Archive for June, 2008
397 – WALL-E
I wish I could say that this movie was on par with earlier Pixar movies, but I just can’t. The animation isn’t bad, it’s just that unlike the undersea world in Finding Nemo or the toy chest in Toy Story, there’s just nothing pretty to look at for large chunks of time. And because the main characters are robots who don’t exactly speak English well, the movie depends rather heavily on two things: the visual landscape and the nonlinguistic communication of the metal duo. As a result, the movie isn’t quite as charming or self-effacing as its predecessors, but it’s still amiable and heartwarming when it needs to be.
WALL-E is the last remaining robot on Earth. See, the place got so polluted that everyone had to zoom off to ships in outer space just to survive; the plan is to let the WALL-E units compact and store all the garbage, and when life can be sustainable again, the humans will return. This was 700 years ago. And every day, WALL-E compacts trash (all the other units have broken down), blissfully un-self-aware. The humans send down probes to determine if life can return to the planet, and that’s when our WALL-E meets EVE, who’s quite a bit more advanced and intelligent than WALL-E.
WALL-E is adorable. He looks quite a bit like Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit films, and he’s about as smart and curious. As he collects and compacts trash, he grabs various items that seem interesting to him and stores them in his storage crate. But although he’s been at it for centuries, his world’s turned upside down when Eve the probe arrives on Earth in search of plant life. Wouldn’t you know it, our inquistive little toaster falls in love at first sight with the sleek Eve, who looks sort of like a giant toe (her visor would be the toe nail – try to stay with me on this).
On Earth, although the atmosphere is lighthearted and full of hope, the scenery (and hence the overall look and feel of the movie) is downbeat and gloomy; everything’s washed out in a sea of brown and gray. The planet’s a wasteland, you see, along the lines of the postapocalyptic horror of Mad Max.
But once we leave the planet and land on the ship Avion, things perk up. Here, everything’s red or blue (the colors in the BuyNLarge logo – that’s the conglomerate that owned, like, everything on the planet and that now owns and operates the deep-space ships. You should see these places – the whole idea is that the humans will never have to lift a finger. Robots wake them up. They’re dumped onto these motorized recliners that whisk them everywhere. They shop and drink milkshakes from their recliners. They literally never move. So of course they’re all tremendously overweight.
Can WALL-E and Eve help bring life back to Earth? It’s a Disney/Pixar film, so you probably already know the answer, and if you thought about it for a second, you could probably map out how the movie would shake out. But one thing you might not realize is that for a G-rated movie, there’s a lot of tense, scary-toned scenes. There are several moments when you’re led to believe something incredibly awful has happened to WALL-E, and unlike in its cartoon progenitors there’s a perceptible delay before it’s revealed he’s okay – long enough for you to wonder if, indeed, he is.
So I was a little surprised to find out this was a G-rated movie. Aside from the desolate, acrid, lifeless landscape of Earth, there are plenty of robot-in-peril scenes, sequences that seem more action-movie-like than cartoonish. This is partly because Pixar’s animation is so advanced now that WALL-E looks and behaves exactly as you’d expect a robot in real life would. Which brought me to this question: Why even make an animated movie about robots? It’s not as if you’re giving human qualities to, say, a fish or a stuffed animal; you’re anthropomorphizing something that’s already been given human qualities.
In short, WALL-E lacked the amazing, imaginative premise and theme that earlier classics had. I wasn’t bowled over by the animation, and I just wasn’t terribly impressed with the execution. WALL-E is not a bad movie by any means, but it suffers by comparison with its own ancestors. In the end, it’s done in by its subject matter (not conducive to gorgeous animation), its setting (vast, colorless), and its penchant for robot-in-peril scenes.
**1/2
Top Under-40 Actresses
The most obvious qualification for inclusion on this list is the most objective one: age. 40 implies a long-enough career so that one can’t really be called a flash in the pan, but it’s also an age at which actresses probably have the most options as far as roles go. Once you get into your fifties, you’re usually relegated to Wise Old Woman characters, or perhaps Persnickety Authority Figures.
The second qualification is completely subjective, of course. So what do I mean by “top”? Well, the actress doesn’t have to have won awards, but they help. As with good art and porn, I know it when I see it, and so would you. I consider an actress to be talented if she is able to play various kinds of roles equally well. Some actresses get typecast into roles such as the long-suffering wife, the ingenue (even at 40!), the perky girl next door, and so on. Those aren’t the actresses I’m looking for here. These ladies have been fortunate in working with wonderful scripts, but more importantly it’s how they’ve risen to the level of those great movies – or raised the level of an otherwise-pedestrian movie.
