The most anticipated action film of 2010 has finally arrived. If you have not rushed out to see the film yet, you should. But be prepared, the film is not quite what you expect.
As is clear from the movie trailers, The Expendables is an ensemble film. The only mega-action stars from the 1980’s missing are Van Damme and Steven Segal - though you could also place Kurt Russell into that category for his original portrayal of Snake Plisken (Escape from New York if you haven’t seen it).
But not all the stars are made the same. Thus some get more time on the screen than others. And many are given less critical roles than others. The credits at the begining of the film are a bit of a giveaway of who and how much you will see of all the cast.
There is no secret that The Governator, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Bruce Willis have only a cameo role in the film. Though the sceen with the top trio of the eighties (Willis, Schwartzenegger, and Stallone) is one of the best in the film. In fact the audience burst out laughing as one of the best lines in the film is said with all 3 together.
The movie is of course an action film. So the plot is far secondary to how things happen. And the pace of the film basically ensures that all the holes pass by fast enough that you won’t care. Except that in several of the major fight scenes things happen just a little too quickly. You want to see more of the fights and shoot outs, but it passes before all the details are clear.
The fight scenes are good ones though. All the old stars are impressive considering their age. Dolph Lundgren does a particularly good job of showing off his skills as a 3rd degree dan of karate. Plus there is another surprising outcome in the battle between Stallone and Steve Austin. It should also be noted that the wrestlers in the film do their best to keep up the acting quality and fight scene awe, but in comparison it really doesn’t fit the film.
Jet Li is a bit underused in the film, and Jason Statham lives up to expectations. Statham is just fun to watch though, and even moreso as he goes through 2nd set of scenes that are completely useless with Charisma Carpenter. The entire love interest for Statham is an obvious and meaningless attempt to give women not into action films, but into Statham, a reason to see the film. IF any women reading this are fans of Carpenter or Statham and wanted to see the film for this pair up, save your money - you will be disappointed.
The film is a quick 103 minutes. With a final 15 minutes that really pay off on the expectations of the fans. Terry Crews has one of the more comical and rewarding moments, justifying why he is in the film. But throughout the film there are moments when the thought that one or more of the older action heroes might not survive to the end. I won’t mention if that happens or not, but it is something that helps to keep your attention focused.
Overall the question that you are left with is if a sequel could be in the works, and if the missing stars could be convinced (or afforded) to be involved.
The Expendables is a good movie. Compared to most action films it is a very good choice. Compared to the hype it lives up to most expecteations. Fans will find it to be worth the money to see in a theater.
**Spoilers**
Of the fights that could have happened, Mickey Rourke vs Stallone would have been great. A fight between Willis and Statham would have been fun. But that doesn’t happen.
What does happen follows, last chance to not read it before you see the film. And it is a bit vague to not completely spoil the following if you do see the film after reading it.
Lundgren and Li is way too short. You just expect so much more. Austin and Stallone makes sense but is just too limited due to the focus on wrestling fans as opposed to action fans. Randy Couture and Austin is really short and mostly useless. In fact Couture’s character is a waste of screen time. Rourke is great as the wise man of the team, but watching him use some of his real life boxing skills would have been awesome.
It’s a question that is as boggling as the answer. Super 8.
If you are unaware of what this all means, you are hardly alone. So far all that is clearly known is that Super 8 is the name of a film by J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg. It will be coming out at some point in 2011. Beyond that everything is secret, except for the movie trailer seen before Iron Man 2 and here
Now you know about as much as anyone so far.
What might have been in Area 51? Why would it be transported on a train, and why was it still until the crash? Why in the world would anyone purposefully drive a pickup truck into the train?
But here are the clues I could find.
23 seconds and a bit there is an image that is obscurred by light from the right and rain, maybe a bit of fog or smoke. But there seems to be a face in there under a hat. A face with a long chin possibly. The background noise sounds like a car starting up.
27 seconds in there seems to be a stick or sword moving past 2 beams of light. It could be just a stick in the truck headlights, or it could be something else.
32 seconds plus we ger another odd image. The outline of something. It’s not clear what it might be. But inside that image is a square, or a box. Maybe a lens. Below it seems to be an image. A picture of a person with trees or shrubbery in the background. Details of the face cannot be seen.
One clue might be at roughly 45 and a half seconds. There is an image there for just a moment. A ghost-like face that seems to be screaming, and on the left sife another ghost image. That image seems to have sharp teeth. Like something about to bite someone and their scream in fear.
At the same time there is something being said, ‘Is it quiet’? Possibly, but I think this might be accurate, a high pitched almost mechanical “Who are you”.
Then at 56 seconds and counting there is another image. It looks like a cell or embryo with a needle nearby. Like images seen in many movies and television shows that have anything to do with DNA and genetic manipulation.
1:12 we get to see a skull from an X-ray image pretty clearly. To it’s left is an obscured image. Is that a man standing in the center of the blur, light, and smoke?
Then at 1:21 seconds and a bit there is another ghost image. To the left looks to be a faded white-washed partial image of a face. Likely a woman as the lips appear to have lipstick on them. Again the mouth appears and it seems to have sharp teeth (actually 3 sets of teeth like in motion). To the right-most the teeth appear to form an almost X-ray image of a human like skull. But in the center to the bottom, is that a blurry man with an out streched arm? Maybe holding something? Perhaps a gun or something else small?
At 1:22 we get a side image of the skull, and in the center we now see what looks like 2 people. Maybe a bare chested man, with another person, maybe a woman, whose head seems to be on the shoulder. The background looks like there could be a lake.
At 1:35 plus there is another image, which I cannot make out what is going on, though it was preceeded by a flash of light, possibly from the train container.
Maybe there are more clues. Do tell if you find more. But what does it all mean?
So let’s admit it. When Asia gets ahold of American cinematic cultural icons they usually do a pretty good job of ripping it off. Often they come up with variants on the theme that are superior to many American films in the same exact genre. Credit goes to where it is deserved.
In this case the genre is REALLY American. It’s the Wild West and cowboys and gunfights. We’re talking about John Wayne and Clint Eastwood (when he was young) territory. So they have to get it right.
The Good the Bad and the Weird, is an obvious revisioning of The Good The Bad and The Ugly by Sergio Leone. It’s one of the classic westerns and the godfather of all spaghetti westerns (though it was made in Spain with an Italian director). Many have tried to feed off of this classic, and most failed miserably.
But just watching this movie trailer and you realize quickly that the essence of what made Sergio Leone’s film great feels like it’s in this film.
Now I should mention something that is kind of important. This isn’t exactly a preview. The film came out in 2008 in South Korea. It ran through theaters in the U.K. in 2009. Now in April it’s America’s turn.
That being said, and yes there are sub-titles, the film looks great. It has a flair and excitement about it that modern westerns seem to have completely forgotten about. In America we are getting all the grit and realistic weariness of westerns lately, which may well be why the genre has performed so poorly in recent years (the 3:10 to Yuma remake was just not worth it).
This film gets your blood pumping. It’s faster paced, action filled, with gunslingers that are the archtypes we created and loved in the first place. Plus there is better cameras, special effects, and editing than back in Leone’s day so it really gets to sizzle.
Now do yourself a favor and don’t look up the plot on google or wikipedia. Save the stotyline for seeing the film. Enjoy it. Have fun at the movies for a change.
Here, I’ll show you a tease of what I mean
And you thought the sub-titles would be a problem.
Jung Woo-sung, the Good, looks excellent as the Clint Eastwood-esque tainted hero. Lee Byung-hun, the Bad, reminds me of the Danny Chan look of bad guy but even meaner and far more cool as you might expect for the Lee Van Cleef inspired villian. Song Kang-ho, the Weird, rounds out the trio with a funny and desperate twist to the surprisingly emotive and yet viscious and pathetic Eli Wallach character (yes in case you didn’t know he is Jewish not Hispanic).
