Movie Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Movie Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Directed by: Lorene Scafaria.
Written by: Lorene Scafaria.
Starring: Steve Carell (Dodge), Keira Knightley (Penny), Adam Brody (Owen), Tonita Castro (Elsa), Connie Britton (Diane), Rob Corddry (Warren), Melanie Lynskey (Karen), Patton Oswalt (Roache), William Petersen (Trucker), T.J. Miller (Chipper Host / Darcy), Gillian Jacobs (Waitress / Katie), Bob Stephenson (Officer Wally Johnson), Derek Luke (Speck), Martin Sheen (Frank).

Earlier this year when I reviewed Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth I talked about how end of the world movies have become standard – and they fall into two categories: The Big Bang, where loads of special effects are used to show the earth being destroyed, and the small indie movie, which concentrates on a small group of people dealing with their last days, hours or moments. Both types have become somewhat clichéd. Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed Seeking a Friend for the End of the World so much. It isn’t a great movie by any means, but it is an interesting take on the end of the world – not one full of melancholy and regret, although there is a little of that thrown in – but a rather sweet, unlikely romantic comedy that uses the last three weeks on earth as its backdrop.

Steve Carell, the best everyman in the business, stars as Dodge, a button down, rather dull insurance salesman (whenever the movies need a loser businessman, they are either accountants, or in insurance). The opening scene in the movie has him sitting in his car next to his wife when the news comes over the radio – humanities last hope has failed as the shuttle mission meant to destroy the asteroid set to collide with earth cannot complete their mission. Upon hearing the news, Dodge’s wife, without a word, gets out of the car and runs away – never to be appear again. Dodge doesn’t know what to do with his last few weeks – so he continues to go to work come home and watch TV and essentially walk around in a stupor. That is until he meets his neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley), a younger, more free spirited woman who is also going through a break-up. Eventually, these two will hit the road together – Dodge to find his old, high school sweetheart, which he sees as the love of his life, and Penny because Dodge says he knows someone with a plane – who just may be able to fly Penny back to England so she can spend her last moments with her family. You can probably guess what happens along the way – they meet a series of strange, lovable characters along the way, and slowly, quietly, fall in love.

I have made it clear over the years that I am no fan of romantic comedies – for the most part they are boring, predictable, clichéd and worst of all interchangeable – even my wife, who likes the genre, cannot remember which Katherine Heigl movies she has seen and which she hasn’t, since they are all basically the same. Two characters meet, and spend the vast majority of the movie hating each other, until that one scene where the two characters stare into each other’s eyes and realize that they in fact don’t hate each other, but love each other and then they live happily ever after.  But Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is different than most in a number of ways. Yes, in many ways Dodge and Penny are polar opposites, but they never hate each other – they like each other right away, and that like slowly grows into something more over the course of the movie, which seems far more natural than the forced conflict in most romantic comedies. And for that matter, for much of the movie, we are never quite sure what is developing – is it something more innocent than romantic love, something deeper. Is Penny going to be just another woman who Dodge loves, but doesn’t love him back? These questions remain right up until the horribly clichéd, yet still effective ending. As clichéd as it is, it is not a cop out.

The two lead performances help Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is as good as it is. Carell is pretty much the perfect comedic everyman working right now, and it`s nearly impossible not to immediately like his character in every movie – even when playing the obnoxious Michael Scott on The Office, you cannot help but like the guy. If I were Carell, I would be looking to play a role completely opposite – a slime ball, a villain of some sort, just to do something different. But I guess when you`re so good at one type of role, it`s tempting to continue to play it. As for Knightley, she shows a nice, easy going comic style in this movie that I wasn’t sure she had in her. If Dodge is the character we identify with, then we need to fall in love with Penny right along with her – and we do.

 
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is not a great movie – it takes a rather well-worn path from beginning to end, and although there are a few questions along the way, the movie never really surprises us. But the film also has an easygoing, good natured charm about it. It is not a laugh out loud comedy as much as one built off its characters. I prefer those.

A Word About Star Ratings

A Word About Star Ratings

Starting this week, I’m going to stop putting star ratings on my reviews. I may well go back in a few weeks to using star ratings – I have used them ever since I started reviewing, which goes back years before I started this blog and in fact well before then. When I started the blog, I thought long and hard about whether or not to include them, and decided to stick with it. But ever since then, I’ve gone back and forth about taking them out – hence the experiment I’m starting this week.

