As I began to prepare writing this review, I noticed something rather shocking: not only had it been almost three weeks since I had been inside a movie theater, I hadn't even watched anything on DVD. Seriously, that's quite a stretch for me. Of course, the fact I had to deal with finals and then take a drive out to Atlanta had something to do with my lack of movie going. Another important factor, however, is that it's Spring and this is the season of mediocrity -- come on, do you think Paul Blart's Mall Cop was number one at the box office because it was such a quality film? Spring is when the studios shake out their "well, I'm sure there's some idiot who wants to see this" movies. Summertime is the big blockbuster and the fall and winter are the "prestige" films -- the ones that are hoping to get some major award. Spring is just blech.
Duplicity, while most definitely not "blech," isn't too far off. The film is serviceable light comedy. I've heard other critics rave about the crazy twists in the movie. I'm dumbfounded by this just as I'm dumbfounded by people who tell me that movies like Syriana is too confusing and difficult to follow. I understand that a film like Syriana is a little more complicated than the average film but it's not Dostoevsky. If you pay attention to what's going on, it's not that hard to unravel. LIkewise, while Duplicity isn't necessarily predictable, there's nothing in the film that made me go, "whoah ... didn't see that coming."
I think the best thing I can say about Duplicity is that it's clever -- but clever much like that one kid in class who knows all the answers and won't shut up about it (hmmm, I think that may have been me back in the day). In other words, the film is clever but it's not brilliant. It's clever and it takes too much pleasure in its own cleverness: oh look at me, aren't I all interesting and whatnot.
Of course, the ladies -- the J included -- can always sit through anything with Clive Owen. I think I'm the same way with Natalie Portman ... there's a lot of crap I'm willing to sit through (oh, like perhaps the last three Star Wars films) if there's Natalie Portman somewhere on the screen. Like I said, I think this is fine popcorn fair. It's a lazy Spring movie that will soon be forgotten.
Oh so very long ago, I rushed through my backlog of film reviews so I could put up my review of Watchmen in a timely manner. I was quite excited for this -- one of those, "oh my god, I can't believe it's actually happening" moments. For people (meaning geeky guys) of a certain age (meaning middle-aged), the publication of Watchmen was one of those great watershed moments. I'm not sure what I could compare it with to let kids understand just how big of a deal this was. The closest I can figure is if twenty years from now, they decided to make a movie version of Lost. Of course, I'm assuming that kids watch Lost. How about if they canceled Family Guy and then made a movie version twenty years later? Would that work?
Regardless, suffice it to say that I was all geeked out and perhaps it was my high level of enthusiasm that led to such painful disappointment. The Mini-Ster and the J (this was a big-time, get together featuring the entire cast of characters and then some), both of whom were unfamiliar with the comic book, thought the movie perfectly adequate. Amigo #1, however, was just as disappointed as myself and, not coincidentally, he's also a fan of the original comic book.
Part of the problem -- maybe the biggest problem -- is that the film is too faithful to its source material. It doesn't fully take into consideration that different genres require vastly different narrative techniques. The Watchmen comic books were serialized -- that is, it's not a single graphic novel but a series of comic books published monthly (as most comic books are). There's an inherently episodic element to the way the narrative unfolds. By following this too closely, Zack Snyder's film adaptation lacks any sense of flow and coherence.
The other problem -- and this one to me is huge -- is that there are certain conventions that just can't be translated. The whole thing that made Watchmen special was that it tried to picture "normal" people as superheroes. While these guys could certainly fight well, they were still just people. During a key fight scene in the film, however, these guys seemed to have super powers akin to what you would see in The Matrix.
I'm sure I could sit here and nitpick at the 300 reasons why this film sucked (yeah, that's right, I said 300) ... and somewhere on the top ten would be the very simple fact that Malin Akerman cannot act to save her life. She's pathetically bad and only helps make a difficult to stomach film even more annoying and painful. But, like I said, I'm not going to nitpick. Perhaps a few years from now, I'll rent this on DVD and I'll have a change of heart but I highly doubt it.
While I think it's certainly a mistake to say that Woody Allen is back to form, I think it is safe to say that he's finally stopped sucking. Allen's career is fascinating in that it can readily be reduced to ten-year phases. His first film, What's New Pussycast, came out in 1965 and for about the next ten years, he did light, slapstick type of comedy very much in the vein of the Marx brothers. Granted, these were definitely "smart" comedies but had Allen stopped making films after 1973's Sleeper, he would have been a very small footnote in the history of cinema. With 1975's Love and Death, Allen's comedy becomes a bit more cerebral and in 1977 he finally hit it on the head with Annie Hall. This second-phase -- from about 1975-1985 -- is where Woody Allen becomes Woody Allen. The nebbish personality, the neuroses, the use of Judaism as comic fodder ... these all became signature Woody Allen.
