There's a kind of sequel that's emerged over the past few years that I've come to call the Moving Back Home film. These are the movie equivalent of moving back in with your parents; after failing to make a big splash in the movie business, an actor or filmmaker returns to the series that made him or her famous. The most prominent example is the Fast and the Furious series, which reunited Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for a blockbuster continuation after Hollywood was less than kind to them otherwise.
Scream 4 brings back Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson, fairly dormant in recent years. Though hardly a failure, Craven's money has manifested itself mainly in remakes of his classic films (The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street). His one outing as director in the past five years, My Soul to Take, was an underrated yet barely noticeable genre entry. Kevin Williamson has stuck mostly to TV, having birthed two successful series (Dawson's Creek and The Vampire Diaries). Both claimed they'd never do another Scream movie, and Williamson even declined to write the 3rd one. But here they are again.
The effect is less a grand re-invigoration of the series than a dull 15-year high school reunion. Though Williamson applies the same tongue-in-cheek approach that he did to the previous films, his work here is more mean-spirited and cynical. In the other Scream films we got the sense that he was lampooning them out of love, but here the screenplay is distant and mocking. Maybe Williamson just doesn't like horror movies these days.
He seems to take issue especially with the "torture porn" of the Saw films. The new addition to horror since the series finished, Williamson says, is that of the killer as hero. In this new leaf, the killer is likelier to take responsibility for the murders himself, and even videotape himself committing them. Not only is the killer the main character; the killer makes the movie and the rules.
Williamson and Craven aren't having that, even if their killer is. Even if it does have a few new twists, Scream 4 is a traditional guy-with-a-knife movie. The problem is that it's a bad guy-with-a-knife movie, and a lazy one to boot. The other three films took delight in hurling us through their suspenseful contraption, adhering to conventions while at the same time denying them. In Scream 4 there are few surprises and little fun to be had.
Even the returning cast members look like they would rather be anywhere else. Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, who's just come back to her hometown of Woodsboro as a bestselling author. Little does she know that the Ghostface killer has returned with her, and is offing high schoolers while taunting her all the while. Campbell looks about as thrilled to be in the movie as Sidney must be to be facing the killer again. Her attitude seems about right; the actress has never quite gotten the credit she deserves after delivering some brilliant work in movies like The Company and When Will I Be Loved.
Dewey Reilly (David Arquette) is now the local sheriff, and wife Gale (Courteney Cox) has given up her ambitious journalism career to be a housewife. Arquette, so wonderfully goofy in the previous films, is all business here with no personality. Cox is given little to do but kvetch about how bored she is living the smalltown life. As Sidney's teenaged cousin (and the movie's obvious setup for a final girl), Emma Roberts doesn't make much of an impression.
The movie does have its signs of life. The opening sequence, a staple of the series, plays a few clever point-of-view tricks and is the most fun that Craven and Williamson allow themselves to have with the premise. Without giving too much away, I'll say that it made me wish that the movie had continued in this fashion, as a sort of slasher version of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Hayden Panettiere, as the town's resident smart-aleck hipster high schooler, is always fun to watch, and finds a likable character amid the horror cliches. Erik Knudsen and Rory Culkin are also funny as two nerdy videophiles.
To an extent, we the audience will only have fun if a movie is having fun with itself. The Scream series has always been one to mock conventions and throw us for just the right loop. This time it's just going through the motions. Though Williamson still has his sights set on the usual targets, Scream 4 is as dull and mechanistic as any high-number Saw sequel.
* 1/2 out of ****
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
THE LOVELY BONES (2010): Saoirse Ronan is Dead Alive. Peter Jackson's movie leaves a Bad Taste.
There have been many films made about the afterlife, but few have given it such little thought as Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, adapted from Alice Sebold's bestselling novel. I haven't read the book, but I would hope that it is braver and more imaginative than Mr. Jackson's film, which is cold and unsympathetic. Its story of a murdered young girl's journey through purgatory is maddeningly simplistic: not as dumbfounding, mind you, as What Dreams May Come, but close. It looks upon its characters the way an audient at the Republican debates might react to Rick Perry's execution track record: this world doesn't matter, the next is more important, and let God do the sorting out.
I think the first wrong step was commissioning Jackson to direct the film. At first glance he would seem like the ideal choice, as his Heavenly Creatures told a similarly brutal story mixed with elements of fantasy. But that was a painfully honest picture, set in brutal reality rather than the magical world of flowers that The Lovely Bones occupies. His The Frighteners dealt passingly with the concepts of heaven and hell and the mess in between, but only so far as the ghost story needed.
Not that Jackson need be a true believer to direct a movie about heaven. Clint Eastwood, not the most devout believer, was able to pose some honest and interesting questions in his afterlife-themed film, Hereafter. Though that too was a failure, it was an intelligent and ambitious one. The Lovely Bones is only interested in the subject as far as it can manipulate the audience.
Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement) is a normal 14-year-old girl in an idyllic Pennsylvania suburb. She likes her family, likes taking pictures, and has a crush on a local boy who might just like her back. Then one day, she never comes home.
