer 2013 – Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s This is the End. That film was also an intelligent, funny combination of male camaraderie and apocalyptic disaster film – but after seeing The World’s End, I think Rogen and Goldberg were lucky they released their film first, because pretty much everything they did in that film is done better in this one. The World’s End is a very rare treat indeed – an intelligent mainstream comedy that pokes fun of genre tropes, while telling a real human story. At the tail end of the summer we finally got the great mainstream film we were searching for all season.

Movie Review: Kick-Ass 2

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Movie Review: Kick-Ass 2

Kick Ass 2
Directed by: Jeff Wadlow
Written by: Jeff Wadlow based on the comic book by Mark Millar & John Romita Jr.
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass), Chloë Grace Moretz (Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Chris D'Amico / The Motherfucker), Jim Carrey (Colonel Stars and Stripes), Lindy Booth (Night Bitch), Morris Chestnut (Detective Marcus Williams), Claudia Lee (Brooke), Clark Duke (Marty / Battle Guy), Augustus Prew (Todd / Ass Kicker), Donald Faison (Dr. Gravity), Garrett M. Brown (Mr. Lizewski), Yancy Butler (Mrs. D'Amico), John Leguizamo (Javier), Daniel Kaluuya (Black Death), Andy Nyman (The Tumor), Tom Wu (Genghis Carnage), Olga Kurkulina (Mother Russia), Iain Glen (Uncle Ralph).

Matthew Vaughn’s original Kick Ass (2010) was essentially a high wire act where everything went just right. It was a movie that asked the question of what would happen if anyone really tried to be a superhero – and came up with what is probably close to the right answer – they’d either get the crap kicked out them, like what happened to the title character more often than not, or else they’re batshit insane, like Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), who ended up getting himself killed, but only after forever warping his teenage daughter Mindy aka Hit Girl (played in the film’s best performance by Chloe Grace Mortez). In order for the film to work, you have to be careful you go far enough with the violence that it seems real, but not so far that it essentially becomes another superhero movie. Too far in the previous direction, and you end up with a movie like the little seen (and fairly awful) Super, where Rainn Wilson walked around hitting people in the head with a wrench. Too far in the later, and you’ve lost the “real” aspect that separated your movie from the rest of the superhero movies in the first place. Personally, I thought Vaughn’s original film pretty much nailed this balance. Unfortunately the sequel – directed by Jeff Wadlow – doesn’t come close.

The movie takes place not long after the first one ended. Dave Lizewski aka Kick Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has given up his crime fighting ways, but is now just another bored high school senior. Mindy Macready aka Hit-Girl is now living with her father’s old partner (Morris Chesnut) who knows her secret, but wants her to give it up as well – although she doesn’t want to. Meanwhile the former Red Mist, Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is seething with anger over his father’s death at the hands of Kick-Ass, and after his mother dies as well, decides to become the world’s first super villain – uninventively named The Motherfucker. He’s rich, and has mob connections, so he assembles a group of psychos to track down Kick Ass – who has joined forces with Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey) and his ragtag group of “heroes”, after Hit-Girl decides to “go straight”. We know where this will lead.

There are a few – not many – things to like about Kick Ass 2. Even if he has distanced himself from the movie, Jim Carrey’s performance is actually very good. He may not quite replace what was lost with Nicolas Cage not being in this movie, but he comes close – once again creating a character who is demented and insane, but is apparently “one of the good guys”. Even better is Chloe Grace Mortez, who like the original movie, once again delivers the film’s best performance – this time as she tries to navigate something scary then crack dens – high school – and in particular a group of “mean girls”. I liked this subplot – almost a movie inside a movie – more than the rest of the film, that is until it comes to a disgusting end. If nothing else, these scenes show that Mortez should make a fine Carrie when the remake comes out this October.