In 1986, Woody Allen puts out what I think is his best film, Hannah and Her Sisters. While still a comedy, there's a certain seriousness and gravitas only hinted at in earlier films like Manhattan. With the exception of 1987's Radio Days, this next phase -- from 1986 to 1995 -- reflects a maturer Allen. I mean this both in the sense that the content gets more serious and the subject matter gets increasingly geriatric. Allen is essentially playing himself and as he ages so do his characters. The films, however, become increasingly less interesting and by 1995, he throws out as one last gasp in the form if Mighty Aphrodite. While not a terrible film, Woody Allen shows himself not only to be weakening in ideas but to be woefully out of touch. For the next ten years, Allen begins his suckfest. The fact this happened to coincide with his pedophile scandal may just be coincidence ... I'm not going to get into that. I'll just say that there are a lot of hours in my life I wish I could get back after having lost them to watching crap like Everybody Says I Love You.
Thankfully, in 2005, Allen got the hell out of New York and began making good films again. First, he came out with Match Point and the followed it up with two more London-based films, Scoop and Cassandra's Dreams. In 2008, Allen went to Spain and created what might be one of his best films in a very long time. Not best films of all time because Vicky Christy Barcelona does not even come close to matching Annie Hall, Manhattan, or Hannah and Her Sisters but it does show a renewed Allen. While his focus on the ultra-waspy lifestyle of the upper east side (transplanted to Spain) still annoys me (really, what is it with Jews raised in New York in the 1950s and their fascination with WASPs?), VCB was filled with some very dynamic performances. Most notably, of course, was Penelope Cruz. I've always contended that she's a brilliant actress when allowed to act in her native Spanish. When acting in English, she's stiff but if you've ever seen Abras Los Ojos or Volver, you know what Ms. Cruz is capable of. If for nothing else, I have to thank Allen for reintroducing Cruz to an American audience. Oh ... and Scarlet Johansen wasn't her normally annoying self.
Ok, everything you may have possibly heard about Viola Davis' performance is absolutely true. She's only in the film for about fifteen minutes but it's one of the most powerful fifteen minutes you're going to run across in any film. The fact most people have never heard of her or recognize her at all is testament to the problems of race and gender that still run throughout Hollywood. Viola Davis has an incredibly long filmography but it's been mostly as bit players (although it appears that Soderbergh uses her regularly). But, just as there are few really good roles in mainstream films for women there are also few good dramatic roles for African Americans. Bring those two together in the form of an African American woman and you're lucky if you get a challenging part in something other than a film adaptation of a Terry MacMillan novel.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep are as good as you might expect and Amy Adams proves herself surprisingly adequate. I like Amy Adams but I had grave doubts that she could ever play something other than the perky, naive waif. Hmmm, now that I think about it, that's exactly what she was in this movie: the perky, naive nun.
I think the most notable aspect of this film is how well it works despite the fact it's adapted from a play. So often, great plays don't translate well into cinema ... especially when the playwright is involved (although Tennessee Williams' plays seem to work well). For example, as much as I love Glengary/Glenross, you don't ever forget that you're watching a film. There's a certain pacing -- both the action and the dialogue -- that's unique to theater and completely foreign to cinema. The fact Mamet's play works as a film is a testament to how powerful the words themselves are. Doubt, on the other hand, works quite well as a film. I'm curious to see what the original play must have been like as I would assume it's dramatically different
J and I drove out to the Eastside in order to take J's nephew (which, I guess by dint of marriage makes him my nephew as well) out for lunch and a movie. While the basic conceit of Coraline was interesting, I was a bit hesitant about watching the film because I really did not care for Nightmare Before Christmas and I've been finding Tim Burton's one note to be rather tiring (and, yes, I realize he didn't actually direct or write the film but he's still connected to it and sometimes that's just enough).
Nonetheless, it's what Big A. wanted to see and so that's what we saw ... in 3-D of course.
After having been inundated with high-tech CGI, it was really nice to get back to some old-school stop-action animation. I guess it's similar to the whole digital vs. analog debate. While digital might be the more advanced technology, you still can't replicate the warmth of good, old-fashioned analog. Listen to an album on CD and listen to it on vinyl ... there's really no contest. Well, I'm not going so far as to suggest that CGI isn't worthwhile or that it can't have warmth but, up to this point, no amount of CGI can create that sense of realness that stop-action can. Look at an old episode of Wallace and Gromit and then watch Flushed Away.
