High on a hill overlooking the Easter-colored Suburbia, a mansion of twisted shapes and dark shadows hides a singularly unusual character named Edward. An unfinished creation with alabaster skin, Robert Smith hair and BDSM leather, Edward lives alone after his inventor (Vincent Price) died suddenly leaving him with giant sheers in place of hands. Wild and quite dangerous looking, Edward is actually charming and gentle with a childlike naivety born from his years of isolation. As one doctor put it his sense of reality is highly underdeveloped.
This changes when the neighborhood Avon lady, Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest), meets him and decides to bring him to live with her family. Their community is unaffected by change; it seems the day in, day out routine of their existence has gone untouched for eternity and that makes people anxious. The men go off to work in uniform lines and the bored housewives start to talk. Edward's arrival provides some much needed change in their humdrum lives.
In a world with color but void of substance, Edward's highly imaginative mind lends itself to the mystery he has already come with. Hedges, hair and ice make him a local celebrity and earn him the attention and affection of everyone but the one person he wants. Kim (Winona Ryder) is Peg's daughter and a lovely senior in high school. She, unlike most of the town is frightened by Edward, but this does not diminish the affection he shows for her. His love is soft, unspokenly poetic and very sad, but that's the nature of Tim Burton's worlds.
Like Edward himself, Burton is a man with something of an underdeveloped sense of reality who creates fantastical dreamscapes all for himself. Edward is absolutely a reflection of the director as the unusual and gifted outsider, misunderstood for his handicap/exceptional qualities. The film then becomes a fable, a cookie-cutter narrative for which all youth who feel alone can take solace. Edward's story does not end happily (How could it? He has scissors for hands...), but there is a sort of tranquility in that final message of living as you are despite the bored pressures of uninteresting others and from that there will be someone who recognizes your gifts and worth.
It is said that Johnny Depp, who plays our gothic hero, was not Burton's first choice. Others, including Robert Downey Jr., were higher on his list, but after seeing Depp it seems almost impossible to imagine any other person in the role. We all know that this character is what started the love affair between the actor and director, but I would argue that it was also what propelled Depp to stardom. He is graceful, sweet and hilariously out of place and accepts his character with such sincerity that it is impossible not to love the maker and the creation. I almost begrudging admit that I am a huge fan out Depp out of fear of being associated with his gaggle of 16 year old, giggling girls. However, the fact of the matter is that Depp is one of the greatest character actors that we have working and his chameleon face is inspirational. While other great actors find themselves bogged down doing the same roles over and over, Depp constantly finds some new aspect of his inner weirdo to unleash onto the world.
I love this film for it's simplicity and the brave way it has manipulated the story of Frankenstein. It is there for all audiences to laugh and reflect on the ways in which they treat strangeness, but does so without being heavy handed. It is a small gem in our modern cinema and, although not the best of Burton's work, it shall be something of his crown jewel. Beneath pastel polyester their is black lace--something about that image simply seems to resonate.
3/4
Friday, June 29, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Rock of Ages (2012)
After directing the hit 2007 musical "Hairspray", I had relatively high hopes for Adam Shankman's newest venture into the movie musical genre. O, how quickly those hopes were dashed. The rock musical from which this is based never should have been brought to the stage--let alone to the big screen--but there you have it in all of its never ending, boring cheesiness.
The central premise hardly needs to be told, but I'll do it anyway (though why I would give more of my time to it is beyond me). An apple pie beauty with big dreams moves to Hollywood to become a big singer, carrying nothing with her but $17 and a suitcase of classic rock records. After being mugged she immediately bumps into a starry-eyed rock singer with as much ambition as she has who gets her a job at a debaucherous rock club. The two fall in love, quarrel over a misunderstanding and are reunited in the end, all under the glamour of the Hollywood sign.
Other characters float in and out, seemingly with purpose but ultimately pointless. Their usefulness seems simply to fill a plot that will allow 80's rock gems to be used for their disappointingly dull ends. The central issue with this film, and with the play for that matter, is simply the premise. A film like "Rock of Ages" which purports the power of rock to keep people young forever by sticking it to the man is automatically flawed by using covers of the greatest rock bands of all time.
See if you follow me...
Rock n' roll is about sex, drugs and all of the negative effects of love and loss. It is hate-filled, aggressive and full of passion. Some of them may be anthems, but those that play and sing those songs sing from emotional places. They wrote the songs after all. When these songs are taken out of context and used for the purpose of structuring a narrative around them they become bastardized and the songs lose their meaning. The actors filling the screen are not singing those songs because they mean something to them, they simply do it because the songs have been forced into the script like a square peg in a round hole. It is the actors' job to tease something coherent out of this mash up and make it emotionally resonant with a crowd, but with no vested interest in what those songs are really about and, in most cases, with voices that have no sort of emotional resonance themselves the songs simply fall flat. From there the plot suffers.
Further, it seems counter-intuitive to me to put rock onto a stage and further work that into a film. With a film like Pink Floyd: The Wall the music works because the plot helps it symbiotically, not to mention it stars the song-writer. It becomes a rock film in its core. With this movie, however, there are people starring who sound very much like theatre actors who are trained for the stage. That slick sound takes away any and all of the power which made the songs they are singing so great in the first place and makes them bland and lifeless. The last thing you want in a film called "Rock of Ages" is for it to be called "bland".
It is troubling to me that so many respectable actors like Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Cranston and Alec Baldwin were roped into something like this. Their plots were usually uninteresting or made no sort of headway in the script at all. Zeta-Jones plays a bible-thumping wife of the mayor who is out to clean the streets of the city and purge it of all of the riotous youth. This seems to be the only sort of antagonism to the mischievous rockers, but one look at the rock god known as Stacey Jaxx and she swoons where she stands. There again is the unbeatable restorative power of angry music and bad hair.
Tom Cruise almost single-handedly earns this film a good score playing said rock god. He swaggers in, half naked and permafried, donned in furs with a baboon that mixes drinks for him and causes women to faint with the slightest glance. Cruise fills this roll with every fiber of his being and it is hilarious. He speaks in whispers, squints into your soul, but when he rocks he rocks hard. Cruise's voice is actually quite good too. He takes the mick out of himself to be sure, but it is only when we watch him that we see what this film could have been. Had the rest of the cast been half as talented or half as committed this could have been a very good, if mildly forgettable, film. Instead, despite the entertaining and well done choreography and production, this is a rather unwatchable attempt at being "hardcore".
1.5/4
The central premise hardly needs to be told, but I'll do it anyway (though why I would give more of my time to it is beyond me). An apple pie beauty with big dreams moves to Hollywood to become a big singer, carrying nothing with her but $17 and a suitcase of classic rock records. After being mugged she immediately bumps into a starry-eyed rock singer with as much ambition as she has who gets her a job at a debaucherous rock club. The two fall in love, quarrel over a misunderstanding and are reunited in the end, all under the glamour of the Hollywood sign.
Other characters float in and out, seemingly with purpose but ultimately pointless. Their usefulness seems simply to fill a plot that will allow 80's rock gems to be used for their disappointingly dull ends. The central issue with this film, and with the play for that matter, is simply the premise. A film like "Rock of Ages" which purports the power of rock to keep people young forever by sticking it to the man is automatically flawed by using covers of the greatest rock bands of all time.
See if you follow me...