The rest of the movie however just doesn’t work. Wadlow decides to take Kick Ass 2 more over the top than the previous film, and the stylistic violence doesn’t fit in with what the supposed theme of the movie is – that this is the real world, not a comic book, so there are real world consequences to the characters actions. I have no idea how many times this is mentioned in the movie (a dozen maybe?) – but the point is completely undermined by the over the top gross out gags, and in particular the comic book style violence – in particular a scene where a character known as Mother Russia – kills 10 cops in a matter of minutes – and few seem to blink an eye.

Right before that scene is another one where The Motherfucker tracks down Night Bitch (and to think some think the movie is sexist) – a hero in the same group as Kick Ass, and his fuck buddy, and decides he’s going to rape her – only to not be able to perform. This scene I had a real problem with. The writer of the comic book has recently (and correctly) been criticized for his use of rape in his comics, and his attitude towards it. He cannot be blamed for this scene – he didn’t write the screenplay after all – but I was uncomfortable watching it, as it went from the horrific specter or rape – which the Motherfucker doesn’t even see as a crime against Night Bitch, but against Kick Ass – to a comedic one the second he cannot get it up. I have never been comfortable with rape scenes in movies – the few who manage to capture the crime in its horrific details, yet are not exploitive are few and far between – but certainly this one crosses a line.

But that scene is a microcosm of the movie as a whole. The movie wants to be taken at least somewhat seriously – to shock and disturb the audience – but also be a fun comic book movie. Vaughn’s film managed that trick wonderfully well. But without him in the director’s chair, the sequel veers wildly off course.

Movie Review: The Way, Way Back

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Movie Review: The Way, Way Back

The Way Way Back
Directed by: Nat Faxon & Jim Rash.
Written by: Nat Faxon & Jim Rash.
Starring: Steve Carell (Trent), Toni Collette (Pam), Allison Janney (Betty), AnnaSophia Robb (Susanna), Sam Rockwell (Owen), Maya Rudolph (Caitlin), Liam James (Duncan), Rob Corddry (Kip), Amanda Peet (Joan), River Alexander (Peter), Zoe Levin (Steph), Nat Faxon (Roddy), Jim Rash (Lewis).

It doesn’t surprise me that Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s The Way Way Back has already become a hit by current Indie movie standards. It is a likable, funny, warm hearted coming of age story that, while set in the present, certainly feels like it could have taken place at any time. This is an intimate, small scale comedy – no gross out jokes about fecal matter or bodily fluids. It is a relaxed movie that is easy to sink into. It isn’t challenging, and certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to coming of age stories – but it is also a movie almost impossible to dislike.

The film stars newcomer Liam James as Duncan – a shy, sullen 14 year old, still upset at his parents’ divorce – who is stuck spending the summer at the beach house of his mother’s new boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). Trent is a bully – but a subtle one. He doesn’t hit Duncan, or even yell at him, but prefers to quietly humiliate him whenever he can – all under the guise of trying to help Duncan “grow”. Duncan’s mother Pam (Toni Collette) allows all this to happen, not because she doesn’t love Duncan, but because she seems to willfully ignore just what Trent is doing to him. Duncan has no desire to spend the summer at the beach house with Trent, or his “mean girl” daughter Steph (Zoe Levin) – but he doesn’t have much of a say in the matter. Things don’t get much better when they arrive and they meet Trent’s friends – the boozy, inappropriately hilarious Betty (Allison Janney – making far more of her role than the screenplay does) and the seemingly fun loving couple of Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet) – who clearly have issues of their own.

Only two things keep the summer bearable for Duncan – the first is the prospect of young love with Betty’s daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), who is slightly older, beautiful, and although she is friends with Steph, it’s safe to say it’s a friendship based more on proximity rather than shared interested. The other is Water Wizz – a water park that Duncan bikes to one day. The manager – the fun loving, free-wheeling Owen (Sam Rockwell) sees this sad eyed kid, gives him a job, and takes him under his wing. During the course of the summer, although Trent remains an asshole, and Pam remains willfully blind to that fact, Duncan does grow.