Susie finds herself in a purgatory-like state, somewhere between earth and the Great Beyond, where she can see what happens on earth and affect it in strange ways that are never quite made clear. Like many movie ghosts, she can't come right out and talk to her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, from better movies), but she seems to affect their moods and send messages through the ether that they can somehow receive.
The movie's earthbound sub-plot is actually quite well-played, and so much more interesting than anything it has to say about metaphysics that we wish the movie had just ditched the whole heaven thing and been a story about a family coping with losing a daughter. Wahlberg and Weisz are very good, as are Susan Sarandon as Susie's alcoholic grandmother and Rose McIver as her suspicious sister.
As the killer, Stanley Tucci easily ambles away with the film. Not content to be a stereotypical movie psycho, he takes an approach similar to The Vanishing: he plays a believable sociopath who kills simply because he can. It's in his scenes that Jackson is most comfortable, and builds suspense quite nicely in one breaking-and-entering sequence, as well as a conversation with a police officer (Michael Imperioli, also very good) that lovingly rips off Shadow of a Doubt.
Though Ronan is very good, she's stuck in the movie's more preposterous storyline. The movie ends up being a victim of its own premise; since there's no real way for Susie to affect what happens on earth in a major way, the two plots remain awkwardly separated. All that connects them is a ridiculous theme of a kind of simple divine providence in which everything happens for a reason and everything is worked out after death. (The way that the Tucci character meets his end is particularly insulting to the intelligence of any thinking person.)
I don't know if the widely praised novel is as shallow as this film or not. Perhaps it isn't, and Jackson has simply misread it. I have a feeling that the book was more about the need for an afterlife than about the actual afterlife. Imagine if the movie were told not from the point of view of the dead girl, but rather from the point of view of her younger sister, who needs to create this image of her sister in heaven in order to cope with her loss. If Jackson had realized that the more captivating story was on earth rather than in heaven, The Lovely Bones would not seem so silly, pretentious, and insulting.
** out of ****
I think the first wrong step was commissioning Jackson to direct the film. At first glance he would seem like the ideal choice, as his Heavenly Creatures told a similarly brutal story mixed with elements of fantasy. But that was a painfully honest picture, set in brutal reality rather than the magical world of flowers that The Lovely Bones occupies. His The Frighteners dealt passingly with the concepts of heaven and hell and the mess in between, but only so far as the ghost story needed.
Not that Jackson need be a true believer to direct a movie about heaven. Clint Eastwood, not the most devout believer, was able to pose some honest and interesting questions in his afterlife-themed film, Hereafter. Though that too was a failure, it was an intelligent and ambitious one. The Lovely Bones is only interested in the subject as far as it can manipulate the audience.
Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement) is a normal 14-year-old girl in an idyllic Pennsylvania suburb. She likes her family, likes taking pictures, and has a crush on a local boy who might just like her back. Then one day, she never comes home.
Susie finds herself in a purgatory-like state, somewhere between earth and the Great Beyond, where she can see what happens on earth and affect it in strange ways that are never quite made clear. Like many movie ghosts, she can't come right out and talk to her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, from better movies), but she seems to affect their moods and send messages through the ether that they can somehow receive.
The movie's earthbound sub-plot is actually quite well-played, and so much more interesting than anything it has to say about metaphysics that we wish the movie had just ditched the whole heaven thing and been a story about a family coping with losing a daughter. Wahlberg and Weisz are very good, as are Susan Sarandon as Susie's alcoholic grandmother and Rose McIver as her suspicious sister.
As the killer, Stanley Tucci easily ambles away with the film. Not content to be a stereotypical movie psycho, he takes an approach similar to The Vanishing: he plays a believable sociopath who kills simply because he can. It's in his scenes that Jackson is most comfortable, and builds suspense quite nicely in one breaking-and-entering sequence, as well as a conversation with a police officer (Michael Imperioli, also very good) that lovingly rips off Shadow of a Doubt.
Though Ronan is very good, she's stuck in the movie's more preposterous storyline. The movie ends up being a victim of its own premise; since there's no real way for Susie to affect what happens on earth in a major way, the two plots remain awkwardly separated. All that connects them is a ridiculous theme of a kind of simple divine providence in which everything happens for a reason and everything is worked out after death. (The way that the Tucci character meets his end is particularly insulting to the intelligence of any thinking person.)
I don't know if the widely praised novel is as shallow as this film or not. Perhaps it isn't, and Jackson has simply misread it. I have a feeling that the book was more about the need for an afterlife than about the actual afterlife. Imagine if the movie were told not from the point of view of the dead girl, but rather from the point of view of her younger sister, who needs to create this image of her sister in heaven in order to cope with her loss. If Jackson had realized that the more captivating story was on earth rather than in heaven, The Lovely Bones would not seem so silly, pretentious, and insulting.
** out of ****
Friday, November 25, 2011
OUR HUMBLEST APOLOGIES (parody!)
Recently, NBC was forced to apologize to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann after it was found that during her introduction on the network's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," house band The Roots played an instrumental version of a song called "Lyin' Ass Bitch." Rep. Bachmann's discovery of this sneaky insult has led other Republican candidates to more closely examine the music that accompanied their appearances on talk shows. Here are the letters of apology from the networks responsible.