The following list is in alphabetical order. The actress’s age as of today is in parentheses.
Cate Blanchett (39). Notable films: Elizabeth, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Lord of the Rings, The Aviator, Babel, The Good German, Notes on a Scandal, I’m Not There., Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Oscar nominations, 5; Oscars, 1 (The Aviator).
Blanchett won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. Ironically, I think it was the worst of the lot, and I found her Hepburn to be irritating and overembellished, rather than sincere and engaging. But the bulk of her work has been superb. Notice how she takes on a variety of roles: a slutty teacher, a femme fatale, a Russkie, an elf, a badly injured American tourist, a queen, and Bob Dylan. Blanchett can play pretty or ugly; she can play sweet or sour.
Jennifer Connelly (37). Notable films: Labyrinth, The Rocketeer, Dark City, Requiem for a Dream, Pollock, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog, Little Children, Blood Diamond. Oscar nominations, 1; Oscars, 1 (for A Beautiful Mind).
Ah, an American! Blanchett’s Aussie and Winslet’s a Brit, but Jennifer’s from good ol’ upstate New York. Like Winslet, Connelly got her start in movies at a young age, appearing in Once Upon a Time in America when she was 14 and Labyrinth (a larger role) the following year. Most of her early-adult roles were of the sexpot variety: The Hot Spot, Career Opportunities, The Rocketeer. But then Requiem happened, and playing a drug addict can often give you a career boost – if, of course, you have talent. Connelly shone, and she began to get meatier roles. If you haven’t seen it already, check out the fantastic – and terrifying, and graphic – House of Sand and Fog.
Scarlett Johansson (23). Notable films: Ghost World, Lost in Translation, In Good Company, Match Point, The Island, The Prestige, The Other Boleyn Girl.
Johansson is another actress who’s been able to succeed despite being gorgeous. It’s much more of a burden than you might think. (Not that I’d know.) When people cast hot actresses in their movies, they often do so because they’re hot, not because they’re good at acting. They just need to be kinda okay. But Johannson is more than kinda okay. Her Charlotte in Lost in Translation is understated, almost muted in her desperation for happiness. She was clearly the only good thing in Match Point and The Island, and she was a match for Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in The Prestige. And she’s only 23.
Angelina Jolie (33). Notable films: Girl Interrupted, Lara Croft, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, A Mighty Heart, Beowulf. Oscar nominations: 1; Oscars, 1 (for Girl, Interrupted).
You might have heard of Jolie. Turns out that aside from being a knockout who’s also very intelligent AND a human-rights activist, the girl can also act. She’s savvy enough and popular enough that she doesn’t have to settle for glamour roles, but she takes them on occasion anyway (Lara Croft!). Jolie can be wicked or winsome, overbearing or meek. Not that she’s made only great role choices – Alexander? Taking Lives? Original Sin? – but she’s done what she’s wanted, when she’s wanted. We all love our rebels for as long as we can tolerate them, and for now Jolie’s safe, thanks to her philanthropic efforts.
Lucy Liu (39). Notable films: Shanghai Noon, Charlie’s Angels, Chicago, Kill Bill, Domino, Lucky Number Slevin.
I don’t know what it is about Lucy Liu. It’s not just her looks; I guess it’s her joie de vivre, her poise, her panache. All of which you don’t expect from someone as diminutive and, well, soft looking as Liu is. She’s been able to transcend stereotypical Asian roles to become one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, ethnic roles or not, and that’s a huge plus. Me, I’ll always remember her head-lopping ability in Kill Bill.
Gwyneth Paltrow (35). Notable films: Seven, Shakespeare in Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Royal Tenenbaums, Shallow Hal, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Iron Man. Oscar nominations: 1; Oscars, 1 (for Shakespeare in Love).
I didn’t realize Paltrow was as old as this, frankly. She perpetually looks 25. And despite being in such highbrow stuff early in her career, she’s not even British – she’s from California. Paltrow seems to bring more to roles than the roles bring to her, which is a key ingredient to Good Acting. For example, Pepper Potts in Iron Man could have been this somewhat mild, somewhat strident personal assistant, one with a personality only when the script called for it. But Paltrow worked around that and became essential to the movie. One of her great skills is her ability to work well with her costars, i.e., have great onscreen chemistry.