Rock n' roll is about sex, drugs and all of the negative effects of love and loss. It is hate-filled, aggressive and full of passion. Some of them may be anthems, but those that play and sing those songs sing from emotional places. They wrote the songs after all. When these songs are taken out of context and used for the purpose of structuring a narrative around them they become bastardized and the songs lose their meaning. The actors filling the screen are not singing those songs because they mean something to them, they simply do it because the songs have been forced into the script like a square peg in a round hole. It is the actors' job to tease something coherent out of this mash up and make it emotionally resonant with a crowd, but with no vested interest in what those songs are really about and, in most cases, with voices that have no sort of emotional resonance themselves the songs simply fall flat. From there the plot suffers.
Further, it seems counter-intuitive to me to put rock onto a stage and further work that into a film. With a film like Pink Floyd: The Wall the music works because the plot helps it symbiotically, not to mention it stars the song-writer. It becomes a rock film in its core. With this movie, however, there are people starring who sound very much like theatre actors who are trained for the stage. That slick sound takes away any and all of the power which made the songs they are singing so great in the first place and makes them bland and lifeless. The last thing you want in a film called "Rock of Ages" is for it to be called "bland".
It is troubling to me that so many respectable actors like Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Cranston and Alec Baldwin were roped into something like this. Their plots were usually uninteresting or made no sort of headway in the script at all. Zeta-Jones plays a bible-thumping wife of the mayor who is out to clean the streets of the city and purge it of all of the riotous youth. This seems to be the only sort of antagonism to the mischievous rockers, but one look at the rock god known as Stacey Jaxx and she swoons where she stands. There again is the unbeatable restorative power of angry music and bad hair.
Tom Cruise almost single-handedly earns this film a good score playing said rock god. He swaggers in, half naked and permafried, donned in furs with a baboon that mixes drinks for him and causes women to faint with the slightest glance. Cruise fills this roll with every fiber of his being and it is hilarious. He speaks in whispers, squints into your soul, but when he rocks he rocks hard. Cruise's voice is actually quite good too. He takes the mick out of himself to be sure, but it is only when we watch him that we see what this film could have been. Had the rest of the cast been half as talented or half as committed this could have been a very good, if mildly forgettable, film. Instead, despite the entertaining and well done choreography and production, this is a rather unwatchable attempt at being "hardcore".
1.5/4
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
A stylized period piece of exceptional quality, "Good Night, and Good Luck." is the true story of CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow and his quest to end the arbitrary terror of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. There is little here in the way of romance or action, and almost none of it takes place outside of the CBS studios, but within those walls the battle of words takes on almost a thriller-like quality masked in skinny ties, cigarette smoke and grainy stock footage.
A wonderfully gifted cast has come together under the talented, yet still green director, George Clooney, to give a glimpse of the media world of the time and how public opinion was shaped by the fears of an entire company by one man. Murrow calls his associate yellow at one point to which Fred Friendly (Clooney) automatically retorts, "Better than red." Such was the mentality and what Murrow rather unintentionally sets himself up against.
He hosts a Tuesday night program called "People to People" where he does simple interviews with celebrities and folks in that have made the news that week. He repeatedly asserts, as does Clooney I imagine (somewhat hypocritically, though), that the media should be there to educated, not simply to entertain. He is wearied by interviews with the Liberace's of his world and his decidedly left-leaning convictions lead him to doing a report on Milo Radulovich, an Air Force pilot who was asked to leave as it was determined, though without any sort of a trial and without the people being informed of the evidence against him, that he was a communist.
It is dangerous to take on the true patriotism of McCarthy, warns the head of CBS (Frank Langella), but for Murrow fear for oneself cannot interfere with the truth being known. What follows is a battle of politics, reporters against politicians, reporters against the armed forces, and reporters against themselves. There are side plots, there basically to give added dimensions to the cast of characters present and a fuller vision of the news world, but we mainly see Murrow and the cold, methodical way in which he thrusts his spear into the gut of the Red Scare.
David Strathairn is wonderful as Murrow. Heavy bags under his eyes reflect the pressure of his position, or at least how he sees himself. He is Prometheus bringing fire to the ignorant television watchers of America, stolen from the mighty hands of the untouchable and fearful god, McCarthy. His punishment may be the bird of prey ripping out his liver for eternity--a blacklisting--but the freedom of the people from the tyranny of the senator and his reckless abandonment of decency is too important for him to think of himself. Strathairn's acting is meticulous. He so completely embodies Murrow he seemed more a ghost from the past than an actor on the screen.
This is compounded, in large part, by the cinematography, the lighting and the sets. It is shot in black and white, which I thought was a gimmick at first. It was only later when stock footage of actual interviews and trials became used so often that I realized what an important purpose it played. Clooney could have decided to make it in color and it would still have worked well as a film, but in shades of gray there is no difference in appearance between what we are watching and what they watch on the television, which is central to the movie. The stock footage blends seamlessly in with the characters that we are watching, that with the actors so completely embodying a 1950's world it becomes easier to imagine these big name actors as their characters having interviews with Liberace or McCarthy. The real people in the film then become actors themselves, or the actors become real people. In either case the line is blurred and that is an incredible feat.
The film is very short, under 90 minutes, and cut clean of any unnecessaries that might bog it down. The polished result is a wonderfully acted and beautifully shot political statement about the power of a television screen, and leaves the unsettling conclusion that although there are some men in the world who fight for their beliefs and what their country stands for, there are others out there who would prey upon the fears of weaker men for their gain. What we think to be truth might not be all sides of the story and that is a frightening prospect.
4/4
A wonderfully gifted cast has come together under the talented, yet still green director, George Clooney, to give a glimpse of the media world of the time and how public opinion was shaped by the fears of an entire company by one man. Murrow calls his associate yellow at one point to which Fred Friendly (Clooney) automatically retorts, "Better than red." Such was the mentality and what Murrow rather unintentionally sets himself up against.
He hosts a Tuesday night program called "People to People" where he does simple interviews with celebrities and folks in that have made the news that week. He repeatedly asserts, as does Clooney I imagine (somewhat hypocritically, though), that the media should be there to educated, not simply to entertain. He is wearied by interviews with the Liberace's of his world and his decidedly left-leaning convictions lead him to doing a report on Milo Radulovich, an Air Force pilot who was asked to leave as it was determined, though without any sort of a trial and without the people being informed of the evidence against him, that he was a communist.
It is dangerous to take on the true patriotism of McCarthy, warns the head of CBS (Frank Langella), but for Murrow fear for oneself cannot interfere with the truth being known. What follows is a battle of politics, reporters against politicians, reporters against the armed forces, and reporters against themselves. There are side plots, there basically to give added dimensions to the cast of characters present and a fuller vision of the news world, but we mainly see Murrow and the cold, methodical way in which he thrusts his spear into the gut of the Red Scare.
David Strathairn is wonderful as Murrow. Heavy bags under his eyes reflect the pressure of his position, or at least how he sees himself. He is Prometheus bringing fire to the ignorant television watchers of America, stolen from the mighty hands of the untouchable and fearful god, McCarthy. His punishment may be the bird of prey ripping out his liver for eternity--a blacklisting--but the freedom of the people from the tyranny of the senator and his reckless abandonment of decency is too important for him to think of himself. Strathairn's acting is meticulous. He so completely embodies Murrow he seemed more a ghost from the past than an actor on the screen.
This is compounded, in large part, by the cinematography, the lighting and the sets. It is shot in black and white, which I thought was a gimmick at first. It was only later when stock footage of actual interviews and trials became used so often that I realized what an important purpose it played. Clooney could have decided to make it in color and it would still have worked well as a film, but in shades of gray there is no difference in appearance between what we are watching and what they watch on the television, which is central to the movie. The stock footage blends seamlessly in with the characters that we are watching, that with the actors so completely embodying a 1950's world it becomes easier to imagine these big name actors as their characters having interviews with Liberace or McCarthy. The real people in the film then become actors themselves, or the actors become real people. In either case the line is blurred and that is an incredible feat.