To: Mitt Romney
From: Les Moonves, Chairman, CBS
Dear Gov. Romney,
Please accept our apologies for the music that was played during your entrance on "The Late Show with David Letterman." The CBS Orchestra's choice of Styx's "Mr. Roboto" was meant to kick off your fantastic interview performance with an upbeat, bouncy melody. It in no way was meant to reflect any criticism of your personality on the campaign trail. On behalf of myself, Dave, music director Paul Shaffer, and all of us at CBS, I hope you will accept our humblest apologies.
Sincerely,
Les Moonves
Thursday, November 24, 2011
TURKEY DAY: Troll 2 (1990)
This Thanksgiving, Torturously Okay is thankful for all things that have the courage to be truly awful.
There is a certain level of awfulness that a film cannot achieve simply by being bad for its entire running time. Just as it is with libel laws, actual malice must be proven. The film must have evil intentions, or at the very least a reckless disregard for human decency. Badness is not achieved simply by the absence of goodness.
That’s why I knew from moment one that the widespread claims that Troll 2 is the worst movie ever made could not have any merit. How can a movie about killer trolls possibly be as insulting as I Spit On Your Grave, or as mind-deadening as Corky Romano?
The answer: it can’t. And to be honest, the worse Troll 2 got, the more I loved it. It’s in a class with Over the Top, Prince of Space, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Here is a movie that is bad in all the conventional ways: acting, direction, writing, special effects, editing, makeup. But it’s truly great in many unconventional ways. For all the tests this movie fails, it passes this one: I left it a happier person than when I found it.
Never mind that the movie has no connection to Troll 1. It tells of a happy suburban family who takes a trip to the mysterious town of Nilbog for their vacation (get it?). Right away things don't seem right. The townspeople are sparse, and those they see are always trying to feed them odd green food. And the youngest boy, Josh (Michael Stephenson), has been receiving visits from his dead grandfather (Robert Ormsby) warning him about vicious creatures who turn people into plants and then eat them.
It's hard to express the inexplicable awesomeness of what follows. It's a given that the plot is incredibly stupid, but director "Drake Floyd" (Claudio Fragasso) attacks it gung-ho. Say what you will about Troll 2, but it is not cynical. Here is a movie with what looks to have been a very small budget and a cast of inexperienced actors, and no discernible reason for existence. But Fragasso and crew have thrown themselves in head first and made it anyway.
The acting is wretched at worst, and at best is on the level of drama club. As Joshua, Michael Stephenson ranks among the most annoying child actors of all time. As far as childish voice affectations go, nothing can match the moment where he chirps, "See??? It wasn't me this toiyme!" Still, Stephenson appears to have a sense of humor about the movie, as last year he directed Best Worst Movie, a documentary about Troll 2's recent rise in popularity.
There isn't a line uttered by Connie McFarland, as the older sister Holly, that doesn't elicit a Bad Laugh from the audience. The performance of Deborah Reed, as a nearby witch, is completely off-the-wall and zany, and just what the movie needs. And I'm sure I don't need to mention the precious "Oh my god" moment. (But here it is anyway.)
Oddly enough, the actor who fares best isn't an actor at all: George Hardy, who plays the patriarch of the family, was a dentist at the time the movie was made, and still has a practice. He's actually pretty good; he must have been cast for his fatherly appearance and demeanor, and he appears to take the role seriously and earnestly.
The special effects are, if pedestrian, completely appropriate for the movie. It just wouldn't be right if Troll 2 had state-of-the-art makeup. And to tell the truth, the effects in Troll 2 aren't that bad. I enjoyed the wonderfully sick transformation in which people turn into plants: bold green liquid chlorophyll begins to leak from their pores and branches protrude from their arms and legs, and then a gaggle of goblins appears and begins to eat their mushy insides. I live for this stuff.
The goblins themselves were obviously created on the cheap, with plastic faces that barely move, but that somehow makes them all the eerier. The heavy-synth score, no doubt inspired by Dario Argento's band Goblin (no relation), also helps to set an appropriately spooky tone.
The ending, while completely predictable, is a flat-out delight, and the closing line made me giggle in the same devilish way that Hannibal Lecter's farewell line at the end of The Silence of the Lambs did. I should also make special mention of the movie's other wonderfully nasty moment: the incredulous family is about to eat poisoned food given to them by the villagers, and Grandpa tells Josh he has 30 seconds to stop them. I won't reveal what happens, except that they do not eat the food and Josh is sent to his room.
*** out of ****
There is a certain level of awfulness that a film cannot achieve simply by being bad for its entire running time. Just as it is with libel laws, actual malice must be proven. The film must have evil intentions, or at the very least a reckless disregard for human decency. Badness is not achieved simply by the absence of goodness.
That’s why I knew from moment one that the widespread claims that Troll 2 is the worst movie ever made could not have any merit. How can a movie about killer trolls possibly be as insulting as I Spit On Your Grave, or as mind-deadening as Corky Romano?
The answer: it can’t. And to be honest, the worse Troll 2 got, the more I loved it. It’s in a class with Over the Top, Prince of Space, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. Here is a movie that is bad in all the conventional ways: acting, direction, writing, special effects, editing, makeup. But it’s truly great in many unconventional ways. For all the tests this movie fails, it passes this one: I left it a happier person than when I found it.