Hopefully this will hold you until Kung Fu Hustle 2 comes out later this year.
If there is one thing you know that Hollywood loves, it’s ripping off an idea. That’s where the A-Team movie came from. It’s why Armeggedon and Deep Impact went head to head. There is no end of the copycat and ripped-off ideas Hollywood is willing to flood theaters with, all at the same time.
But don’t think that this is all bad. Armeggedon was a good popcorn film. Occasionally the rip-offs are worth the time. And the head to head competition sometimes turns up a bright gem of a film. The Losers just might be one of those gems.
To be clear from the start, The Losers is a rip-off of the A-Team television show as much as the movie of that name is. But unlike the other film, this looks to be an interesting movie.
There is nothing deep or artsy about the film. A secret para-military group get set up and tossed aside by corrupt politicians. They escape and want revenge, big time. Lot’s of stuff blows up inbetween. You won’t need an Master’s degree to keep up.
But, the film understands that they will never see their name on an Oscar ballot. It’s not the point. This is just good natured fun, lot’s of bullets, lot’s of explosions, and just a bit of women with T&A.
The most serious question dealing with this film is likely to be if it is as much fun for 90 minutes as it is in 150 seconds? If you are having a bad day, this is a safe bet to distract you for a while and not piss you off for spending the money.
Stars Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chris Evans
Sometimes a movie is just what you expect it to be. With the Expendables the promise is action, explosions, and a few snappy lines. I see no reason for the film to fail to deliver on all 3.
This is an action movie first and foremost. It’s a combination of the stars of the 80’s and the latest action movies. Stallone, Lungdren, Rourke, Statham, Li, and Austin. What a combination of testosterone, with enough bullets and explosiuons to level a mid-sized city. Which is pretty much the plan of the film.
The plot is simple enough. A group of mostly older mecenaries is hired to take out a South American dictator. Along the way they get double crossed by former associates, and have to fight to survive. Cliche but it works.
If you were going to see this film with the hope of understanding the greater meaning film can bring to the inhumanity of war and combat, wrong film.
The fight scenes look good (and they should since Stone Cold Austin would up fracturing Slyvester Stallone’s neck in their fight scene). Obviously the stars of this film all will get their moment to show off their particular talents and style. But we can also see that plenty of money was spent to ensure the battles would look huge and devastating. Because in an action film there is no such thing as overkill.
Plus there looks to be more than a few well timed and funny one-liners and situational jokes. Likely there will be other attempts that will fail, but as long as the writers didn’t try to fill every scene with a hoped for catchy phrase (Like in Running Man with the Governator) it should work more often than not.
Also keep an eye out for the rest of the 80’s stars. Which includes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Forest Whitaker had a role written for him, but had to drop out, initially to be replaced by 50 Cent (the thought sends a chill down my spine), and ultimately filled by Terry Crews who should fill in well. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, and Kurt Russell all turned down roles in the film. Which is a shame as they really would have completed the mix of 80’s to current action film stars.
This won’t win Oscars, or likely any award other than from Spike TV or MTV. But this will almost certainly be one of the biggest money makers of the year. The real question is who out of the entire cast will have the best fight scene? My money goes on Jason Statham. Best one liner will almost definitely go to Stallone - it is his movie after all.
**Spoiler Alert**
Not everyone on the team will survive (Li and Crews are the likely victims). But there is already talk that those who do, will be in a sequel. Seagal and Russell might make it yet.
Ok, I have to give it to whoever came up with this idea. Hollywood loves liberal values. They hate almost anything not ultra-green, liberal, or anti-patriotic. There are exceptions, but they are rare these days. There have been numerous films depicting all the above, and every one of them has failed miserably. But that might change with this film.
The Joneses is a salute to the corporate greed that Hollywood hates with a burining passion (which is funny as they are a mega-corporate industry). Corporations are so desperate for your money, and so evil, that commercials on television, radio, magazines, video games, and on DVD’s just isn’t good enough any more. Now it’s time to go direct. [funnily enough the movie is a big commerical itself]
The Joneses are a stealth marketing team. A fictional family set up to grab the attention of every family around them. They have it all. Cars, clothes, whatever widget and gadget you could ever want. And they are more than willing to let you know they have it. Just so everyone else will buy it to.
The film is dependant on the fact that you accept the concept of ‘I want what they have’. A pretty easy concept to sell. If everyone thinks your grass is greener, they will want it more than their own.
The drama of the story, because a movie based on just corporate greed is hard to sell, is what about the people in this fake family? How can they deal with the stress of being the center of attention based on just what they have and not who they are?
David Duchovny looks to be likeable and the key shred of decency in this corporate swindle machine. Demi Moore is the cold-hearted “management”, who only cares about the bottom line and keeps Duchony at arms distance.
The questions of the movie are simple. Can 4 people who pretend to be a family be a family? Can they deal with the pressures and difficulty of getting along, while coercing everyone around them to buy buy buy? What happens if they rally together, but the sales drop?
Generally this looks like a mediocre movie. Not the best or worst of the year, nor any year. But it has a gimmick. It looks slick and has lots of toys. Hollywood is banking on your desire to see the toys, and get a feel of the “good life”, so they can swindle you out of your money while telling you how bad OTHER corporations are.
I just love the 2-faced nature of the film.
Oh, and by the way. The “good life”, the people worth selling to and pretty much the only apparent people on the planet are White. Other than 1 (apparently) gay Black character - stereotypically a hairdresser - there isn’t another person of color in a speaking role that I am aware of or that I saw in the credits of the film. I guess Hollywood thinks people of color are too busy watching music videos, getting high, and going to jail to be successful enough to be characters in the film, or to even afford a ticket to see it. Just an observation of mine.
Green Zone, which deals with the early stages of the war in Iraq, winds up firing more blanks than expected. The problem: The movie revolves around a discovery - there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — that’s lost much of its punch. Put another way: It’s difficult to watch director Paul Greengrass‘ urgently presented drama without wishing it would tell us something we didn’t already know.
The atmosphere feels right and the chaos of Baghdad after the initial stages of the invasion couldn’t be more convincing, but the movie’s focus on an Army Chief Warrant Officer (Matt Damon) — a non-com who’s trying to discover why his squad has been given so much faulty intelligence — turns the story into a frenzied quest for a truth we know before the curtain rises.
Make no mistake, though, there are some mind-blowing sights here. Greengrass does an excellent job of showing the disconnect between the foot soldiers who are living through life-and-death scenarios in the streets of Baghdad and the bigwigs who congregate in the Green Zone, a safe haven replete with swimming pools and a veranda for cocktails. The Club Med-like atmosphere of the Green Zone makes a mockery of the hardship endured by the average GIs, most of whom couldn’t set foot in the “secure” facilities that were set up in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces.
An end credit tells us the movie was “inspired” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, and the movie does draw on some of Chandrasekaran’s reporting, but Greengrass - who directed the brilliant United 93 and who directed Damon in the Bourne Ultimatum - chops up the action in ways that create at least as much chaos as comprehension. Obviously, war is a form of chaos, but on screen, a little chaos goes a long way, and by the time the final chase sequence arrives, you may already feel numbed to any potential excitement.
Damon, who’s in almost every scene, does a convincing enough job as a no-nonsense soldier who’s appalled by the idea that GIs may have been sold a bill of goods about why they’re fighting in Iraq. A strong supporting cast includes Greg Kinnear as a duplicitous Bush administration representative, and Brendan Gleeson as a world-weary CIA agent who - unlike many others in Baghdad — actually knows something about Iraq. Amy Ryan acquits herself well as a journalist who helped peddle the WMD story that whipped up false enthusiasm for the war.