The movie is fairly straight forward and predictable – the dueling surrogate father figures, one good, one bad, the slow change in Duncan as he gains confidence and comes out of his shell, the feel good ending. For their directing debut, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash – who won Oscars for co-writing The Descendants with Alexander Payne are also actors, with supporting roles in the movie – have elected to keep things fairly simple. But the film shows the potential of what they could become down the line – the writing has a nice, relaxed feel to it, they don’t try to overdo the direction, and best of all, they get great performances out of their actors.

Young Liam James does an excellent job playing Duncan. He doesn’t change so much during the course of the movie that his progression becomes unbelievable – but he does change enough that is noticeable. It’s a tricky role for an actor, and James is great in it. Carell is very good as asshole Trent – a nice change of pace from his regular “good guy” shtick that had begun to grow a little stale (Carell seems to think so to, because in addition to this movie, and the recent, forgettable The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, where he played a pompous ass, he is playing a schizophrenic in Bennett Miller’s upcoming Foxcather). The best performance in the movie is by Sam Rockwell as Owen. Yes, he’s playing the kind of fast talking, charming, funny role that Rockwell has perfected over the years, but he gives Owen a little more depth than many of his characters – and he’s able to go from funny to sincere in a heartbeat, and make the change seem real. I wish I they had given Toni Collette more to do – but she’s fine as the mother – and the same could be said about Robb as the love interest, or Maya Rudolph as another waterpark employee. I think Faxon and Rash have to work on giving their female characters a little more depth next time out.

Overall, The Way Way Back is a funny, charming feel good, coming of age indie movie. I would have no problem recommending it to any teenager – who has more of chance of seeing themselves in this movie, and perhaps even taking something away from it than it most Hollywood comedies aimed at teenagers. And anyone else who happens to see it will undoubtedly leave the theater happy. It’s not an overly ambitious movie, but it is a nice debut for Faxon and Rash. I look forward to what they do next.

Movie Review: Reality

Friday, August 2, 2013

Movie Review: Reality

Reality
Directed by:  Matteo Garrone.
Written by: Matteo Garrone & Massimo Gaudioso & Ugo Chiti & Maurizio Braucci.
Starring: Aniello Arena (Luciano), Loredana Simioli (Maria), Nando Paone (Michele), Nello Iorio (Massimone), Nunzia Schiano (Aunt Nunzia), Rosaria D'Urso (Aunt Rosaria), Giuseppina Cervizzi (Giusy), Claudia Gerini (TV hostess), Raffaele Ferrante (Enzo).

Matteo Garrone’s Reality is about the fame obsessed culture that we live in today. It looks at an average Joe – Luciano (Aniello Arena), who is happy with his lot in life. He runs a modest fish stand in Naples, loves his wife Maria (Loredana Simioli) and his children, and has a large, bickering extended family he enjoys. At parties, he dresses in drag to amuse the children, and anyone else around. It is a modest life, but he’s happy and fulfilled. That is until he auditions to be on the hit Italian version of Big Brother. We first see that glint of envy in his eye at a wedding, where Enzo (Raffaele Ferrante) shows up as a special guest – he was made a star by the show the previous year, and now his life consists of doing these sorts of appearances, and being whisked away on a private helicopter. His kids convince Luciano to audition for the show himself – and after a successful first one, he is given a callback in Rome – which he feels he has nailed. There is no way they are not going to pick him to be on the show. He is so convinced that he about to become a star, he gives up everything else in his life. And yet, the show never calls.

Most of the movie takes place in between his auditions and when Luciano has finally go completely over the edge into some sort of insanity. He knows he has nailed the audition. That the producers, and the psychologist who interviewed him, got to know the “real” Luciano – meaning the reality TV show version of himself that he starts to think is more real than reality. So when the producers don’t call, Luciano thinks there must be a reason for that. He becomes increasingly paranoid – he thinks that every person he meets must have been sent from the show to see how he really is. He wants them to think he’s outgoing, gregarious and charitable – so he gives a bunch of poor people most of his family’s stuff. And yet, they still don’t call.