Never mind that the movie has no connection to Troll 1. It tells of a happy suburban family who takes a trip to the mysterious town of Nilbog for their vacation (get it?). Right away things don't seem right. The townspeople are sparse, and those they see are always trying to feed them odd green food. And the youngest boy, Josh (Michael Stephenson), has been receiving visits from his dead grandfather (Robert Ormsby) warning him about vicious creatures who turn people into plants and then eat them.
It's hard to express the inexplicable awesomeness of what follows. It's a given that the plot is incredibly stupid, but director "Drake Floyd" (Claudio Fragasso) attacks it gung-ho. Say what you will about Troll 2, but it is not cynical. Here is a movie with what looks to have been a very small budget and a cast of inexperienced actors, and no discernible reason for existence. But Fragasso and crew have thrown themselves in head first and made it anyway.
The acting is wretched at worst, and at best is on the level of drama club. As Joshua, Michael Stephenson ranks among the most annoying child actors of all time. As far as childish voice affectations go, nothing can match the moment where he chirps, "See??? It wasn't me this toiyme!" Still, Stephenson appears to have a sense of humor about the movie, as last year he directed Best Worst Movie, a documentary about Troll 2's recent rise in popularity.
There isn't a line uttered by Connie McFarland, as the older sister Holly, that doesn't elicit a Bad Laugh from the audience. The performance of Deborah Reed, as a nearby witch, is completely off-the-wall and zany, and just what the movie needs. And I'm sure I don't need to mention the precious "Oh my god" moment. (But here it is anyway.)
Oddly enough, the actor who fares best isn't an actor at all: George Hardy, who plays the patriarch of the family, was a dentist at the time the movie was made, and still has a practice. He's actually pretty good; he must have been cast for his fatherly appearance and demeanor, and he appears to take the role seriously and earnestly.
The special effects are, if pedestrian, completely appropriate for the movie. It just wouldn't be right if Troll 2 had state-of-the-art makeup. And to tell the truth, the effects in Troll 2 aren't that bad. I enjoyed the wonderfully sick transformation in which people turn into plants: bold green liquid chlorophyll begins to leak from their pores and branches protrude from their arms and legs, and then a gaggle of goblins appears and begins to eat their mushy insides. I live for this stuff.
The goblins themselves were obviously created on the cheap, with plastic faces that barely move, but that somehow makes them all the eerier. The heavy-synth score, no doubt inspired by Dario Argento's band Goblin (no relation), also helps to set an appropriately spooky tone.
The ending, while completely predictable, is a flat-out delight, and the closing line made me giggle in the same devilish way that Hannibal Lecter's farewell line at the end of The Silence of the Lambs did. I should also make special mention of the movie's other wonderfully nasty moment: the incredulous family is about to eat poisoned food given to them by the villagers, and Grandpa tells Josh he has 30 seconds to stop them. I won't reveal what happens, except that they do not eat the food and Josh is sent to his room.
*** out of ****
THE TOURIST (2010): Acclaimed auteur ruins perfectly good trash
It seems odd that after his wonderful Academy Award-winning The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Dammersmarck would choose a fanciful caper comedy/romance as his next project. Here we have a grand thriller in the Hitchcock tradition, with two gigantic stars and fascinating locations (John Seale's cinematography does them justice), directed by the man who made the somber character-driven drama about the sympathetic East German policeman. The Lives of Others was an amazing film; The Tourist less so, but it is no less amazing that it got made in the first place.
What this movie needed was a Stanley Donen type of director, one who knows how to play the audience like a piano. That is not quite what von Dammersmarck does here; he focuses less on the adventure and more on the characters, as you would expect the director of The Lives of Others to do. Audiences might go into The Tourist expecting a romantic thriller, when what they'll get is a thrilling romance.
And so The Tourist is not quite as interesting as it might have been. We get the sense that von Dammersmarck is primarily interested exploring a facet of the film that isn't meant to be terribly deep. Though romance can be the soul of a thriller, the fun is really in the thrills, of which The Tourist has too few. On this level it is a failure, but still an amiable and uncharacteristically ambitious failure.
We meet Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie) as she casually enjoys breakfast at a Paris cafe, tailed not-so-inconspicuously by police. Turns out she has a connection to a well-known British criminal named Alexander Pearce, who's been on the lam for two years, and Scotland Yard is hoping she'll lead them to him. To throw off their scent, she befriends an average schlub named Frank (Johnny Depp) on the train to Venice and casts the suspicion onto him. Once in Venice, Frank finds himself the target of the police and, more urgently, the very rich man that Pearce most recently stole from (Steven Berkoff).
This would have been the perfect setup for a lighthearted twisty-turny caper like Charade, with Depp in the Audrey Hepburn role as the unsuspecting innocent, and Jolie in the Cary Grant role as the player with all the cards, choosing which ones to deal at which times. Though Depp received some of the worst reviews imaginable, he's actually quite good in the role. Critics lambasted him as plain and melancholic, but that's the point: he's adept at playing someone who's plain to the extreme. Depp perfectly captures the bemusement of a regular Joe who's just been invited to spend a night in Venice with a gal who looks like Angelina Jolie, and overnight has police and thugs after him. Jolie is radiant, and she was born to play roles like this.