The film is very short, under 90 minutes, and cut clean of any unnecessaries that might bog it down. The polished result is a wonderfully acted and beautifully shot political statement about the power of a television screen, and leaves the unsettling conclusion that although there are some men in the world who fight for their beliefs and what their country stands for, there are others out there who would prey upon the fears of weaker men for their gain. What we think to be truth might not be all sides of the story and that is a frightening prospect.
4/4
Monday, June 25, 2012
The Muppets (2011)
It's been a long time since the Muppets made their last silver screen appearance and don't they know it. A little puppet named Walter has been an avid Muppets fan since childhood; they were his heroes and his role models. During the ten year anniversary of his brother Gary and his girlfriend Mary (Jason Segel and Amy Adams), the three of them go to Los Angeles were Walter goes to visit the Muppets Studio. There he finds the place rundown and nearly empty, with only an evil oil tycoon and his two stooges bent on purchasing the studio in order to drill for the oil beneath it.
The one loophole in the contract he has stipulates that the Muppets may buy their studio back if they can raise $10m before it expires. Walter drags Gary and Mary along in his quest to save the studio and reestablish the Muppets as a reputable source of entertainment once more. As it has happened before, a road trip ensues to collect the scattered puppets from around the country (and eventually the world) to bring them together for one final telethon to raise the funds.
I'm not sure that this film will do good work in creating new Muppets fans among the young generation, but it aims to please a wide audience, new and old alike, and it succeeds. There are too many characters and too many inside jokes for the children of today to understand exactly where each of them stands with regards to the entire group, but it's fun, energetic and full of love.
For those of us who have seen plenty of the crew in the past this is a breath of fresh air from some of the previous, lack-luster adventures they have put on. Kermit, Ms. Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear and all the rest are undeniable cute and funny, but often they have been in stories which don't offer them enough room to exercise the full potential of their brand of comedy. This one is different. It's zippy, silly and the jokes are good. It's just the right length, with really good music and a lot of spirit.
Its central messages are about fighting for what you believe in, having confidence in who you are and making sure that your friends come first. There is nothing new in that to be learned, but it is nice to have positive messages being shown to children by a group of characters that never really deserved to die out. When there are so many children's films coming out with violence, innuendo and mind-numbing plots, this dying breed seems almost new again. The film is self-aware and there are many references to the fact that the Muppets are past their prime, but hopefully this film will spark a renewal of cleverer plots and a continuation of the very strong franchise.
3/4
Friday, June 22, 2012
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The age old problems of money versus love and the sanctity of marriage are raised by none other than two of the most esteemed American directors working, Joel and Ethan Coen. Their biting cynicism and humorous view of the macabre have lead them to do tremendous work in the past and prior to this film ("Barton Fink", "Fargo"), though it has also lead them astray ("The Hudsucker Proxy", "The Man Who Wasn't There"). This film falls almost squarely in the latter bunch I'm sorry to say so.
An outstanding cast heads the Coen brothers' first true adventure into the world of romantic comedies and it is a fiery misstep, but what makes things so unfortunate is that it didn't need to be. All of the elements of a very good film are there ready to be assembled, but Joel made several mistakes along the way. It seems to be factual that the brothers build their best pieces when they direct together. More often than not it is the two of them writing together, Ethan produces and Joel directs. Without each other keeping one another in check Joel tends to veer off into the fantastic and eventually the ridiculous in his attempt create a counterculture piece of film.
In this case we have a divorce attorney, Miles (George Clooney) who has become so absorbed in profiting from the heartache of failed marriages that he has forgotten how to love. He is slick, charming, has the smile of a used-car salesman and always gets the ladies. They mean no more to him than his private jet. Money is money and sex is sex. He wants them both, but they are only temporary providers of happiness.
Everything changes when he defends a man whose wife is divorcing him for having cheated on her. Catherine Zeta Jones is Marilyn, the stunning man-hater who falls into a circle of women who marry only to divorce for money. These women are ruthless, with no hearts but the sharpest of minds who marry whilst thinking of the next five years and the ways in which they can break their husbands and their piggy-banks.
Both Miles and Marilyn know of each others' skills, but this does not stop Miles for falling head over heels in love with her. And how could he not? She is disgustingly beautiful, the Grace Kelly of our generation, is wicked smart and the most horribly donned British accent. She is simply a creature not made for mortal man. Their is fire between the two of them, but surely it is a ploy on Marilyn's part. We ask ourselves, "How can you be so stupid, Miles?!" Look into those glorious eyes and tell me you wouldn't do the same.
So far the plot is moving along just fine. Minor hiccups, but the one-liners sing and the chemistry between the two leads in palpable. But then Joel is left unchecked and the film falls apart into a schlock-fest full of bad jokes built around misunderstandings. This tends to happen in Coen bros. films, but normally they tackle it with just the right amount of gravitas to let the audience know that although the material is harmful they are handling it with a bit of tongue and cheek. Here, however, they go for easy jokes in the third act that aren't funny and a finale that borders on exasperating.
They will make this mistake in future films, but it is unfortunate that it had to happen here considering, as I said, the parts for a good film are there. If they had stayed true to the material and handled the situation with the tiniest bit of seriousness then the jokes would have worked and the final scenes might have made more sense. When the two of them do their work correctly murder becomes funny and humor becomes black. That's their specialty. This time it wasn't dark enough for their tricks to work and so, despite the work of their immensely talented cast which also includes Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Richard Jenkins and Billy Bob Thornton, the film simply doesn't resonate as it should.
2.5/4
An outstanding cast heads the Coen brothers' first true adventure into the world of romantic comedies and it is a fiery misstep, but what makes things so unfortunate is that it didn't need to be. All of the elements of a very good film are there ready to be assembled, but Joel made several mistakes along the way. It seems to be factual that the brothers build their best pieces when they direct together. More often than not it is the two of them writing together, Ethan produces and Joel directs. Without each other keeping one another in check Joel tends to veer off into the fantastic and eventually the ridiculous in his attempt create a counterculture piece of film.
In this case we have a divorce attorney, Miles (George Clooney) who has become so absorbed in profiting from the heartache of failed marriages that he has forgotten how to love. He is slick, charming, has the smile of a used-car salesman and always gets the ladies. They mean no more to him than his private jet. Money is money and sex is sex. He wants them both, but they are only temporary providers of happiness.
Everything changes when he defends a man whose wife is divorcing him for having cheated on her. Catherine Zeta Jones is Marilyn, the stunning man-hater who falls into a circle of women who marry only to divorce for money. These women are ruthless, with no hearts but the sharpest of minds who marry whilst thinking of the next five years and the ways in which they can break their husbands and their piggy-banks.
Both Miles and Marilyn know of each others' skills, but this does not stop Miles for falling head over heels in love with her. And how could he not? She is disgustingly beautiful, the Grace Kelly of our generation, is wicked smart and the most horribly donned British accent. She is simply a creature not made for mortal man. Their is fire between the two of them, but surely it is a ploy on Marilyn's part. We ask ourselves, "How can you be so stupid, Miles?!" Look into those glorious eyes and tell me you wouldn't do the same.