The film reminded me of Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1983) – which becomes more prophetic with each passing year. Both films center around a man who he is convinced he is destined for greatness – and even though he is constantly rejected, never quite seems to realize it. When we see some clips from the show Luciano thinks he is supposed to be on, we know right away that there is no mistake that he wasn’t picked. The people on the show are all younger – and more beautiful – and are willing to degrade themselves in every conceivable way to be on TV. Well, so is Luciano, except for the young and beautiful part. He’s never going to be on the show because people don’t want to see someone like him on TV.

Aniello Arena, who plays Luciano, delivers an excellent performance. Currently, Arena is serving time in jail for a double murder – he used to be a Mafia hit man. Garrone saw him in a prison stage production (I’m thinking something like the one shown in the recent Caesar Must Die) and wanted him to play a role in his last film – the Mafia film Gommora – but wasn’t allowed to cast him. Somehow, he was allowed to cast him this time around (although, apparently after filming stopped, he had to go back to jail, where he still has 8 years remaining on his prison sentence). Whether Arena can play any other role when his jail time is up remains to be seen – but he’s just about perfect in Reality. Perhaps have spent two decades behind bars helped him to play Luciano, who is wide eyed and amazed at the world of fame all around him (which may seem even stranger to someone, who in jail, wouldn’t have seen the slow change first hand as the rest of us had). Perhaps, Arena is just a brilliant actor. But whatever the case, his Luciano makes a great Rupert Pupkin.

Garrone’s storytelling remains slightly messy – this was one of the strengths of Gommora, which was unwieldy in its scope as it jumped from one scene to next with amazing speed. But this film remains focused on Luciano, and as a result, the more sudden shifts in tone, the addition of several subplots that are then abandoned, are more of a problem this time around (I am not sure what precisely Garrone is saying about religion in this film for example – but he obviously had something in mind). And yet, when the film focuses Luciano, and his slow descent into madness, it is top notch. Garrone may be saying something about Italian culture in Reality – but really, it’s themes are universal.

Movie Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Friday, June 28, 2013

Movie Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Directed by: Don Scardino.
Written by: Jonathan M. Goldstein & John Francis Daley and Chad Kultgen & Tyler Mitchell.
Starring: Steve Carell (Burt Wonderstone), Steve Buscemi (Anton Marvelton), Olivia Wilde (Jane), Jim Carrey (Steve Gray), James Gandolfini (Doug Munny), Alan Arkin (Rance Holloway), Jay Mohr (Rick the Implausible), Michael Herbig (Lucius Belvedere).

Steve Carell is one of the most likable actors currently working. Even during his stint on The Office, he made Michael Scott into more of a lovable doofus who means well, but doesn’t realize how horrible some of the things he does are – which was fairly far away from Ricky Gervais’ David Brent, who was much more hateable. One of things I have said about Carell in recent films in that he needs to play a bad guy – he’s so good at being nice, that he makes it look too easy, and the routine was starting to wear a little thin. Someone else must have told Carell the same thing because he isn’t a nice guy in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (and if the previews are to believed, not in The Way, Way Back either). In this movie, he plays a pompous ass – a world famous magician who has all the money and women he could possibly want, and really nothing else. His act hasn’t changed in years, and although he still shares the stage with his childhood friend Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi), they have long since stopped speaking to each other off the stage. It isn’t until he is forced to change, that Burt Wonderstone realizes what an ass he’s been.