The reason why I’ve decided to stop is simple – I don’t see any value in having discussions about star ratings – but I have gotten quite a few e-mails about them. To me, a star rating system, or a letter grade system, or really any grading system, is meant to be a guide, not a substitute for the review. But I get e-mails asking why I gave this film 3 stars instead of 3.5, or why this film got 4 stars, and that film got 3.5, etc. Or, when I do my ridiculously long year end list (top 30) and end up putting some films I have 3.5 stars to over films I gave 4 stars to, and people want an explanation for that. The honest answer to these queries is usually “I have no idea”. The star ratings are by and large a gut reaction coming off of a first viewing of a film. When I do my end of year list, I take every film I gave 3.5 or 4 stars to and then put them in order of my preference at that time. The truth of the matter is quite simple – I very rarely change my opinion on a film, but looking back, I may have changed the rating -  I wouldn’t change a word of what I wrote, but perhaps I would have changed the star rating. So, in doing this, I am attempting to stop talking about star ratings, which I see as pointless and instead focus on the movies themselves.

Movie Review: Damsels in Distress

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Movie Review: Damsels in Distress

Damsels in Distress ** ½
Directed by: Whit Stillman.
Written by: Whit Stillman.
Starring: Greta Gerwig (Violet), Carrie MacLemore (Heather), Megalyn Echikunwoke (Rose), Analeigh Tipton (Lily), Ryan Metcalf (Frank), Jermaine Crawford (Jimbo), Caitlin Fitzgerald (Priss), Zach Woods (Rick DeWolfe), Nick Blaemire (Freak Astaire), Aubrey Plaza (Depressed Debbie), Hugo Becker (Xavier), Meredith Hagner (Alice), Adam Brody (Fred Packenstacker / Charlie Walker), Billy Magnussen (Thor).

Whit Stillman became a cult figure in American Indie cinema in the 1990s, with his trilogy of young, urbanites, caught between school and the workforce and their love lives. Starting with Metropoltian (1990) and continuing with Barcelona (1996) and The Last Days of Disco (1998), all three films were witty, hilarious and insightful comedies – or at least I thought so at the time - it has been years since I have revisited any of those films (he also directed a particularly great episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, which I bring up because I love that show, and find any excuse possible to praise it). Then, for whatever reason, Stillman disappeared from the film scene for 14 years – which seems to have simply advanced his cult status. Now, finally, comes his long awaited fourth film – Damsels in Distress, which revisits much of the same terrain as his earlier films, and has the same absurd dialogue. And yet, to me it was a disappointment. Fourteen years, and this is what we get?

The film takes place at a University, that was one of the last to go from a women’s college to co-ed – and is now crawling with a bunch of idiot boys in Roman Fraternity’s. It concentrates on four women who view themselves as helping others – they volunteer at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, and date guys who are neither good looking or smart as an act of charity so that these lunkheads can improve themselves. Violet (Greta Gerwig) is their leader – supremely confident in herself in everything she says and does. Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) are her followers. And when they see Lily (Analeigh Tipton) at the new student orientation, they draft her to be their fourth. The setup recalls Heather or Mean Girls, except these girls aren’t really mean, although they certainly are elitist, even as they decry elitism (how can the fraternity’s be elitist, they ask aloud, if everyone in them are idiots that desperately need their help?). Lily doesn’t quite fit in with these girls – she wants to date good looking guys, and has two prospects – Xavier (Hugo Becker), a French grad student who shows her Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses, and has a bizarre religion, which requires even more bizarre sexual morals. Then there is Charle (Adam Brody), an older professional, who sees Lily in a bar and sends over drinks – which makes Heather dismiss him as an “player, operator type”, which while Violet agrees he may well be, she does appreciate the gesture. Drinks are, after all, expensive. And if people didn’t make such moves, would the species be able to propagate itself?

I have to admit, I hated the first 20 minutes or so of Damsels in Distress. The dialogue seemed absurd and like it was trying too hard to be funny and clever. The characters seemed one dimensional, and worse, not all that interesting. But after that first 20 minutes, I got on the wavelength of the film, and went along with its absurd comic tone, and at the very least, Damsels in Distress became a pleasant, if meandering little movie. There was at least one scene that had me laughing more than most other recent comedies – when poor, dumb, frat boy Thor admits that he doesn’t know the names of the colors – a bizarre running joke throughout the movie that was always good for a laugh. Another good running gag was all the attempted suicides by the future teachers of America jumping off the Education building – which not being a big building, simply led to a lot of people hurting their ankles.