Getting back to Coraline, the first 90% of the film was fantastic (and the 3-D effect, after a few minutes, began to feel very natural). The problem was that it tried to wrap up the story far too quickly. The film began as a very interesting psychological narrative that looked melded childhood fantasy and nightmare into a single vision but once we hit the third act, Coraline spiraled into a third-rate action film whose denoument did not do justice to the rest of the film.
Last night, I put up two postings and I'm going to try to do another three or four today. I have a backlog of films that I'm trying to clear off the docket. Hopefully, I can do this in time to put my musings about Watchmen next week.
Anyways, so J. and I went to my favorite theater, The Majestic Bay in Ballard. It's a family-owned theater (the only one in Seattle). More importantly, though, they have comfortable seats, freshly popped corn (I hate that popcorn that comes shipped in bags), real butter, and NO COMMERCIALS. It's so nice to avoid those really annoying commercials especially the ones for the National Guard. I have nothing against the military but I do have everything against mediocre testosterone rock used to create propaganda. I probably don't get out there as often as I'd like. Part of the problem is location -- J and I like to avoid using the car on the weekend and it's much easier to bus it downtown. The other issue is simply film selection. They just don't seem to play many of the films that I'd like to see. I'm always thankful, though, whenever I do have a reason to head out to Majestic Bay.
Much like The Visitor, J and I felt no great compelling reason to see Frost/Nixon. The only reason we bothered was because we wanted to see it before the Oscars. While I wouldn't call it disappointing, I certainly didn't feel that the film was particularly remarkable. I think sometimes the Academy confuses gravitas with quality. In other words, they overlook a film like The Dark Knight, which despite the fact it's a comic book-based story is still an example of masterly film making, and instead give credit to films like Frost/Nixon and The Reader because they tackle "serious" issues.
It would be incredibly stupid to measure the quality of a film based on popularity. Every quarter I ask my students what their favorite films are and when students name recent films, I'm often left wondering if they would say the same thing two or three years from now. Sometimes students ask why I show "old" films (meaning anything that's more than five years). I then point out that many of the films they may be so enamored with today, the ones showing in the cineplex, will soon be forgotten. I ask them how many films they saw four or five years ago they would really want to see again today?
With this said, I think it's equally stupid to ignore a film because it's too popular and after seeing Frost/Nixon, I'm even more convinced that a mistake had been made. There are so many films far better than this (including The Dark Knight) that came out in 2008. It's not that this is a bad film, it's just not a particularly interesting or innovative film. The only aspect of Frost/Nixon that I felt even remotely compelling was the structure. Released about fifteen years ago, Leon Gast's When We Were Kings documents the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" between Ali and George Foreman (long before he became the lovable pitchman for an electric grill). If you've seen Frost/Nixon or plan to see it, I recommend that you take a look at When We Were Kings. The structural parallels are amazing. There's no way this could have been coincidence -- Ron Howard must have been thinking about Gast and the way he put together this retelling. Both films center around a "duel" -- in one case a verbal match and the other a boxing match. There is great emphasis placed on how the event came to be set-up and then the training process leading up to this great match. Just as Frost was seen as a lightweight, Ali too was thought to have been outmatched by Foreman. At first, it seems that Frost is getting pummeled but makes a surprising comeback. Ali also is getting destroyed but it turns out he was playing the rope-a-dope. Interspersed throughout this narrative stream are interviews (or fake interviews) of people who were there reflecting on what they saw happen. Oh, and if the parallel isn't obvious, there's a scene in which Nixon actually throws a playful jab to Frost's mid-section.
By the way, if you've noticed how little time I've spent to actually discussing Frost/Nixon itself ... well, let that be your clue as to what I really feel about the film.
I really feel sorry for Toby Jones. Heck, after seeing Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) and Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) get their 15 minutes in the spotlight this Oscar season, I feel doubly bad for Toby Jones. Like Langella and Jenkins, Jones has an extensive filmography but almost all his previous roles are small character roles. In fact, Jones has a small part in Frost/Nixon. He also played Karl Rove in Oliver Stone's W.
Well, 2006 should have been Jones' year to shine in the spotlight. Jones' portrayal of Truman Capote was not only spot on but he was able to generate a great amount of sympathy in a character whose personality is anything but sympathetic. Yes, this should have been the film to launch Jones into that upper tier of film actors but it didn't. What happened? Well, 2005 happened. More specifically, in 2005 Philip Seymour Hoffman played Truman Capote in what was essentialy the same film. For whatever dumb reason, two studios chose to greenlight biopics of Capote and, even more specifically, biopics that focused on the time in his life in which Capote was working on In Cold Blood.