Kate Winslet (32). Notable films: Heavenly Creatures, Hamlet, Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Finding Neverland, Little Children. Oscar nominations, 5; Oscars, 0.
Like Blanchett, Winslet is a good role chooser, and she’s effective playing the dowdy or the stylish. She’s a great romantic leadm, too – see her in Neverland, opposite Johnny Depp, or Sunshine, opposite Jim Carrey. Oh yeah, and that ridiculous boat movie. The thing is, if it weren’t for Titanic, Winslet might not have had much of an impact in Hollywood; she might as well have found herself pigeonholed as another British actress. But the movie’s grosses gave her the freedom to choose judiciously. Her frustrated suburban wife in Little Children is both chilling and familiar.
Anyone else you’d like to add? Any of these who should be removed from this list?
396 – Into the Wild
Posted by frothy in Into the Wild on June 25, 2008
Into the Wild is an alternately enthralling and wrenching portrait of a young man who ran from his problems and searched for peace and found paradise and, in turn, anguish and despair. Chris McCandless’ journey is a gripping travelogue that’s both a cautionary tale and a vicariously exhilirating experience; man, it looked like he had a whale of a good time, but man, did it end badly for him.
First and foremost, what makes Into the Wild work so flawlessly is that even knowing the final outcome doesn’t change the overall effect that movie will have on the average moviegoer. Based on McCandless’ real story, the movie pulls few punches in how the protagonist is depicted; he’s neither a saint nor a sinner, just an idealistic (and not naive), troubled college graduate who feels adrift from literally everything: parents, life, friends.
Chris (Emile Hirsch) is a highly intelligent Emory College grad, the son of a NASA scientist (William Hurt) and an entrepreneur (Marcia Gay Harden). But unlike other privileged young citizens, Chris has no intentions of enjoying the gifts and wealth his family and connections have afforded him. Instead, he gives away his life savings of $24,000, abandons his beat-up Datsun, leaves his family behind (without telling them), and sets off on a trek around the country.
Chris’s travels take him literally all over the country, across the midwest (where he runs a grain harvester for Vince Vaughn), to the Rocky Mountains, to the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, even down to Mexico, winding up at his ultimate resting spot: deepest, darkest, remotest Alaska. The story is told in two timelines, one of the present (the time shortly before and after Chris discovers an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness), and one of the past, the events leading up to Chris’s Magic Bus time. And the two timelines are brilliantly juxtaposed with each other by director Sean Penn, who doesn’t just show us a perfectly linear chronology of how Chris came to be in an abandoned bus; he shows us the story behind the adventurer, the believer, the angel, the tactiturn rebel, the iconoclast.
So what made Chris McCandeless decide to ditch everything and live off the land like some latter-day flower child? I’ll explain no further than to say that his upbringing, under the commanding, demanding eyes of his overachieving, arguing parents, played a huge role – but perhaps not the only role. In short, Chris decides he simply does not wish to be part of the rat race; he does not wish to be trapped in a meaningless job working for a meaningless company doing trite, soul-destroying things. He wants to live and learn on his own. And that’s where the inspirational aspect of this kicks in. He sets out to accomplish something undefined (i.e., the abstract Find Himself) and winds up absorbing more knowledge through his experiences than most people do through their lonely lives of quiet desperation.
Along the way, Chris meets myriad people, and it’s genuinely touching how much of an impact he has on their lives as he passes through. In particular, Catherine Keener plays an aging hippie whose love for her soul mate (Brian Dierker) has begun to fade; the mere presence of the Christ-like Chris magically changes that, for the better. (A lesser film might have had Chris and Jan sleeping together to foment complications in everyone’s relationship.) Chris tells everyone he meets that his ultimate goal is to live in the Alaskan wilderness, consequences be damned; everyone tells him not to do it.
The impression we’re finally left with of Christopher McCandless is that of a clever, thoughtful, engaging young man who had more demons than a nightmare of Clive Barker dopplegangers. Haunted by his own harrowing childhood, he escaped as literally and figuratively as he could, living by the seat of his pants over thousands of miles of gravel, sand, and asphalt. His motives might have been a bit selfish (he never did try to contact his family, the film tells us), but his heart seemed to be in the right place otherwise. Which made his demise all the harder to bear.