But while I enjoyed much of the later parts of Damsels in Distress – and Stillman’s ultimate point eventually becomes evident – they film never really won me over. The moments I admired were mainly isolated incidents – a few scenes with dialogue so bizarre I couldn’t help but laugh. One of the problems is the casting, especially Greta Gerwig. I love Gerwig as an actress, who has quickly ascended in her career. But she’s ill-suited for the role of Violet. Gerwig’s strength as an actress is how natural she is – and Violet is all about pretense, and the walls she puts up to protect herself.

The characters all lie about who they are, and put on a mask to the outside world, and even to a certain extent themselves. Eventually, their lies come out in the open, but rather than mock or humiliate these characters, Stillman takes a more sympathetic view of them. They may not have “found” themselves at the end of the movie, but at least they are on their way.

Damsels in Distress marks a welcome return by Stillman, but not a very good one. He still has unique ear for dialogue that he always had, but the movie never really builds any comic momentum. Some jokes work, others do not. I’m glad Stillman is back, and I hope that we see his fifth film before 2026 – I also hope it’s better than this one.

Movie Review: Rock of Ages

Movie Review: Rock of Ages

Rock of Ages **
Directed by: Adam Shankman.
Written by: Justin Theroux and Chris D'Arienzo and Allan Loeb based on the musical by Chris D'Arienzo.
Starring: Julianne Hough (Sherrie Christian), Diego Boneta (Drew Boley), Tom Cruise (Stacee Jaxx), Alec Baldwin (Dennis Dupree), Russell Brand (Lonny), Bryan Cranston (Mike Whitmore), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Patricia Whitmore), Paul Giamatti (Paul Gill), Malin Akerman (Constance Sack), Will Forte (Mitch Miley), Mary J. Blige (Justice Charlier).

By its very nature, a movie like Rock of Ages is going to be cheesy. You can’t make a movie of wall to wall 1980s rock ballads and not make a cheesy movie. The plot of the films is purposefully built on clichés – the small town girl getting off the bus in L.A. with dreams of stardom, the shy, but brilliant young singer who sells out for success, the slime ball rock agent, the scuzzy club beloved by all, the hypocritical mayor and his wife trying to shut the club down for promoting immorality and the aging rock God, drowning in a sea of excess. And yet none of that means that Rock of Ages couldn’t have been a fun guilty pleasure – and there are moments in the film that hint at what fun it could have been. The problem is that the tone of the films and the performances are all over the map.

The two leads in the movie are that small town girl Sherrie (Julianne Hough) and that sensitive, shy rock singer wanting to make it big, Drew (Diego Boneta). Over course they fall in love in a whirlwind romance, and of course they split up due to a misunderstanding, and of course they will eventually get make together after they’ve gone through their separate journeys of humiliation – her as a stripper and him as a member of a boy band. Both are pretty and photogenic and can carry a tune, but neither ever really to connect to their roles. It’s as if everyone thought that simply slapping on some bad ‘80s clothes and have silly haircuts would suffice.

Some of the supporting characters fare better – but not many. Alec Baldwin can be hilarious, but I’m not sure he is even trying here. He sleepwalks through his role as the bar owner. His sidekick, Russell Brand, is at least entertaining, but he is the same here as he is every time you see him. And their “love ballad” epiphany is quite simply an embarrassment for all involved – neither can sing in the least, and perhaps that’s supposed to be the joke, but if it is, it falls flat. Meanwhile, Catherine Zeta-Jones seems like she’s off in her own little movie, as she goes wildly over the top as the moralistic mayor’s wife. It may not have been as bad if others had followed her lead, but she is mostly surrounded by bland, boring characters (including Bryan Cranston, completely wasted as her husband), so she ends up sticking out like a sore thumb. Paul Giamatti does nothing to breathe life into the most clichéd character in a film full of them. The only problem I had with Mary J. Blige’s supporting role is that she is the one person in the movie who is actually a great singer – so while many of the actors in the movie are fine singers, they sound out of place next to such a strong voice.