Some of the interaction between the soldiers and ordinary Iraqis has the feel of authenticity, as well. The movie flirts with something truly interesting in the relationship that Damon’s character develops with an Iraqi civilian (Khalid Abdalla) who hates Saddam’s Baathist Party and wants to help the Americans, but who’s never fully trusted by many of the soldiers he meets.
This time out, Greengrass’s trademark approach - turning his images into pieces of cinematic shrapnel that are supposed to land with explosive force — becomes (dare I say?) a trifle boring. And even some of the movie’s smaller observations — about bad U.S. decisions vis-a-vis the Iraqi Army and about the “real” reasons for the war - hardly seem shocking. As a result, Greengrass, working from a screenplay by Brian Helgeland, is stuck with a movie in which war-crazed confusion tends to overpower a less-than-compelling tale.
All of which got me to thinking: Old-time advertisements for topical movies used to scream, “Ripped from today’s headlines.” I doubt whether anyone ever tried to market a movie by proclaiming that its story was “Ripped from yesterday’s headlines,” but that’s pretty much what Green Zone does.
Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson talk things over.
What you think of Remember Me probably depends on whether you believe the movie’s emotional end justifies the mediocre means by which it got there. I’d vote no.
Teen-age girls who are enamored of Robert Pattinson, of Twilight-movie fame, may well cast their ballots differently, and, no, I can’t tell you any more about the ending, except to say that – in my opinion — nothing that preceded it earned the payoff that obviously was being sought.
For most of its 113 minutes, the movie seems like a vehicle concocted to showcase the talents of Pattinson, who served as one of the movie’s executive producers. Freed from his duties as a vampire in the Twilight series, Pattinson proves more interesting, although he hasn’t entirely made the transition from a willful outsider to a fully engaged human being. He’s playing an alienated rich kid who spends a lot of time smoking cigarettes, brooding and acting as if he’s seen every movie James Dean ever made.
The story revolves around a romance between Pattinson’s Tyler Hawkins and Emilie de Ravin’s Ally Craig. He’s the son of a wealthy businessman (Pierce Brosnan). She’s the daughter of a working-class cop (Chris Cooper).
Both have daddy on their minds. Tyler blames his father for his older brother’s suicide. When Ally was 10 – in 1991 – she witnessed her mother’s murder at a Brooklyn subway station. Not surprisingly, her father has a very protective attitude toward his only child.
Director Allen Coulter alternates romance and overplayed dramatic scenes, and the screenplay uses an embarrassingly old trick to set up the relationship between Ally and Tyler. As part of a vengeance scheme (never mind for what), Tyler begins dating Ally. What begins with deception quickly evolves into true love.
The movie gets sidetracked with a subplot about Tyler’s younger sister (Ruby Jerins), an artistic prep school student who has an especially close relationship with her big brother. Tyler’ s mother (Lena Olin) long has been divorced from his master-of-the-universe dad, who spends all of his time in his office where he’s evidently busy acquiring companies and making oodles of money.
As part of his rebellion against his father’s corporate preoccupations, Tyler has taken up residence in a ratty apartment he shares with his roommate Aidan, an annoying Tate Ellington.
You’d have to be reasonably hard-hearted not to be moved by the ending, but upon reflection, it struck me as a cheat, a shameless last-ditch effort to elevate a mediocre movie into something special.
A WORD OR TWO ABOUT OUR FAMILY WEDDING
OK, this may be more than a couple of words — but not much more. Our Family Wedding plays like the pilot for a sitcom that was rejected by all the major networks. What could have been a knowing comedy about the relationship that wariness between the families of a young black man (Lance Gross) and his Mexican-American fiancee (America Ferrera) devolves into ethnic shtick and stereotyping. Among other things, the movie may prove that Forest Whitacker, an actor whom I admire a great deal, doesn’t really have the cops for comedy and that Ferrara, another talent, deserves better material. Director Rick Famuyiwa turns the movie into a kind of My Big Fat Mexican-American Wedding, a cacophonous blend of sentiment and misguided ethnic humor that can be painful to watch.
OK, the room’s clearing out. There’s no more wine. I have only one more thing to say, The Hurt Locker kicked butt — and all the right butts, at that. And that brings an end to a generally unsurprising evening and to the interminable awards season. See you at the after party.
9:59 The Academy does the right thing, and gives the best picture Oscar to “The Hurt Locker.” 9:50 p.m. Kathryn Bigelow wins the Oscar for best director. It’s a great honor for her, but did we need Babs to remind us that the time had come for a woman director to win? It’s not Oscar’s achievement; it’s Bigelow’s. Classy speech from Bigelow, acknowledges soldiers about whom she made her film. 9:40 p.m. The Oscar for best actress goes to Sandra Bullock. The woman sitting next to me gags. Sorry, but it’s true. But Bullock does a nice job of acknowledging her fellow nominees. Would I have voted for her? Er…no. But she really does seem to be Miss Congeniality.
9:35 p.m. Good for Jeff Bridges. Everyone knew he’d win and you gotta love a guy who seems to enjoy winning. He calls acting a “groovy profession.” The Dude abides. 9:28 p.m. Having actors and actresses who starred with the best actor nominees introduce each one of them is a nice touch. 9:25 p.m. Damn, Up in the Air should win something. 9:15 p.m. The Oscar for best foreign language film goes to (The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) from Argentina. A total Oscar fake out. As always, Oscar honors a film that no one has seen, bypassing The White Ribbon and A Prophet. It better be one hell of a film. But credit the director for giving a shout-out to Chile, which badly needs one.
9:06 p.m.The Hurt Locker wins best editing. It’s on its way to best picture. Maybe. And it’s not even in 3-D. 9:05 p.m. Tyler Perry appears on the Oscars and makes a joke about the fact that this could be a one-and-only gig for him. 9:03 p.m.The Cove — from Boulder filmmakers — wins best documentary. Those of us who live in Colorado go wild. Or maybe semi-wild. Well, we applauded politely.
8:25 p.m. I know I’m in an older crowd because many of my companions on this endless journey keep asking who some of the younger presenters are. 8:20 p.m. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting bored with Oscar. Looks like George Clooney has had his fill, too. Thank goodness, there’s wine. 8:20 p.m.Twilight stars (did we really need to see them at the Oscars?) pay tribute to big-screen horror. A pointless exercise. If there’s a great horror film, nominate it. Otherwise, move on. 8:10 p.m. Loved the idea that the costume designer who won for The Young Victoria (Sandy Powell) paid tribute to her colleagues who didn’t make films about dead monarchs. 8:06 p.m.Avatar wins its first Oscar, best art direction. I was beginning to forget about James Cameron’s little picture.
7:55 p.m. Mo’Nique thanks the Academy for honoring her performance and not taking the political route. What would have been the political route, Maggie Gyllenhaal? Oh well, Mo’Nique was great, and she deserves her award. 7:50 p.m. Precious beats Up in the Air for best adapted screenplay, the night’s first real surprise. Could this be the start of something, an upset in other categories? I feel bad for Jason Reitman, who did a wonderful job adapting a Walter Kirn novel for Up in the Air.7:40 p.m. Ben Stiller, dressed as a member of Na’Vi nation, manages to make the proceedings seem a whole lot sillier. Presents award for best make-up. Star Trek wins. Could be the first Oscar handed to anyone by a guy with a tail. 7:35 p.m. I’d been rooting for Denver’s Daniel Junge to win in the best documentary short category. He didn’t, but he has a great future.