So far the plot is moving along just fine. Minor hiccups, but the one-liners sing and the chemistry between the two leads in palpable. But then Joel is left unchecked and the film falls apart into a schlock-fest full of bad jokes built around misunderstandings. This tends to happen in Coen bros. films, but normally they tackle it with just the right amount of gravitas to let the audience know that although the material is harmful they are handling it with a bit of tongue and cheek. Here, however, they go for easy jokes in the third act that aren't funny and a finale that borders on exasperating.
They will make this mistake in future films, but it is unfortunate that it had to happen here considering, as I said, the parts for a good film are there. If they had stayed true to the material and handled the situation with the tiniest bit of seriousness then the jokes would have worked and the final scenes might have made more sense. When the two of them do their work correctly murder becomes funny and humor becomes black. That's their specialty. This time it wasn't dark enough for their tricks to work and so, despite the work of their immensely talented cast which also includes Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Richard Jenkins and Billy Bob Thornton, the film simply doesn't resonate as it should.
2.5/4
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Harry Brown (2009)
After much thought I am still unsure of how to classify this film. At once it is a sympathetic tale of redemption, as well as a sordid tale of crime and almost mystery; I crime thriller, a neo-noir, a gangster flick and an art house piece all at once. It weaves together a dark tapestry of all of the different ugly patches that make up the London underworld and leaves the audience member feeling unsettled and confused.
Michael Caine is Harry Brown, a pensioner who is going through a relentless streak of misfortune. His wife has recently died, probably from a stroke or Alzheimer's. His daughter died very young. His best friend, Leonard (David Bradley), has recently been killed at the hands of a street gang which meets near the complex where the two mates live. It is a rough area which leaves the decent folk scared and forces bolts to be locked at night. When the police don't do enough in the murder case--nor did they help when Leonard went to them, frightened by the harassment he had been receiving--Harry decides to take justice into his own hands.
Caine is exemplary as always. This is an extremely challenging character which requires an actor with enough skill to navigate different levels of grief and anger without it becoming redundant. The situation is not implausible. I know that I find myself dreading leaving District 1 in London, and this film is unflinching in its presentation of youth violence in rough areas of the big city. The way he handles a frightening situation without ever doing too much, which I expect is something that could easily have been done with this material, is commendable.
This film seems rather poignant following the London Riots of 2011. Police ineffectiveness and locations which foster ignorance which breeds violence is a recipe for disaster. This film is almost prophetic in how it presents a culture of young, uneducated rebels and how they lash out against a society built around and against them.
It seems to me, however, that this film's message becomes unclear when it comes to picking a hero. Obviously we are meant to side with the title character. Caine has nearly all of the screen time and even when he is not there we are only thinking of him. However, when the police do nothing he turns to vigilantism which leads him to violence and murder. Are we to accept the things that he does? He is cool, levelheaded, and in day to day life he is an innocent and perfectly likable man. His friend's death may have been preventable and yet it still occurred. Does that mean the lives he takes are acceptable? Is it meant to be reasonable that we regress as a society when our government stands idly by? I am not sure.
What I am sure of, however, is that directorially this is an outstanding piece. At times it seemed a bit hackneyed and melodramatic, particularly at the beginning, but once it found its grounding the atmosphere and pacing brought it to a hugely uncomfortable level for the viewer. There is very little light in this film of greys and blacks, but that bleakness is beautifully toned. It is uncompromisingly pessimistic and I believe the ending is gilded with fool's gold. Do not watch this film seeking a gratifying ending. Its climax is superb, albeit quite a different ending than what it ought to have had, but its resolution did nothing to placate me.
This is a dark, disturbing movie with an original plot containing the disjointed pieces of its situation and its protagonist. It is not for the feint of heart, but it is a rewarding, if mildly confusing, movie going experience.
3/4
Michael Caine is Harry Brown, a pensioner who is going through a relentless streak of misfortune. His wife has recently died, probably from a stroke or Alzheimer's. His daughter died very young. His best friend, Leonard (David Bradley), has recently been killed at the hands of a street gang which meets near the complex where the two mates live. It is a rough area which leaves the decent folk scared and forces bolts to be locked at night. When the police don't do enough in the murder case--nor did they help when Leonard went to them, frightened by the harassment he had been receiving--Harry decides to take justice into his own hands.
Caine is exemplary as always. This is an extremely challenging character which requires an actor with enough skill to navigate different levels of grief and anger without it becoming redundant. The situation is not implausible. I know that I find myself dreading leaving District 1 in London, and this film is unflinching in its presentation of youth violence in rough areas of the big city. The way he handles a frightening situation without ever doing too much, which I expect is something that could easily have been done with this material, is commendable.
This film seems rather poignant following the London Riots of 2011. Police ineffectiveness and locations which foster ignorance which breeds violence is a recipe for disaster. This film is almost prophetic in how it presents a culture of young, uneducated rebels and how they lash out against a society built around and against them.
It seems to me, however, that this film's message becomes unclear when it comes to picking a hero. Obviously we are meant to side with the title character. Caine has nearly all of the screen time and even when he is not there we are only thinking of him. However, when the police do nothing he turns to vigilantism which leads him to violence and murder. Are we to accept the things that he does? He is cool, levelheaded, and in day to day life he is an innocent and perfectly likable man. His friend's death may have been preventable and yet it still occurred. Does that mean the lives he takes are acceptable? Is it meant to be reasonable that we regress as a society when our government stands idly by? I am not sure.
What I am sure of, however, is that directorially this is an outstanding piece. At times it seemed a bit hackneyed and melodramatic, particularly at the beginning, but once it found its grounding the atmosphere and pacing brought it to a hugely uncomfortable level for the viewer. There is very little light in this film of greys and blacks, but that bleakness is beautifully toned. It is uncompromisingly pessimistic and I believe the ending is gilded with fool's gold. Do not watch this film seeking a gratifying ending. Its climax is superb, albeit quite a different ending than what it ought to have had, but its resolution did nothing to placate me.
This is a dark, disturbing movie with an original plot containing the disjointed pieces of its situation and its protagonist. It is not for the feint of heart, but it is a rewarding, if mildly confusing, movie going experience.
3/4
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Love Actually (2003)
Well unlucky me. It's the middle of June, about as far away from Christmas as one can get and I am not in love. This means I have to wait six months before I can profess my love to the man of dreams and he will come rushing into my arms, or so this film claims. With a sickly sweetness that makes your teeth hurt, "Love Actually" is a profession of the goodness of mankind, with about 30,000 interconnecting plots culminating in love for all. Thus is the magic of Christmas. It is common knowledge that everyone will reciprocate the love should we be brave enough to shout it aloud, and the birth of Jesus appears to be that magic moment in which all of the United Kingdom seems to be doing so. I don't buy it for a second.
The cliches are unending and despite the wink-nudge given to the viewer I expect that deep down writer/director Richard Curtis believes what he is dishing out, only mixing it with cheese and corn to save face. The end result is something that is undeniably charming, but as we all hope the boy gets the girl in spite of self-inflicted setbacks, the inevitable happy endings come nearly bittersweet. A little bit more heartache, a little bit more humanity, a little bit more realism would have suited me better. After all, building up false hope is an ugly thing to do as an artist.
I would try and outline the basic plot, but there are so many that I find in reviewing my notes that I can't recall half of the characters or their stories. Some were so irrelevant that I very nearly skipped ahead to a relationship with actual substance. Others that were deeply involving received shamefully little screen time, and a few of the "central" stories were so uninteresting despite their relevance that I began to get irritated.
Let's examine a few.