Everything about Jone's version was far superior to Hoffman's. Don't get me wrong, I really like Hoffman quite a bit (his little role as the villain in Mission Impossible 3 was fantastic) but in watching him play Capote, you never forgot that it was Hoffman playing Capote. Jones, on the other hand, not only channels Capote to a frightening degree of verisimilitude but goes one step further by exposing a part of Capote's personality far removed from the grandiose public persona by which most people knew him.
Even the supporting cast is better in Infamous. While Katherine Keneer may be considered the more serious and talented actress, Sandra Bullock was remarkably impressive in the same role of Harper Lee (the author of To Kill a Mockingbird).
Knowing how much Infamous was overshadowed by Capote, I'm reminded of Larry Doby. What you've never heard of Larry Doby? Well, that's probably because he was the second black player to play in the Major Leagues. In many ways, what Doby had to go through was far more impressive than what Robinson experienced but no one ever thinks about what comes second.
For some reason, the movie selection at Pacific Place has really sucked this last month or so and I've found myself having to return to the Regal Meridian far more than I would like. With the exception of the Guild 45th, the Regal Meridian is perhaps my least favorite theater in Seattle. If you're seeing one of the big blockbuster titles or a new release then it's not too bad since you'll find yourself in one of the larger theaters. However, if it's an indie film or an older release then you end up in a tiny theater that seats perhaps 70 people with a screen so small you wonder why you just didn't stay home and watch a DVD.
Of course, none of this really has anything to do with Aronofsky's The Wrestler but I had to get my disdain for the Regal off my chest.
If you even have a passing interest in film, you'll have heard all the superlatives about Mickey Rourke's fabulous comeback performance. The story has been so oft-repeated I won't even bother going over it here except to say that I think people often forget that the first real return of Mickey Rourke happened over a decade ago. Rourke had a small but significant cameo role in Coppolla's The Rainmaker (starring a pre-Goodwill Hunting Matt Damon and a post-My So Called Life Claire Danes). In other words, while The Wrestler may be the apex of Rourke's comeback, it was a long-time coming and should have surprised no one.
Looking beyond the Rourke hype, however, the two aspects of this film that I found most gripping were Marisa Tomei's performance as well as the simple fact this was a Darren Aronofsky film. Ten years ago, Aronofsky made a name for himself with Pi. A couple of years later he did Requiem for a Dream and then The Fountain. All three of these films exhibit a surreal vision brought to the screen through what might be best described as kinetic style. The Wrestler, in stark contrast, is neither surreal nor kinetic. The film is so radically different than his previous efforts that one really has to question whether or not Aronofsky really made The Wrestler. This shift in style makes me really curious as to what his next project will be like ... oh, and the fact his next project is a remake of Robocop (slated for a 2010 release) doesn't hinder those expectations from growing.
The other remarkable aspect of the film was Marisa Tomei's performance. Not to sound too crass but I found Tomei's willingness to get naked -- to sacrifice her body -- to be laudable. It would have been so much easier for Tomei to use body double or to do a really toned down version of stripping. We're so used to this sort of cinematic modesty that no one would have blinked an eye. But, her willingess to put herself there physically really made a difference in how much we felt for her emotionally. There's such a vulnerability to the character that only gets across when we see her literally throw her body around.
I think for young viewers who don't remember Rourke or for those who just never cared much for him at all, the hype over his performance might seems a bit misplaced. I think that twenty years from now, if people are still watching The Wrestler, it will be Marisa Tomei's performance that people will be talking about.
I suggested to some friends that perhaps we should all go see a movie. The Mini-Ster readily agreed but with the caveat: "I want to see something that requires no thinking." He then suggested that we should see Taken. I thought the movie was interesting enough: Liam Neeson as an action star was an interesting decision and, of course, Luc Besson can usually be counted on for interesting and highly stylized action sequences. An odd pairing, for sure, but so is peanut butter and ramen noodles ... don't knock it til you try it.
Well, after recruiting a few other people (Grumpy Old Guy as well as Dos Amigos), we all headed out for what we hoped would be 90 minutes of carnage. What did we get? Well, let's put it this way: the moment the film ended, The Mini-Ster turned to us and profusely apologized for having suggested we see Taken.