Hal Holbrook, playing a crusty benefactor to Chris in the Arizona desert, earned an Oscar nomination, and it’s well deserved, but even stronger accolades are due to Hirsch, who underwent tremendous physical changes just to play Chris McCandless properly. And the final scene, the waning moments of Chris’s life, is so vivid and packed with emotion that you almost can’t bear to watch, peeking instead through crossed fingers. Hirsch is so excellent in the role that it’s a travesty of some magnitude that he wasn’t more widely recognized for his grueling, gutty performance. Even more so when you realize the guy later played Speed Racer and previously had been best known for being Judd Hirsch’s kid.
***1/2
And the winners are…
Last week I mentioned that AFI was going to present its top ten movies in ten categories. The results are in, and I know I didn’t pick ‘em all right. Let’s have a look.
Animation
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Pinocchio
3. Bambi
4. The Lion King
5. Fantasia
6. Toy Story
7. Beauty and the Beast
8. Shrek
9. Cinderella
10. Finding Nemo
Any real problems here? Perhaps not. I voted for SW as #1, so no qualms with that choice. It’s interesting that three Pixar films are on there – who would have thought that, even five years ago? Disney’s stranglehold is loosening. Are any true animation classics missing here? If you’d add one, which would you remove?
Romantic Comedies
1. City Lights
2. Annie Hall
3. It Happened One Night
4. Roman Holiday
5. The Philadelphia Story
6. When Harry Met Sally
7. Adam’s Rib
8. Moonstruck
9. Harold and Maude
10. Sleepless in Seattle
Knowing that most AFI voters are older (that is, not in their twenties) people who’ve seen most of the nominated films in the theater, I figured that most of the winners would be twenty years old. That said, I didn’t figure on Chaplin’s classic being number one. I mean, it’s a relic of its time, an interesting movie, but I’m not sure it stands up on its own, really. Annie Hall was charming, cerebral, and unique. Wasn’t a huge fan of Harold and Maude, either. Quirky, interesting, but one of the top 10? Dunno about that. I’d put Bull Durham here, even though it’s a sports movie.
Western
1. The Searchers
2. High Noon
3. Shane
4. Unforgiven
5. Red River
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
8. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
9. Stagecoach
10. Cat Ballou
Wait, Cat Ballou? Really? Instead of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Or Once Upon a Time in the West? Cat Ballou? Cmon, now. Now you’re being silly, AFI. I might even put 1966′s The Shooting up there. What about The Magnificent Seven? And if you haven’t seen it, McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Warren Beatty and Julie Christie run a brothel in the old West!) is a Robert Altman treat.
Sports
1. Raging Bull
2. Rocky
3. The Pride of the Yankees
4. Hoosiers
5. Bull Durham
6. The Hustler
7. Caddyshack
8. Breaking Away
9. National Velvet
10. Jerry Maguire
And here the A-F-I goes completely off the rails. First, it’s boxing top-heavy. Second, horseback riding is not a sport. Neither, really, is billiards – these are pastimes. That said, there’s no Slap Shot. There’s no North Dallas Forty or The Longest Yard. But I can’t disagree with the rest.
Mystery
1. Vertigo
2. Chinatown
3. Rear Window
4. Laura
5. The Third Man
6. The Maltese Falcon
7. North by Northwest
8. Blue Velvet
9. Dial M for Murder
10. The Usual Suspects
I’m not sure how Dial M for Murder makes it onto this list, frankly. What about The Parallax View? Good to see The Usual Suspects up there, though. Literally and figuratively.
Fantasy
1. The Wizard of Oz
2. The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. King Kong
5. Miracle on 34th Street
6. Field of Dreams
7. Harvey
8. Groundhog Day
9. The Thief of Bagdad
10. Big
Wow, much weirdness here, huh? The definition of fantasy, according to the AFI, is “a genre where live-action characters inhabit imagined settings and/or experience situations that transcend the rules of the natural world. ”
Which can cover, really, ANY MOVIE. Good going, AFI. Where else would you see Groundhog Day and King Kong in the same genre? Sheesh. And although GD was a good movie, was it truly better than The Princess Bride? Of course not. You’d be foolish to think otherwise! Good to see Big on there, though. And most of these are also very, very quotable.
Sci-Fi
1. 2001
2. Star Wars
3. ET
4. A Clockwork Orange
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still
6. Blade Runner
7. Alien
8. Terminator 2
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
10. Back to the Future
Sometimes, people lump sci-fi and fantasy together, and other times they lump horror and sci-fi together. For AFI, there’s sci-fi and there’s fantasy, but there’s no horror. Hm.