7:23 p.m. The salute to the late John Hughes is a nice touch. Hughes made teen movies that you didn’t have to be ashamed to watch. Someone mentions that this edition of Oscar seems more scripted than any other in recent history. 7:14 p.m. Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) upsets Quentin Tarantino and wins for best original screenplay. Finally, something good happens to a journalist — that would be Boal, who covered the war in Iraq. 7:05 p.m. The voters actually picked the best song, The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart.7:10 p.m. Someone at my table says Amanda Seyfried has terrible posture. 6:59 p.m.Up wins best animated feature. Fantastic Mr. Fox gets robbed and Oscar continues on its predictable course.
6:46 p.m. Christoph Waltz wins the Oscar we all expected him to win. Gracious guy. Not a memorable speech, but to the point. Hope Woody Harrelson gets another chance some day. He was terrific in The Messenger. 6:35 p.m. The Oscars or Vegas? I’m bummed already. Hate this set 6:25 p.m. That’s the best I’ve seen Meryl Streep look at an awards show. She finally gets into Oscar glitz. 6:15 p.m. I’ve got a big screen TV over my left shoulder where Jennifer Lopez looms very large. Draw your own conclusions. 5:59 p.m. George Clooney is way too honest. Tells AP that, by now, just about everyone knows who’ll win. Doesn’t expect victories for either Vera Farmiga or Anna Kendrick, both nominated for supporting actress for work in Up in the Air. Thinks the nominations will boost their careers, though.
Paddy Considine squares off with Sean Harris in 1980.
David Morrissey plays a troubled cop in 1983.I don’t know when I’ve seen a movie as devastating as The Red Riding Trilogy, a three-picture adaptation of four novels by British author David Peace. The three movies – which open Friday at the Starz Denver Film Festival – originally were made for British TV and total five hours in length.
Each of the films has a different director, each was shot in a different format (16 mm, 35 mm and digital video) and each takes place in a different year (1974, 1980 and 1983). All the stories are set in Yorkshire, England’s largest county. Each film also involves the notorious Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer who was convicted in 1981 after murdering 13 women during a five-year period beginning in 1975.
If all this sounds complex, so be it. The Red Riding Trilogy is one of the densest, most complex movies you’ll ever see. On top of that, the thick Yorkshire accents of many of the characters challenge the American ear, and, on occasion, make one long for clarifying subtitles. But if you stick with the three movies, you will, I believe, encounter a masterpiece of darkness, an unremitting chronicle of corruption at every level of society.
Don’t let the Yorkshire Ripper connection mislead you. The Red Riding Trilogy is not a whodunit nor does it peer into the twisted mind of a brutal serial killer. It is a portrait of Yorkshire (and, alas, of the human heart) during the course of 10 tumultuous years.
The movie is held together by a mantra recited by various corrupt officials. “This is the North where we do what we want.” Revelations about police corruption, individual intimidation and the hellish nature of ordinary life are hardly shocking — not anymore. The Trilogy shocks us to the core because of the depth and the extent to which it follows its dark trail of evidence and accusation. The movie makes us feel as if we’ve caught a disease from which we can’t recover, one that’s slowly but inevitably fatal.
Throughout the three movies there are overlaps, recurring characters and references to previous events. Eventually, you begin to pick up the movie’s rhythms, but you also know that each film represents a kind of dare: Keep up or fall hopelessly behind. Like many films that have plunged into dark, violent waters, The Red Riding Trilogy finds an eerie poetry of the underside, something that elevates pulp into art.
A rude, anti-lyricism anchors much of the dialogue, a disturbing directness that reveals the intentions of the characters, almost all of whom are up to no good. These are not epic villains with larger-than-life ambitions. They’re cops you might meet at the local pup. They’re also torturers and deviants who are motivated by the most naked forms of greed, men of appetite.
It’s probably impossible to summarize the three films properly, but it’s worth a fleeting try. The first film, directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Toni Grisoni (who wrote all three movies), centers on a journalist (Andrew Garfield) who’s assigned to cover the Ripper murders.
Garfield’s Eddie Dunford – a reporter for The Yorkshire Post – is no Bob Woodward. Initially bumbling, ill-informed and over confident, Dunford gradually learns the truth about the cops with whom he deals; he’s pulled into a world that seems to revolve around a powerful local businessman (Sean Bean) who wants to build a shopping mall. He also meets the mother (Rebecca Hall) of one of the girls who has disappeared. He falls for her, but don’t expect wine and roses.
The hard truth: When people believe they can do what they want and get away with it, a lot of other people will suffer.
So, no, Eddie Dunford is no hero. It falls to Eddie to deliver the film’s sour opening line, which defines the worst of journalistic impulses: “Little girl missing. The pack salivates.”
Because the movie is set in 1974, the characters are incessant smokers. The images concocted by cinematographer Rob Hardy have the feel of smoke-clogged rooms that leave you gasping for breath. I haven’t smoked in more than 25 years, but watching these characters puff away summoned some sort of residual nicotine memory from deep within my cells, the inescapability of old addictions.
And there are moments of great cinematic prowess. When Eddie decides that his relationship with Paula should go beyond reporter and source, he pauses at her front door. He knocks. She approaches, a hazy figure behind smoked glass. We know in our bones that once she opens that door and Eddie walks through it, nothing ever will be the same for either of them. Of course, the door opens. Of course, Eddie walks through it. The weight of inevitability seems to push Eddie toward his destiny.
Film two, set in 1980, revolves around a cop. Assistant Chief Constable of the Manchester Force Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) is sent to Yorkshire to learn why the county’s cops have bungled the Ripper investigation. By now, we know that setting foot in Yorkshire is a bit like sinking into quicksand; the more you flail, the worse it gets. But Hunter seems confident, competent and honest. So what if he once had an affair with Helen (Maxine Peake), an investigator he’s chosen to work with him on the case? So what if his wife miscarried while he was on duty? We’re inclined to trust Hunter with his gloomy sense of calm and face full of disappointment.
Directed by James Marsh (Man on Wire), the second film seems more stylish than the first, perhaps because it has been shot in 35 mm. But it takes us even deeper into Yorkshire corruption and makes clear the importance of a ferret-faced Yorkshire cop named Bob Craven (Sean Harris). Craven is an adept torturer and merciless rat who may or may not be overestimating the power that his own brutality gives him. He’s an unashamed sadist.
In the final film, directed by Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie) the undercurrents of the plot begin to rise to the surface, coming into focus as much as a movie like this will allow anything to come into focus. The story now centers on Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), a cop with a drooping mustache and a conscience to match. And be sure of this: A conscience is the last thing anyone needs on the Yorkshire police force of this movie. John Piggot (Mark Addy), a lawyer, also looms large in this portion of the story. Piggot hardly epitomizes legal success, but he’s likable and has a taste for R&B. Reluctantly, he finds himself pushed in the right direction.
Given five hours of movie, it’s neither possible nor desirable to flesh out every detail. The finale of the first movie echoes with the kind of violent retribution that concluded Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The scenes of torture in the basement of a Yorkshire precinct house will make you wince, and there are so many well-drawn minor characters I couldn’t keep track of them all: The soft-spoken but creepy Reverend Laws (Peter Mullan); the manipulative male prostitute BJ (Robert Sheehan) or the various Yorkshire police officials who view the world as theirs to plunder.
I’ve heard it said that these movies can be viewed as stand-alone dramas. See one and leave. I don’t think that’s true. The Red Riding Trilogy is an all-or-nothing proposition. Whether you see it now or wait to watch it on DVD, see it. As you watch, you’ll find yourself making connections and coming to small realizations. A character that you’ve seen before will crop up, and you’ll scurry across the landscape of recent memory, trying to identify his or her position in the drama. Eventually, a cumulative power begins to gather.
The Trilogy offers as complete a vision of a shabby, fallen world as anything I’ve ever seen. It’s one hell of an accomplishment — a worldview as well as a movie. Abraham Lincoln may seem an odd person to quote at this point, but I’ll twist a thought Lincoln’s first inaugural address and say that The Trilogy makes us wonder whether the better angels of our nature haven’t grown weary of us and permanently flown the coop.