Then von Dammersmarck reveals that the movie will mainly be about their love affair, rather than the chase. These two really do end up falling in love, and the urgency, from von Dammersmarck's point of view, comes from the threat to their love rather than to Frank's life. Though the love story is well played, it renders secondary the more interesting part of the story. He essentially uses The Lives of Others as a template, and it doesn't fit.
I am giving the movie 3 stars. Why? Because it still made me smile in spite of its failures. I enjoyed Paul Bettany as the weathered Scotland Yard agent who's at the end of his rope. It's always good to see Steven Berkoff as the villain; he still possesses the same effortless menace that he did in Beverly Hills Cop all those years ago. And then there's Rufus Sewell, in an enigmatic role as a man who keeps turning up prominently in brief shots and on the side of the screen. Sewell is probably one of the first actors I'd notice if he were on the side somewhere.
Though The Tourist is not the refreshing diversion that we sometimes get when an auteur decides to take a break and make a genre film (like Steven Soderbergh did with Ocean's Eleven), it's not a case of the independent director selling out either. Though it's a big studio, big star movie, it is purely a Florian Henckel von Dammersmarck film. The romantic comic thriller may not be his strong suit, but now we know this is how he would have made one.
*** out of ****
What this movie needed was a Stanley Donen type of director, one who knows how to play the audience like a piano. That is not quite what von Dammersmarck does here; he focuses less on the adventure and more on the characters, as you would expect the director of The Lives of Others to do. Audiences might go into The Tourist expecting a romantic thriller, when what they'll get is a thrilling romance.
And so The Tourist is not quite as interesting as it might have been. We get the sense that von Dammersmarck is primarily interested exploring a facet of the film that isn't meant to be terribly deep. Though romance can be the soul of a thriller, the fun is really in the thrills, of which The Tourist has too few. On this level it is a failure, but still an amiable and uncharacteristically ambitious failure.
We meet Elise Ward (Angelina Jolie) as she casually enjoys breakfast at a Paris cafe, tailed not-so-inconspicuously by police. Turns out she has a connection to a well-known British criminal named Alexander Pearce, who's been on the lam for two years, and Scotland Yard is hoping she'll lead them to him. To throw off their scent, she befriends an average schlub named Frank (Johnny Depp) on the train to Venice and casts the suspicion onto him. Once in Venice, Frank finds himself the target of the police and, more urgently, the very rich man that Pearce most recently stole from (Steven Berkoff).
This would have been the perfect setup for a lighthearted twisty-turny caper like Charade, with Depp in the Audrey Hepburn role as the unsuspecting innocent, and Jolie in the Cary Grant role as the player with all the cards, choosing which ones to deal at which times. Though Depp received some of the worst reviews imaginable, he's actually quite good in the role. Critics lambasted him as plain and melancholic, but that's the point: he's adept at playing someone who's plain to the extreme. Depp perfectly captures the bemusement of a regular Joe who's just been invited to spend a night in Venice with a gal who looks like Angelina Jolie, and overnight has police and thugs after him. Jolie is radiant, and she was born to play roles like this.
Then von Dammersmarck reveals that the movie will mainly be about their love affair, rather than the chase. These two really do end up falling in love, and the urgency, from von Dammersmarck's point of view, comes from the threat to their love rather than to Frank's life. Though the love story is well played, it renders secondary the more interesting part of the story. He essentially uses The Lives of Others as a template, and it doesn't fit.
I am giving the movie 3 stars. Why? Because it still made me smile in spite of its failures. I enjoyed Paul Bettany as the weathered Scotland Yard agent who's at the end of his rope. It's always good to see Steven Berkoff as the villain; he still possesses the same effortless menace that he did in Beverly Hills Cop all those years ago. And then there's Rufus Sewell, in an enigmatic role as a man who keeps turning up prominently in brief shots and on the side of the screen. Sewell is probably one of the first actors I'd notice if he were on the side somewhere.
Though The Tourist is not the refreshing diversion that we sometimes get when an auteur decides to take a break and make a genre film (like Steven Soderbergh did with Ocean's Eleven), it's not a case of the independent director selling out either. Though it's a big studio, big star movie, it is purely a Florian Henckel von Dammersmarck film. The romantic comic thriller may not be his strong suit, but now we know this is how he would have made one.
*** out of ****
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
BREAKING DAWN PART 1: One disbeliever's honest appraisal of a movie that doesn't need his approval
To say that Breaking Dawn Part 1 breaks some new ground is not to say that it’s particularly noteworthy. Still, I must regretfully admit that in the teeny-bopper bottomless pit of money that is the Twilight series, it takes some risks that the other films haven’t, and unlike its leaden predecessors, by the end it has actually gone somewhere. It’s not the best of the series (the briskly paced New Moon remains the most bearable so far), but under the guidance of director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls), it finally moves the story and characters forward. And what’s more, it gives Kristen Stewart something to do other than be plain, and Robert Pattinson something to do other than brood.