These are not terrible picks, but I wouldn’t have Blade Runner so high up there. And there’s only one Star Wars? And no Star Treks at all, not even the one with the whales? And how is A Clockwork Orange a sci-fi movie, exactly?
Gangster
1. The Godfather
2. Goodfellas
3. The Godfather Part II
4. White Heat
5. Bonnie and Clyde
6. Scarface (1932)
7. Pulp Fiction
8. The Public Enemy
9. Little Caesar
10. Scarface (1983)
Great picks here. Two Scarfaces! I haven’t seen either one, although I’ve heard the Pacino one was over-the-top madness. I’m glad that Road to Perdition isn’t on here, too. Or Gangs of New York. Or even West Side Story. Hey, you never know.
Courtroom Drama
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. 12 Angry Men
3. Kramer versus Kramer
4. The Verdict
5. A Few Good Men
6. Witness for the Prosecution
7. Anatomy of a Murder
8. In Cold Blood
9. A Cry in the Dark
10. Judgment at Nuremberg
Again, not bad selections. Although I’d quibble and say that In Cold Dark wasn’t a courtroom drama – hardly any of the movie took place in a courtroom! It was all about how they did the killings and their own relationship, not about whether they were tried in a court of law. Made of fail there, AFI! And where’s My Cousin Vinny? Boy, I tell ya.
Epic
1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Ben-Hur
3. Schindler’s List
4. Gone with the Wind
5. Spartacus
6. Titanic
7. All Quiet on the Western Front
8. Saving Private Ryan
9. Reds
10. The Ten Commandments
Ben-Hur is now hopelessly dated. All it has going for it is a long chariot race. See Gladiator instead – hey, that’s not on the list! Titanic sucked. I mean, it wasn’t some epic, it was a crappy movie about a woman who wouldn’t let her lover share her plank of floating lumber and let him die instead. Oh, right, it made like eleventy billion dollars, so of course it must go here. Sheesh.
395 – Sweeney Todd (**1/2)
Posted by frothy in Sweeney Todd on June 17, 2008
I think the biggest problem I have with Sweeney Todd is with the concept itself, that of a horror musical. There’s something just weirdly incongruous about people singing about killing and cannibalism, you know? Maybe it’s just me; I like musicals, and I like horror movies, but I don’t know if the twain should meet.
That said, the time-honored premise of Sweeney Todd is diabolically gruesome, and I mean that in the most positive way. Todd is the former Benjamin Barker, a barber who’s been exiled from nineteenth-century London by a corrupt judge, who then swooped in and took Barker’s wife from him for good measure. Fifteen years later, Barker, now known as Todd, returns to the city, but his wife Lucy, raped and driven mad by the judge (Alan Rickman) has killed herself, and Todd’s daughter Johanna is the judge’s ward.
Todd opens a barber shop above a bakery owned by a Mrs. Lovett, who’s soon encouraging Todd to exact his revenge. They hatch the perfect plan: She needs meat, he needs revenge, so they work in concert, since Todd’s moral compass has spun off its magnetic axis. Everyone wins!
The movie was directed by Tim Burton, and his imprint is noticable right from the start, with a rivulet of blood coursing through well-worn machine gears over the title cards. When you think of Tim Burton, you think of stylish, don’t you, not placid, or heavily plot driven, or over-the-top action. You think of the visual images, the freewheeling, indelibly intriguing imagination that brought you Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and the Corpse Bride. Here, Burton is incredibly successful; the set pieces are magnificent, as is his use of color. When Todd slashes a throat, vibrant reds attack the screen in stark contrast to the staid, mostly black backgrounds (and the pallid complexions of the Londoners, of course).
Prior to the film’s release, there was more than a little bit of nervousness about the casting of Johnny Depp, a longtime Burton collaborator. This was to be an adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim stage presentation, a version of the old tale that – surprise – required actual singing. Could Johnny Depp lend enough gravitas to the dark role of Sweeney Todd? Sure, as far as actual acting went, but could he even carry a tune? Turns out he can, although I wouldn’t sign him to any recording contracts. He’s an okay singer; let’s leave it at that. But he’s fantastic, naturally, as the demonic barber – who, let’s be frank, looks like Edward Scissorhands’ dad or perverted uncle.
Also proving to be a decent singer was Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett. I don’t know what it is about Bonham Carter, but she almost always looks like she’s playing a strung-out crack addict. Must be the saucer eyes and the paleness. At any rate, she’s a real treat, as usual, as the wicked, duplicitous Gothic baker of unique meat pies.