Far and away, the best performance in the movie is by Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, the aging rock God who has alienated everyone around him. You need a star of his magnitude to play the role, and be willing to poke fun of themselves in the process and Cruise is game. He’s even a pretty good singer, but it is his stage presence that makes his performances work. He elevates his scenes – and drags the pretty Malin Akerman along with him, who is actually quite good, in a role that is badly underwritten.

Rock of Ages is not a painful film to sit through – unlike Mamma Mia, which, it must be said, at least fully embraced its cheesiness and got the entire cast to buy in, which didn’t make it any less horrible for me but does show what Rock of Ages needed to do to be successful. Perhaps I just hated Mama Mia because I hate Abba, while I can at least appreciate the rock songs of the `80s that make up the majority of Rock of Ages running time. Yet, Rock of Ages, directed by Adam Shankman, is a complete mess. Shankman may not be the best filmmaker, but given his last musical was Hairspray, which was enjoyable fluff from beginning to end, Rock of Ages has to be considered a disappointment. Even the scenes I did enjoy, I did against my better judgment. We get so few musicals these days, we deserve a hell of a lot better than Rock of Ages.

Movie Review: That's My Boy

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Movie Review: That's My Boy

That`s My Boy * Directed by: Sean Anders.
Written by: David Caspe.
Starring: Adam Sandler (Donny), Andy Samberg (Todd), Leighton Meester (Jamie), Vanilla Ice (Himself), James Caan (Father McNally), Milo Ventimiglia (Chad), Blake Clark (Gerald), Meagen Fay (Helen), Tony Orlando (Steve Spirou), Will Forte (Phil), Rachel Dratch (Phil's Wife), Nick Swardson (Kenny), Peggy Stewart (Grandma Delores), Luenell (Champale), Ciara (Brie), Ana Gasteyer (Mrs. Ravensdale), Eva Amurri Martino (Mary McGarricle), Justin Weaver (Young Donny), Susan Sarandon (Mary McGarricle), Todd Bridges (Himself), Dan Patrick (Randall Morgan), Rex Ryan (Jim Nance).

Watching That’s My Boy was a depressing experience for me. It wasn’t that it was yet another painfully unfunny Adam Sandler comedy – I’ve gotten used to not really liking Sandler’s films in the 17 years since his first starring role – in the horrible Billy Madison. Sandler can be a very good actor when he teams up with more established filmmakers. He deserved an Oscar nomination for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love (2002), which brilliantly deconstructed Sandler’s onscreen persona. H was also pretty good in James L. Brooks’ Spanglish (2004), excellent in Mike Binder’s underrated Reign Over Me (2007) and very good in Judd Apatow’s Funny People (2009). But for whatever reason, he doesn’t seem interested in doing those types of roles very often – perhaps it’s because none of those films were very popular with audiences and aside from Punch Drunk Love, to call the critical reaction to those other films mixed may well be kind. Sure, there are other decent films on his resume – Anger Management (2003), The Longest Yard (2005), and moments of Happy Gilmore (1996) and The Wedding Singer (1998). But for the most part I have to say I have found most of Sandler’s films bad at best, and insufferable at worst. For the most, I’ve decided to skip them – missing such recent “gems” as Bedtime Stories, Just Go With It and Jack & Jill. And yet, something about That’s My Boy – or more specifically some of the reviews I skimmed yesterday, even the bad ones – made me think that I had to give That’s My Boy a chance, which I wasn’t planning on doing. I should have trusted my gut because That’s My Boy is a horrible movie – almost completely devoid of humor from start to finish. But the reason I found this film much more depressing than dreck like Big Daddy, Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds, Eight Crazy Nights or You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is that the basic setup for That’s My Boy is ingenious in some ways. In fact, I can imagine a filmmaker like Todd Solondz turning this same material – even keeping the same cast and major plot points – into a dark, comedic masterpiece – one that takes the moral questions the movie raises only to mock seriously.