The wedding day has finally arrived, as Bella Swan (Stewart) is preparing to walk down the aisle to her 100-some-year-old vampire husband Edward Cullen (Pattinson). He whisks her away to a Brazil honeymoon, where they finally do that thing that married people do. Bella has, of course, remained a virgin until her wedding night; the much older Edward’s sexual history is unclear, another of the many nuggets of patriarchy in the often disturbingly conservative series. But I digress.
So yes, they do the nasty. Since the Twilight vampires have superhuman strength, Bella wakes up with bruises and aches. Edward, now frightened for her safety, retreats back to chastity. Then comes the morning sickness.
Though Breaking Dawn is slowly paced and never subtle, it at least tackles some of the more interesting questions about the vampire-human relationship. That this is the most sexually frank of the previously coy series is likely attributable to Condon, who directed Kinsey and rarely shies away from the big sexual questions. The early honeymoon scenes are a believable portrait of a couple struggling with their sexual chemistry.
When Bella becomes pregnant, the movie also isn’t afraid to delve into the consequences of having a vampire baby. The scenes in which we see the toll the pregnancy takes on Bella are surprisingly honest, graphic, and disturbing, with one hilariously gross blood-drinking scene and at least one moment that is reminiscent of the ordeal Christian Bale went through in The Machinist. Though the series has been known for its embrace of socially conservative values, the movie doesn’t shy away from the prospect of abortion, either. When Bella insists upon carrying to term, it is not because of a moral conviction (or a Mississippi personhood law); rather, it is a choice of hers based on what the baby means for her and Edward’s relationship.
Ms. Stewart, in her fourth time playing this role, is finally allowed to make it her own. To date, Bella has been defined mainly through the men she is interested in (Is it Edward? Is it Jacob?). In Breaking Dawn, we see what makes her tick. Condon injects life into the role and allows Stewart to have fun with it. Now we see not just a typical, plain, uncommonly reserved girl who is the object of desire for a couple of hunks, but a fragile yet determined young lady with desires of her own.
Mr. Pattinson is also better than usual; where his performances in the previous films seemed phony and furtive, here we sense that he is a kind, attentive, caring guy who’s just trying to do the best he can for his lady. His emotions come through as true feelings rather than affectations. Billy Burke continues to be entertaining as Bella’s kindly yet ineffectual father. The underused Sarah Clarke finally gets a few nice moments for herself as Bella’s mother.
That said, though Condon tries with all his might, the movie still isn’t particularly good. No matter what talented director tries his or her hand at it (Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz, and David Slade have been the casualties so far), the writing remains incredibly poor. Not-so-freely adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s book by Melissa Rosenberg, each line of dialogue hits with a whopping thud. Though Condon coaxes good, thoughtful performances out of most of the actors, they cannot hope to wrap their mouths around the words without sounding phenomenally silly. Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, and Nikki Reed are among the talented actors left to spout this nonsense, and fail to make much of an impression. Anna Kendrick once again manages to rise above it, but the movie has far too little of her for my liking.
As the hotheaded Jacob, Lautner continues to be the cast’s weak link. Though he certainly looks good without a shirt (and has appeared in the film for all of 1.5 seconds before he violently tears it off), he doesn’t fare as well when he’s required to talk. If the more accomplished actors have trouble with the insipid dialogue, Lautner doesn’t stand a chance.
While the makeup on Stewart showing Bella’s deterioration is disturbingly convincing, the visual effects are laughably bad. The CGI wolves that Jacob and his crew transform into are about as seamless as “South Park.” One scene in which the wolves telepathically communicate—with their human voices awkwardly playing in the background, no lips moving—begs to be drug into the street, shot, stuffed, and mounted. The visual effects were supervised by John Bruno, who performed the same job on Avatar, Terminator 2, The Abyss, Poltergeist, and Heavy Metal. Those are among the most visually engrossing films ever made. I assume Breaking Dawn, which looks like a Nick Jr. cartoon, will not be listed on his resume.
** 1/2 out of ****
The wedding day has finally arrived, as Bella Swan (Stewart) is preparing to walk down the aisle to her 100-some-year-old vampire husband Edward Cullen (Pattinson). He whisks her away to a Brazil honeymoon, where they finally do that thing that married people do. Bella has, of course, remained a virgin until her wedding night; the much older Edward’s sexual history is unclear, another of the many nuggets of patriarchy in the often disturbingly conservative series. But I digress.
So yes, they do the nasty. Since the Twilight vampires have superhuman strength, Bella wakes up with bruises and aches. Edward, now frightened for her safety, retreats back to chastity. Then comes the morning sickness.
Though Breaking Dawn is slowly paced and never subtle, it at least tackles some of the more interesting questions about the vampire-human relationship. That this is the most sexually frank of the previously coy series is likely attributable to Condon, who directed Kinsey and rarely shies away from the big sexual questions. The early honeymoon scenes are a believable portrait of a couple struggling with their sexual chemistry.
When Bella becomes pregnant, the movie also isn’t afraid to delve into the consequences of having a vampire baby. The scenes in which we see the toll the pregnancy takes on Bella are surprisingly honest, graphic, and disturbing, with one hilariously gross blood-drinking scene and at least one moment that is reminiscent of the ordeal Christian Bale went through in The Machinist. Though the series has been known for its embrace of socially conservative values, the movie doesn’t shy away from the prospect of abortion, either. When Bella insists upon carrying to term, it is not because of a moral conviction (or a Mississippi personhood law); rather, it is a choice of hers based on what the baby means for her and Edward’s relationship.