I look for Hurt Locker to blow up big on Oscar night.
Jeff Bridges should have no trouble taking home Oscar gold.
It pays to be bossy, if you’re Sandra Bullock.
It’s time for the fun game the whole family can play. We’re talking about that international pastime and water cooler preoccupation known as Predict the Oscars. I try not to make too big a deal out of this annual exercise because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences already makes a big enough deal out of the way it pats itself the back.
Besides, like just about everything else, Oscar has suffered from a bit of deflation. No matter how much the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tries to hype Oscar, the program never will regain all of its luster. Why? For one thing, Oscar once provided a rare opportunity to observe movie stars in unscripted moments. In era of TMZ and a zillion other compulsive chroniclers of celebrity behavior, that possibility now seems old hat. The entertainment press has dragged the gods down off Olympus and, in many cases, the gods have been more than happy to participate in their fall – all in search of attention in an entertainment marketplace that’s more crowded than a 19th century tenement.
To make matters worse, Oscar follows on the heels of a growing parade of previously televised award shows. It’s still the big enchilada – the gold standard of awards – but by now its nominees have been seen on as many podiums as some hack Congressman up for re-election. I wish Oscar had shown its face prior to the Winter Olympics, not after. If the Academy had waited much longer, it could have given out the Oscars along with a generous helping of Easter eggs.
Award weariness aside, it falls to critics to predict the outcome of a race that has limited capacity to take our breath away – unless an obvious shocker jolts the proceedings, say, District 9 beating both The Hurt Locker and Avatar for best picture.
So here are my predictions in the major categories in a year in which I believe Oscar will spread its largess among a variety of pictures, most of them deserving. Tune in Sunday to see whether I’m in tune with Oscar or hopelessly out of touch.
BEST PICTURE What will win: Hurt Locker What should win:Hurt Locker Upset possibility: The Blind Side
Commentary: A Blind Side victory could emerge as a result of vote splitting among Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker and Avatar, but I’m thinking that director Kathryn Bigelow’s white-knuckle look at an Iraq bomb squad will impress voters because it brought audiences close to fighting men in a war that generally has remained distant to the public. Also, it happens to be the best of the 10 nominated pictures. Avatar wins if the Academy decides that popularity, impressive 3D and a major “wow” factor trump everything else, a distinct possibility, but I’m still predicting victory for Hurt Locker.
BEST DIRECTOR Who will win: Kathryn Bigelow Who should winKathryn Bigelow Upset possibility: James Cameron for presiding over the complicated technological process that brought Avatar to the screen for a piddling $500 million.
Commentary: The best thing about Oscar (aside from whatever fashion disasters loom) will be the Academy’s recognition for Bigelow, a director who happens to be a woman, but who never underestimates the visceral kick that movies provide. She’d be the first woman to win best director. Oh well, it’s only taken 81 previous tries for Oscar to get around to recognizing that there are two sexes, and both can operate behind the camera.
I’m betting that Cameron will not prevail because Bigelow already won the prestigious Directors Guild of America award as the year’s best director. If you take a second look (or a first if you haven’t seen it) at The Hurt Locker, you’ll discover that it’s gripping, vivid and bolstered by superior performances from the trio of actors who played members of the movie’s three-man bomb squad.
BEST ACTOR Who will win: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart Who should win: Jeff Bridges Upset possibility: The biggest possible upset would be Jeremy Renner, who played an adrenalin-junkie GI who disarmed bombs in The Hurt Locker.
Commentary: OK, Crazy Heart was a little overrated, but it presents an opportunity to recognize an actor for current efforts and for an impressive body of past work. Conventional wisdom has it that Bridges’ talents have been somewhat overlooked by Hollywood. I’m not sure I buy that, but I have no problem with him taking home a statue that I originally thought would go to George Clooney for playing a downsizing specialist in Up in the Air.
The moral of this story: It never hurts to play a drunk, especially one who sings country/western.
BEST ACTRESS Who will win: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side Who should win: Carey Mulligan, An Education If there’s an upset:Meryl Streep.
Commentary: Bullock did a fine job in The Blind Side. Her portrayal of the single-minded Leigh Anne Tuohy captured audience hearts and allowed Bullock to dominate a movie about a woman who helped a young black man find his way into a successful football career. Still, the most subtle and revealing performance was given by Mulligan in An Education. She played a bright teen-ager who was seduced by an older man and managed to make it part of a 1960s rebellion against societal limitations on women.
It’s a little weird to put Streep into the upset category, but Bullock seemed to have all the momentum going into the Oscar voting, and although Streep’s portrayal of Julia Child — the great popularizer of French cuisine — in Julie & Julia was strong, she’s already recognized as one of our best actresses. If the voters are feeling particularly frisky, they may just want to honor Gabourey Sidibe for playing the title role in Precious. I’m thinking that won’t happen.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Who will win: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Who should win: Christoph Waltz If there’s an upset. Christopher Plummer.
Commentary: Waltz’s performance as Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds was chilling for its cunning, calmness and eerie politeness. Waltz created one of the scariest screen Nazis ever. The only way he loses is if voters decide that Plummer’s wonderfully generous portrayal of Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station and the actor’s age – he’s 80 – merit recognition. It could happen because like us, the voters have seen all the other awards shows and may just want to assert their independence.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Who will win: Mo’Nique, Precious Who should win: Mo’Nique
Upset possibility: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart.
Commentary. It’s possible that Mo’Nique, a comic by trade, is a one-trick pony when it comes to drama, but the self-justifying speech her character made in Precious was as riveting as anything I saw all year. Mo’Nique tapped into something scary, vulnerable and selfish; she made us understand the monster she was playing without condoning her cruelty.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Who will win: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds Who should win: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker If there’s an upset: There won’t be one.
Commentary: I’m not one of the great fans of Inglourious Basterds, but I’ll say this:. Tarantino writes some of the best scenes you’ll find in contemporary movies. The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds couldn’t have been better, and the movie had other scenes that were almost as good. I don’t think Tarantino’s brilliant scenes always add up to great movies, but if he wins, I’ll be happy for him.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Who will win: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air Who should win: The guys who wrote In the Loop
If there’s an upset: Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.
Commentary: I’m a big fan of In the Loop, a scorching satire about the way United States and Britain become involved in a war in the Persian Gulf. But Up in the Air, an adaptation of a Walter Kirn novel, is equally deserving. Reitman served up a mainstream entertainment that has something meaningful to say about the current economic chaos; Up in the Air secured Reitman’s place as a director who knows how to entertain with wit and careful observation. I also admire the fact that Reitman refuses to waste his time (or ours) on fluff.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE What will win. Up What should win: Fantastic Mr. Fox If there’s an upset: The Secret of the Kells.
Commentary: If The Secret of the Kells, which hasn’t had much play in the United States yet, were to win, it would mark of the one greatest upsets in Oscar history. I thought Up, which began brilliantly, was a bit overrated, but that puts me in a distinct minority. I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s extremely amusing adaptation of a Roald Dahl story; it was funny and boasted the best voice work of the year.
BEST DOCUMENTARY What will win: The Cove What should win: Don’t have a rooting interest this year. If there’s an upset: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
Commentary: I see the possibility of an upset as extremely unlikely. The Cove was technically impressive and advocated for a good cause, halting the slaughter of dolphins in Japan.
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM What will win: The White Ribbon What should win: A Prophet If there’s an upset look for the Israeli film Ajami to emerge victorious.
Commentary: Michael Haneke’s White Ribbon, a look at life in a German village prior to World War I, was slow-moving, creepy and well-acted. It also had the distinctive flavor of an art movie, thanks in part to its stark, black-and-white imagery. The Prophet, about the torments and brutalities faced by an Arab prisoner in a French prison, has more visceral power and made a stronger impression on me. It’s a powerhouse of a movie.