Carell is fine in the title role, but the movie itself is a rather lazy concoction. Most of the laughs are generated by Jim Carrey as Steve Gray – a magician in the Criss Angel vein. Carrey goes wildly over the top – which is his specialty – doing one ludicrous “trick” after another – like holding his urine for 12 days, or sleeping on a bed of hot coals. He is the new breed of magician – one who doesn’t really do magic the way many remember it – with sleight of hand tricks and illusions, but instead just inflicts pain upon himself and calls it magic. It has been too long since Carrey did this kind of performance – and if there is a reason to see the film, it’s for his crazy brilliance in the role.

It’s the rest of the movie that doesn’t work very well. Like I said, Carell is fine in the lead, but the role is too broadly written. There really doesn’t seem to be much of a character there to play. The same could be said for Carrey’s role to be fair, but the movie doesn’t try and make us care about his character – and also doesn’t try to convince us he’s changed very much. Carell is left on screen trying to make his character believable, and it just doesn’t work.

There are some good moments in the film – including a hilarious news report of Anton’s attempt to bring magic to the poor children of Africa. But if Carell’s role in underwritten, Buscemi’s is barely written at all – he’s just there because they need him there for plot purposes. The same could be said for Olivia Wilde’s role, who starts as an assistant to Burt and Anton, and gradually morphs into a love interest for Burt, simply because she’s there. Alan Arkin and the late, great James Gandolfini show up in smaller supporting roles as an old time magician and a sleazy casino owner respectfully, and have a few nice moments, but are basically wasted.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is hardly a painful movie to sit through – it moves along with quiet, uninspired efficiency (courtesy of veteran TV director Dan Scardino), and when Carrey is on screen, the movie comes alive. But the rest of the movie is little more than mildly diverting – not a horrid way to spend an evening, but not a very good one either. Now if the movie had been called Steve Gray: Brain Rapist, they really may have had something here.

Movie Review: The Bling Ring

Monday, June 24, 2013

Movie Review: The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring
Directed by: Sofia Coppola.
Written by: Sofia Coppola based on the article by Nancy Jo Sales.
Starring: Katie Chang (Rebecca), Israel Broussard (Marc), Emma Watson (Nicki), Claire Julien (Chloe), Taissa Farmiga (Sam), Georgia Rock (Emily), Leslie Mann (Laurie), Carlos Miranda (Rob), Gavin Rossdale (Ricky), Stacy Edwards (Marc's Mom), G. Mac Brown (Henry), Marc Coppola (Mr. Hall - Marc's Dad), Janet Song (Rebecca's Mom), Annie Fitzgerald (Kate from Vanity Fair).

Sofia Coppola is uncommonly gifted at depicting the empty lives of the super-rich. This has led to some critics to say she glamorizes the materialistic lives her characters lead, or worse, ask why they should care about the lives of these empty people in the first place. This probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue if her last name wasn’t Coppola (or she wasn’t a woman – I’ve never heard anyone claim nepotism in the case of Jason Reitman) and it is an easy way to ignore the differences in each of Coppola’s five films. Yes, they are all about rich young women who often see themselves as ciphers – incomplete people who find themselves watching their lives instead of living it. But Coppola doesn’t offer blanket sympathy to all of them (remember Anna Faris’ merciless skewering of Cameron Diaz in Lost in Translation?). The Bling Ring, while not quite at the level of her best films, is once a fascinating little film – effortlessly entertaining and amusing throughout, but one that stays with you for long after the end credits. Shallow, superficial movies don’t do that – but good movies about shallow, superficial people can.