The movie is 116 minutes long, but if you cut out the musical numbers you’d be left with perhaps 45 minutes. True, many plot points are expressed via song, but it’s not long before those songs feel forced, inauthentic, and superfluous. Granted, the songs themselves are thematically downbeat, not of the happy-joy variety, and granted, they’re there to move the plot along, rather than inhibit it, but therein lay a problem. When the actors sang, they sang loudly. When they were merely speaking, they spoke softly. And this wasn’t like 1940s musicals, where the songs are telegraphed ahead of time; the actors would go from talking to SINGING to talking to SINGING and I spent much of those 116 minutes adjusting the volume. Seriously – the dialog is so softly spoken it’s very difficult to hear, even if the sound’s turned up, and what’s more, the characters all have nearly unintelligible (to me) Cockney accents that drop vowels, consonants, punctuation, you name it. I needed subtitles.
So although the movie didn’t quite do it for me, I can appreciate what it was trying to accomplish. Indeed, judging from the many accolades it received, it was quite successful. If you’re looking for an ultraviolent horror show filled with singing, you will not be disappointed, although I can’t imagine there’d be much competition for that dubious honor.
**1/2
394 – Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Posted by frothy in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead on June 13, 2008
From the very first scene of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, you know this won’t be a typical caper thriller: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, playing older brother Andy, is in bed with his wife Gina (Marisa Tomei). And when I say they’re in bed together, I mean they are engaging in coitus together. And graphically so. This might throw you if you were expecting a musky, dark-hued film noir about a heist gone wrong, especially when you see the position the lovely Tomei and the obese Hoffman are in.
But don’t get your hopes up, nerdy horny males, because that’s about all the titillation you’ll get from this movie. Not that the rest of it is all unicorns and EZ Bake Ovens; there’s drug use, there’s profanity, there’s blood, there’s murder. Fun stuff for the entire family, really. People talk and act in disgusting, depraved manners; there are no heroes, no good guys in this movie.
You see, Andy, despite having a high-paying job, is in some financial straits (something he’d rather Gina not know), so he cooks up a scheme: He and ne’er-do-well brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) will rob their parents’ small jewelry store and fence the stones for the needed cash. The store’s insured, Andy reasons, so mom and dad will be fine, and the only person in the store in the mornings is an older woman. In an homage to Rashomon, we get to see the attempted heist as it plays out, and then we see the circumstances leading up to the failure.
Things don’t so much spiral out of control for Hank and Andy as simply collapse around them. No matter what machinations Andy employs to alleviate the consequences of their misdeeds, the brothers – and the rest of the family – are inextricably intertwined, both with themselves and with each other. Their dilemmas are a veritable Chinese Finger Trap, or maybe a roach motel. There’s nothing they can do but bind themselves tighter than ever.
The movie is brilliantly told, which isn’t easy when you’re dealing with a lot of plot. There are threads begetting threads and so forth, and everything comes back to everything else, which is sweet and sour at the same time. The trouble with plot is simply that the onus is on the script to make things work – you can’t have holes, because everyone will notice them. You can have holes in a Die Hard plot, because no one cares about them. See how it works? So it’s crucial that the plot is sensible, exciting, and unpredictable, and writer Kelly Masterson succeeds on all three plots. (Can you believe this was a debut screenplay?) Adding to the intrigue was the pitch-perfect score, by Carter Burwell (No Country for Old Men).
This is one of those movies where you already know the bad guys from the get go. What you don’t know is why they’re bad guys. What drove them to do this? How did their plan fail? And what will happen to them in the end? In the old days, the bad guys never even got away – sometimes they gave the money back, or went to jail, anything upbeat. Then came Bonnie and Clyde, which ended in blood. But will the bad guys here simply escape on a plane to Brazil? Will they be mowed down in a majestic blaze of glory? Will they turn themselves in? Now, the possibilities seem infinite.
The cast is superlative, and I can’t think of good reasons why the movie wasn’t Oscar nominated. Hoffman is treacherous and vulnerable as the wily Andy; Hawke is a whiny, mewling nebbish by contrast. So both actors played against type, really. Albert Finney plays the boys’ father Charles, and he’s as good as Albert Finney usually is. (Although would someone please tell Mr. Finney to close his mouth on occasion? He’s gonna catch flies that way.) But to me, the best performance was in one of the lesser roles: Tomei. Say what you will about Tomei’s Oscar for My Cousin Vinny, the lady is extremely talented. She’s as beautiful and alluring as she was in 1992 (Vinny) and 2001 (In the Bedroom, another nomination), and her Gina is terrified and strong to a fault, cowed by the riches her husband’s job has afforded them and pining for happier times, trapped in a moribund marriage.