That’s My Boy opens in 1984, where young Donny Berger is a typical 13 year old boy in that he thinks about nothing except sex all day every day. He has a crush on his hot teacher, Miss McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino) – and is shocked and delighted when she responds in kind. When they two are caught having sex in front of the whole school, Donny becomes a celebrity and Miss McGarricle ends up in prison for 30 years – leaving behind a son for Donny to raise. Flash forward 30 years, and Donny (Sandler) is now a washed up has been, famous only for screwing his teacher, and now deep in debt. He’s also an alcoholic and a complete and total asshole. He needs to come up with $43,000 over the weekend, or go to jail for tax evasion for 3 years. His only hope is his son – who he named Han Solo Berger, because it’s the “coolest name ever”, who is now a rich hedge fund manager. The problem is, he left home when he was 18, and hasn’t spoken to Donny since – telling everyone his parents died in an explosion. He even changed his name – the much more boring Todd Peterson (Andy Sandberg), and this weekend happens to be his wedding – where he’ll marry Jamie (Leighton Meester), who may just be a gold digger. So obviously, Donny decides to crash the party.

Whether intentionally or not, That’s My Boy raises some interesting moral questions. It exploits, with full knowledge, the double standard that society has for teenage boys having sex with their teachers compared to teenage girls who do the same thing. If a male teacher has sex with his young student, he is rightfully called a pervert and a rapist, but when a female teacher does the same thing, we snicker and turn them into celebrities and tabloid fodder. But Donny is a victim – he was in fact raped – and to a certain extent, That’s My Boy addresses the trauma by turning Donny into a true mess – a broken down drunk, who has never progressed in maturity past the age of 13. Yet it seems the movie thinks this has more to do with Donny being a has been – a child “star” who everyone forgot than what he went through. The movie even calls what happened between them “love”. During the course of the movie, they are other sexual misadventures, including incest that the movie plays for laughs, and never takes seriously. Now a filmmaker like the aforementioned Todd Solondz could turn this into an intricate moral puzzle – one where he makes everyone into real characters, and you don’t know what is right and what is wrong.

Todd Solondz\s latest film, Dark Horse, has been admired by many, but not by me. To me, it was a failed attempt to poke holes in the “man child” movies recently popularized by Judd Apatow, where an immature man, who is far too old to be acting like a teenager, but is anyway, just needs to the love of a good woman to make him grow up. The one thing Solondz gets right is that people are if you’re a 30 year old jerk, nothing is going to change that. And in a way, that is what That’s My Boy is saying as well. Yes, Donny and Todd will eventually make up and become close again (did you honestly expect something different?), but it isn’t Donny who learns a lesson – he’s the same asshole at the end of the film that he was at the beginning. Instead, it is Todd who needs to learn to loosen up – to stop trying to be a success and be “normal”, but to let go and become more like Donny. Again, if the movie addressed who screwed up that really is, it could have been interesting – but instead it makes it all seem like a happy ending instead.

I know some will think that perhaps I am taking this movie too seriously – that it was made just to be a stupid, profane comedy – a two hour time waster for people who, unlike me, find Sandler’s comic persona amusing, or who likes to hear him do funny voices. Hell, if you like this sort of thing, you may well like That’s My Boy – Sandler does precisely what you expect him to be. And Samberg is well suited to play Sandler’s son, although making him such a button down square doesn’t allow him to go off the wall crazy, which is when he is at his best. The best performance in the movie may well be by Milo Ventimiglia as Meester’s gung ho, Marine brother, who really does go for broke – and was involved in, I think, all the moments in the movie that made me smile (I don’t think I ever laughed). Perhaps I am taking the movie too seriously – or at least more seriously than the filmmakers intended it to be. And yet, I cannot help it. The movie wades into murky moral terrain, which is fine, but since the film doesn’t take the questions it brings up seriously I could never really get over it. You could make a great movie out of this material – even a great dark, hilarious comedy out of it – but you need to take the questions it brings up with respect, and not just the as the fodder to hang tired jokes off of. I’m not offended by the questions the movie raises or that they try to make it into a comedy – I’m offended that the movie doesn’t have anything to say about the questions it raises.

Movie Review: Cosmopolis

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Movie Review: Cosmopolis

Cosmopolis *** ½ 
Directed by: David Cronenberg.
Written by: David Cronenberg based on the novel by Don DeLillo.
Starring: Robert Pattinson (Eric Packer), Paul Giamatti (Benno Levin), Sarah Gadon (Elise Shifrin), Juliette Binoche (Didi Fancher), Samantha Morton (Vija Kinsky), Mathieu Amalric (Andre Petrescu), Jay Baruchel (Shiner), Kevin Durand (Torval), Maria Juan Garcias (Nina Brooks), Emily Hampshire (Jane Melman), Zeljko Kecojevic (Danko), Patricia McKenzie (Kendra Hays), Philip Nozuka (Michael Chin), George Touliatos (Anthony).