While it's certainly true that I wouldn't have chosen the film myself and I probably would have waited until it came out on DVD, I don't think it's terrible. Traditional narrative films always have three acts: the first establishes the premise, the second resolves the central conflict, and the third is the denoument. The problem with Taken is that the first and third acts are horrible. In most action films, the first and third acts are horrible but in the case of Taken, it was downright putrid. Much like hard-core porn, no one goes to see an action film for the plot. The story is simply an excuse to tie together a series of explosions. Sometimes when the plot is utterly ridiculous, it can become campy fun as in the case of the brilliantly conceived Speed. But, when the plot attempts to be earnest, the fun goes away and all you're left with is the struggle to hold back your gag reflex.
Unfortunately, Taken is one of those cases. The problem is that Neeson's gravitas is so earnest that it's hard to take him seriously. There's such a humorlessness about him. That's not a problem when playing Richard III but doesn't really work so well when playing a gun-slinging ex-CIA operative. I'm not suggesting that action films should all dissolve into parody or farce only that the less they take themselves seriously, the better they tend to be.
One of the Dos Amigos pointed out that the film felt as if the script had been written in the 1980s. Curiously enough, that turned out to be true. There is definitely something dated about Taken. The film relies on a series of stock ethnic stereotypes that could only exist in films pre 1990 (when people began to demand cultural sensitivity) or in films made in Europe (where cultural sensitivity just doesn't really exist ... it's easy for countries like France to criticize American race relations when they so conveniently sequester their ethnic problems to hidden districts).
One thing I did really appreciate about this film -- or at least that I found quite interesting -- was the unapologetic brutality. Taken is a basic abduction narrative. A parent loses a child and the parent desperately fights to get that child back. We've seen this in Ransom, in Not Without My Daughter, etc. What makes Taken different (though not necessarily better) than these other films is the narrow-minded focus of the father -- the extent to which he just doesn't care about anyone or anything else. It doesn't matter who he hurts or kills. To some extent, that sort of unapologetic, straight-forward brutality is refreshing. American films tend to candy coat violence or frame it in such wild extremes that it becomes cartoonish. When Neeson needs information from someone, he doesn't threaten him or his loved one. He just goes ahead and shoots the man's wife in the arm. There's no apology. Just determination. Oh, if only I had a little bit of that myself.
I decided that I wasn't going to review or discuss documentaries in this blog. Part of the reason is that discussing documentaries often leads to long diatribes about the film's subject matter (as if there aren't already enough long diatribes in this blog). Rather than talking about the film as a cinematic piece of art (or piece of trash), I'd just ramble on and on about how I agree with this person or how I think this person is a complete idiot. With a few exceptions (such as the documentaries of Werner Herzog or Errol Morris), it's hard to differentiate between cinematic documentaries and an episode of Frontline or some other PBS show.
The reason I'm breaking this personal policy is that Man on Wire goes beyond simple reportage and instead crafts a beautiful and inspiring narrative. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that the closest analog to Man on Wire would be something like Norman Mailer's Executioner's Song and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Whereas Capote and Mailer crafted a new genre, the non-fiction novel, Man on Wire, a documentary about Phillipe Petit, a french street performed who walked on a wire across the twin towers back in 1974, also attempts to redefine a genre by putting storytelling elements usually found in narrative films by Soderbergh or Tarantino into a non-fictional story.
The film's director, James Marsh, had three previous films to his credit the most notable being his 1999 debut, Wisconsin Death Trip. I didn't realize while watching Man on Wire that Marsh was also the same person who did WDT but when I learned of the connection, I was not surprised at all. Both films stretch the definition of documentary not by twisting the truth but instead of twisting the narrative to get at the truth. For those of you who have not seen Wisconsin Death Trip, I highly recommend you track it down. The film is based on a collection of 19th-century photographs that depict the harshness of frontier life in the midwest. The pictures mostly depict death and suffering. What Marsh attempted to do was take this collection (which in 1973 was published in book form under the same title) and get across the feeling of despair and struggle in cinematic form. He stayed true to the facts but presented those facts in a way that stayed true to the emotions one might feel from those facts.
It's very rare that any film would get a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. When I first saw that Man on Wire got such a rating I was skeptical. Really, how could a movie be so good that it would receive a unanimous endorsement from critics all over the country? Well, after seeing the film, I can certainly see why. Of course, part of the reason has to do with the limited audience for documentaries. The guy who regularly gives Adam Sandler movies a thumbs up (and if you really think that any of his comedies after Happy Gilmore are worthwhile then you need to get a clue, my friend) probably wouldn't bother to see a documentary much less a documentary about a guy who walked across a wire back in 1974. For anyone out there who does enjoy documentaries and especially any who appreciates film, has a vested interest in film, this is a definite must see. And there I go breaking another one of my rules: I want this blog to be a discussion of films not a simple rating or review of films. But, again, this is an exception. GO SEE THIS NOW.
|
RSS Feed