So have at it, folks. Your guesses will be as good as mine. And, to tell you the truth, I hope a lot of my predictions are wrong. That will mean that Oscar night proved far more exciting than expected. Meanwhile, I encourage you to delve deeply into categories that I’ve bypassed. It’s time for your predictions, complaints and anything else that’s on your minds. Good luck, especially if you’re in a pool. These days, every nickel counts.
Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis are not funny together.
Before I persuaded myself - coerced might be a better word - to write about the new comedy Cop Out, I watched a bunch of Tracy Morgan clips on You Tube. I’d already heard Morgan being interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR, and I’d read an on-line excerpt from the comic’s autobiography, I Am the New Black.
I do not consider myself an expert on all things Tracy Morgan, who stars with Bruce Willis in Cop Out. I’d seen only glimpses of Morgan during his stint on Saturday Night Live, a show I gave up on years ago, and I’m not a regular viewer of 30 Rock, either. But what interested me most about Morgan was his unpredictability.
In almost every televised interview, Morgan managed to catch the interviewer off guard, to twist a question to his advantage; i.e., to turn it into a potentially explosive piece of comedy. He’d strip off his shirt and show his generous belly while simultaneously presenting himself as a babe magnet, a Lothario from the hood. He seemed to suggest that something might go terribly wrong, and the interviewer would be unable to control it.
OK, by now you’re wondering why I’m rattling on about Morgan and haven’t said much about Cop Out, which was directed by Kevin Smith of Clerks, Clerks II, Mall Rats, Dogma, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and other comedies that have won their share of ardent supporters. I’m procrastinating because Cop Out is a colossal disappointment, a formulaic junk yard of a movie that may have been intended as a send-up of every comedy in which a serious white cop (that would be Willis) teams up with a funny black cop (that would be Morgan). Cop Out isn’t 48 Hrs. Hell, it’s not sharp enough to be called 48 Minutes.
This failure results, at least in part, from a misuse of Morgan. He plays a jealous Brooklyn-based detective who thinks his beautiful wife (Rashida Jones) is cheating on him. Morgan’s Paul Hodges reenacts bits from movies, sometimes slobbers on himself and generally plays the oaf to Willis’ Jimmy Monroe. By way of contrast, Monroe is a hard-edged cop who’s divorced and worrying about how he’s going to pay for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, a lavish affair with a whopping $48,000 price tag.
Here’s where the plot enters, and it’s anything but a welcome arrival. In order to pay for the wedding, Willis decides to sell his mint condition Andy Pafko baseball card. Pafko played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951 and 1952. He was in left field when Bobby Thomson’s famous home run sailed into the stands, sending the Giants to the World Series and returning the Dodgers to bumhood.
Through a series of awkward contrivances, the baseball card winds up in the hands of a brutal Mexican drug lord named Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz). Po Boy also happens to collect his own memorabilia, much of it from Mexican baseball. I wish the movie had stopped in its tracks to talk about Poh Boy’s collection, but Smith - who’s working form a script credited to Mark and Robb Cullin - chooses to insert action into the proceedings.
This leads to another miscalculation. The action - gunplay, car chases, etc. - doesn’t mesh well with the comedy, a common problem in this sort of effort. Smith also messes up some of the sight gags. In an intentionally ridiculous attempt to disguise himself, Morgan’s character appears in a cell phone costume. You’ve probably seen it in the movie’s trailer, where it wasn’t all that funny. On screen, the joke may be even less amusing, extending far beyond its breaking point.
To spice things up, Smith introduces a character played by Seann William Scott, still best known for his work as Stifler in the American Pie movies. Scott plays a thief whose real job is to push the plot along and provide repetitive gags in which he displays a couple of unashamedly juvenile ploys. Say this, though, Scott brings a bit of life to proceedings that sometimes feel weighed down by the deadening shtick that dominates the relationship between Willis and Morgan.
Safe to say that Willis breaks no new ground in Cop Out. I’m no Willis basher. I believe that the guy has real acting chops. Here, though, he relies on the ease with which he commands the camera and a reputation built in a vast library of action movies that saw him tempering violence with irony. The action hero as hipster.
There’s more profanity than imagination on display in Cop Out, which doesn’t maximize the talents of anyone involved. If this is supposed to be an affectionate, gory and amusing tribute to similar movies, it doesn’t work. That would have been a job for a genre freak such as Quentin Tarantino or possibly for Keenen Ivory Wayans (Scary Movie and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka), a comedian who knows something about straight-ahead movie parody.
In Smith’s hands, Cop Out resembles a song sung by someone who’s tone deaf. The result: More pain than pleasure.
Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender in a moment of normalcy.
Fish Tank — which tells the story of a hostile 15-year-old who lives in a decaying London suburb — strikes a perfect balance between distressing content and unobtrusive style. As a result, the movie earns its place as a gritty coming-of-age story about a character thrown into situations that require resources she has yet to develop, perhaps never will.
Director Andrea Arnold draws us inside the world of Mia (Katie Jarvis), a young woman who tries to master hip-hop dancing, sneers at her abusive mother (Kiersten Wareing) and the rest of the world and eventually develops an inappropriate, borderline incestuous relationship with her mom’s new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender).
Nuanced where it could have been stark, Fish Tank doesn’t so much create a world as explore one that already seems to exist, and it does so without giving Mia any ingratiating tendencies, aside from the fact that she occasionally tries to free an old horse that’s tethered to cement block outside a trailer.
Jarvis, who plays Mia, is not a professional actress. What she lacks in technique, she makes up for with a face that’s etched in defiance. The jerky, angular movements of Mia’s hip-hop dancing suggest the jerky, angular movements of a life that never runs smoothly. At 15, Mia’s all anger with a measure of adolescent curiosity thrown in.
The story – also by Arnold – finds its catalyst when Fassbender’s Connor shows up. Conner is a hunky, working-class party guy who sometimes acts like a father to Mia and her kid sister (Charlotte Collins). At one point, he takes the family fishing, suggesting a relationship that almost approaches normality. Connor provides a key to Arnold’s approach. We know from the outset that he’s probably up to no good, but he’s not all ogre either. And he clearly doesn’t understand how to draw the line between tenderness and desire. Like everyone else in the movie, he’s damaged goods.
Some of the plot developments regarding Connor are predictable, and Arnold doesn’t seem to know what to do with a kid’s anger any more than Mia does. But we certainly begin to understand the perils of living in a small house where mom is usually drunk and where two girls are left to fend for themselves. If the movie’s resolution isn’t entirely convincing, the chaos of a tough, impoverished environment feels shockingly authentic and tragically real.
Fish Tank isn’t an indictment of society nor is it a trumped-up ode to teen redemption; it is, however, a tribute to Arnold’s apparent belief that full immersion in a world is worth more than any message. Like Mia, we’re left to fend for ourselves.
Michael Cera is inspired to be bold by Portia Doubleday.
Michael Cera carries the burden of his familiar presence lightly enough to keep from wearing out his welcome. InYouth in Revolt, Cera (familiar from Juno and Superbad) again follows in his own footsteps, playing a baby-faced high-school kid who’s afraid he’ll die a virgin.
Obviously, we’ve been down this road before, but director Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl and Chuck & Buck) works hard to provide some fresh views, an effort that probably leads to the movie’s overly generous helping of eccentricity. It’s possible to argue that Youth in Revolt is too quirky by half, but it does offer some real laughs with Cera doing double duty as Nick Twisp and Francois Dillinger. Nick is a high-school student with limited social skills; Francois is Nick’s alter ego. A figment of Nick’s imagination, Francois encourages Nick to assert his independence.