I can pretty much guarantee that most audiences are going to hate David Cronenberg`s Cosmopolis. It is a film that many will call pretentious, meaningless, stilted and complain that nothing happens. That was perhaps inevitable, since the Dom DeLillo book that Cronenberg has adapted – and pretty much left entirely intact (he makes but two significant cuts) was greeted much the same way when it was released back in 2003. And yet, I loved the novel when I read it last year, and Cronenberg`s film captures the strange, surreal tone of the novel just about perfectly. As well, DeLillo`s novel was released too early – it is a about a Wall Street wonderkid`s spectacular fall, but it was released when everything seemed to going well on the stock market. But now, in the wake of the 2008 Financial Meltdown, whose effects America is still suffering through, it seems eerily plausible. The film has more in common with Mary Harron`s American Psycho, than Margin Call.

The film stars Robert Pattinson as Eric Parker, who has made billions betting on tech stocks in the previous few years – and has now moved on to currency speculation. Everything he sees, all of his models and graphs, show that the yen is going to experience a huge drop, so he has bet everything that it will happen. And yet, inexplicably, the yen keeps going up and up and up. Over the course of the day, he will effectively lose his entire fortune – and yet, he feels oddly liberated by this. As he is destroying himself financially, he`s also destroying himself in nearly every other way as well.

Nearly the entire film is spent inside of Parker`s fancy limo. He is surrounded by screens, keeping him connected to everything that is going on in the outside world – while isolating himself completely from it. He wants to go across town to get a haircut – but is delayed by a Presidential Procession, the funeral of a famous rapper, and an anti-capitalist protest, effectively keeping him inside the limo from morning until night, only reaching his destination late. Through the course of the film, he keeps having meetings inside the limo – with his internet security expert (Jay Baruchel), a younger wonderkid at his company (Philip Nozuka), his older lover (Juliette Binoche), his expert on theory (Samantha Morton), another financial expert (Emily Hampshire) – even his doctor, who gets into his limo to give him his daily checkup, complete with a prostate exam (it`s asymmetrical).  He also meets two assassins – one who works in pastry (Mathieu Amalric), and a former employee who thinks killing Packer may just give meaning to his life (Paul Giamatti). The only two characters who show up repeatedly is Packer`s ever cautious security adviser (Kevin Durand), and his icily cold, trust fund baby wife Elise (Sarah Gadon), who he has been married to for only a few weeks. Every time it`s time for a meal, he seems to find her, and the two talk about their marriage that seems to be more for convenience than anything else- there is certainly no love between them, and she won`t have sex with him, because it affects her `creative energy (she`s a `poet`) – although it doesn’t seem to affect how much sex Parker is having. But as one conversation stretches into another, she becomes perhaps the most human character in the movie – she does not have the ability `not to care`, which is pretty much the exact opposite problem than her husband has.

I mentioned American Psycho at the top of this review, and thematically the two films are linked. Harron`s film takes it capitalist psychopath literally – so that Patrick Bateman is also a serial killer on top of the psychopathology he displays in the business world. And yet, the two films are extremely different in terms of style. Harron`s film is manic and bloody in the extreme, whereas Cronenberg`s film is icy and distant – the dialogue in many ways alienates the viewer – it sounds like written dialogue, and not natural speech. And yet, I think that`s precisely the point. As Parker, Pattinson is quite good. I still have no idea if he is actually a good actor or not, but in this film he has a great screen presence – his flat, emotionless delivery on his lines works perfectly for his character who is drowning in his own apathy. There is nothing that he cares about, and he is going about systematically destroying himself and everything he has created.

 
Cosmopolis will alienate and infuriate most viewers. Like the limo itself, the film moves at a snail’s pace. Yet, like his masterpiece Crash (another of his films that takes place largely in and around cars), the cold exterior of Cosmopolis is meant, in many ways, to distance the audience from its characters. The effect is eerie and creepy – we view them almost like subjects in some bizarre social experiment gone wrong. You may well hate Cosmopolis – but if you`re like me, you won`t be able to get it out of your head.