And do you know who directed this masterpiece? Sidney Lumet. Sidney Lumet’s so old, he directed 12 Angry Men fifty years ago. And now look at him! This movie feels like it was directed by a young, hungry director with a lot to prove. It’s snappy, it’s growly, it wants you to look at the protagonists and see not how wretched they become as a result of this robbery but how wretched they were all along. These are the people in your neighborhood, says Lumet’s masterful work.
***1/2
393 – Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
From the wiseass mind that brought you Knocked Up, Balls of Fury, and the 40-Year-Old Virgin comes this parody biopic that’s mostly based on the recent Johnny cash movie Walk the Line. With a whimsical, winning performance by John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow’s mock tribute to hard and fast livin’ rockers is a knowing smackdown (albeit gently) of the tried-and-true, rags-to-riches Horatio Alger story. Hey, they mock because they love.
Dewey Cox (Reilly) grows up in the Deep South, and owing to a family tragedy (not unlike Cash’s, only much, much funnier), finds himself with a paw who doesn’t believe in him (and, uh, no brother). So off to cut a record with his bandmates, played by Chris Parnell, Tim Meadows, and Matt Besser. (Meadows’ character in particular is a hoot, always getting hooked on the next big drug). And then get married and father five or so kids. And then fall in love with a backup singer named Darlene (Jenna Fischer, who’s a complete doppleganger for Amy Adams, I swear), who he naturally marries. While still married to the first one. And so on.
He even meets Elvis (poorly impersonated by Jack White of the White Stripes), The Big Bopper, and even Buddy Holly (an improbable Frankie Muniz). Oh, and he goes to India to rap with the Maharishi along with the Beatles, who are played by four recognizable names – but they’re so unrecognizable that they need to refer to each other (along with Dewey) by their full names. (Seriously. The impressons are so bad that they sound like they were written by someone who’d merely heard mention of the Fab Four at some point and never read anything about them.)
There’s plenty of drug references and some nudity, but what I like most are the running jokes. As with the Cash flick, Dewey destroys a sink when he gets upset. Okay, make that six sinks. And he steps in as a last-minute replacement for an established act – in an all-black exotic club. Imagine a good ol’ boy on a stage, cracking wise to rowdy black folk, and then he steps right into a race-laced tune!
Reilly himself sings a lot of the songs (he even cowrote some of them), and the man has some singing chops (remember Chicago?). He really has to, in order for the film to work at all. Sure, it’s a comedy, but a movie about a bad musician isn’t entertaining – kind of like a movie about a bad comedian. Such a movie would be funny in parts, but whenever the performer was on the stage, you’d just cringe and hope for the best. So Reilly, as Dewey, has to be spot on, and he is.
Despite a slowish first half, this is what you’d call an agreeable waste of time. The closing musical sequence (it’s set at an all-star tribute to Dewey) is a real knockout – as it should be. It’s reminiscent of the 35th Anniversary special staged to honor Bob Dylan back in the 90s, with various acts covering Cox’s best (Jewel, Eddie Vedder, Jackson Browne, and Ghostface Killah all appear). But the final number, a solo by Cox, is a real heart – and show – stopper, and this more than makes up for the sluggish (even by the numbers, as far as parodies go) start.
***
Guess the AFI’s 10 Top 10
So although I’m an American Film Institute (card carrying!) member, I must have missed this memo. Next week (June 17) they’re putting on another one of their CBS specials. This time, they’ve selected the top movie in each of ten categories.
On their site, AFI gives you, Joe Average Viewer, the chance to guess what those ten movies will be. Winner will be eligible to win a $1000 Best Buy card.
And if that’s not enough fun to get you thorugh Monday, they also offer a Top Movies quiz. I got 39, which puts me as a Movie Master. (It’s all multiple choice, though.)
Good luck, and good movies.
My Fair Lady is not the same as your Fair Lady
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don’t hate remakes. I think they can, in theory, offer up a fresh look at an older plot. Some movies just beg to be updated, especially futuristic movies dealing in technology that never came to pass. Or maybe the original movie starred a white actress playing a light-skinned black woman, and since sensibilities have changed so much, it now makes more sense to have an actual light-skinned black woman in the role. That sort of thing. (Remember those good old days, Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age? Whoooooole lotta white folk in those movies playing ethnical roles.)