What motivates Nick to rebel in extreme fashion, practically burning down an entire Berkeley block? Nothing less than love — with some lust thrown in for good measure. When Nick’s divorced mother (Jean Smart) and her low-life boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) drag him off to a trailer court for a vacation, Nick meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday).
Suddenly, Nick’s life turns around. He finds a potential love interest, although a variety of obstacles clutter Nick’s path. Sheeni, a teen-age Francophile, has a preppy boyfriend (Jonathan B. Wright). Her parents (M. Emmet Walsh and Mary Kay Place) are born-again zealots.
The supporting cast proves more than equal to Arteta’s off-kilter approach. Fred Willard has a nice turn as a naive political activist, and Steve Buscemi shows up as Nick’s increasingly exasperated father. Adhir Kalyan does nice work as one of Nick’s horny pals, a bright kid who speaks fluent French. Ray Liotta tilts nasty as a cop who starts an affair with Nick’s mom and then tries to discipline Nick.
Arteta uses bouncy animated segments for scene-to-scene transitions, and keeps the movie moving. If the comic ideas don’t always play out in hilarious fashion, you at least get to see what Willard might look like if he happened to eat one too many psychedelic mushrooms. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that it’s not a pretty sight. It is, however, a funny one.
Heath Ledger standing tall before the looking glass.
There’s no shortage of imagination in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but when it comes to other matters — a compelling story for example — the movie is running on empty. Less a movie than a tribute to visual abundance, The Imaginarium can succeed only for those who find a portal into its dense and impacted world. Count me among those who couldn’t.
Look, I’ve rooted for Terry Gilliam ever since 1981 when I interviewed him in connection with Time Bandits. In the middle of that interview, Gilliam, who was working on a room-service lunch at a Denver hotel, belched. He followed this untimely expulsion of gas with a mischievous giggle. As this otherwise insignificant episode suggests, Gilliam has an ability to turn odd moments into infectious comedy; he also fearlessly follows his many muses, sometimes driving his movies into muddy ditches of confusion. Such is the case with the exhaustingly muddled The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.
Watching The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus — notable for being Heath Ledger’s final movie — is like being in a room with a brilliant conversationalist who delights in going off on endless tangents. You admire the skill and effort, but after awhile, you just wish he’d shut up. Many of Imaginarium’s most severe critics have called the movie “indulgent.” I’m not sure that goes far enough in capturing the spirit of Gilliam’s visually dense cornucopia of chaos.
The movie’s confusion also extends to its casting: Four different actors wind up playing the same character. Tony — the character in question — becomes a pawn in the efforts of Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) to win a bet with the devil (Tom Waits). That’s a reasonably epic conflict, but amid the bric-a-brac of Gilliam’s movie, Parnassus’ bout with the devil seems more fussy than Faustian.
Gilliam didn’t begin with a collaborative approach to casting. The use of multiple actors for a single role stems from the fact that Ledger died before the film was completed. In his stead — Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell signed on to finish the work. Having others fill in for Ledger — ghoulish guest shots — isn’t quite as disorienting as it sounds, but it doesn’t quite do the trick, either.
The movie arrives marked by an unhappy coincidence that seems to have unsettled most critics. The first time we see Ledger, his character is suspended from a hangman’s noose, a macabre reminder that the fine young actor no longer dwells among us. Saved from death, Ledger’s Tony joins Dr. Parnassus’ traveling troupe as it bounces around Gilliam’s depressing cityscapes, contemporary London filtered through Gilliam’s imagination.
When not rattling around London, the characters enter an overblown fantasy world that’s reached via a portal located on the stage used by Dr. Parnassus to present his revue. No more need be said about the story; it didn’t seem to matter all that much to Gilliam, and I certainly didn’t give a hoot about it, either.
A friend who had seen Dr. Parnassus before I had a chance to preview the movie told me that it was bad, comparing it to Gilliam’s woeful Brothers Grimm. I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but I had plenty of trouble finding a way into The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a movie that’s less an entertainment than a display of … well …. er …. I’m not sure I know what.
Tracy and Hepburn they’re not. Cage and Mendes share a moment inWerner Herzog’svery crazy Bad Lieutenant.
Despite its title, Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is only a distant cousin to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 movie — also called Bad Lieutenant. Ferrara’s movie starred Harvey Keitel as the world’s most depraved detective. The new version stars Nicolas Cage as an equally corrupted cop, but one who doesn’t seem to have time to plumb any Dostoevskian depths.
I’d just about given up on Cage, tagging the former Oscar-winner as an actor who appears mostly in the kind of big-ticket movies that have words such as “National Treasure” in the title. But Cage gives his chops a real workout in Bad Lieutenant.
For his part, Herzog — whose career includes both features (Nosferatu and Fitzcarraldo) and documentaries (GrizzlyMan and Encounters at the End of the World) — comes closer to mixing his sensibilities with a straightforward story than he did in 2006’s exciting but more conventional Rescue Dawn.
Part genre exercise and part goof, Bad Lieutenant revolves around Cage’s performance, which is every bit as insane as his character. As a homicide detective with back problems, Cage’s McDonagh snorts cocaine, has a prostitute for a girlfriend, steals drugs from people he threatens with arrest, fraternizes with murderers and smokes a fair amount of pot.
With his shoulders tilted at a sea-saw angle and his face looking as if it’s about to implode, Cage turns himself into a reptile with a badge, something that has crawled out of New Orleans’ post-Katrina waters and can’t shake off all the muck. Assigned to investigate the execution-style murder of a family of five, McDonagh sinks deeper and deeper into reprobate ways. Occasionally, he hallucinates, imagining that he sees a couple of iguanas on a table, for example (Granted, it’s a small field, but Herzog includes the best shot of iguanas with musical accompaniment ever filmed.)
As is the case with any self-respecting neo-noir, plenty of minor characters round out the cast. Eva Mendes plays a hooker who McDonagh keeps supplied with drugs. There are also bookies, gangsters and every other imaginable form of human slime.
Perhaps because he couldn’t quite decide whether to be serious or grimly funny, Herzog walks the fine line between both extremes. He also makes sure to include scenes that etch themselves into noir memory: McDonagh depriving an elderly woman of her oxygen exemplifies the movie’s mean-spirited lunacy. As Cage unleashes a sneering rage that’s almost cartoonish, the scene becomes an exercise in shock and macabre humor.
Usually, I hate a movie with several endings, which is the case with Bad Lieutenant. Herzog can’t seem to let go of this character, and, by the end, I understood why. McDonagh allows Herzog to make a movie that feels as if it has been composed of jazz-like improvisations, riffs so harsh they turn into a kind of warped comedy, something like the rude, low humor of a honking saxophone.
In Denver, Bad Lieutenant wasn’t screened in advance for critics, so I had to catch up with it over the weekend. It’s a seriously twisted movie, which — at least in this case — is a good thing. In New Orleans, Herzog and Cage seem to have pushed each other toward a wild, dangerous and often-funny collaboration. They’ve made a movie that lives proudly on the fringe.
The long list of technical credits for James Cameron’s much-hyped Avatar don’t pile as high as the stacks of money the movie surely will earn, but they do attest to Cameron’s ability to push the medium to its limits. Like Titanic, Avatar will be a box office bonanza, prompting multiple viewings among fans and producing a stream of devotees who believe the movie’s encompassing use of 3D and masterful deployment of motion-capture techniques will revolutionize moviemaking as we know it.
At minimum, Avatar seems destined to become a touchstone for geeks everywhere, and five minutes in, you certainly can see why it took Cameron four years to complete his elaborate sci-fi fantasy.