Ms. Stewart, in her fourth time playing this role, is finally allowed to make it her own. To date, Bella has been defined mainly through the men she is interested in (Is it Edward? Is it Jacob?). In Breaking Dawn, we see what makes her tick. Condon injects life into the role and allows Stewart to have fun with it. Now we see not just a typical, plain, uncommonly reserved girl who is the object of desire for a couple of hunks, but a fragile yet determined young lady with desires of her own.
Mr. Pattinson is also better than usual; where his performances in the previous films seemed phony and furtive, here we sense that he is a kind, attentive, caring guy who’s just trying to do the best he can for his lady. His emotions come through as true feelings rather than affectations. Billy Burke continues to be entertaining as Bella’s kindly yet ineffectual father. The underused Sarah Clarke finally gets a few nice moments for herself as Bella’s mother.
That said, though Condon tries with all his might, the movie still isn’t particularly good. No matter what talented director tries his or her hand at it (Catherine Hardwicke, Chris Weitz, and David Slade have been the casualties so far), the writing remains incredibly poor. Not-so-freely adapted from Stephenie Meyer’s book by Melissa Rosenberg, each line of dialogue hits with a whopping thud. Though Condon coaxes good, thoughtful performances out of most of the actors, they cannot hope to wrap their mouths around the words without sounding phenomenally silly. Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, and Nikki Reed are among the talented actors left to spout this nonsense, and fail to make much of an impression. Anna Kendrick once again manages to rise above it, but the movie has far too little of her for my liking.
As the hotheaded Jacob, Lautner continues to be the cast’s weak link. Though he certainly looks good without a shirt (and has appeared in the film for all of 1.5 seconds before he violently tears it off), he doesn’t fare as well when he’s required to talk. If the more accomplished actors have trouble with the insipid dialogue, Lautner doesn’t stand a chance.
While the makeup on Stewart showing Bella’s deterioration is disturbingly convincing, the visual effects are laughably bad. The CGI wolves that Jacob and his crew transform into are about as seamless as “South Park.” One scene in which the wolves telepathically communicate—with their human voices awkwardly playing in the background, no lips moving—begs to be drug into the street, shot, stuffed, and mounted. The visual effects were supervised by John Bruno, who performed the same job on Avatar, Terminator 2, The Abyss, Poltergeist, and Heavy Metal. Those are among the most visually engrossing films ever made. I assume Breaking Dawn, which looks like a Nick Jr. cartoon, will not be listed on his resume.
** 1/2 out of ****
Friday, November 11, 2011
TAKE SHELTER (2011): Drizzle
Take Shelter sets itself up for a nor'easter and delivers a late afternoon shower. It's like a big hurricane that by the time it reaches you has already been downgraded to a tropical storm. The movie proves to us in its gripping first half that it's too smart for the meandering second half, and it contains a tour de force performance from Michael Shannon that it does not deserve.
Much like William Friedkin's Bug (which also starred Shannon), Take Shelter is an exploration of paranoid schizophrenia from the inside out. Curtis (Shannon) is a working-class family man with a caring wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), and daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). He has a good job, enough money to get by, health insurance, and friends. People respect him. His best friend and co-worker, Dewart (Shea Whigham), looks up to him. He lives a good life.
Then the nightmares begin to come. Curtis begins to see things in the sky that others do not: signs of a big storm coming. He sees raindrops that look like motor oil. He has a dream that the family dog attacks him, and another that zombie-like people kidnap Hannah.
Curtis takes action. He chains the dog up in the backyard. He begins renovating an old storm shelter in the backyard. Others don't understand why he feels the urgent need to do this, but Curtis does.
In the movie's early scenes, Shannon and writer-director Jeff Nichols create one of the most compelling portrayals of schizophrenia yet put on screen. What sets Curtis apart from most examples of mental illness is that he knows all along that he is sick, and there is nothing he can do about it. Just as with any disease, mere knowledge that he is sick is not enough to make him well. Curtis knows that what he's doing is ridiculous, but knows he has to do it. Because he is embarrassed, he hides it from his family. He reads up on mental illnesses. He talks to his doctor, who recommends he see a psychiatrist that is far out of his budget range. He knows of schizophrenia because his mother (Kathy Baker) was committed to a mental hospital when he was 10.
His disease progresses with terrifying logic. Samantha begins to worry. The amount of money he spends renovating the storm shelter begins to inhibit Hannah's upcoming cochlear implant surgery. His visions and nightmares affect his performance at work. Curtis's biggest fear is all that he has will be taken away from him, and he begins to see his fears come to life around him.
It's a shame, then, that the movie goes stagnant after its first hour. The tension, ever so gradually ratcheting, goes loose and the movie lets us off the hook. Curtis's disease becomes repetitive rather than progressive. A climactic fight between Curtis and another character seems to come out of nowhere, and one explosion of emotion from Curtis seems phony and histrionic.