Another reason to have a remake is to show a classic to a new audience. My barometer is one and a half generations, say 30 years or so. The people who saw the original in the movie theater are no longer the target audience that movie studios love to attract; they have their memory of the original, but they’re not exceedingly likely to see the new one, anyway. That target audience starts with the 18 year olds, and they weren’t alive when the original came out. Sure, we have home video now, but it ain’t the same.
Some of you might remember My Fair Lady (1964), the lavish Lerner-Lowe musical starring Audrey Hepburn as the Cockney flower girl turned into a elegant debutante by Rex Harrison’s Henry Higgins. MFY itself was a remake, of course, of 1938′s Pygmalion, which was based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same name. Well, they’re gonna remake My Fair Lady, although they’re calling it an update – fillming on location instead of sound stages, that sort of thing. So 44 years after the musical, we’ll get a redo with contemporary stars trying their hand at 1912 London accents.
Keira Knightley is currently in talks to play Eliza Doolittle. I think she’d make a fine physical and characteristic match of the original Hepburn portrayal. She’s waifish, almost boyish in stature, the better to convey a dirt-poor guttersnipe. She has the voice already. And we’ve seen her dolled up in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. So this isn’t terrible casting from the outset.
I’m not entirely sure about the musical aspect, though. Musicals still aren’t popular, despite Enchanted and Chicago in recent years, but why bother going that route anyway? The story is a wonderful rags-to-riches tale as it is, so why not just remake Pygmalion? The Variety piece indicates that the remake will delve a bit more into the Shaw play and use things that weren’t seen in the musical. This could be good, if we get more in-depth characterizations of Doolittle, Higgins, and Col. Pickering, something that shades their actions with motives, but I have a feeling it’ll just lead to broader portrayals and longer songs.
No word yet on when the new MFY would be released.
(Almost) Saved!
Posted by frothy in Saved! (2004) on June 2, 2008
This quirky comedy takes place in a lily white private Christian high school ruled by the pious, where They Who Are Closer to God are the most popular. Seems there’s a senior named Mary (Jena Malone) whose boyfriend Dean (Chaud Faust) has just told her he thinks he might be gay. Whoops! Not exactly the kind of behavior that’s praised at the praise-the-Lord school, is it?
After seeing a vision of Jesus, Mary knows what she must do to “cure” Dean – sleep with him. It just stands to reason, right? He can’t be gay, thinks Mary, and this is how to pull him back to the straight side. Only that doesn’t quite work; she winds up pregnant, and he’s still gay (surprise!). So of course his equally devout parents quickly ship him off to a “fixing” halfway house, where he spends the bulk of the movie.
But we’re not through with Mary! Once word gets out that she’s knocked up, her best friend Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) turns against her completely – well, that’s not true, she tries to “help” by exorcizing and such. Hilary Faye represents the unyielding holier-than-thou churchgoer, for whom change is anathema, no pun intended. Deciding which is more important, her friend’s welfare or her devotion to the Lord is not a tough call for Hilary Faye.
Rounding out the main characters are Hilary Faye’s wheelchair-bound brother Roland (a surprisingly good Macaulay Culkin) and the Bad Girl in class, the aptly named Cassandra (Eva Amurri, Susan Sarandon’s daughter), who’s naturally there to teach everyone a Thing or Two about Real Life.
On the one hand, it’s good to see a satire about strict fundamentalism set in a private high school; on the other hand, it’s sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it? Hypocrites are usually easy to mock. As Hilary Faye is steadfast and singleminded in her pursuit of the Rapture, she walks all over those around her, pretending to help but illustrating instead closemindedness, bigotry, and bad Christian ideals.
This is a solid, well-meaning film that wades in the shallow end of issues such as premarital sex and evangelizing (not to mention exorcisms), touching on them just enough to intrigue but not enough to make you think anything. Which would be fine, except there aren’t enough actual jokes involved. The movie, as a result, has no real identity: Is it a snarky poke at smug my-god-is-better-than-your-god jackholes, or is it a sincere look at serious issues, albeit in a lighthearted manner? If the scales had tipped more toward either angle, you might have seen a better end product. But as it is, Saved!, although some fun – and well acted, particularly by Malone, Culkin, and Amurri – feels more like an impossible-to-reach itch in the small of the back.
**1/2
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