For more than an hour, I found myself wondering whether Cameron hadn’t achieved what he hoped, a full immersion in a world so compelling, it sweeps you away. But the movie kept on going — two hours and 40 minutes — long enough to expose its deficiencies: the over-ripe pulpy dialogue, the juvenile thinking and the obvious and dated references to such politically explosive matters as Vietnam and Bush era foreign policy.
Avatar’s catalog of effects, which carry the picture a long way, range from industrial-strength macho to Tinkerbell ethereal. And, I swear, I thought of both George Lucas and Walt Disney while watching Avatar, not quite the right references for those us who prefer Cameron in his grisly sci-fi mode, a la The Terminator and Aliens.
The thematic underpinnings of the story can’t be regarded as one of its strongest points: Avatar pits imperialism, materialism and greed against the natural purity of an indigenous population on the planet Pandora. Ravenous corporate earthlings — in cahoots with the military — want to trample the planet, regarding it only as a source of the mineral unobtainium. I’m not making up that name, by the way. Unobtainium? Why not something even less subtle? How about greedium?
The locals — aliens called the Na’vi — live in Pandroa’s forests and are in tune with the natural environment. Cameron imbues the Na’vi with many of the idealized qualities with which Earth’s indigenous populations so often are romanticized. They love of nature and understand how to live in harmony with animals, even ferocious ones. Forget selfish individualism. Among the Na’vi, there’s much talk of “the people.”
Like Titanic, Avatar also revolves around a love story. Sam Worthington plays Jake Scully, a Marine whose legs were paralyzed in combat. Jake arrives on Pandora to replace his late scientist brother. Because Jake shares DNA history with his brother, he’s able to complete his brother’s mission and become an avatar, a creature created by mixing human and alien DNA. A human subject climbs into a sleeping chamber, dozes off and emerges in the wilds of Pandora as an avatar, in this case as a member of the Na’vi tribe, 10-feet tall creatures that look like humans, although they still have tails.
Once propelled into the world of the Na’vi, Jake — or more precisely his Na’vi avatar — is able to walk and run. The Na’Vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes a liking to Jake and initiates him into the ways of the Na’vi, which include learning how to merge with the spirits of other creatures (it’s done by linking tails), riding prehistoric-looking beasts and generally adopting a greener-than-thou attitude. The Na’vi may appear primitive, but their intelligence is more geared toward survival than that of the earthlings, who already have despoiled their own planet.
At times, Avatar almost seems like a fairy tale — assuming you like fairy tales that come fully equipped with bruising battles and thudding heavy machinery. The jungles and floating mountains of Pandora are richly imagined, and state-of-the-art 3D tends to pull you into the world that Cameron so painstakingly has created.
The movie raises questions that are less than groundbreaking. We know that Jake will fall for Neytiri and that he will face a moral dilemma. Will he side with the Na’vi or with the corporate militarists — led by Giovanni Ribisi (as a heartless businessman) and Stephen Lang (as a Marine officer)? Sigourney Weaver signs on as a scientist who believes that the way to win Na’vi hearts is through understanding and diplomacy. She wants to bond with the Na’vi; the corporate guys want to break them to pieces.
I wasn’t bored by Avatar, but the longer it wore on, the more it became apparent that the thinking behind it can be as simplistic as the movie’s technology is complex. And even that wouldn’t matter if it didn’t seem as if Cameron was taking himself so damn seriously. I guess when you’re able to raise somewhere around $300 million to make a movie, ego inflation is inevitable.
And after the revenue-producing triumphs of Titanic, who really believed that Cameron would be content as the self-proclaimed king of only one world?
Well it’s that time of year again. The time when everybody creates a top 10 or best of list for 2009. And of course I will throw in my thoughts to the mix.
In terms of movies there isn’t a lot to say. Most of the drivel from Hollywood is what we have been getting for quite some time now. Half thought out revisioned remakes of ideas done far better in the past. That goes for the revisioned comic books, movies, television shows and books that all hit the silver screen this year. But, against all odds there were a few movies that were actaully worth the money.
1. Watchmen - How could you not see this film? It was the rare exception of Hollywood taking a great story (from a comic graphic novel) and not revisioning it. The result was a beautiful and shocking twist on the concept of what is a superhero.
2. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - the kids are almost all grown up. The film continues the saga of Potter and friends, and it’s still an interesting fresh movie several films into the series. The acting continues to improve and the story is modeled well after the books.
3. Angels and Demons - How can you go wrong with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard in a movie based on a Dan Brown book? It wasn’t the DaVinci Code, but it sure beat the flood of films this year.
4. Sherlock Holmes - Yes I know it’s not out yet. But I’m willing to bet on the acting ability of Robert Downey Jr. In addition his choices of films has been among the best in the industry. movie trailers can lie (and often do) but I’m willing to go with the talent and say this will make the cut.
And those are my top movies of 2009. But if you were wondering, here are the movies that made the most money (which has nothing to do with the quality of the film):
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - a movie only matched in its stupidity by the amount of CGI onscereen at any time. This is proof that hype can overwhelm quality if you throw enough money at a marketing campaign. $402 million
Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince - Number 2 on my list, it brought in $301 million. Proof that quality can make money too.
Up - Parents love to take kids to animated films. This one happened to be worth the time as well. $293 million
The Hangover - the surprise hit of the year. I never saw it, it seemed to sophmopric to me. But it brought in $277 million so there must be something to it. Likely to produce a sequel of some sort next year.
Star Trek - This revisioned make-over of the classic original television series was lauded long before it hit a single screen. But after seeing the film I found it more stilted than Shatner doing poetry. If this is the future of sci-fi I feel really bad for the next generation. $257 million. Revisionist sequel guaranteed.
A couple of other notable film revenues for the year:
Twillight: New Moon - just a question, has anyone over the age of 25 seen this film? No one I know over 25 has. $256 million and another film sure to come.
X-men Origins: Wolverine - Destroyed a great idea and character for big money. The only thing good about this film is the payday it made for Hollywood. But a sequel will happen to continue the pain. $179 million
Fast and Furious - Even Vin Diesel can’t save a bad idea. Though it did make enough to guarantee Deisel will continue to star in a few more films. $155 million
GI Joe Rise of Cobra - Hype wins again. An insulting film that makes you want to see Wolverine again. Only exceeded in stupidity and boredom levels by Transformers. Sequel will happen even though anyone above 6 will cringe. $150 million
Angels & Demons - It made a respectable $133 million. Not bad for a sequel, though more was expected.
Terminator Salvation - Not the best continuation of the series. Christian Bale made a good John Connor, but the rest of the film was lazy and as bleak as the future it redises in. But the story ain’t over yet. $125 million
Watchmen - Number 1 on my list only made $107 million. Perhaps it was just too much for audiences to take in. Especially compared to the low-brow low-quality films that topped the money list.
Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail - Love or hate Perry 2 things are true. He is the biggest boost to getting Black actors in movies since Sidney Poitier and he makes money. What will Madea do next? $90 million
Michael Jackson’s This Is It - The last tribute to the King of Pop. $72 million and it really isn’t even a film.
Land of the Lost - People went to see this? $49 million
Notorious - The worst thing about this film is it probably made enough money to spawn equally bad expoitive cash grabs. $36 million and I have to wonder how doing anything (including sleeping) wasn’t better than the film.
Pink Panther 2, Old Dogs, Halloween 2 (revisioned remake), SAW VI, Fame (revisioned remake) - I’m just amazed that none of these films, though all bad, did better than Notorious. I really hope that doesn’t mean a trend of dead rapper movies.
Well that’s my list, what do you think? Did I miss anything?
Disclaimer:
Movies and Film Blog is owned by 1800blogger which is a (for) profit organization. We are not a charity. If you send any money through this button, please understand that the money is being used for working capital for Movies and Film Blog and 1800blogger. Please check with your accountant to see if this is a tax-deductible contribution.