Movie Review: Moonrise Kingdom

Movie Review: Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom ****
Directed by: Wes Anderson.
Written by: Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola.
Starring: Edward Norton (Scout Master Ward), Bruce Willis (Captain Sharp), Bill Murray (Walt Bishop), Kara Hayward (Suzy), Tilda Swinton (Social Services), Jason Schwartzman (Cousin Ben), Frances McDormand (Laura Bishop), Harvey Keitel (Commander Pierce), Jared Gilman (Sam), Bob Balaban (Narrator), L.J. Foley (Izod), Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (Roosevelt), Jake Ryan (Lionel), Charlie Kilgore (Lazy Eye), Neal Huff (Jed), Gabriel Rush (Skotak), Lucas Hedges (Redford), Chandler Frantz (Gadge), Tommy Nelson (Nickleby).

Because Wes Anderson’s films are so meticulously constructed – with every detail of the art direction, costume design, cinematography and even the performances seemingly so precise and obsessed over by Anderson, there is a temptation to dismiss his films as navel gazing. But underneath the outward the precise surface of his films, there lies real stories, real characters and real emotions. His movies are about dysfunctional families – parents who cannot connect with their children, and the children who become messed up adults as a result. Even when he made an animated film – the great Fantastic Mr. Fox – his animated characters went through those same feelings. In his latest, Moonrise Kingdom, the kids and still kids – and anxious to grow up at that, but looking at the adults, you just want to tell them to slow down a little.

The movie centers on two young teenagers, trapped in worlds that seem to be entirely self-contained. There is Suzy (Kara Hayward), who lives with her lawyer parents Mr. and Mrs. Bishop (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and three younger brothers, in one of those big houses that exist in Anderson’s films (think the Tenenbaum house). She has no friends, and knows her parents think her troubled – especially since she finds a pamphlet entitled “Dealing with the Troubled Child”. Then there is Sam (Jared Gilman), an orphan who doesn’t fit into his foster family, and also doesn’t fit in in his Khaki Scout troop. Her house, and his scout troop, are both on Penzance Island, off the coast of New England, near the end of the summer of 1965. We see how they met the previous summer, and how they planned their escape from their isolated worlds in the past year by being pen pals. They meet up in a field – him with a load of camping supplies, her with her beloved binoculars, books and kitten – and head off on an adventure across the island. Meanwhile, the adults – the dysfunctional Bishops, the Police Captain (Bruce Willis), who may be having an affair with Mrs. Bishop and Khaki Scout leader Ward (Edward Norton) go into a tizzy trying to find them.

From the opening scenes of the film, you know you are watching a Wes Anderson film. From the pans across the house the Bishops share – kids in one part of the house, adults in another, separated so much they might as well exist in different worlds – to the record deconstructing an orchestra, to the first view of camp Ivanhoe, as the camera tracks Edward Norton in profile going through his daily inspection, the precise art direction, the strange color palette, to the details which stretch reality, and the deadpan narrator, we know we are in Anderson’s storybook world. This is a childhood adventure story, and a real love story – Suzy and Sam may be young, and playing out an adventure fantasy, but they really are in love – at that they are not playing. Their journey has elements of the French New Wave – I was reminded of Jean Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (which, not coincidentally, came out in 1965, the year this movie is set. Suzy is made up to look, and act like  Anna Karina in Godard’s film – stylish, yet aloof. The two disappear into their own fantasy land – listen to a French singer on their record player, and act as if they are the only ones in the world.

The film contains Anderson’s trademark deadpan comedy – played to perfection by its cast. We know Bill Murray is up for it – and he delivers another wonderful performance as Mr. Bishop. But he is matched by Frances McDormand as his wife, and Bruce Willis as the third part of the love triangle. Best of all is Edward Norton as the Khaki Scout leader  - he’s good at his job, although as one thing after another happens, he looks worse and worse, and Norton becomes more befuddled. It is a welcome reminder of just what a gifted comedic actor the usually intense Norton can be in the right role.

 
Moonrise Kingdom is a wonderful film – expertly crafted by Anderson, but with a mixture of tone from comedic to melancholy that Anderson handles just right. It has the sweetness and innocence of a children’s fantasy, and yet the realism that the world of adults is a whole lot messier and confusing than it all seems as children. This is one of the best films of the year.