Based on the true story of a group of rich kids in and around Los Angeles who for a year or so in 2011 robbed numerous celebrities of cash, jewels and stuff valued at over $3 million in total (and which, some of the victims at first didn’t even realize was missing), Coppola has crafted a movie for our celebrity obsessed times. I’ve already read comparisons of this film to two other 2013 movies – Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, another movie about out of control young women, and Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, about a group of lunk headed body builders who want their American Dream. The three films are wildly different in all ways except one – the feature characters who want the lifestyle they think they deserve, and are willing to rob, cheat and steal (and in the other two movies, kill) their way into that lifestyle. The strange thing about The Bling Ring, is unlike the girls in Spring Breakers, who have to rob the Chicken Shack just to have enough money to go on Spring Breaker, or the lunkheads in Pain & Gain who work menial, low paying jobs – the characters out of control in The Bling Ring are already wealthy. They live in mansions, they drive fancy cars, they party at the hottest clubs in L.A. – and they haven’t had to do a damn thing to earn any of it – their parents did, and just give them everything. These kids aren’t robbing to live the life they want – it’s about getting the stuff they want, from the people they like. It isn’t enough to have a Chanel bag – you need to have Paris Hilton’s Chanel bag.

 

The main character and sometimes narrator of The Bling Ring is Marc (Israel Broussard), who has to go the “drop out high school” for rich kids, after being thrown out of his old school for not going, and spending a year being home schooled. He talks to the camera – in the guise of an interview for Vanity Fair (the resulting article being the basis of the movie) about how he never thought he “fit in” – didn’t see himself as “attractive” as everyone else –which is absurd, since Broussard has the perfectly tousled hair of many a hipster. His is clearly portrayed as gay, without every saying the actual words, so maybe that had something to do with his feeling “ostracized” – although one would think the safest place for a gay teenager would be in the rich homes of L.A. More likely, like most of the other characters in the movie, he just sees himself as a victim because he’s been babied his whole life – given almost everything he could ever ask for, so not getting that extra little bit feels painful.

When he meets Rebecca (Katie Chang) he finally feels like he “has a best friend” – and is immediately seduced by the life she lives – with her beautiful friends like Nicki (Emma Watson), her live in best friend Sam (Taissa Farmiga), who are homeschooled by their mother (Leslie Mann) in the ways of The Secret – and Chloe (Claire Julien, looking and sounding like a Scarlett Johansson clone). They are all beautiful, sexy young women – and know it – and use that, along with their money, to get whatever they want. But it’s still not enough for Rebecca – who starts small, robbing unlocked cars of their wallets, and then building up to the houses of vacating classmates, and finally to the homes of celebrities. It isn’t hard – the can look on TMZ to find out when the celebrities will be out of town, and none of them ever set their burglar alarms, and often leave a sliding door unlocked (or a key under the mat). Soon, their inside the house of Paris Hilton – which unsurprisingly is a shrine to Paris Hilton – and other celebrities, using their closets as their own. It isn’t just about getting designer clothes and jewels – they already have that – but they want to exact clothes they’ve seen the celebrities wear to different events.

The Bling Ring moves effortlessly throughout its first two acts. Yes, it’s fun to be in the company of these rich, beautiful people who party hard and don’t really do anything else. While I don’t think Coppola glamorizes these empty lives as some have claimed - the most ridiculous being one critic who said Coppola shoots the celebrities houses like an episode of MTV’s Cribs, proving they have never seen an episode of the show – a more apt comparison to the show would be James Franco’s now infamous “Look at all my shit” scene in Spring Breakers. Her characters start off nearly interchangeable, but like the movie itself, they gradually become more defined as the movie goes along. The performances are all spot on – especially Emma Watson’s, who delivers yet another brilliant performance, this time as the most spoiled of all the Bling Ring crew, who sees herself as a victim of everyone, takes no responsibility for her own actions, and talks about all her “humanitarian” works, although she has no idea what they actually are (if you think Watson’s performance is an exaggeration, go back and watch last week’s edition of NBC’s Dateline with the performance who inspired Watson’s character – her performance is dead on).

So what is the point of a movie like The Bling Ring? And why should you care about these people, who live empty, entitled lives, awash in materialism with little to no self-awareness? The answer is you probably shouldn’t care about them – they barely care about themselves. But Coppola sees them with such clarity that it’s impossible to look away from them. If you’re like me, you’re likely to be equally drawn into their world and repulsed by it.