I would have to pick Hugh Grant's story as the main plot--or at least the one with the most minutes on the screen. He plays the Prime Minister of the UK (highly suspect) who falls head over heals in love with his frumpy, foul-mouthed, East End secretary. He decides that he can't have her about if he feels so mad about her so he lets her go. At least, this is the story he tells himself. One afternoon he walks in on her and the President of the United States (a piercing Billy Bob Thornton) kissing in a drawing room. It is shortly after this that he sacks her and delivers a powerful speech claiming that the UK and the US are no longer close friends. Now, right there is a movie in itself. The balance of power on the world stage being dictated by the jealousy of a man in charge could have been very interesting, and yet the plot was dropped and we never saw Thornton again. It all revolved a silly, pointless romance of a silly, pointless man.
A second major story is the marriage of Harry and Karen (Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson). She suspects that Harry has been cheating on her with his colleague and she or may not be right. On Christmas Eve their marriage practically falls apart. The two of them, especially Thompson, give powerful performances, but the aftermath is left so muddied that I felt disgustingly short-changed.
The last large narrative is possibly the one that I found most endearing (at least of the three), though their running joke became tiresome after a while. Colin Firth plays a writer who moves into a villa for a month to write a new novel and ends up falling for his Portuguese housekeeper. Neither can understand a word that the other says, but through subtitles we learn that they have the same thoughts and are, indeed, soul mates. It is lovely to have a plot about love crossing language barriers and their end was cute.
Right there we have possibly two and a half films. Now, add another seven or so and you have this film. The difficulty that I experienced in watching this was not the writing or acting. The former was sappy but well written, the latter was excellent (if you have been following some of the names you might have guessed. Others include Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson and Rowan Atkinson to name a few). What was the issue that I found myself becoming involved in a story when two minutes later it would switch to two characters without any sort of personality and their plotless story. It became nearly impossible to establish any sort of connection with the people on the screen which made me numb to any sort of heartache or reconciliation.
Three stories did interest me. The first is one listed above, the failing marriage. The second is Bill Nighy's, as a has-been rock star trying to make a late-in-life come back hit with a terrible Christmas song. The third was about a lovely, but lonely young woman who has been desperately pining after a man in her office. When he expresses an interest in her he finds that she cannot give him the affection they both deserve as she tends to very sick brother. The conflict between two loves, the man and the family, is terribly upsetting but, like so much of the film, incomplete.
If I were to have made this film I would have chosen three of the most promising stories and would have been faithful to the true nature of love. The is so much that I could rail about with regards to this Christmas magic and Curtis's optimism, but I won't as this is a Christmas film full of holiday cheer. However, his lack of imagination and his unfair treatment of his material should not go completely unpunished. I did enjoy myself, and I hated myself for doing so. It is a dirty trick to play with emotions so completely especially when what we are watching is undeniably forced and fake.
If you want a film to cuddle up to somebody with--probably someone you haven't know too terribly long--then take a stab at it. For the rest of us who want something substantive and wholly interesting I think you might do better someplace else.
2/4
The cliches are unending and despite the wink-nudge given to the viewer I expect that deep down writer/director Richard Curtis believes what he is dishing out, only mixing it with cheese and corn to save face. The end result is something that is undeniably charming, but as we all hope the boy gets the girl in spite of self-inflicted setbacks, the inevitable happy endings come nearly bittersweet. A little bit more heartache, a little bit more humanity, a little bit more realism would have suited me better. After all, building up false hope is an ugly thing to do as an artist.
I would try and outline the basic plot, but there are so many that I find in reviewing my notes that I can't recall half of the characters or their stories. Some were so irrelevant that I very nearly skipped ahead to a relationship with actual substance. Others that were deeply involving received shamefully little screen time, and a few of the "central" stories were so uninteresting despite their relevance that I began to get irritated.
Let's examine a few.
I would have to pick Hugh Grant's story as the main plot--or at least the one with the most minutes on the screen. He plays the Prime Minister of the UK (highly suspect) who falls head over heals in love with his frumpy, foul-mouthed, East End secretary. He decides that he can't have her about if he feels so mad about her so he lets her go. At least, this is the story he tells himself. One afternoon he walks in on her and the President of the United States (a piercing Billy Bob Thornton) kissing in a drawing room. It is shortly after this that he sacks her and delivers a powerful speech claiming that the UK and the US are no longer close friends. Now, right there is a movie in itself. The balance of power on the world stage being dictated by the jealousy of a man in charge could have been very interesting, and yet the plot was dropped and we never saw Thornton again. It all revolved a silly, pointless romance of a silly, pointless man.
A second major story is the marriage of Harry and Karen (Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson). She suspects that Harry has been cheating on her with his colleague and she or may not be right. On Christmas Eve their marriage practically falls apart. The two of them, especially Thompson, give powerful performances, but the aftermath is left so muddied that I felt disgustingly short-changed.
The last large narrative is possibly the one that I found most endearing (at least of the three), though their running joke became tiresome after a while. Colin Firth plays a writer who moves into a villa for a month to write a new novel and ends up falling for his Portuguese housekeeper. Neither can understand a word that the other says, but through subtitles we learn that they have the same thoughts and are, indeed, soul mates. It is lovely to have a plot about love crossing language barriers and their end was cute.
Right there we have possibly two and a half films. Now, add another seven or so and you have this film. The difficulty that I experienced in watching this was not the writing or acting. The former was sappy but well written, the latter was excellent (if you have been following some of the names you might have guessed. Others include Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson and Rowan Atkinson to name a few). What was the issue that I found myself becoming involved in a story when two minutes later it would switch to two characters without any sort of personality and their plotless story. It became nearly impossible to establish any sort of connection with the people on the screen which made me numb to any sort of heartache or reconciliation.
Three stories did interest me. The first is one listed above, the failing marriage. The second is Bill Nighy's, as a has-been rock star trying to make a late-in-life come back hit with a terrible Christmas song. The third was about a lovely, but lonely young woman who has been desperately pining after a man in her office. When he expresses an interest in her he finds that she cannot give him the affection they both deserve as she tends to very sick brother. The conflict between two loves, the man and the family, is terribly upsetting but, like so much of the film, incomplete.
If I were to have made this film I would have chosen three of the most promising stories and would have been faithful to the true nature of love. The is so much that I could rail about with regards to this Christmas magic and Curtis's optimism, but I won't as this is a Christmas film full of holiday cheer. However, his lack of imagination and his unfair treatment of his material should not go completely unpunished. I did enjoy myself, and I hated myself for doing so. It is a dirty trick to play with emotions so completely especially when what we are watching is undeniably forced and fake.
If you want a film to cuddle up to somebody with--probably someone you haven't know too terribly long--then take a stab at it. For the rest of us who want something substantive and wholly interesting I think you might do better someplace else.
2/4
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
John Cleese once again proves that he is the master of words when it comes to awkward situations in this hilarious spoof of corny heist films. It's full of vulgarians, dirty dealings, double-crosses, and a not so fatale femme.
Sexy American jewel thief Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her dimwitted lover Otto (Kevin Kline) are in London out to steal two precious diamonds worth $20 million. They team up with the stuttering, animal loving Ken (Michael Palin) and Georges Thomason (Tom Georgeson--ha), who thinks he's dating Wanda, in order to carry out the heist. Everything goes as planned until Wanda and Otto decide that 25% each isn't enough and that the whole lot sounds a lot better.
