Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

I love Nicolas Cage.  He's a gifted actor who can play it straight, as we saw in Leaving Las Vegas, but who seems to feel most at home going over the top.  Some may see his performances as so many antic pantomimes, but I think Cage has the unique ability to channel and express pure, unadulterated id.

Thus, I present to you Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, an international production that seems to have been created for the sole purpose of fleecing as many foreign investors as possible.  I loved the first Ghost Rider, feeling that Cage's crazy eyes alone were worth the price of admission.  In this iteration, Cage's Johnny Blaze lives in a place labelled "Eastern Europe," but which could only be Bulgaria (Which leads one to wonder, why not have the subtitle simply read Bulgaria?  Would that be too confusing?).  He's a hermit, fighting his ghost rider - hood like a deadly addiction.  But then Idris Elba shows up to make him a deal.  I'm here to tell you, when Idris Elba offers you a deal, you take it.

The deal?  Oh, it's it's some mumbo-jumbo about an ancient prophecy (one of the laziest screenwriting tropes of them all), a sacrificial child who must be saved, and the Devil (Ciaran Hinds, having a great time).  Did I mention that the child has a fetching mother with a cute Bulgarian accent?  Or that her ex is a demon of decay who can only eat twinkies (Hey, I laughed.)?

Why bother with all this setup?  Well, two hours of Cage in a studio making crazy eyes at the camera sounds great in theory, but a little narrative structure, some scenery, and a few gags make for a much more interesting mix.  And all this does its job, but let's face it:  you came for the id.  You came for the crazy eyes, and Cage delivers in spades.  He doesn't overact so much as überact (I'm telling you, when you can make Christopher Lambert look like a restrained thespian, you're on to something.).  His Johnny Blaze carries the crazy just below the surface.  When it starts to break through and transform him into the Rider, the film uses a clever combination of (first-rate) CGI and no-limits acting to give us the joy of letting go and letting our fires burn.

Bottom line: this movie is fantastic.  Even if it only served as an excuse for actors you like to ham it up, it'd work.  The fact that it lets the great Nicholas Cage cut loose in a symphony of 'splosions and loud music makes it that much better.  I dare you to watch Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance without a great big smile plastered across your face.  This is an exuberant, wacky, gloriously unrestrained time at the movies.  I give it two big, burning, skeletal thumbs up.

Short Takes

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

I saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy while recovering from surgery.  I was not at my cognitive best, and I remember little about it other than that I enjoyed it.  Sorry, friend.  Not much good to you here.

MY DOG TULIP

My Dog Tulip is the animated memoir of a man who loves his dog about as much as a man can love his dog.  Problem is, the man is a terrible dog owner. 

The dog’s an Alsatian, which should live in a house with a big yard.  The man lives in an apartment and wonders why the neighbors complain about his pet’s barking.  The dog’s out of control, not properly housetrained or taught to heel, and her bad behavior alienates everyone around him.  The man doesn’t clean up his dog’s waste if nobody’s watching, leaving landmines around his neighborhood.  The list goes on.

Somehow, we’re supposed to see man and beast as the man does.  We’re supposed to smile at the dog’s foibles and sympathize with the man’s “human troubles.”  Me, I spent the whole movie waiting for Cesar Milan to show up and set this family right.  90 minutes of anger is not my idea of a good time.

WIN WIN

Win Win, on the other hand, is my idea of a good time.  Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor), here’s a family drama with tension, humor, and pathos.  McCarthy has a great pen and a gift with actors, and it shows.

Judging by the cast he’s assembled, he must also have serious credibility in his profession.  Paul Giamatti (CDNW) stars as a struggling small-time attorney who shares a building with Jeffrey Tambor (CDNW), an accountant and his fellow high school wrestling coach.  He’s helping his best friend (Bobby Cannavale, also of The Station Agent) through a rough divorce.   Giamatti loves his wife, Amy Ryan (of ‘The Wire,’ which is required viewing) and his kids, but he’s swimming upstream and bills are due.  Enter the great Burt Young, who presents him with an opportunity, a burden, and a threat to his entire life construct.

And away we go.

Here’s the thing that makes Win Win special: McCarthy casts legitimately great actors to play these people, and it takes the time to let us get to know them.  Consequently, I felt immersed in their lives.  I laughed when they laughed, cried when they cried, chewed my fingernails when they got worried.  Win Win immersed me, engaged me, and moved me.  I loved it.

There Will Be Blood

Ahh, summertime. For normal people, it's a season of giant Hollywood blockbusters. For those of us who see most of our movies at home, it's time for last Christmas's prestige pictures.

A short time ago, I wrote of the prestige picture, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," that it went on far too long; that it was too meditative; that it seemed the DP edited the thing. "There Will Be Blood" is roughly the same length as "Assassination," and it, too, loves the long shot, the meditative moment. But there's a difference. "There Will Be Blood" is absolutely riveting, with commanding performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, as well as strong supporting work by Ciarán Hinds and the young Dillon Freaser.

I've been aware of Day-Lewis since "My Beautiful Laundrette," and I became an outright fan with "The Age of Innocence." This, I was a little wary of his Daniel Plainview here. Was I watching a genuinely great performance, or was I merely bringing my predisposition to respect Day-Lewis's work to a pedestrian portrayal. This is where Paul Dano comes in. Looking over his filmography, I realize I've seen Dano before. But I never really noticed him, never bothered to remember his name, until now. Dano gives a performance that brings to mind Edward Norton in "Primal Fear," a commanding evocation of a young man who is part prophet, part hustler, and all calculation. Compared to Dano, Day-Lewis does, indeed, give a great performance. It's broad at times, close at others, but always commanding, always fascinating. There's so much going on behind those eyes that I was more than happy to spend two and a half hours trying to figure it out.

Of course, a major film such as this is about more than actors on a stage. Paul Thomas Anderson, who matured with "Punch-Drunk Love," directs a film that makes the Southwest of the late 19th and early 20th Century come alive. I read somewhere that he shot in West Texas, and he makes that country look as rough and deadly as it ever has, even if there are no Apache about. He made an interesting choice in Johnny Greenwood, the Radiohead musician and composer, who eschews
the standard orchestral score for disturbing, postmodernist music that keeps us in the film without ostentatiously highlighting its beats.

"There Will Be Blood" reminds me that there are no short movies or long movies. There are only poor movies and good movies. This is a very, very good movie. I could easily view it again, and I'm sure the time would race right by.