The special effects, too, begin to get in the way, notably Curtis's recurring vision of birds flying in a strange formation. The birds are obviously the creation of CGI, and are so cartoonish that they take us right out of the picture. Better to use the Orson Welles method: shoot a few birds in close-up and use montage to make it look like a whole lot. The image of the storm-filled sky is also all too obviously animated.
The ending is a letdown. Without giving away too much, I can say that the movie might have ended perfectly with Curtis throwing open the shelter doors. Rather, it tacks on a coda that is meant to be foreboding but is only confounding and silly.
Take Shelter is a film of rare sensitivity; it is a gripping portrayal of a man who is always depended upon to be strong, brought down by the weakness of his fear. I doubt any actor other than Michael Shannon could have played this role successfully, and I would not count him out for an Oscar this year. Though the movie fails him in the end, his performance alone is enough to recommend it.
** 1/2 out of ****
P.S. Shannon has become one of my favorite actors over the past few years, and I feel the need to cite two previous standout performances of his that might otherwise go unnoticed: as a disgruntled mama's boy in Werner Herzog's underseen and brilliant My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, and as a white supremacist murderer in Bob Odenkirk's spotty but still quite funny Let's Go to Prison. Both films require him to segue between buffoonishness and imposing intimidation, which he does seamlessly. He's been compared to a young Christopher Walken, and rightly so. Walken is the only other actor who might possibly pull off this exchange, from Let's Go to Prison:
Shannon: "You remind me of my daddy."
Will Arnett: "I'm sure he was a great man."
Shannon: "I killed him."
Arnett: "You didn't kill him with kindness, did you?"
Shannon: "With a hammer."
Much like William Friedkin's Bug (which also starred Shannon), Take Shelter is an exploration of paranoid schizophrenia from the inside out. Curtis (Shannon) is a working-class family man with a caring wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), and daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart). He has a good job, enough money to get by, health insurance, and friends. People respect him. His best friend and co-worker, Dewart (Shea Whigham), looks up to him. He lives a good life.
Then the nightmares begin to come. Curtis begins to see things in the sky that others do not: signs of a big storm coming. He sees raindrops that look like motor oil. He has a dream that the family dog attacks him, and another that zombie-like people kidnap Hannah.
Curtis takes action. He chains the dog up in the backyard. He begins renovating an old storm shelter in the backyard. Others don't understand why he feels the urgent need to do this, but Curtis does.
In the movie's early scenes, Shannon and writer-director Jeff Nichols create one of the most compelling portrayals of schizophrenia yet put on screen. What sets Curtis apart from most examples of mental illness is that he knows all along that he is sick, and there is nothing he can do about it. Just as with any disease, mere knowledge that he is sick is not enough to make him well. Curtis knows that what he's doing is ridiculous, but knows he has to do it. Because he is embarrassed, he hides it from his family. He reads up on mental illnesses. He talks to his doctor, who recommends he see a psychiatrist that is far out of his budget range. He knows of schizophrenia because his mother (Kathy Baker) was committed to a mental hospital when he was 10.
His disease progresses with terrifying logic. Samantha begins to worry. The amount of money he spends renovating the storm shelter begins to inhibit Hannah's upcoming cochlear implant surgery. His visions and nightmares affect his performance at work. Curtis's biggest fear is all that he has will be taken away from him, and he begins to see his fears come to life around him.
It's a shame, then, that the movie goes stagnant after its first hour. The tension, ever so gradually ratcheting, goes loose and the movie lets us off the hook. Curtis's disease becomes repetitive rather than progressive. A climactic fight between Curtis and another character seems to come out of nowhere, and one explosion of emotion from Curtis seems phony and histrionic.
The special effects, too, begin to get in the way, notably Curtis's recurring vision of birds flying in a strange formation. The birds are obviously the creation of CGI, and are so cartoonish that they take us right out of the picture. Better to use the Orson Welles method: shoot a few birds in close-up and use montage to make it look like a whole lot. The image of the storm-filled sky is also all too obviously animated.
The ending is a letdown. Without giving away too much, I can say that the movie might have ended perfectly with Curtis throwing open the shelter doors. Rather, it tacks on a coda that is meant to be foreboding but is only confounding and silly.
Take Shelter is a film of rare sensitivity; it is a gripping portrayal of a man who is always depended upon to be strong, brought down by the weakness of his fear. I doubt any actor other than Michael Shannon could have played this role successfully, and I would not count him out for an Oscar this year. Though the movie fails him in the end, his performance alone is enough to recommend it.
** 1/2 out of ****
P.S. Shannon has become one of my favorite actors over the past few years, and I feel the need to cite two previous standout performances of his that might otherwise go unnoticed: as a disgruntled mama's boy in Werner Herzog's underseen and brilliant My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, and as a white supremacist murderer in Bob Odenkirk's spotty but still quite funny Let's Go to Prison. Both films require him to segue between buffoonishness and imposing intimidation, which he does seamlessly. He's been compared to a young Christopher Walken, and rightly so. Walken is the only other actor who might possibly pull off this exchange, from Let's Go to Prison:
Shannon: "You remind me of my daddy."
Will Arnett: "I'm sure he was a great man."
Shannon: "I killed him."
Arnett: "You didn't kill him with kindness, did you?"
Shannon: "With a hammer."
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