They place the blame on Georges, unbeknownst to him, and when he is arrested they return to the rendezvous point only to find that the jewels have been moved. Stuck in London with the threat of Georges revealing them as accomplices and returning the diamonds to reduce his jail time, Wanda uses her feminine wiles to get close to his lawyer, Archie (Cleese). Otto's jealousy threatens to ruin the operation as the closer Wanda gets to Archie the further the manic, gun-toting Otto pushes him away.
The only sensible person in this whole operation is Wanda and Curtis nails her perfectly. She's sharp, ruthless and very pretty, easily navigating from headstrong leader to temptress with nobody else's misfortune in her mind. If it were up to her the whole lot of them would be dead and she would take the money for herself. It certainly seems odd to me that she kept Otto around as long as she did considering he was simply the weapons man and not much good after the robbery was finished, but he can speak Italian and we all know how much diamond thieves love hearing a bit of romance.
There are all sorts of sight-gags and running jokes that keep the film bouncing along to an inevitable climax, but the end's predictability does not make the ride any less fun. Actually, this is rather a laugh-out-loud type film and I did laugh a lot in spite of myself. Kline is particularly hilarious. He is dumber than a sack of hammers and twice as dangerous, so don't call him stupid. However, he reads Nietzsche--incorrectly--and practices Buddhism--incorrectly. He is also perfectly convinced that the United States won the Vietnam War. Watch him during the classic fish-eating scene. Only someone as crazy as Kline would offer to eat live fish. They weren't, but it's awesome knowing that they could have been. His was a fully deserved Oscar win.
Cleese is also very good as the lawyer, unappreciated by his wife and daughter and who seems simply to fade into the background. He had funny moments, but I found his character to be mildly depressing. His face when he believes Wanda actually takes an interest in him is really quite touching.
And Ken. Poor, poor Ken. He can't get out a sentence and everything that he tries to protect ends up dying. His is the funniest running joke of them all, and though he has the fewest lines his flapping mouth and those three, yappy little dogs completely make up for it.
Nothing in this film is very close to being realistic though it does come dangerously close. All this aims to do is take the piss out of all of the terrible heist gone awry films that came out the decade before, but thankfully the script is penned so well and the characters acted with such dedication that it is both hilarious and very smart. Cleese never seems to run out of ideas and this appears to be a very good summation of all that's in his head. It is not to outrageous as something like "Brazil", but its implausibility is almost plausible and thank God for that.
3.5/4
Sexy American jewel thief Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her dimwitted lover Otto (Kevin Kline) are in London out to steal two precious diamonds worth $20 million. They team up with the stuttering, animal loving Ken (Michael Palin) and Georges Thomason (Tom Georgeson--ha), who thinks he's dating Wanda, in order to carry out the heist. Everything goes as planned until Wanda and Otto decide that 25% each isn't enough and that the whole lot sounds a lot better.
They place the blame on Georges, unbeknownst to him, and when he is arrested they return to the rendezvous point only to find that the jewels have been moved. Stuck in London with the threat of Georges revealing them as accomplices and returning the diamonds to reduce his jail time, Wanda uses her feminine wiles to get close to his lawyer, Archie (Cleese). Otto's jealousy threatens to ruin the operation as the closer Wanda gets to Archie the further the manic, gun-toting Otto pushes him away.
The only sensible person in this whole operation is Wanda and Curtis nails her perfectly. She's sharp, ruthless and very pretty, easily navigating from headstrong leader to temptress with nobody else's misfortune in her mind. If it were up to her the whole lot of them would be dead and she would take the money for herself. It certainly seems odd to me that she kept Otto around as long as she did considering he was simply the weapons man and not much good after the robbery was finished, but he can speak Italian and we all know how much diamond thieves love hearing a bit of romance.
There are all sorts of sight-gags and running jokes that keep the film bouncing along to an inevitable climax, but the end's predictability does not make the ride any less fun. Actually, this is rather a laugh-out-loud type film and I did laugh a lot in spite of myself. Kline is particularly hilarious. He is dumber than a sack of hammers and twice as dangerous, so don't call him stupid. However, he reads Nietzsche--incorrectly--and practices Buddhism--incorrectly. He is also perfectly convinced that the United States won the Vietnam War. Watch him during the classic fish-eating scene. Only someone as crazy as Kline would offer to eat live fish. They weren't, but it's awesome knowing that they could have been. His was a fully deserved Oscar win.
Cleese is also very good as the lawyer, unappreciated by his wife and daughter and who seems simply to fade into the background. He had funny moments, but I found his character to be mildly depressing. His face when he believes Wanda actually takes an interest in him is really quite touching.
And Ken. Poor, poor Ken. He can't get out a sentence and everything that he tries to protect ends up dying. His is the funniest running joke of them all, and though he has the fewest lines his flapping mouth and those three, yappy little dogs completely make up for it.
Nothing in this film is very close to being realistic though it does come dangerously close. All this aims to do is take the piss out of all of the terrible heist gone awry films that came out the decade before, but thankfully the script is penned so well and the characters acted with such dedication that it is both hilarious and very smart. Cleese never seems to run out of ideas and this appears to be a very good summation of all that's in his head. It is not to outrageous as something like "Brazil", but its implausibility is almost plausible and thank God for that.
3.5/4
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Ratatouille (2007)
Pixar has created gold once more with the concept of a little hero dreaming big dreams. This time it is in the form of a culinary rat named Remy (Patton Oswalt), whose expert nose and fondness for humans makes him abnormal in his rodent family, and bad associations with his species keeps him an outsider from the human world. In the little village where his clan lived he stole spices and cookbooks from a local cottage and dreamed fondly of making new discoveries in the realm of fine dining.
An attack on the family that was always perplexed by Remy leads them down two differing, metaphorical tunnels and brings our friend to the sewers beneath Paris. Guided by the ghost of his hero, the master chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), he finds himself on the roof of restaurant Gusteau's where fate leads him into the hands of Remy's ticket to becoming a chef.
These hands belong to the hapless Linguini (Lou Romano), a bumbling, idiotic young man with no cooking talent at all, but who works as the garbage boy for the restaurant. When Linguini is mistakenly identified as the creator of a fantastic soup which Remy concocted he must spin a web of lies making it seem as though he is the new, gifted face of food. Teaming up with Remy after learning of the rat's skill, they devise a hilarious plan to keep up Linguini's facade while providing Remy with an outlet to do what he loves most.
This is a lovely little poem to the power of dreams encapsulated in Gusteau's mantra "Anyone can cook." Set against the dazzling yet somber backdrop of a CGI Paris, the magic of the city combined with the adorable Remy, "Ratatouille" cooks a romantic blend of genuine pathos and endearing messages. There are troubles that the Remy and Linguini face of course, but it's impossible for them not to succeed. Knowing that the plot is comedic and will technically be considered a comedy makes our rat's journey to his inevitable success all the more enchanting.
The film is teaming with wonderful characters including Linguini's tough-as-nails love interest, Colette (Janeane Garofalo), Remy's unsupportive father and dimwitted brother (Brian Dennehy and Peter Sohn) and the head chef Skinner, voiced by Ian Holm. My favorite, however, is Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, the loathsome food critic whose scathing review almost closed Gusteau's at one point. It's very apparent that the people at Pixar hate critics (though they really needn't considering their outstanding track record). Ego is tall, gaunt and vampiric, whose cunning words and preceding reputation threatens once again to destroy the restaurant that has been turned around by one disguised rat. His final review is something critics probably did take to heart and hopefully reflected upon--I know I have...but I still love it.
Clever, exciting, beautifully painted and impeccably voiced this is one of the best animated films to come from the Pixar team. These are timeless themes and a really wonderful film for the child at heart. Maybe it's only Paris that has the magic to make unforeseen worlds collide, but I certainly hope not. This movie left me hungry for Remy's passion and his satisfaction.
4/4
An attack on the family that was always perplexed by Remy leads them down two differing, metaphorical tunnels and brings our friend to the sewers beneath Paris. Guided by the ghost of his hero, the master chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), he finds himself on the roof of restaurant Gusteau's where fate leads him into the hands of Remy's ticket to becoming a chef.
These hands belong to the hapless Linguini (Lou Romano), a bumbling, idiotic young man with no cooking talent at all, but who works as the garbage boy for the restaurant. When Linguini is mistakenly identified as the creator of a fantastic soup which Remy concocted he must spin a web of lies making it seem as though he is the new, gifted face of food. Teaming up with Remy after learning of the rat's skill, they devise a hilarious plan to keep up Linguini's facade while providing Remy with an outlet to do what he loves most.
This is a lovely little poem to the power of dreams encapsulated in Gusteau's mantra "Anyone can cook." Set against the dazzling yet somber backdrop of a CGI Paris, the magic of the city combined with the adorable Remy, "Ratatouille" cooks a romantic blend of genuine pathos and endearing messages. There are troubles that the Remy and Linguini face of course, but it's impossible for them not to succeed. Knowing that the plot is comedic and will technically be considered a comedy makes our rat's journey to his inevitable success all the more enchanting.
The film is teaming with wonderful characters including Linguini's tough-as-nails love interest, Colette (Janeane Garofalo), Remy's unsupportive father and dimwitted brother (Brian Dennehy and Peter Sohn) and the head chef Skinner, voiced by Ian Holm. My favorite, however, is Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, the loathsome food critic whose scathing review almost closed Gusteau's at one point. It's very apparent that the people at Pixar hate critics (though they really needn't considering their outstanding track record). Ego is tall, gaunt and vampiric, whose cunning words and preceding reputation threatens once again to destroy the restaurant that has been turned around by one disguised rat. His final review is something critics probably did take to heart and hopefully reflected upon--I know I have...but I still love it.
Clever, exciting, beautifully painted and impeccably voiced this is one of the best animated films to come from the Pixar team. These are timeless themes and a really wonderful film for the child at heart. Maybe it's only Paris that has the magic to make unforeseen worlds collide, but I certainly hope not. This movie left me hungry for Remy's passion and his satisfaction.
4/4
Monday, June 4, 2012
Prometheus (2012)
Atop Mount Olympus the gods kept knowledge in the form of fire for themselves. The clever titan Prometheus slighted Zeus by stealing fire and giving it to the mortals below. Angered, Zeus punished him by chaining Prometheus to a rock where a great eagle daily devoured his ever-regenerating liver. Prometheus's quest for knowledge led him to commit the sin of theft (though one could argue that Zeus's greed was worse), and for that sin--for his curiosity--he endured the pain of knowing too much.
Ridley Scott's newest venture into the Sci-fi realm introduces the Prometheus, a great ship carrying 17 scientists, anthropologists, doctors, technicians and other experts on a two year route to a mysterious moon orbiting a distant planet. Cave paintings and hieroglyphs from civilizations all throughout time depict the same image of a cosmic system and a man praying to those bodies. They are the modern Prometheus on a quest to discover the origins of man and possibly disprove the existence of God.
Floating back into the beautiful and dark worlds of "Blade Runner" and "Alien", Scott has once again created an epic landscape for these intellectuals to meet a dismal fate. Like "Alien" the director has strong women as the protagonists. Noomi Rapace is Elizabeth Shaw, one of the two anthropologists who earned money for the expedition from the Weyland Corporation. Charlize Theron is icy and ruthless as the Weyland exec who heads the mission. Their wills collide, but circumstances become too gruesome too quickly for that to take precedence.
The film starts out so grand and beautiful, raising all sorts of thought provoking questions about the origins of man and the danger of curiosity that it becomes a shame when it devolves into a particularly uninteresting game of cat and mouse. True, most of the film's audience will be there looking to see more of the same slimy thrills they got from the first "Alien" films, which this does provide amply, but the atmosphere is lost and replaced with gore and stunning special effects.
Part of the problem may be the antagonists. The entire film makes the evil creatures a complete mystery, raising question after question while knowingly never providing answers. There are two main creatures on the moon, only one of which do these people seem to have any interest in although the other seems like the logical one to be concerned with. Instead we hear endless conversations on the need to discover the properties of a black, gooey substance generated by unsettling, humanoid-looking beings.
Viewers may feel a similar sense of deja vu to what I experienced. After Scott created a new face of horror in 1979 he seems to have decided not to stray to much from a money-making winner. More power to him I suppose, but for a film that is tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions I feel the plot ought to be a but more unorthodox than it was. Some scenes appeared to be taken directly from the original space tale and were more disgusting than actually frightening.
To push it further the set of characters were more simply pawns than actual people, creating fodder for all of the sickly ways to die on this slab of rock. Both female leads did fine jobs, but Logan Marshall-Green as Elizabeth's boyfriend gives awful acting. Other characters simply don't have enough screen time to matter.
The one notable exception to this is the mesmerizing Michael Fassbender. He plays David, a super smart robot who, like Ash in the original, has motives other than simply helping the crew. Fassbender plays the droid with such eloquence, such grace and with a face full of childlike innocence he steals every scene he was in. David is the true Prometheus. His insatiable curiosity is reckless and even dangerous, but his desire to be human makes him more real than any of his breathing counterparts. Seeing him reciting lines from his favorite film, "Lawrence of Arabia", makes it all the more unsettling when we see him dip a poisoned finger into a glass of alcohol.
As it should be, the film is a visual marvel. It normally takes me time to get acclimated to 3D, but here it is flawless, never striking the wrong note and absolutely worth the extra money. Everything is crisp and glorious to look at, especially one striking scene in a massive dust storm. There is no doubt that Scott has the eye to make a beautiful picture, but this film was surprisingly dry and unsatisfying. The audience was very aware that it was simply the setup to an inevitable sequel, but judging by the content and the information given it did not need to be. In the end this was two hours of pondering and nasty monsters, neither of which makes for a very strong film.
2.5/4
Ridley Scott's newest venture into the Sci-fi realm introduces the Prometheus, a great ship carrying 17 scientists, anthropologists, doctors, technicians and other experts on a two year route to a mysterious moon orbiting a distant planet. Cave paintings and hieroglyphs from civilizations all throughout time depict the same image of a cosmic system and a man praying to those bodies. They are the modern Prometheus on a quest to discover the origins of man and possibly disprove the existence of God.
Floating back into the beautiful and dark worlds of "Blade Runner" and "Alien", Scott has once again created an epic landscape for these intellectuals to meet a dismal fate. Like "Alien" the director has strong women as the protagonists. Noomi Rapace is Elizabeth Shaw, one of the two anthropologists who earned money for the expedition from the Weyland Corporation. Charlize Theron is icy and ruthless as the Weyland exec who heads the mission. Their wills collide, but circumstances become too gruesome too quickly for that to take precedence.
The film starts out so grand and beautiful, raising all sorts of thought provoking questions about the origins of man and the danger of curiosity that it becomes a shame when it devolves into a particularly uninteresting game of cat and mouse. True, most of the film's audience will be there looking to see more of the same slimy thrills they got from the first "Alien" films, which this does provide amply, but the atmosphere is lost and replaced with gore and stunning special effects.
Part of the problem may be the antagonists. The entire film makes the evil creatures a complete mystery, raising question after question while knowingly never providing answers. There are two main creatures on the moon, only one of which do these people seem to have any interest in although the other seems like the logical one to be concerned with. Instead we hear endless conversations on the need to discover the properties of a black, gooey substance generated by unsettling, humanoid-looking beings.
Viewers may feel a similar sense of deja vu to what I experienced. After Scott created a new face of horror in 1979 he seems to have decided not to stray to much from a money-making winner. More power to him I suppose, but for a film that is tackling some of the biggest unanswered questions I feel the plot ought to be a but more unorthodox than it was. Some scenes appeared to be taken directly from the original space tale and were more disgusting than actually frightening.
To push it further the set of characters were more simply pawns than actual people, creating fodder for all of the sickly ways to die on this slab of rock. Both female leads did fine jobs, but Logan Marshall-Green as Elizabeth's boyfriend gives awful acting. Other characters simply don't have enough screen time to matter.
The one notable exception to this is the mesmerizing Michael Fassbender. He plays David, a super smart robot who, like Ash in the original, has motives other than simply helping the crew. Fassbender plays the droid with such eloquence, such grace and with a face full of childlike innocence he steals every scene he was in. David is the true Prometheus. His insatiable curiosity is reckless and even dangerous, but his desire to be human makes him more real than any of his breathing counterparts. Seeing him reciting lines from his favorite film, "Lawrence of Arabia", makes it all the more unsettling when we see him dip a poisoned finger into a glass of alcohol.
As it should be, the film is a visual marvel. It normally takes me time to get acclimated to 3D, but here it is flawless, never striking the wrong note and absolutely worth the extra money. Everything is crisp and glorious to look at, especially one striking scene in a massive dust storm. There is no doubt that Scott has the eye to make a beautiful picture, but this film was surprisingly dry and unsatisfying. The audience was very aware that it was simply the setup to an inevitable sequel, but judging by the content and the information given it did not need to be. In the end this was two hours of pondering and nasty monsters, neither of which makes for a very strong film.
2.5/4
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Johnny Depp is back for the second installment of the "Pirates" franchise as Capt. Jack Sparrow, with his dreads, even more eye shadow and fingers that are just as fluttery as ever. This time round he is not after a ship, but rather his very soul. Now captain of the Black Pearl for thirteen years as per the agreement he made with Davy Jones (well, technically two years as Jack puts it), the time has come to give his eternal soul to the mythical pirate of the Flying Dutchman and work as his crew. Jack uses his bargaining prowess and offers Jones 100 souls in exchange for his own, but this is simply a ploy to buy time for Jack to find what he actually wants most...
Also back are lovers Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly), both just as useless as they were in the first film. Both have been arrested for helping Jack to escape the hangman, but fate intervenes when Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), replacement of Commodore Norrington and twice as tight and unpleasant, offers Elizabeth Letters of Marque in exchange for a very precious compass belonging to Jack. Both Will and Norrington find reasons to claim the chest of Davy Jones which is in the end what Beckett wants as well, all of which creates a rather confusing, cacophonous story filled with even more deception and pointless sword fights.
Lost is the charm and the magic of the first film, as is the excitement and surprise of Depp. His performance even falters at times letting us glimpse the handsome leading man instead of--as one critic put it--the "drunken drag queen". Probably never in the history of cinema had such a perplexing and individual character been created as Jack Sparrow which made the first film so enchanting, but this time he seems to flounce about with out any real purpose, poorly disguising his tricks to conclude a story that was never properly set up to begin with.
I found myself instead drawn more towards Norrington. As stuffy and monotonous as he was in the first film he emerges as the most human of all of the characters, broken and beaten after making a very bad mistake while on the hunt for the Black Pearl. Stripped of his position and his honor he descended into a drunken state of misery, finally turning to Jack for help to regain his standing in society. There was genuine pathos in his work that was missing for all other characters, particularly Will and his father, Bootstrap Bill, who seemed to make rash decisions for no apparent reason.
What drives this film along and makes the two and half hours almost worthwhile is the fast pace and outstanding FX. They transform what should be a small, fun, swashbuckling adventure into a massive epic on the high seas. Particularly great is the work done on the crew of the Flying Dutchman. Bill Nighy, who is always a good choice as the villain, plays Jones. All crew sailing under him have 100 years in his service to postpone death, but their afterlife becomes a hell as they transform into hideous creatures of the deep. Jones himself has the head of an octopus with a bulbous protrusion emerging from beneath his hat and a beard of slimy green tentacles. The close ups of him are extraordinary as you can still see Nighy beneath the computer work, and as he hisses and froths his lines he actually becomes quite frightening.
The action is nonstop which is what its audience probably wants, but the pirate cliches are endless as well and not nearly as clever as the first film. A lot of the jokes are running ones from "The Curse of the Black Pearl", but the lack of newness is tiresome. There are several new, interesting characters, but if they felt the need to add those in them some other boring ones ought to have gotten the ax. Lose Will, Elizabeth, Becket and the useless East India Co. plot and about 40 minutes from the running and you would have a decent film.
2/4
Also back are lovers Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly), both just as useless as they were in the first film. Both have been arrested for helping Jack to escape the hangman, but fate intervenes when Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander), replacement of Commodore Norrington and twice as tight and unpleasant, offers Elizabeth Letters of Marque in exchange for a very precious compass belonging to Jack. Both Will and Norrington find reasons to claim the chest of Davy Jones which is in the end what Beckett wants as well, all of which creates a rather confusing, cacophonous story filled with even more deception and pointless sword fights.
Lost is the charm and the magic of the first film, as is the excitement and surprise of Depp. His performance even falters at times letting us glimpse the handsome leading man instead of--as one critic put it--the "drunken drag queen". Probably never in the history of cinema had such a perplexing and individual character been created as Jack Sparrow which made the first film so enchanting, but this time he seems to flounce about with out any real purpose, poorly disguising his tricks to conclude a story that was never properly set up to begin with.
I found myself instead drawn more towards Norrington. As stuffy and monotonous as he was in the first film he emerges as the most human of all of the characters, broken and beaten after making a very bad mistake while on the hunt for the Black Pearl. Stripped of his position and his honor he descended into a drunken state of misery, finally turning to Jack for help to regain his standing in society. There was genuine pathos in his work that was missing for all other characters, particularly Will and his father, Bootstrap Bill, who seemed to make rash decisions for no apparent reason.
What drives this film along and makes the two and half hours almost worthwhile is the fast pace and outstanding FX. They transform what should be a small, fun, swashbuckling adventure into a massive epic on the high seas. Particularly great is the work done on the crew of the Flying Dutchman. Bill Nighy, who is always a good choice as the villain, plays Jones. All crew sailing under him have 100 years in his service to postpone death, but their afterlife becomes a hell as they transform into hideous creatures of the deep. Jones himself has the head of an octopus with a bulbous protrusion emerging from beneath his hat and a beard of slimy green tentacles. The close ups of him are extraordinary as you can still see Nighy beneath the computer work, and as he hisses and froths his lines he actually becomes quite frightening.
The action is nonstop which is what its audience probably wants, but the pirate cliches are endless as well and not nearly as clever as the first film. A lot of the jokes are running ones from "The Curse of the Black Pearl", but the lack of newness is tiresome. There are several new, interesting characters, but if they felt the need to add those in them some other boring ones ought to have gotten the ax. Lose Will, Elizabeth, Becket and the useless East India Co. plot and about 40 minutes from the running and you would have a decent film.
2/4
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